tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post1954205296719112764..comments2024-03-27T17:15:37.606-04:00Comments on Triablogue: Ayer's red lightRyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17809283662428917799noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-27414595175166988902017-01-16T18:15:03.118-05:002017-01-16T18:15:03.118-05:00If memory serves, he saw a red light he interprete...If memory serves, he saw a red light he interpreted as not happy with him. I'm not sure how that would be at odds with Christian doctrine either.geoffrobinsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14949411893531888555noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-27697476618666585522017-01-15T18:38:53.253-05:002017-01-15T18:38:53.253-05:00Is Ayer's experience at odds with Christian do...Is Ayer's experience at odds with Christian doctrine, though? Maybe people's expectations are coloured a bit too much by cartoon images of goat-headed satyrs wielding pitchforks. The idea that hell could be such an eerie place is intriguing, at least.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-30608252158756129532017-01-15T15:21:51.085-05:002017-01-15T15:21:51.085-05:00Advocates of an NDE-based view of the afterlife an...Advocates of an NDE-based view of the afterlife and other forms of religious pluralism tend to overestimate the similarities among NDEs while underestimating the differences. There are a lot of explicit and implicit contradictions among NDEs, not only on religious issues, but also on other matters, like morality. NDEs often differ from the experiencer's expectations, so they can't all be explained as God's accommodating what the experiencer expects to happen. And the diversity of NDEs includes many (a double-digit percentage) hellish ones. Some NDEs are explicitly or implicitly religiously exclusivistic. There's no easy way to reconcile NDEs as a whole with the sort of highly permissive, religiously pluralistic God advocated by many proponents of an NDE-based view of the afterlife. And since it's often suggested that the alleged simplicity of NDEs makes them superior to the more traditional religious views of the afterlife, it's significant that NDEs fail to offer the sort of simple alternative that's often suggested.<br /><br />Furthermore, since NDEs aren't the only line of evidence we have for the existence and nature of the afterlife, the other evidence has to be taken into account as well. That includes, for example, evidence from séances (which, like NDEs, are highly inconsistent) and the evidence for the Bible and, therefore, its claims about the afterlife. You have to explain the totality of the evidence, not just NDEs.<br /><br />There's no need to offer one explanation for all NDEs. There could be, and probably are, different explanations for different cases. Still, it's useful to see if we have any explanation that seems to cover a large percentage of the phenomena. The best explanation I'm aware of for NDEs, and I think it adequately explains the large majority of them, is that they're something like a supernatural dream or supernatural virtual reality. They give you some objective information about the afterlife (e.g., what it's like to be outside your body, the plausibility of a life review that's instantaneous), but they're largely subjective. I suspect that when the soul leaves the body under particular circumstances (still unknown to us), it goes into a supernatural state somewhat like what we experience when we dream while sleeping.<br /><br />The nature of the evidence we have for Christianity is such that nothing in any one NDE or group of NDEs (or other group of non-Christian paranormal phenomena) is comparable or superior. The entity behind the Bible claims the highest authority and supports that claim with <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2011/03/evidence-of-biblical-prophecy.html" rel="nofollow">unparalleled knowledge of the future</a> and <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/11/a-christian-case-for-miracles_2.html" rel="nofollow">other evidence</a>, which gives Christianity an unrivaled network of confirmatory miracles.<br /><br />I have <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2011/12/evangelical-view-of-near-death.html" rel="nofollow">a collection of links to our posts addressing NDEs and other paranormal phenomena</a>. And there's a lot more material like that in our archives.Jason Engwerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17031011335190895123noreply@blogger.com