Breaking Down NDEs by Cause

Question from Marcus:
Does this disprove the hypoxia theory for NDEs?
http://skeptiko.com/critique-of-skeptics-guide-249/

Answer by SmartLX:
A quick search on this topic makes it apparent we’ve wandered into a battlefield. The hypoxia hypothesis has been viciously attacked elsewhere as well, always with the express purpose of legitimising claims of near death experiences.

The core issue is that the link has four separate lists of the effects of hypoxia (lack of oxygen), and “hallucinations” isn’t in any of them. This contradicts (for example) the common trope of mountain climbers hallucinating at high altitudes, which has been properly researched but remains largely an anecdotal claim. More widely accepted is that hallucinations, especially auditory, can be an after-effect of brain damage as a result of hypoxia, so potentially it could trigger as soon as the life-threatening event has caused enough damage.

So no, hypoxia is not eliminated as a cause of the kind of hallucinations that can be mistaken for NDEs, but it’s only one of many possible causes anyway. The link attempts to cover some of these but not with nearly as much rigor; one point is dismissed solely on the basis of Occam’s Razor for instance. The other major problem is that it considers each potential cause individually, taking as counter-examples instances of patients only experiencing one (e.g. hypoxia or a seizure). People near death are often experiencing several of these at once: reduced oxygen, harmful CO2 levels, minor seizures or similar convulsions, powerful drugs administered by medical staff, high levels of various hormones and all kinds of issues with blood flow. The consistent cause of the “classic” NDE may lie in a combination.

6 thoughts on “Breaking Down NDEs by Cause”

  1. Man you are going all out trying to disprove what to you seems to be the last thing for you to fear that may link to there being God. You all do realize that there are many more miraculous events that have nothing to do with NDE’s. And although some are involving more than one person and could be swept aside as a “mass hysteria” type of situation, there have been many individuals who have had the same type of miraculous experience only at different times. And they all testify the same thing. They have had an encounter with their Savior Jesus Christ. Some of these individuals used to be Atheists who changed their opinions about there not being God and they now believe in Him who is the Desire of Ages. So there is a lot more to consider than just NDE’s

    1. Gerald writes: [You all do realize that there are many more miraculous events that have nothing to do with NDE’s.]

      No, we don’t. We know there are claims of miraculous events. Is there evidence that these events are miracles? Evidence that a god being involved itself it human lives and made things happen? No, there isn’t, and we already know you don’t have any evidence like that because you’ve asked for it one hundred times already. So once again we can write off your statements as baseless speculation.

      [And although some are involving more than one person and could be swept aside as a “mass hysteria” type of situation, there have been many individuals who have had the same type of miraculous experience only at different times. And they all testify the same thing.]

      That UFOs are real? Or are we talking about some other unproven claim that people say happened….I can’t keep track of which factless speculation is the topic du jour…

      [Some of these individuals used to be Atheists who changed their opinions about there not being God and they now believe in Him who is the Desire of Ages.]

      Don’t anyone ask Gerald for a list of these people he claims fall into this category, because he doesn’t have one. He just likes making unsubstantiated claims over and over instead. It takes less work and he still fulfills his required allotment of false witnesses for the day in the name of his god creature.

      [ So there is a lot more to consider than just NDE’s]

      And a lot more to dismiss just as easily because there is no data or evidence for those claims, either.

  2. No, I don’t have a list. But there are people in the churches that if you so desired you could ask them for yourselves. At least I don’t have a long list.
    Jordan Monge from Harvard; David Asscherick now a Seventh Day Adventist pastor; Philip Vander Elst Harvard; Simon Greenleaf was a chief founder of Harvard Law School; Antony Flew (1923-2010) was the world’s most famous atheist. Long before Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris began taking swipes at religion, Flew was the preeminent spokesman for unbelief; CS Lewis, once an atheist who in his own words was “angry with God for not existing,”; Kirsten Powers, a political news analyst, wrote about her conversion from atheism to Christianity after discovering the overwhelming body of evidence for biblical truth; Lee Strobel investigative writer; Philip Vander Elst freelance writer and lecturer; Dr Russell Humphreys professor of physics; Carl Wieland who graduated from Adelaide University in South Australia;
    There are more. And all you need to do is go visit a church close to you and ask.

    1. Anecdotal experiences are like oral contracts, “They are not worth the paper they are written on.” Even if they are true, they are not prof of any god. If individual beliefs were proof, there are millions of theists already. Does that mean they can all be wrong? Yes, it does. At one time, most people believed the earth was flat despite readily available evidence that it was not. For example, one can see the curvature of the earth from any elevated spot near the seashore. Also, when a ship is sailing away from the shore, the first part to disappear is the hull. The masts and sails are the last to vanish. When returning from over the horizon, the opposite is true. This can only happen on a sphere, not a flat earth. Eratosthenes calculated the size of the earth in 240 BC. https://www.windows2universe.org/?page=/citizen_science/myw/w2u_eratosthenes_calc_earth_size.html He could only do this because he had already determined the earth was a sphere. A flat earth could theoretically extend into infinity.

      So your NDEs are illogical, unproven BS.

  3. I’m only giving what you have been prodding for me to supply. And you got it. Does their testimonies on there own prove God. No, they aren’t meant to do so. God needs no proof. He is God. The fact is as it is. What I am doing is disproving the theories that have been thrown out that try to pick away as peoples faith in believing in God. None of the theories hold water, even though there are so many who gullibly give ear to those who propose the unsubstantiated theories that have never been even slightly duplicated in a laboratory.

Comments are closed.