Thursday, November 18, 2010

Boy visits heaven. He'll tell you it's real...and an example of my skepticism



Sometimes friends send videos on Youtube. Sometimes you get so irritated that the video was of an interview that happened on Fox News, that you have to cease you're paper at once and make a comment about it.

Here's the video...and in short, it's  a boy who had an out of body experience who visited his dead grandpa in heaven and saw God (who was really big) and saw Jesus as well (who had blue eyes and his smile lit up the heavens)...



First off, this isn't news (note: I hate Fox News and CNN equally).

My friend asked me for my thoughts on the video.

Here is my reply:

Possible. I'm skeptical. But I will say there is some solid cognitive explanation for what's going on. Here is a 15 minute excellent podcast discussing the topic of "out of body experiences" scientifically (but far from boring).









In short in the experience of the boy, I am not sure he visited heaven. It's possible that what is going on in his brain that I think is going on is a very "real" experience in that just because I understand how an out of body experience happens in the brain does not mean the experience is false. But in short, for an out of body experience, the brain is shutting down and collapsing and falling apart and loosing connection to the rest of the body left and right...and the brain doesn't know how to make sense of it...the body parts are unable to send signals back and fourth to the brain (Ground Control to Major Tom, can you hear me? (silence)).....


In this chaos and confusion the brain recognizing these differences and looking for any plausible explanation of what's going on and thus...heaven (for an already Christian family) must be the explanation. Images, composed, etc...Essentially "going to heaven moments" on the brink of death are just a coping mechanism in the head for to fill in the gaps of confusion that are caused by the body shutting down (thus when you hear your're whole life: :"When you die, you go to heaven." Your brain can never fully accept death. So it tries to simulate what it's been told it's whole life will happen upon death. And with science today, people can be recovered and restored in spite of the death the brain is preparing itself for and thus the brain sees this as a descending back to earth from the heaven it was preparing itself for (tunnel of light, hearing God's voice, etc...)


There are many similar reports from people who don't even believe in God, or during less traumatic times (this "experience" happens to pilots all the time where they have so many G's against them that their brain is disillusioned and next thing the pilots know is that they are watching themselves fly the plane from outside the plane "Out of Body Experience" and at this point everything is just delusional and your brain is trying to organize itself and tell itself a story that it simply cannot keep up with...This comes out best in the podcast link above)


I don't like being a skeptic. And this doesn't hurt my faith one bit. 

Biggest evidence for me: Jesus had blue eyes according to the boy. (what his image and perception of Jesus was before the experience and God "having the whole world in his hands" and thus being very big).

4 comments:

Mouse Roberts said...

That was a really informative post. I'm currently studying philosophy, more specifically philosophy of mind, and I found this post brilliant to refer to when making analogies.

michaelesso said...

Did what took place, word or deed, give honor to God or the person?
If to God Then it is from God. If to the person then it is from the person.

Michael A. Lesso

Anonymous said...

Not sure if you really listened carefully to the interview? things happened in other rooms the boy wouldnt have known about and he met his great grandfather in heaven that he never knew and a sister that was miscarried. Things impossible for him to cognitively/coping mechanism whatever get any of that?
Just wondering how you explain that with science?
God is a spirit and you connect with your spirit- not your brain, thats why many people have trouble trying to figure it all out. If you are skeptical there will always be a way out of faith, I think it is meant to be that way.
"Without faith it is impossible to please God" Heb 11:6

Anonymous said...

I would explain it by suggesting that he was "coached". His father is a pastor, this kid has obviously been sleeping, eating, and living "all things religious" his whole life. He said that there were no old people in heaven, yet his mother's miscarried child somehow aged...By the way, kids hear everything and he probably heard his parents discussing this loss at some point. That being said, I still don't buy it. I think his parents put the ideas/imagry into his head. He did like 15 different interviews this morning and said the exact same things in every interview. No elaboration-just basically painted the picture of heaven that everyone would want..."lots of colors, lots of people, no one old, loved ones lost, lots of animals, everyone has wings..." is that so?