Near-Death Experiences as Evidence for the Existence of God and Heaven: A Brief Introduction in Plain Language (14 page)

·
        
It’s
easier to survey people from across the globe, gaining a more culturally
diverse sampling.

·
        
Since
they all answer the same questions, the interviewer is less likely to lead
people (consciously or unconsciously) to answer a certain way. Anyone can read the
questions to judge whether or not they were clearly and fairly worded. 

·
        
Being
anonymous, there’s no incentive to get attention (e.g., a first step toward a
magazine article or talk show interview.)

Those unfamiliar
with earlier research may deem Dr. Long’s study to be worthless, since all the
statistics are based on largely uncorroborated stories. But those familiar with
past prospective studies have reason to trust such reports, since they’ve come
to see NDEs as a legitimate experience, reported by people who are typically
reluctant to share, whose testimonies don’t change over time, and have little
incentive to lie. 

Factors in
weighing the evidential value of personal testimony

In a court of
law, personal testimony can be dismissed as hearsay or deemed compelling enough
to sway a jury. What makes the difference, and how can these factors apply to
evaluating NDEs? Here are some factors to consider:   

1. Recent
memories typically trump distant memories. 
2. Those with something to lose by sharing trump those with something to gain.
3. Eye-witness testimony trumps second-hand testimony (hearsay).
4. Memories of difficult-to-forget events trump memories that quickly fade or
change over time. (Don’t ask me what someone wore to a party. I typically have
no clue.)
5. Reports from trustworthy (deemed sane and reliable) sources trump those from
questionable sources.
6. More witnesses trump fewer witnesses.
7. Corroborated testimony trumps uncorroborated.
8. Consistent interview methods trump random interviews.
9. Accountable research and reporting trumps isolated incidents. (For example,
Dr. Sabom teamed with Psychiatrist Dr. Kreutziger and interviewed in well-known
hospitals among other professionals. Dr. van Lommel did his study in respected
hospitals with a team of people.
Dr.
Penny Sartori researched
under the oversight two
respected academics, with the assistance of doctors and nurses in an intensive
care unit. The results of all of these were reported in peer-reviewed
journals.)     

Summary on Anecdotal
Evidence

Personal
interviews are used extensively in science. Yet, as with all data, we must be
careful to distinguish scientifically evaluated interviews from those that
amount to little more than hearsay (anecdotal). NDE researchers should be evaluated
on a case-by-case basis as to the evidential value of their interviews and
accompanying data.

I do think that
the dominance of medical specialists doing NDE research may lead to weaknesses
in evaluating the evidential value of the research. I’d suggest that scholars
in other fields could add value by reviewing NDE research through the lenses of
their specialties. I’d especially like to see input from experts in legal
evidence and philosophy of science.
 

5. Isn’t
invoking spiritual realities such as God and heaven just another case of “God
of the Gaps?”

Throughout the
history of science, people have observed processes or events that defied
scientific explanation and concluded, “God must have caused them.” If science
later explained the process, to the embarrassment of the theorizing theists,
the mistake was chalked up to “god of the gaps” – the assumption that gaps in
our scientific knowledge must be filled with God.

Example: Last
summer I visited a cave and saw a spiraling stalactite that currently defies
scientific explanation. Since gravity consistently pulls drops of water toward
the center of the earth, the minerals deposited by the drop should produce
stalactites that point straight down rather than spiraling. Had I suggested to
the guide that God must have created it, she could rightly reprimand me for
invoking “god of the gaps.”

But the case of
NDEs differs from the spiraling stalactite. NDE researchers aren’t typically
invoking the existence of God as a
cause
for something that defies
scientific explanation. In fact, researchers tend to remain bewildered as to
what triggers the event. Research indicates that the closer a patient gets to
death, the more likely he is to experience an NDE.
(9)
Yet, as to whether
it’s triggered by a physical event (e.g., an event in the brain that typically
occurs near death, that may open up a “door” to the other side) or triggered by
something (or Someone) from the other side, researchers can only hazard guesses
at this point.

Rather than
arbitrarily invoking the existence of God as a
cause
for NDEs, reports
of meeting God are found as a common part of the experience to be explained. So
our scientific study of NDEs necessarily leads us to ask the question, are the
places and beings described by NDErs illusory or reality?

NDE reports lead
us to consider all the relevant scientifically gathered data and use it to
infer to the best explanation. One explanation is that the experience is
generated entirely by their brains. Another is that NDErs experience
consciousness outside their bodies. That’s precisely what we evaluated in this
book, which is far different from a god of the gaps argument from ignorance.
(10)
 
      

6. Are NDE researchers
using the scientific method?
Here’s an
over-simplification of Sabom’s first prospective study, organized around the
typical steps of the scientific method. 

a. Ask a
Question
(Do NDErs sometimes observe their resuscitations from outside their bodies?)

b. Do
Background Research
(What research has already been done in this area?)

c. Construct a
Hypothesis
(NDErs reconstruct their resuscitation stories from what they’ve seen on TV and
heard in the hospital.)

d. Test Your
Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment
(Interview patients with cardiac arrests and NDEs to record
accurately what they report, in a clinical setting. Compare their out-of-body
perceptions of medical procedures with a control group of cardiac patients who
didn’t report NDEs.)

e. Analyze
Your Data and Draw a Conclusion
(NDE patients accurately reported, in minute detail, their
resuscitations. The control group consistently guessed wrong. Thus, NDE
patients apparently saw their resuscitations from outside their bodies.)

f. Communicate
Your Results
(Publish results in peer-reviewed journals so that other
scientists can freely comment and try to replicate the findings.)

I think the last
step is significant. Rather than publishing in niche new age magazines or
sensationalist newspapers, they published in the appropriate professional
journals. As I said in the body,

Over
900 articles on NDEs had been written in scholarly literature up until 2005,
gracing the pages of such respected journals as
Psychiatry
,
The
Lancet
,
Critical Care Quarterly
,
The Journal for Near-Death
Studies
,
American Journal of Psychiatry
,
British Journal of Psychology
,
Resuscitation
, and
Neurology.
In the 30 year period after Moody
published
Life after Life
, 55 researchers or teams published at least 65
studies of over 3500 NDEs.
(11)
  

Publication in
appropriate journals gives scientific accountability in at least two ways.
First, professional journals have peer review teams who screen articles for
adherence to scientific methods. The reputation of the journal is on the line
if they publish scientifically substandard work.

Secondly, peers
in each respective field may comment on the study in later issues, or refer
back to the study in later studies. Both the author of the study and the
journal editors have their reputations on the line if the study shows bias or
if later studies fail to replicate the results.  

7. Does the
evidence point beyond our final death?

Since “death” is
typically defined as the final, irreversible cessation of life, those
resuscitated from “clinical death” (i.e., cessation of heartbeat and breathing)
were never truly dead. Thus, some argue that NDEs tell us nothing about what
happens after a person’s
final
death.
(12)

It’s certainly
arguable (as I have argued) that they didn’t visit their final destination. But
while they were on the other side (perhaps we could call it heaven’s front porch)
many claimed to find evidence that there was more to come after their final
deaths.

·
        
Many
met friends and relatives who had experienced their deaths many years before. These
stayed dead (not merely clinically dead), from the earthly standpoint, but had apparently
been experiencing an otherworldly life for years of earth time.  

·
        
Many
reached a barrier, which they understood to be a point of no return. They
believe that they peered to the other side, which would have been their first
steps into the after-death existence.  

·
        
Some
were shown a glimpse of heaven, such as Dr. Richie, the first person to tell
Dr. Moody his NDE.

·
        
Death-bed
visions are reported by people who are entering their final death. They seem
very consistent with NDEs.

As far as NDErs
are concerned, what they experienced on the other side provided overwhelmingly
sufficient evidence that life will continue after their final deaths. This
explains why so many of them no longer fear death.   

Conclusion on
the Scientific Nature of NDE Research

NDE researchers
typically use scientific methods. Whether or not they apply scientific methods
rigorously should be determined on a case-by-case basis rather than dismissing
the entire field as based upon anecdotes. 

Yet if I’m on
target, why then would Moody, well-trained in medical science, deprecate the
scientific evidence? I’d suggest that Moody was speaking more as a philosopher
than a scientist. As an admirer of Socrates, who could dismantle dogmatic
opinions with a few probing questions, Moody shunned concrete statements,
preferring the role of the ever-questioning skeptic.
According to Moody,

“My goal in this research was to remain a true skeptic in the
ancient Greek sense – one who neither believes nor disbelieves but who keeps
searching for truth.”
(13) 

Yet, by the time
he wrote his 2012 biography, he admitted that he’d finally become “brazen”
about voicing his conviction that God and an afterlife exist. Why the change?

“After more than four decades of studying death and the
possibility of an afterlife, I have come to realize that my opinion is
buttressed by thousands of hours of research and deep logical thought of the
type that few have devoted to this important topic.”
(14)

Appendix #5
Dr. Susan Blackmore’s “Dying Brain Hypothesis
”

Dr.
Blackmore and Her Book,
Dying to Live

Since
Blackmore has presented one of the most comprehensive naturalistic hypotheses concerning
NDEs, her hypothesis deserves special consideration in an evaluation of the
evidential value of NDEs. She’s no stranger to the relevant fields of study,
having an academic background in psychology and physiology (Oxford University)
and a Ph.D. in parapsychology (University of Surrey). She documents her sources
and shows familiarity with much of the NDE research. I also appreciate that she
often expresses her conclusions with appropriate tentativeness when they’re
built more upon educated guesses than facts. When she can’t find an answer, she
may go the extra mile by corresponding with a researcher or conducting her own
survey. She writes clear prose and organizes her thoughts within workable
divisions that flow logically. For these reasons, although I disagree with many
of her conclusions, I consider
Dying to Live
to be a good book that I
benefited from reading – the best attempt I’ve seen to defend a thoroughly
naturalistic position.

The
Two Competing Hypotheses

Blackmore
clearly defines our two fundamental choices:

·
      
The
‘Afterlife Hypothesis’ “suggests that the NDE is a glimpse into life after
death.”

·
      
Her
‘Dying Brain Hypothesis’ holds that “all the phenomena of the NDE are…products
of the dying brain…that will ultimately stop when the brain’s activity stops.”
(1) 

Points
of Agreement with the ‘Afterlife Hypothesis’

Blackmore
agrees with the ‘Afterlife Hypothesis’ on many important points, including:

·
        
People
have these experiences (they aren’t fabricating them) and are typically
convinced they represent a trip to the other side. 

·
        
They
are generally sane, intelligent people and can’t be brushed off as delusional.

·
        
The
experience is generally consistent from culture to culture, no matter what NDErs
believed previously about the afterlife.
(2)  

·
        
Many
of the typical explanations – psychological expectations, oxygen deprivation,
etc. – fail to fully explain the phenomenon.
(3)  

·
        
NDEs
significantly change people’s lives.
(4)  

Blackmore’s
Argument

I’ll
attempt to sum up Blackmore’s argument, as presented in
Dying to Live
,
as follows:

1.
If
NDEs can be explained naturalistically, there’s no reason to invent other
worlds, minds and souls (the ‘afterlife hypothesis’) to explain them.

2.
Since each of the elements of the NDE can be produced by other means than
coming near death (e.g., drugs, dreams, oxygen deficiency, etc.), we have
reason to believe that the entire NDE (made up of those elements) may also be
explained naturalistically.

3.
The
‘Dying Brain Hypothesis’ suggests ways that each element of an NDE might occur
naturalistically during a near death event. For example, the feeling of peace
and joy may be produced by natural opiates released by the body during extreme
stress. The life review may be produced by “random activation and seizures” in
the part of the brain that organizes memories. Although none of this has been
proven, it makes sense that it might happen this way.

4.
This
hypothesis makes better predictions for each of the NDE elements than the
spiritual hypothesis. For example, the ‘afterlife hypothesis’ gives no reason
why people should pass through a tunnel, rather than through a door or an
elevator or a row of hedges. The dying brain hypothesis predicts that there
should be a tunnel. Hypotheses that make predictions trump hypotheses that
don’t.

5.
If
the physically unconscious (e.g., their brains are incapable of consciousness)
could be shown to be fully conscious in some other realm (e.g., if they could
verifiably see events in the operating room) this would overturn the dying
brain hypothesis and confirm the spiritual hypothesis. Yet, the evidence for
such events are never compelling.
(5)  

6.
Therefore, the best hypothesis we have is a naturalistic one, i.e., the ‘Dying
Brain Hypothesis’. 

In
its favor, this hypothesis takes into account many near death studies and other
relevant scientific studies. The argument is well documented and makes some
accurate predictions.

Weaknesses
in the Hypothesis

Although
Blackmore’s attempt is admirable, in my opinion it falls short in several
significant ways. 

1.
The hypothesis is based largely upon “What ifs” rather than proven facts.
She
admits this when she writes,

“What happens to the brain when a person
approaches death? A first approximation to an answer is simply to say that we
do not know.”
(6)  

Yet,
she can reason from known facts and propose explanations of how the dying brain
might
produce a NDE, so she proceeds to speculate. To confirm her
hypothesis, her speculations would need to be tested, but she admits that many
of her explanations hadn’t been tested at the time of writing.
(7)

Over
the past 35 years of near-death studies, many of her explanations (e.g., for the
tunnel and the light) have been researched and found wanting, so that by 2009 a
summary article of the peer-reviewed research by leading NDE researchers could
conclude:

“Theoreticians over the past 30 years
have proposed various models to explain NDEs. From our review of the
characteristics of Western NDErs, we found little evidence to support
previously proposed biological, psychological, or sociological explanations as
the sole cause(s) of NDEs.”
(8)  

Note
my earlier discussion of naturalistic explanations for a fuller discussion. 

2.
Her assumption that each of the NDE elements can be reproduced by natural means
needs to be demonstrated rather than assumed.  

Typically,
the similarities break down upon closer inspection.
(9)   

3. Some
of her predictions were disconfirmed by later research.
 

·
        
Her hypothesis suggests that the dying brain should
consistently produce a tunnel vision experience.(10)
Yet,
in Jeffrey Long’s survey of over 613 NDErs, only one third reported going
through a tunnel.
(11)
The 11-year-old boy I interviewed passed through a
gate rather than a tunnel.
Further, the tunnels reported are often very different from the tunnel vision
experience. One of my interviewees reported the light as shining from behind
him as he watched his body from above. Yet, according to Blackmore, the light
should be in the middle of the line of site. Some NDErs report tunnels with
vibrant colors, rather than black, which again wouldn’t be predicted by
Blackmore’s hypothesis.
(12)

·
        
Her hypothesis predicts that people who “dream in a
bird’s-eye view” should be more likely to have out-of-body experiences.(13)
Sabom
tested this prediction in his Atlanta Study. “No difference was found…between
the dreaming modes of near-death experiencers with (21 persons) and without (19
persons) an autoscopic near-death experience.”
(14)  
  

6.
She fails to argue adequately for the nonexistence of the self and the world,
which is central to her hypothesis.(15)  

In
Chapter 7, Blackmore challenges the argument that NDEs must be real glimpses of
the afterlife, since they seem “realer than real.” I fully expected her to
argue that just because something
seems
real doesn’t mean that it
is
real. After all, our brains can fool us. But she took a philosophical turn that
shocked me. 

Blackmore
argued that our brains build constructs to interpret the input from our senses;
but since these constructs often fail, they can’t be trusted to give us an
accurate view of what’s outside of ourselves. In fact, since there’s no proof that
a real world exists outside of our selves, she dismisses perceived reality as
an illusion, including the “I” that’s supposedly perceiving it. Thus, she
speaks of “the illusion that there is a real world out there.... This way there
is nothing to find and no self to find it.”
(16)  

What
are the implications of this view to understanding NDEs?

·
        
If
life as we perceive it – the rocks and trees and people – are merely illusions
constructed by our brains, then obviously any afterlife outside of this world is
illusory as well.
(17)

·
        
As
the brain dies, it can no longer maintain the illusory construct of the self. This
explains NDErs reporting a sense of timelessness. “…time and self are all part
of the same mental construction.”
(18)
 

·
        
Decisions
are illusory. There’s no self to make decisions. Things happen because they
happen, not because of our choices.
(19)
 

·
        
NDErs’
lives change because they experienced for a moment the breakdown of “the
self-model, which was the root of all our greed, confusion and suffering.”
(20)

I
don’t want to argue extensively against this worldview, since the burden of
proof would seem to be on Blackmore to argue that we don’t exist. After all,
most of us take our existence and the existence of an outside world to be
self-evident. But I will mention two seeming inconsistencies relevant to the
present discussion.

1.
It seems to make no sense to argue for our nonexistence in a book that’s
written for the purpose of convincing “others” of something. If these “others”
are simply collections of nonexistent individuals, why try to convince “them”
of things?
In fairness to Blackmore, she’s a smart, well-educated person. I’m sure she’s
thought through all these obvious objections to her view on existence and if we
were to sit down and discuss it, I could better understand her line of
reasoning. Yet, since she gives no extensive argument for this position, many
readers will surely wonder about these apparent inconsistencies.

2.
The reports from NDErs don’t seem to describe in any way this dissolution of
self. Quite the opposite, they consistently report a strong sense of self.

·
        
The self
is amazed to find itself
disconnected from its body.

·
        
Deceased
relatives greet the NDEr, her
self
.  

·
        
The
self
experiences its mind on hyperdrive – thinking, communicating, making
observations, laying down memories.

·
        
The self
reflects on the decisions it
made during life, realizing the importance of both selfish and compassionate
choices.

·
        
The self
is often involved in the
decision of whether or not to return.

·
        
The self
interacts with other
selves, without losing its own sense of self.

·
        
Once
back,
the self
, rather than concluding that it doesn’t exist, determines
that it exists for a reason and purposes to make better, more compassionate
life choices. 

Much
research indicates that NDErs report a stronger sense of self, not weaker, and
attribute life changes to a sense of purpose and importance. Blackmore suggests
that when people regain consciousness, their brains reconstruct the illusion of
self and interpret their NDEs in the light of this. Yet, since the primary data
we’re dealing with is NDErs’ reports, if their reports aren’t accurate, how can
we formulate any meaningful hypothesis of the experience?
(21)