I've read a few reports about life after death, and only a tiny fraction of people who have died and been revived say they've experienced it. The rest of the people who were revived didn't recall anything at all.

Since I was very young, I've been terrified of becoming oblivious after I die. I believe in God, but am not convinced that there is life after death.

Why do only a small fraction of people experience the so-called afterlife? What about the other people who were revived? I'm quite convinced that the soul is nothing more than the brain.

Is the afterlife like a dark muddled dream that you don't remember?

Hello credulous_skeptic:

I've had numerous experiences that let me know that the afterlife exists, and they have occurred in a manner where it is pretty hard to doubt them. It sure makes life more enjoyable when you know that you have a wonderful and infinite future ahead of you.

Of course you don't know me, therefore, there isn't a basis for your taking my word for it.  What's going to convince us the most is our own experience. People don't open up to experiencing the afterlife for various reasons. Sometimes because it isn't their life path to do so. Sometimes, because they are afraid to do so, even if they aren't real conscious of their fear.

If a person opens up to experiencing the spirit World, I suggest that he or she be in a good state of mind before he or she does so.  He or she should try to live according to love. I don't believe it makes sense for a person with a lot of anger, hate and/or fear to try to make contact with the spirit World. Perhaps on a level they aren't aware of they do.

When you read something such as a near death experience, ask yourself if this is something a person's mind, based on his or her previous experience, could create.

Have you read that there are people who have been blind all their life, yet when they have a near death experience they can see? Below is a google search.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22near+death+experience%22+%22blind%22

I've read that millions of people have had NDEs. Many keep mum.

No offense meant,
Dear credulous skeptic,

but your name hurts my brain!   
It's neither here nor there, so I can't find a place to mentally file it !

I look forward to reading more of your posts so I can see what side of what fences you are on !

Betson

Credulous,

Ah, that is the question!  Most find the question so threatening that they answer with reassuring New Age or religious doctrine with little or no verification.  Many on this site would claim to have retrieved souls from lower spirit planes, but they cannot back this up with the expected verifications--names of friends and relatives, addresses, and date of death of the deceased.  I performed a powerful astral retrieval of a girlfriend who committed suicide.  Later, I replicated this intense state of consciousness in lucid dreams in which I could recognize that I was dreaming in the dream. Honesty requires me to dismiss my retrieval as a mere lucid dream of a retrieval during a fake OBE state.  I am not convinced that waking OBEs are any more reliable, but I will continue to seek evidence both in books and my own use of Robert Monroe's Gateway tapes.  So far I am very disappointed.  

Early Christianity taught that God's love never permanently abandons anyone after death and that, by implication, Hell is a self-chosen state.  By implication, rescue from Hell is posasible then and is indeed taught by the New Testament.  I choose to believe this, but I long for better evidence than this site and modern astral exploration has been able to provide.

When Dr. Rawlings is challenged about the large percentage of hellish NDEs, he replies reasonably enough that, as a cardiologist, he is on the scene during his patients' NDEs and the later suppression of this memory.  You wouldn't expect hellish NDEs to be cheerily reported by patients to doctors and researchers, now would you?  Sigh! I try to take some comfort in the fact that another cardiologist, Micharl Sabom has not been able to replicate Rawlings's high percentage.  But even so, I feel like I am whistling past the graveyard!

Don

I checked out Dr. Rawling's site. He spoke about people experiencing a hell that is filled with fire.  I don't believe that souls are thrown into a fire filled hell as a form of punishment.  Perhaps some people believe in such a hell so strongly that after their body dies, they create such a hell.

A while back I had this retrievel experience. While I lay in bed awake I heard a voice say: "Get ready to see someting horrible." I said: "Okay."  A little while later I saw a lady with an expression of great angst on her face. I figured she needed retrievel help.  Next I saw a door open, and this lady was inside of a room that was burning. She was screaming like crazy.  I spoke to her and helped her out.  At the time I thought this might be what she figured hell would be like, since doorways are sometimes shown to me as entrances from one realm to another realm.  But right as I was writing this it occurred to me that perhaps she burned to death and got stuck in that experience for a while.  

I figure that if we can create an imaginary burning room and experience it as a reality, then perhaps we can create a firey hell and experience it as a reality.

If a person decides to believe what Dr. Rawlings reports, and if he (or she) feels guilty about something he did during his life, he might end up creating his own firey inferno after he dies. Therefore, unless a person wants other people to create imaginary firey infernos at the time of their death, they might want to be careful about what they share with other people.