Dabears:

I visisted the site for a bit, and I can see why you like it. It doesn't care much for Christ. It suggests that Howard Storm's meeting with Christ isn't valid, because other near death experiencers didn't experience Christ.

It is completely illogical to deny the meetings with Christ many near death experiencers have had, simply because some near death experiencers didn't experience him. Doing so is like saying people didn't have near death experiences without Christ,  because other people had experiences with him.

It is also completely illogical to deny the validity of those who experienced Christ, by suggesting that they only experienced according to their preconceived belief system. Some people have experienced Christ without a prejudicial basis. The truth of who he is became known to me years ago during a night in heaven experience, even though at the time I completely doubted and denied the existence of him, God and the afterlife. This was an understanding that was deeper than belief based thought structures. Plus, over 40% of Islamic people who switch to Christianity do so, because they have an experience of Christ. How come it doesn't work the other way?

If you read some of the near death experiences of people who have experienced Christ, there is no doubt that they experienced him.  If you want verifications from sources of information that could be considered new age, consider the books of TMI visitors such as Rosalind Mcknight and Paul Elder, and Emanuel Swedenborg.

If you consider the Gospel According to John, Christ is the part of God that created everything including you and me. This principle incarnated as Jesus Christ. If this way of thinking seems odd to you, do you think it is odd when Bruce Moen speaks of the planning intelligence? The planning intelligence told Bruce that it is the creator of several universes, and our existence is due to its "lent" awareness. Perhaps when people speak against Christ, they speak against that which makes existence possible. If it is through Christ we came to be, of course it is through Christ we return to God. It isn't a matter of personal preference. What is true is true.

Perhaps some people don't experience Christ during NDE and other experiences, because it is understood that some people are completely closed to the principle of Christ. Therefore, out of compassion, another way of viewing things is presented. As long as a person lives according to love, despite what they believe, which is what Howard Storm suggests, he or she will return to his or her divine source through Christ. What are you going to do if you get to the glory of heaven one day and find that Christ is a key part of it? Are you going to say: "No, thanks, not for me," or are you going to allow the glory of where you find yourself to allow you to change your mind? Many people have found that this glory does include Christ in a major way. What they have found doesn't get negated by those who haven't found the same.

Albert,

I am touched at your personal encounters with Jesus and heaven, and I respect that.  You have taken up the mantle of Don's views after his display of anti-PUL yesterday caused yet another in a series of self-imposed banishments from this forum.

I would as you the same question you pose to others, but in the converse. You ask:

I would ask you, if you find that on crossing over that the principle of God and Heaven is PUL, and that the personal identification of Jesus is but one way to God, but not the only way, what will you say?

I am going to start another NDE thread as soon as I have time to set the record straight about the effect of culture and expectation on those encountered in NDEs.  I have alluded to this before.  Howard Storm, and George Ritchie published moving, eloquent NDEs in the Western world of their encounters with Jesus and heaven.  Due to the dissemination of information in the modern world, and on this board, one gets the impression that the vast majority of NDEs encounter JC, or at least a disproportionate number of people do.  However, after analyzing the data over many months, I have found the number of cases to be well proportioned to the culture, religious exposure and expectation of the experiencers.

Storm and Ritchie's cases were but two; the Bardo Thodol is an ancient text of the afterlife experience affirmed by the experiences of countless buddhists through meditation and their own NDEs, which were not documented, but acknowledged in their verbal tradition.  If one looks at the millions who have practised buddhism and had NDEs and confirmed experiences in the Bardo Thodol (Tibetan Book of the Dead), the numbers are staggering, and would dwarf any Western accounts of NDEs.  There are beings of light (thought to be Buddhas) to be found, and many descriptions that sound exactly like Western NDEs, eventhough this text is many centuries old.  Notably, JC is absent in the meetings for these people (though we can not say if another light being is being named for the same experience of PUL).

I have said before on this site that given the stated number of Muslims (2 billion) who acknowledge the teachings of Christ in the Koran, and a similar number of Christians (estimated at 2.1 billion in 2001) out of perhaps 6 billion people on the planet, one could reasonably expect the being of light and love universally felt in many NDEs to be associated with JC in at least 4.1 out of 6 billion people from religious teachings and exposure alone.  Given the prevalence, it would not at all be surprising to find an example of a Jew or a Muslim who had an unexpected encounter with JC.  

What one can not say, in NDEs is that a large number of Asian people or people in other cultures (my Thai examples on the other thread) do not experience Christ because they have either never heard of him or have closed their hearts.  This is patently unfair, and not supported by the NDE evidence.

I bring up all of this to add perspective to selective text citing on this forum.  Without looking into the Bardo Thodol, its origins, its affirmations, and the frequency in which NDEs correspond to it in Asian and Tibetan culture, one is apt to make incorrect assumptions based on a handful of descriptive and well published texts of NDEs in the West.  

My point is not to decide the issue of Christ's divinity, but to weigh the evidence from the world over, and acknowledge NDEs both beautiful and terrifying in large numbers in other cultures that do not involve Jesus but do gel with the collective experience of the geographical culture.

Deep inside me, I have come to believe in the love of Heaven.  I am still striving for it, and I believe Swedenberg's dictum of trying to live life showing a love of God and a love of one's fellow man is a great roadmap for us all.

I would urge all on this board to keep an open mind about the beliefs of others, and not be upset if certain posts may or may not acknowledge what one believes to be true.  True realization of the love of Heaven does not require my making my fellow human being on this forum acknowledge my experiences or my beliefs over their own.

Matthew

I speak up for Christ all the time myself on this forum when I feel that someone is disparaging his teachings or christianity as a religion.  What I find however, is that some chrsitians take the NDEs with Jesus appearing to support the "I am the light and the way" passage, in an exclusionary sense.

In one thread on NDEs, Augo quoted passages from Corinthians or another book in which she stated that Jews read the old testament with a veil over their eyes, implying that only by a belief in Christ could the veil be lifted.  No matter what one's personal faith is, there is no room for that on a public forum.  Matters like that are best noted on a christianity forum (in my humble opinion), where they can not offend otherwise loving and caring Jewish people who, for various reasons may aspire toward love and God without JC. 

So I believe in standing up for Christianity and JC when they are slighted in any way or disparaged, but not in affirming the truth of one religion over another in this public forum.

I also believe that the selective references often listed here with respect to NDEs in particular give a very skewed version of what human beings experience.


Matthew

Cricket:

The main reasons I've spoken of Christ on this forum are 1) to offer non fundamentalist perspectives when people start threads with the intent of slamming him; 2) to point out some very good reasons why Seth is a false source of information; and 3) to let people know that Christ can help you spiritually if you're open to his help. This is hardly the same thing as telling somebody they are going to go to hell if they don't become a Christian.

The reason I responded to this thread is because it seems as if the site owner of www.nde-paradigm.com has an axe to grind when it comes to Christ, and he seeks to get others to believe the same way as he believes. Dabears promoted his site, and I provided a rebuttal. If a person were to read Howard Storm's book, he or she would see that the owner of www.nde-paradigm.com is off base when it comes to what Howard Storm is about.

Recoverer...I have no problem with *you*...you aren't knocking on my door at some ungodly hour, or pushing blue laws in my neighborhood, or any of that sort of thing.  I just wanted to give a perspective on why some of us have a knee-jerk over-reaction (and it sometimes is that...long habit) to *any* mention of Christ in a way that  sets him above other dieties (not "that claim his divinity" - no problem with that, it's the "competitive divinity" thing that bothers).

Christ has no relevance in my life, as, say, Zeus probably has none in yours.  I don't have a problem with him, however...as someone said, "The man with the fish had some good ideas".  I just object to being forcibly made to deal with him.  In here I can just ignore, so I mostly only answer questions as to why some of us react badly when we can't ignore it, and interpolate those to folks who *won't* ignore...

Also it's an absolutely glorious day to look at out my computer room window, but still nippy, so I'm putting off feeding the horses for half an hour or so...

recoverer wrote on May 2^nd, 2007 at 12:33pm:

Yeah, but his main thesis is basically Christians and people that believe in God will make it to heaven.. When we know that can't be true, otherwise our God has an ego the size of a mountain! Because there are many loving Atheists out there and to deny them heaven by not believing in God, is ridiculous! I don't get what type of free will that is to say well you'll go to hell if you don't do my wills.. That's why I don't believe in hell.. Yes, I believe people can choose hell in afterlife, by believing they are not worth it(divine) or just don't have any remorse for what they have done.. But God will always be there to bring any person to the light! Read Mellen Thomas Benedictine's near death experience and you will believe in the true Loving God we have!! Not some human deity who is wrathful!!


peace

peace