Heaven Is for Real You Say?
SO…Heaven Is For Real you Say?
One of the most challenging discussions to engage in in
religious culture is the "Heaven" discussion. Does Scripture not
teach of a literal celestial abode or an immortal soul that goes there upon
death (or in this case near death)? While Christendom, as well as culture at
large, hold to the view that many people, including children, have had visions
of such an afterlife environment, it is possible that the visions are not from
the source they often attempt to attribute them to. Although it is the case that the visions
being had by those experiencing near-death and out of body experiences are
truly occurring, shall we accept the view of religion on where these visions
originate? Can a person have a vision
that feels divine in its origin yet that vision be simply a construct of the
human subconscious during an anomalistic brain event? It seems so.
One serious
consideration on the question of heaven, the immortal soul, and the whereabouts
of a person’s consciousness after death must be considered. It can be seen that
many of the ideas about the afterlife presented by religion are ideas that are
imposed on Scripture. Plainly stated, when a group of believers maintains a
belief that originates in ancient pagan religions, they will then force that
belief to fit Scripture. One should rather determine first what the Scripture
says about Heaven, the soul, and the afterlife, then align their beliefs with
what the Bible actually says.
Laboratory Imparted Divine-Like Visions.
Among the evidence that speaks contrary to the idea that NDE’s
and OBE’s are truly divinely imparted visions meant to give hope and a message
of Heaven to all who encounter and hear of them, is the fact of Laboratory
testing of air force personnel. G-force testing scenarios have revealed that
the brain can be induced to experience the same visions that are said to occur
in many near death experiences. Further evidence contrary to the divine vision
ideal is found in examination into these types of experiences in other cultures.
Exploration has revealed variances that can only be attributed to cultural
diversity and the varied elements that are found in another culture. That is to
say, a person in a dramatically different culture experiencing an NDE will
visualize elements that are distinct to his or her culture. Thus indicating the
information released from the subconscious upon nearly dying, is stimulus that
is encountered in one’s environment and not a divine impartation.
Bringing up the Past is the Job of the Subconscious Sometimes.
There is a cogent opposing view to the religious claim that
states people see heaven, Jesus, loved ones, and even God during these
incidents. And it is hastily dismissed by the ardent believer in the popular
afterlife view. Why is that view dismissed? Because it is not exhaustive to
answer every claim that arises from a near death vision of heaven. That may be
so but there are other factors that might explain or dismantle the remainder of
contentions put forth by those who advocate the visions that occur near death
affirm the reality of Heaven. Very briefly, one may get closer to exhaustively answering
the stated claims if one sees the compounding effect on the brain when it is near
death. The brain experiences a neuro-chemical response that not only affects
the tempo-parietal junction but also liberates stimulus and information that is
otherwise locked away in the subconscious. Information that one would not know
they possess and that others would state with incredulity, “How could he know
that?” is often put forward. Full examinations and explanations of these
biological anomalies will not be covered here. However, if we consider the case
of a child who has had his near death "experience", it is wise to
suspect a source other than divine impartation for this young religiously
influenced child’s vision. The source of the vision may be suspect and there may
be other possible explanations for what was "seen". And there is no
telling the power of implanted memories that may be in play here due to the influence
of the upbringing and the influence of the interviewer. It has long been
understood that he or she who probes the child to speak on about “what he saw”
must work intentionally not to “lead” the child in their responses. It is a
mistake to ignore the great weight of this leading influence and that the
primary voice of this child after the incident was the father who was an
invested party, a Pastor. The near death vision was an experience interpreted
and retold through the grid of a father with an entrenched religious teaching
that Heaven is real. In such an exchange between a father who wants Heaven to
be real and child who wants to please his father, the flow of affirming words
and terms that pass from father to son, will in all likelihood play a
significant role in what the boy speaks about. And the significance of this
interaction cannot be overstate in the case when the father is a Pastor with an
obvious confirmation bias. He wants heaven to be real and be able to share this
with all who will listen. Not unlike most pastors, this Pastor will always be
looking for a way to share a belief affirming tale with any who will listen.
Children often speak things that are supposedly credited to
their free thinking or perhaps to a phenomenon of some nature but the
statements are in actuality developed in response to leading questions or past unconscious
influences of the parents. The implantation of memories is far and away a key
contributor to grand or dramatic oracles that come from children. Implanted Memories
has been studied extensively; people have the wiring to “remember” part or all
of events and experiences that never happened to them. ie
“In the first "case" study on implanted memories, Loftus and
colleagues convinced several people that they had been lost in a shopping mall
as children (Loftus, Coan, & Pickrell, 1996). In a follow-up study, Loftus
and Pickrell (1995) suggested to 24 adults that they had been lost and rescued
at age 5. One fourth of them came to recall aspects of the false event. In a
study by Hyman, Husband, and Billings (1995), participants were presented with
brief descriptions of events described by their parents plus two false events
contrived by experimenters. In the first experiment, 20% of participants came
to remember information about the false event over two interviews. In a second
study, with an additional interview, 25% of participants incorporated false
information into their memories.”
Oh to be a Savant...
In the case of one simple component of this child's
"vision" the parents claim that he did not know of the sister who
died inside the mother’s tummy. This assertion fails to be meritorious when one
considers the function of the subconscious. The child may have not been
specifically and directly told of his sister but indeed his subconscious would
have contained every word from every conversation that may have been overheard
in his short life. Parents are notorious for talking with each other about
difficult or complex subject matter when they believe their child is either not
in earshot or is not able to understand. A child who grows up in a religious
environment will subconsciously extract a very significant quantity of
information on the beliefs of the family. A child does not need to be
specifically and directly “told” of an event in order to articulate it in the
future. A great many children remember things that they have never been told.
This is not a sign of divine impartation it is simply a sign that family life
involves kids picking up on event and things that have been discussed at some
point when it was thought they were not able to hear the discussion. It is a
testimony to the power of the subconscious to hear and retain information, then
to liberate that information into the conscious realm during a significant
brain event. The presence of savants in society is no longer thought to be the
presence of one who is “touched”. It is clear that the brain of this unique individual
is doing atypical things and liberating and accessing information that the typical
brain is incapable of doing. With savantish post-near-death behaviors in view
here and considering implanted memories, this child would not consciously be able
to state he knows all about many of the religious things that showed up in his
vision, but the child did "know" everything subconsciously. The conscious
area of thought then welcomed and interpreted the information drawn from the subconscious
after a significant brain event took place. Traces of conversations about his
sister, Heaven, hell, past relatives….it is all in there. The fact that this
information comes forward during an unconscious state during surgery, does not
indicate that it was divinely imparted or inspired. Is it an amazing
phenomenon? Yes! But is it a vision from God or is it more likely the enigmatic
behavior of a fecund mind altered by atypical brain activity that occurred near
death?
Only the Good stay Young?
I cannot go on without addressing the oddity that occurred when
the boy in “Heaven is For Real” is asked about a picture of a long dead great-grandfather.
He soon states that “everyone is young again in Heaven.” Of course this is an
easy assertion to accept by any adult. Who of us does not wish we could become young
again? However, the validity of this statement must be ascertained through the
Biblical model of heaven. If all of what Christendom says about Heaven is true,
then why is the idea of all inhabitants of Paradise being “young” not found in
Scripture? A representation of the state of “heaven” is given in Isaiah. And
there we see that not all are “young” for if this child’s vision imagery is to
be taken literally as has been the case in large part, then the literality of
one being “young” means they are not advanced in age. To suggest his statement here
is simply a metaphor for the idea that everyone looks “young” but may be many
years old, just raises a glaring inconsistency in the act of taking his words
at face value in other areas as his ghost writer father has done. Here is a
brief thought from Isaiah that shows “old men” are present in the paradisiacal
environment;
Isa 65:20 There shall be no more thence an
infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days: for the child
shall die an hundred years old;
In Biblical language and context, Heaven is a place where
the Creator alone inhabits and Christ alone has ascended to. We find no case
for a literal afterlife paradise environment for spirit or soul beings. A cursory
exploration and search into the origin of the Immortal Soul doctrine will yield
very comforting explanations of why near death experiences cannot offer true
and literal explanations of a conscious afterlife and a Heaven environment. Biblical
understanding fails to support the common Christian teaching that there is an immortal
soul that leaves the body in order to abide on high, any more than it supports
the impossibility for that soul element to leave the body and return to it in a
near death instance. Great assertions are made regarding this unique
experience. And although it is very real to the percipient, the tempo-parietal
junction in the brain is the culpable party here.
When the Brain Begins to Die
This tempo-parietal junction area has been shown to exhibit
a loss of connecting the human body to space and time when oxygen depletion
takes place, such as is the state of the brain in an NDE. The innate characteristic
of the brain to fill in blanks, implant its own memory and stories is indeed
one of the more difficult to comprehend aspects of this brain activity.
However, even though we find an innocent child testifying to his vision, it is
no less the case that he did perhaps see much of what he told his Dad about but
it was information that was released to his conscious mind during the NDE
event. The many blanks were filled in by the now active consciousness of the
boy.
There is a difficulty we might encounter by teaching our
children the mythical concept of a Heavenly environment in an ethereal place
that a person’s consciousness ascends to upon death. That is that we fail to
cement our children into reality. It is in my opinion acceptable to use fantasy
and fabrication in a harmless manner to offer comfort to children, however, the
concepts one imparts to a child must be
properly and factually redistributed and allowed to evaporate as the a child
becomes able to accept reality. Otherwise, the journey one takes in life is
always distorted by fantasy to some degree. And is it not a fact that the biblical
thinker is to be inclined towards truth? The benefits of really knowing what
the Bible says about Heaven, Hell, death, the afterlife, and the Creator’s plan
for those who pass from this life, are unrealized by the one who never advances
his or her thinking. And those reality based ideas the testify to the wisdom
and accuracy of Scripture to explain what
a human’s ultimate resting place and fate is, can then be anchors. When anchored
in reality and truth we allow a rational thinker to find sense and reason in
the faith or Biblical document he or she values so highly. And reason becomes
not only a comfort for the hopeful, but it becomes a panacea for so much
distorted thinking that engenders a spiralling evolution of dizzying thought. Convoluted
thought is the cause for all manner of doctrine and teaching that grasps at mystic
ideas to explain what is difficult to explain and then creatively applies “answers”
to theological concepts. Concepts that have long ago been made to be illogical
by seekers who were uncomfortable with the loss of life and with the impotent
answers offered by their contemporaries.
So as far as “Heaven is For Real”, shall accept the testimony
of one child here or shall we take all the visions of all the children from all
over the world and others who have had NDE’s, tabulate every element of their
vision, every concept that seemed apparent in their visions, compose a master
list of entirely every detail, and then define Heaven and the afterlife based
on those data? Would that not be fair even though our data would be rife with
many incongruencies? Or shall we adopt the brilliantly presented testimony of a
compelling Pastor’s young son because it affirms so many of the ideas and
beliefs Christendom has imparted to minds young and old for centuries?
Perhaps we could question our fascination with Heaven and the
afterlife and explore some of the origins of these ideas as we learn there is very
probably a more accurate Biblical concept that contends for doing neither of
the aforementioned?
If you are free enough to begin exploring this from the
historical, cultural, social, and linguistic context that is found in the
Bible, consider listening to the 2 part radio series, Where Do the Dead Go? You
can find that here; http://www.blogtalkradio.com/jrbrayshaw/2009/09/18/where-do-the-dead-go-part-2-on-the-imagine-theres-no-satan-show
As well, The Imagine
No Satan web site offers some FREE material that covers where the dead go. You
can find that here;
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