Science Attempts To Explain Heaven 692
Hugh Pickens writes "Lisa Miller writes in Newsweek about the thesis that heaven is not a real place, or even a process or a supernatural event, but rather something that happens in your brain as you die. The thesis is based, in part, on a growing body of research around near-death experience. According to a 2000 article by Bruce Greyson in The Lancet, between 9 and 18 percent of people who have been demonstrably near death report having had an NDE. Surveys of NDE accounts show great similarities in the details, describing: a tunnel, a light, a gate or a door, a sense of being out of the body, meeting people they know or have heard about, finding themselves in the presence of God, and then returning, changed. Scientists have theorized that NDEs occur as a kind of physiological self-defense mechanism when, in order to guard against damage during trauma, the brain releases protective chemicals that also happen to trigger intense hallucinations. This theory has gained traction after scientists realized that virtually all the features of an NDE can be reproduced with a stiff dose of ketamine, a short-acting, hallucinogenic, dissociative anesthetic. 'I came out into a golden Light. I rose into the Light and found myself having an unspoken interchange with the Light, which I believed to be God,' wrote one user of his experience under ketamine. 'Dante said it better,' writes Miller, 'but the vision is astonishingly the same.'"
Practice and prepare yourself for death . . . (Score:5, Funny)
This theory has gained traction after scientists realized that virtually all the features of an NDE can be reproduced with a stiff dose of ketamine, a short-acting, hallucinogenic, dissociative anesthetic.
. . . by taking stiff doses of ketamine. You don't want to enter such a difficult level as death without enough experience.
Re:Damn You, Science! (Score:3, Funny)
Dear Bottles,
I would like to inform you that your insidious yet gross attempt to sell me an IPad has failed.
Regards,
--
Richard
Re:Damn You, Science! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:wow (Score:4, Funny)
Alcohol is a drug, and after mildly ODing on it I've been known to have long conversations with him via the big white telephone.
Re:finally... (Score:2, Funny)
On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that if you take enough ketamine you will go to heaven.
Re:Hmm (Score:4, Funny)
I am an atheist ... a timeless eternity "somewhere else", but there was no bright light and all that, it was a dark and nasty place.
Well, no wonder you went to hell, eh? ;)
Re:Damn You, Science! (Score:3, Funny)
Nonono... it's said that men and clams came from a common ancestor.
Re:Damn You, Science! (Score:4, Funny)
Mmmmmmmm.... ancestors in wine sauce never .... :)
Re:finally... (Score:2, Funny)
And that's the reason why Christianity never really caught on among the native Americans. For they already had a paradise waiting for them full of women and sex.
Re:Hmm (Score:4, Funny)
"Same way you'd explain that you can call someone a Christian when the vast majority by far don't follow the bible and most of their ideals are the exact opposite of Jesus' ideals"
Indeed. This is precisely why I don't believe in Christians. I've never met one. I've met plenty of people who claim to be Christians but since they all selectively believe bits of the bible and not other parts I just don't see how they can claim to be Christian. It reminds me of someone I studied Geology with. She was a 'Young Earther' who didn't believe the world was more than 6000 years old but she was studying a field which explicitly disagrees with her. In the end she got a degree in Geology despite her disagreement with its basic ideas and thus I don't consider her a geologist.