NDE

[JohnR7]

On 8/13/2022 at 8:23 AM, Dennis1209 said:

Can the soul or spirit separate from the body before permanent death?

This is the key, the soul does not have to separate from the body.  Everything in the universe  is connected in real time.  All in the cosmos is one. We are already connected with Heaven and everyone in Heaven in real time. Another way to put this is particals share a common, unified quantum state.  Also there is cosmic consciousness or universal consciousness. Which may or may not be unconscious. It is believed that people who have substained brain damage of the conscious often start to develop or become more aware of the unconscious. My son is a Computer Engineer and in College they teach them how to use the unconscious mind to do complicated mathmatical formulas that everyone can do but they are not aware that they are doing them. A good example is playing baseball or golfing. The math for that is extreamly complicated yet most everyone can do that math on an unconscious level. 

When Christians die their body or elements returns to the earth and their soul and spiritual body goes to Heaven. This is called a rapture or being caught up to Heaven. Then at the resurretion which could be at the end of the 1000 year reign of Christ the body will be raised from the dead and reunited with the Spirit and the Soul. The Rabbi talk about the resurrection also where the body and the soul are reunited. Both the hosts of the PBS program Cosmos talk about how we are: "star stuff" We are one with the universe in that our elements come from the universe. Although the Bible says: Genesis 2:7 "Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being."

We can all understand that the breath of life comes from God and is eternal in nature. Even though the body itself is temperal and will return to the Earth that it came from. 

[JohnR7]

1 hour ago, Amigo42 said:

However, one common thread in NDEs are life reviews and even the concept of reincarnation which I found in particular disturbing if true.   

Reincarnation makes no sense. Esp the way the worlds population continues to double. What makes sense to me is that our past ancestors had an effect of some sort on the DNA that we received from them.  Right now Science is not looking at the DNA but the way the DNA replicates itself and how past generations could have an effect on this. 

The reason I pulled your response is your use of the word: "true". If something is not "TRUE" then at the library we call this novel or fiction. That means different rules apply. Often we are dealing with symbols or archetypes. Walt Disney talks about imagination. This seems to be a universal language because we have disney parks in Paris, Hong Kong, Japan. So this seems to translate into many cultures. 

[Marathoner]

To continue where I left off previously, I barely looked human in the end. My adopted mother looked after me in her home, refusing to abandon me in spite of people in the nearby village urging her to get rid of me before she had a corpse on her hands. 

She promised that she wouldn't abandon or throw me away. She tried to hide it, but I heard her weeping at night. Before I lost the ability to speak I offered to leave because I was such a burden on her, but she forbid me to do such a thing. I eventually became so weak that I couldn't spare this kind and generous woman of this spectacle that was tearing her apart. I struggled to stand upright and walk. 

I drifted in and out of both consciousness and lucidity, a prisoner of the darkest nightmares. Those associates of MS-13 who had terrorized my adopted mother suddenly returned to make good on their vow to kill her, and I was too weak to stand in her place. I watched those evil men take her life and I cried out to the Lord, but He did not answer. Yes, the Lord hated me for I had failed Him for the last time. 

This was the lie inseminated in my suffering: would the Lord permit His beloved to be crushed and afflicted? "Where is your God now? Why doesn't He hear you? You will die!"

I was defeated and so I groaned for the release of death, that this waking nightmare might come to an end. And it did indeed come to an end, only not in the manner I presumed. The day came when my adopted mother had errands to run in the city hours away, so she would be absent from her land in those mountains until early evening. 

I spent the last of my strength leaving her house so I could die outside under the sun. I didn't make it far before I collapsed in exhaustion. I lacked the strength to stand up again. 

The sun was shining, but everything seemed dark to my eyes. The wind was blowing but I couldn't feel it on my skin; the branches of the trees moved, but I couldn't hear them. I was freezing cold on a 97 degree day.

I tried to cry out to the Lord, begging Him to destroy me, but the words couldn't emerge. The best I could manage sounded like the roaring of an animal, so I lay on the ground waiting for death to come.

In an instant, the world was filled with a brilliance brighter than the sun. I could see my hands, but this was all I could see; I knew that the Lord had come.

I cried out again but it was only a scream. After what seemed like forever passed in this strange place that wasn't life nor death, the Lord said, Speak. When He spoke this, words returned and so I cried out to Him:

"Lord, destroy me!"

I pleaded with the Lord to end my suffering so I might die and face His judgement. I could not live, so I surrendered the life He had given me to live into His hand. 

The Lord was silent once more, and what seemed like forever passed until He spoke again. 

The Almighty refused to destroy me, for was I not the work of His hand? Was this not that purpose for which I was set aside? Though being a man I had forgotten the words of the Lord and all that He had revealed to me, He surely does not forget for every word spoken by His mouth are fulfilled. Every one.

The Lord opened up time and space like a scroll, and I heard Him all those years ago when He declared,

You are the work of My hand, set aside for My purpose before you were born.

I heard and saw everything in the brilliance of His glory that day under the sun. When it was finished the Lord commanded me to rise to my feet, and I found that I possessed the strength to stand. I stood up and said, "How can this be?"

The Lord replied and said, You will not die but shall live, and live abundantly. I shall restore what was taken from you in a measure exceeding the first, and I will make you whole; the mighty shall be brought low, and the afflicted will be raised up. 

My adopted mother and the people of that village witnessed the impossible, for the Lord is true to His every word. Jesus Christ returned me to the land of the living before the throne of wickedness in those mountains, and He blessed my adopted mother greatly. She looked after the least of His brethren with no expectation of reward and for this, those who hated her and worked toward her demise knew that the Lord Almighty loved her. "God loves her," some of the people said. 

He restored my strength, health, and mind. The Lord returned everything that was taken from me in a measure which far exceeds what I possessed before, so that His name will glorified upon this earth. 

 

Edited August 16, 2022 by Marathoner
Typo

[Wayne222]

God was with you when you did not know. When you wanted death he was there waiting for the right time. Praise his name. 

[Desopixi Seilynam]

One time I had such a very vivid dream, I was floating/flying around in my apartment.

It felt very real and I was so aware that I tried to write something on the wall,
such that when I woke up, perhaps I would see it.
But as I became more aware, that I was dreaming,
and more so trying to effect anything from the dream, that caused me to wake up.
I went and looked at the wall but did not see anything.

I think that our soul is some sort of particles of light that intermingles with our blood,
ultimately causing the electrical pulses in our bodies.

You can go to sleep with your hands under your legs, and if you have a vivid dream, you would have no hands.

 

[Starise]

The bible doesn't expressly address near death. I would not say dreams, visions, or even spirit transport indicate near death.

Near death is a relatively modern term that seems to have come from more of a spiritual persuasion than a medical one. I don't believe most medical doctors, particularly brain specialists knew exactly what to do with it. Many of them said is was simply the way the brain responded to oncoming death, especially with respect to the so called "tunnel"some mention.

Since I don't believe God makes mistakes, I have to ask myself why He would allow someone to experience  either a mini trip to heaven or hell OR an out of body experience? Some attempted rationale behind it might be the person is Atheist and God wants to let them have a glimpse of what's coming for them, as in the cases where some report going to something that was like hell or a place of torment. Some of those who report NDE  will say they seen someone they thought was Jesus, even if they aren't a believer. On other cases people just report a spiritual being or beings present. All of this leaves far more questions than answers and pushes my skeptic button.

Let me just say I had a dream at least once where I felt I was not in my body because I was looking at the ceiling. Nothing really came of it other than me waking up rather suddenly wondering what had just happened. When you think about it, our souls take a kind of "trip" somewhere. In the case of believers it's to go be with the Lord. This is an incomplete state so far as I can tell, so I can't ascertain what that might be like.There have been long threads about what happens to the soul after it exits the body.

I think we should be very skeptical of any NDE story. While I find many of them compelling, I also realize there is a very active spiritual word just beyond our sight and the same spirits that can make us think we had a visit from aliens can also make some people believe they had an experience they might not necessarily have had in the way they thought they had it. I believe they had something, but I can't be sure that what they claim they experienced was really as it seemed to them. When people are zoned out on drugs they experience all kinds of odd things and they would swear they really happened, or was it demons in disguise make a script they know the person will take back to the living word as "proof" of something?

There are some things I am led to believe. I would not call these beliefs refined because they are made up of biblical facts that could potentially accommodate a theory. Not necessarily anything proven. The bible doesn't say there aren't invisible purple dinosaurs, so I might be led to think they could exist. Especially if someone claims to have died and seen one. Some of these stores are very convincing but don't have a shred of proof. If you read enough of these stories you will find just as many inconsistencies as you will agreements between them. 

I am led to believe that maybe we acclimate or move around some in our spirits after death for reasons unknown. I mean, we need to get from wherever we are to where we are going and we know that this is not up to us after death. Even so, there could maybe be a short season of God allowing us to revisit some persons or places for various unknown reasons.

I am also led to believe, through no words in scripture, that those who take their own lives have somehow breached a spiritual rule that says we are supposed to wait on God's timing for us. It is also a sin to murder oneself. Suicide is a negative act of our free will. In those cases, there may be repercussions in the spirit world. This seems to fit the idea of some places being haunted where a person committed a suicide. Possibly ( all a hunch on my part) that soul is in some kind of limbo.

Similarly we hear many stories coming from battle fields like Gettysburg, where the spirits of the dead still move in unrest, or that somehow the energy from the battle was tapped and still exists in "reruns" from those terrible battles. I don't tend to believe any of those stories. Since demons don't have their own bodies, they need to get energy from somewhere else to appear or possess someone else. When we were there at night my wife's camera batteries drained almost immediately when close to the Gettysburg Cemetery. This has never happened before or since. These spirits hijack any energy they think they can use, and apparently this is batteries. There are numerous cases of this all over. I think these are evil spirits. Not dead soldiers.

A demonically possessed or oppressed person could be led to believe they were taken somewhere, when in actuality they were seeing through the spirit's eyes. If the person is somehow separating from their body using satanic powers, they should be scared to death at what is happening to their body while they are gone.

I don't believe God is into the business of letting the almost dead skip between spiritual worlds. If it happens, it happens as a consequence of them almost dying. Since many people who have almost died don't have these stories to tell the whole thing causes me to wonder about the validity of the rest.

 

Edited August 16, 2022 by Starise

[Dennis1209]

2 hours ago, Starise said:

The bible doesn't expressly address near death. I would not say dreams, visions, or even spirit transport indicate near death.

Near death is a relatively modern term that seems to have come from more of a spiritual persuasion than a medical one. I don't believe most medical doctors, particularly brain specialists knew exactly what to do with it. Many of them said is was simply the way the brain responded to oncoming death, especially with respect to the so called "tunnel"some mention.

Since I don't believe God makes mistakes, I have to ask myself why He would allow someone to experience  either a mini trip to heaven or hell OR an out of body experience? Some attempted rationale behind it might be the person is Atheist and God wants to let them have a glimpse of what's coming for them, as in the cases where some report going to something that was like hell or a place of torment. Some of those who report NDE  will say they seen someone they thought was Jesus, even if they aren't a believer. On other cases people just report a spiritual being or beings present. All of this leaves far more questions than answers and pushes my skeptic button.

Let me just say I had a dream at least once where I felt I was not in my body because I was looking at the ceiling. Nothing really came of it other than me waking up rather suddenly wondering what had just happened. When you think about it, our souls take a kind of "trip" somewhere. In the case of believers it's to go be with the Lord. This is an incomplete state so far as I can tell, so I can't ascertain what that might be like.There have been long threads about what happens to the soul after it exits the body.

I think we should be very skeptical of any NDE story. While I find many of them compelling, I also realize there is a very active spiritual word just beyond our sight and the same spirits that can make us think we had a visit from aliens can also make some people believe they had an experience they might not necessarily have had in the way they thought they had it. I believe they had something, but I can't be sure that what they claim they experienced was really as it seemed to them. When people are zoned out on drugs they experience all kinds of odd things and they would swear they really happened, or was it demons in disguise make a script they know the person will take back to the living word as "proof" of something?

There are some things I am led to believe. I would not call these beliefs refined because they are made up of biblical facts that could potentially accommodate a theory. Not necessarily anything proven. The bible doesn't say there aren't invisible purple dinosaurs, so I might be led to think they could exist. Especially if someone claims to have died and seen one. Some of these stores are very convincing but don't have a shred of proof. If you read enough of these stories you will find just as many inconsistencies as you will agreements between them. 

I am led to believe that maybe we acclimate or move around some in our spirits after death for reasons unknown. I mean, we need to get from wherever we are to where we are going and we know that this is not up to us after death. Even so, there could maybe be a short season of God allowing us to revisit some persons or places for various unknown reasons.

I am also led to believe, through no words in scripture, that those who take their own lives have somehow breached a spiritual rule that says we are supposed to wait on God's timing for us. It is also a sin to murder oneself. Suicide is a negative act of our free will. In those cases, there may be repercussions in the spirit world. This seems to fit the idea of some places being haunted where a person committed a suicide. Possibly ( all a hunch on my part) that soul is in some kind of limbo.

Similarly we hear many stories coming from battle fields like Gettysburg, where the spirits of the dead still move in unrest, or that somehow the energy from the battle was tapped and still exists in "reruns" from those terrible battles. I don't tend to believe any of those stories. Since demons don't have their own bodies, they need to get energy from somewhere else to appear or possess someone else. When we were there at night my wife's camera batteries drained almost immediately when close to the Gettysburg Cemetery. This has never happened before or since. These spirits hijack any energy they think they can use, and apparently this is batteries. There are numerous cases of this all over. I think these are evil spirits. Not dead soldiers.

A demonically possessed or oppressed person could be led to believe they were taken somewhere, when in actuality they were seeing through the spirit's eyes. If the person is somehow separating from their body using satanic powers, they should be scared to death at what is happening to their body while they are gone.

I don't believe God is into the business of letting the almost dead skip between spiritual worlds. If it happens, it happens as a consequence of them almost dying. Since many people who have almost died don't have these stories to tell the whole thing causes me to wonder about the validity of the rest.

 

Interesting thoughts; I’m inclined to agree with them and am skeptical. The following is strictly speculated but an interesting topic.

In many cases of NDE, they have seen and heard things they could not have possibly known. For example, what was being said and done in the operating room verbatim from a different vantage point. For example, something was seen in the OR ceiling or on a roof they could not have possibly known was there. Brain electrical-chemical operation in any state does not explain this paranormal involvement.

Ephesians 6:16 (KJV) Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.

We are to guard our physical gates (eyes, ears, and senses) with the armor of God. Abstain from watching and hearing evil influences. I have always questioned whether demons and fallen angels can directly communicate with our brains, and I suspect these “fiery darts” could be just that.

It does stand to reason that the Devil and his minions would want to disguise your eternal destination (the father of lies) and give false peace, hope, and security at moments like these. Demonic involvement would certainly best explain this paranormal activity.

2 Corinthians 5:8 (KJV) We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.

Based on the “rich man” in Hades, I believe the same thing occurs with nonbelievers, except they open their eyes in Hell. Whether there is any lingering time or not, I would guess it depends on the true definition of physical death. People who have been in comas for years have awakened. If the heart and breathing stop, is it death? Medical science, I think, determines death when brain activity stops, but some have revived—those whose bodies are still alive on life support but are brain dead.

Demons are powerful; they possess unbelievers, cause mental disorders (Luke 8:27-29), and cause suicidal mania (Mark 9:22). Some appear to be isolated and geographical, as with the princes of Persia and Greece, and some wandering spirits searching.

As with paranormal activities associated with your examples of Gettysburg and haunted houses, perhaps they are the demonic spirits left behind by those evil happenings and events.

In any event, it is best not to dwell on the occult and keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. The military man in me wants to know my enemy’s tactics, strength, propaganda, and weapons.

[Starise]

15 minutes ago, Dennis1209 said:

In many cases of NDE, they have seen and heard things they could not have possibly known. For example, what was being said and done in the operating room verbatim from a different vantage point. For example, something was seen in the OR ceiling or on a roof they could not have possibly known was there. Brain electrical-chemical operation in any state does not explain this paranormal involvement.

There have been enough incidents like this for me to believe it happens, although not every time and I'm not sure why. Some report never seeing anything until they wake up from a near death experience, yet others go on little out of body trips and seem to be fully aware. I can't say what the difference is.I believe it's not near death when this happens, it's death and for some reason God decides to bring the soul back to the dead body and revive it. Lots of ideas on what people consider to be clinically dead. Obviously we no longer have our physical faculties, so we would be using some other form of sensory if this happens. If true, we are a "something" that can still somehow pick up sensory input. It can't be in any way physical that I can tell. This is territory we can't measure and only have someone's word to go on. I don't doubt they seen what they claimed to have seen, I just question how.Did they have assistance, or were they acting alone?

When some of these excursions become longer and more detailed my skeptic meters go up.

28 minutes ago, Dennis1209 said:

We are to guard our physical gates (eyes, ears, and senses) with the armor of God. Abstain from watching and hearing evil influences. I have always questioned whether demons and fallen angels can directly communicate with our brains, and I suspect these “fiery darts” could be just that.

It does stand to reason that the Devil and his minions would want to disguise your eternal destination (the father of lies) and give false peace, hope, and security at moments like these. Demonic involvement would certainly best explain this paranormal activity.

I agree a lot of it is probably intended to perpetuate deception. In one YouTube video the title says " Jesus Got It Wrong". 

39 minutes ago, Dennis1209 said:

Demons are powerful; they possess unbelievers, cause mental disorders (Luke 8:27-29), and cause suicidal mania (Mark 9:22). Some appear to be isolated and geographical, as with the princes of Persia and Greece, and some wandering spirits searching.

I recently read an article about people who are hearing voices in their head. This was once only though to be a mental disorder, and frankly it can be. Yet one researcher who looked deeper into these cases revealed that these voices never made good suggestions and only ran the persons hearing them down with negativity all the time. Telling them to do very bad things. He came to the conclusion these often seemed more to be entities who were there to try and destroy those ion their grasp. I am not saying all of it was determined to be, but he concluded much of it was.

Spirit relocation, or travel is a big thing in the occult and apparently those into it say it really happens. This should come as no surprise IMO because Satan is going to use his bag of tricks for the great end time deceptions to give legitimacy to the evil spiritual leaders who have rejected the true God.

45 minutes ago, Dennis1209 said:

As with paranormal activities associated with your examples of Gettysburg and haunted houses, perhaps they are the demonic spirits left behind by those evil happenings and events.

In any event, it is best not to dwell on the occult and keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. The military man in me wants to know my enemy’s tactics, strength, propaganda, and weapons.

One theory, not a Christian theory, is that many of these sightings are more like recordings in time that somehow imprint and replay. Many of the sightings at Gettysburg look like the persons who were in that war going about their business. I have a hard time believing that one. All I can say for sure it is appears to be spiritual in nature and many of the things common to hauntings such as batteries draining happen there. I don't believe whatever it is, is good because I can't imagine the forces of good wasting their time on it. They have more important things to do.

I have no doubt whatever form our after life looks like we are in God's hands as believers, so I have no reason to fear any of it.

 

[The_Patriot21]

I was legally dead once...have no recollection of it. No NDEs nothing...

[Sower]

10 hours ago, Dennis1209 said:

We are to guard our physical gates (eyes, ears, and senses) with the armor of God. Abstain from watching and hearing evil influences. I have always questioned whether demons and fallen angels can directly communicate with our brains, and I suspect these “fiery darts” could be just that.

Dennis;  "I have always questioned whether demons and fallen angels can directly communicate with our brains,
and I suspect these “fiery darts” could be just that"

Over the years I have ask many Christian believers if could they give me just one instance that the devil caused them to sin.
I have also to give me just one example that they know of that they were influenced by the devil. Just one.

I have never heard an answer that was specific, only a general statement like "of course the devil influences us, doesn't the bible say it. I repeat the question, HOW did he influence you? A voice? A sudden sinful thought from nowhere? Was it only our own thoughts?

10 hours ago, Dennis1209 said:

The military man in me wants to know my enemy’s tactics, strength, propaganda, and weapons.

Yes, the enemies tactics. How do regard an enemy, a guerilla foe, when we can't see him, can't hear him.

Does he plant thoughts in our mind. Can he read our mind or listen/understand our thoughts. How does this work?

"Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked"   Ephesians 6:16

I believe the opposite of faith (shield of faith) is doubt (lies deceptions etc), helps me understand what the fiery darts may be.
Where/how does my conscious mind receive these doubts that I'm probably attributing as my own sinful corrupted mind?
Sometimes I think; ( Wow!!  Why do I think these thoughts when I'm trying so hard to keep my mind clean? )
Did I think them?........   Were they inserted in my mind?  Gotta get the shield up/flack jacket on, when the bullets/darts start flying it doesn't matter where they came from!
Does it matter if I raise the shield of my faith to confront these doubts/lies not knowing if they are mine or the enemy?
I have read about these questions, and studied other's works in this area, and can find no specific answer as to how the enemy actually influences the born again believer that has the spirit of God residing within. (Yes, In Job, he was given permission)
Thanks Dennis...