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.'"
Damn You, Science! (Score:5, Informative)
Next you'll be trying to tell us God doesn't exist.
And we all 'evolved from apes'.
And the iPad is a game-changer.
Not just with drugs (Score:4, Informative)
Hmmm, a quick google search turns up this article on reading such experiences with an MRI [guardian.co.uk], but i think there was a way to trigger them too.
Re:Hmm (Score:3, Informative)
Since blindess from birth might be caused by mutliple factors, optic nerve or eye abnormalities among them, it's rather safe to say that larger areas of the brain might still experience those effects, don't you think?
Anyway, describing such experiences as plain "seeing" by those people is probably a stretch. Especially considering that in many of them visual cortex does process some information, just not from the eyes; or that supposedly some might experience similar things to when you close and push your eyes (or you'll hit yourself in the head) - but is that really "seeing"?
Life imitates art (Score:3, Informative)
Connie Willis wrote a novel "Passage" about scientific investigation of NDEs. I rate it as the second best book by the best author I know. (Warning: Willis's books generally fall into the categories of 'comedy' or 'tragedy'. Which do you suppose a book about what you experience when you die is going to be?)
In Passage, the protagonists are following a two pronged strategy of interviewing patients who have had NDEs naturally, and simulating them in volunteers by using a drug, while the volunteer is in a brain scanner.
To say more would stray into spoiler territory, so just go out and buy the book and read it.
(For what it is worth, the book which beats "Passage" is "To Say Nothing Of The Dog", a time-travel Victorian farce.)
Re:Practice and prepare yourself for death . . . (Score:2, Informative)
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.
Speaking from experience Ketamine may have been isolating the part of my brain which records long term memories from other parts of the brain, so that the recording from that period was largely noise. The normal clocking which gives us a feeling of time passing was missing so I had no real sense of time but time definitely had an arrow. My visual field was filled with surging fields of coloured dots. I heard a roaring in my ears. I don't want to go back there, but I am not typically a drug user, either.
I didn't see anything resembling stereotypical heaven in there. If that is what life after death is like you can count me out. I imagine it is a lot like being paralysed and brain damaged.
Re:Science = religion (Score:2, Informative)
Religion tries to explain everything from above. Science tries to explain everything like a couple of blind people touching an elephant. Sometimes they will be close to the truth sometimes they are completely off.
1. Science and religion are trying to explain completely different things (religion tackles moral issues, science tackles the workings of reality). 2. Hence, if I want to know what the elephant looks like, I'll listen to the blind guys. If I want to know where the elephant came from, I'll listen to that other blind guy who goes to the zoo every Sunday.
The problem with science is that they are missing the moral factor, allowing them to do everything that only hurts us, or destroys our world. They are of course doing some good things too, but the question is if those good things outreach the bad things. Looking at our earth, I would say no.
Science does things. It is up to the consciences of the user of science and observer whether science is used for, and whether that use is, good or bad.
Taking away our believes, in a better life afterwards, makes people lose hope for this live, losing the moral, making humankind do all kind of bad things, making live for themselves or for others unlivable.
You're saying that unless there's the fear of consequences in the afterlife, people won't bother doing good in this life. On the contrary: all the rules of law in human history make doing good for your fellow man profitable now.
People are living worse everyday, no moral anymore, lots of sickness, more struggles, no hope, and still science believes they are god...
I don't know whether this is true or false (only way to know the state of the world is via the media, and the media is useless), but if science is the cause, it's only accelerating the inevitable.
Re:Not just with drugs (Score:2, Informative)
Maybe you're thinking of the God Helmet [wikipedia.org], which uses magnetic fields to cause the sensation of being in the presence of god.
Re:Science = religion (Score:2, Informative)
Wonderful -- leave them with more money for corrupt governments to screw them out of, so those kings (and presidents) can have palaces to rival the Pope's. Result!
Trust me, the poor don't need religion to get screwed over.
Re:Science = religion (Score:3, Informative)
The Vatican doesn't even have as much money as minor movie studio
[Citation needed]
How about the morals of big hollywood making billions of dollars throwing poor people in jail for copying a movie or a song
Not defending that it's right by me, or the general population, but they don't ooze rubbish about benevolence, and treating one's brother as you wish to be treated and all the rest. Hollywood is a corporation that's out to make money. That's what they claim to be. The church claims to be the representative of god on Earth.
Now tell me this,
If god is so good, then why do his peoples,
Place lightning rods atop of their steeples?
Re:Science = religion (Score:1, Informative)
That's what they claim to be
No, they don't. And they do ooze rubbish about benevolence.
If god is so good, then why do his peoples
It's a strawman argument. God isn't good. God is God.
Re:finally... (Score:3, Informative)
> They just have to argue that the encounter with heaven produces ketamine,
So now all that's left is finding a (nonmagical) mechanism that causes ketamine to be produced/released when the brain is dying, and we'll be able to conclude that NDE's are completely unrelated to heaven, regardless of heavens existence or lack thereof.
No we can't -- that would be a basic scientific and philosophical blunder. The "(nonmagical) mechanism" could be "simply the mechanism that God uses". You can only conclude that NDE's are completely unrelated to heaven if you have already concluded that God does not exist, and I think I can see the makings of a circular argument.
Re:finally... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:So many things wrong with the article (Score:1, Informative)
You are assuming that Western civilization is the _ONLY_ civilization that made any signification contributions to science and that mankind suffers an overall negative impact.
Thankfully, there is the rest of the civilized world that is not into wimps of western religion.
http://genealogical-gleanings.com/Dark%20Ages.htm [genealogic...anings.com]
>As Europe and the western world languished in the Dark Ages, the Muslims of the Middle East and Africa were studying the works of the ancient Greeks and Romans and improving upon their works. Civilization during the Dark Ages was flourishing in northern Africa, China, India and the Americas.
Re:Science = religion (Score:2, Informative)
Unlike the Pope, he and his political party send their dark agents throughout the empire to confiscate the savings...
Uhmmm, Catholics still pass the basket and collect tithes, supposed to be 10% of your net.
Obligatory movie reference: Brainstorm (Score:3, Informative)
The ability to record an actual death experience is the centerpiece of Brainstorm [imdb.com], a classic science fiction movie from the 80s, starring Natalie Wood (in her last screen role, I believe) as the user experience designer, Christopher Walken and Louise Fletcher as the idealistic genius scientists, and Cliff Robertson as the entrepreneur. They invent a way to record brain activity, and then play back the experience so the user feels he or she has actually done it themselves. They make a "demo tape" of riding a roller coaster, hang-gliding, riding on horseback, eating great food, having sex, etc. When the chief scientist has a heart attack, she records her slow, agonizing death in an unforgettable scene. Whenever anyone plays it back, the shock starts to kill them, too.
Re:After death studies on live people? (Score:3, Informative)
Observation of events occuring doing NDE & OBE was actually quite conclusivelly shown to be BS (not that it isn't experienced - just not the way it is described). Remember, it talks specifically about observing reality, so it can be tested, and was.
There was an experiment going on for a long time in few ER units - basically weird signs, symbols, etc. placed on top of ER room equipment ("furniture", if you like). And yes, inevitably some number of OBE cases showed up over the years. Even though most of them involved observation from high point of view, "above" the action (where symbols would be clearly visible and very noticeable as "this doesn't fit here"), not even one story of OBE included any mention of them.
Like NDE, OBE is just a very abnormal state of conciousness, perceiving reality in a weird way. Not an unpleasant one (I think I experienced at least one, self-induced in a way...), but also nothing supernatural.
And brain certainly can piece together a compelling story from glimpses of information - look at the way you perceive & remember dreams, how memories work, how ridiculously unreliable witness testimony was sometimes shown to be.
Re:Science = religion (Score:3, Informative)
The Vatican doesn't even have as much money as minor movie studio, just a lot of old stuff that frankly isn't worth very much.
The Vatican itself is estimated to have assets of between $1.5 to $15 billion [news24.com].
If you consider the Vatican to be the head of a multinational corporation, and include all worldwide assets of the Roman Catholic Church, some estimate they have close to $100 BILLION in money, property and other assets. And think how much of that is tax-free.
Sounds like the same mechanism scarfers utilize.. (Score:3, Informative)
Though not for religious purposes, but to aggregate the orgasm at jacking off while strangling them selves:
"When the brain is deprived of oxygen, it induces a lucid, semi-hallucinogenic state called hypoxia. Combined with orgasm, the rush is said to be no less powerful than cocaine, and highly addictive" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erotic_asphyxiation [wikipedia.org]
Evidence of after-life (Score:1, Informative)
While certainly not conclusive, it puts the lie to the assertion that "there is no evidence of an after-life."
http://www.nderf.org/evidence_afterlife.htm ...
BTW, the author of the study referenced by the Newsweek story had this to say:
'I am no longer as opposed to spritual explanations of these phenomena as this article would appear to suggest. Over the past two years (it is quite some time since I wrote it) I have moved more towards the views put forward by John Lilly and Stan Grof. Namely, that drugs and psychological disciplines such as meditation and yoga may render certain 'states' more accessible. The complication then becomes in defining just what we mean by 'states' and where they are located, if indeed location is an appropriate term at all. But the apparent emphasis on matter over mind contained within this particular article no longer accurately represents my attitudes. My forthcoming book 'Ketamine' will consider mystical issues from quite a different perspective, and will give a much stronger voice to those who see drugs as just another door to a space, and not as actually producing that space'.
Random Religionist says NDE != Heaven (Score:2, Informative)