A Moment in Hell

Question from Mirek:
There seems to be many hellish NDEs with the same imagery:

A person sees absolute darkness, hears people suffering, feels sadness, coldness, emptiness, then calls out to God or Jesus, and a white light, or God’s hand appears and takes them out.

Here is an example from George Foreman:

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/rich-and-famous.html#a23

Another example is a pastor who was electrocuted when he was an atheist, and saw the same thing, called out to God, was pulled out.

Do these similarities give hell more credence?

Answer by SmartLX:
Not really. The main reason is that multiple genuine NDEs aren’t the only explanation for the similarity regarded by many as plausible. There are two other major factors likely to contribute.

One, the standard NDE story is by now traditional and very well-known. If someone who’s at least familiar with it has an ordinary dream or hallucination during a life-threatening situation, it is likely to follow the same pattern as it’s what the victim expects on some level. If there is no memory or a fragmented memory of the period, the existence of this very specific expectation for the experience can shape a memory over time until it fits very well. And if someone just makes up an NDE story, they will deliberately follow the pattern to match the expectation of their audience.

Two, people going through the physical and mental states associated with near or temporary “death” are likely to have similar physiological reasons to experience certain things, even if they’re not fully understood. The white light in the distance, for instance, is consistent with temporary tunnel vision caused by lack of blood or oxygen to the eyes, growing brighter when the supply returns. Scientific American went into this six years ago.

I can take another approach to your question. Supposed visits to Hell, or samples of what you feel in Hell (coldness, emptiness, etc.) are potent emotional appeals but they don’t make much sense in most Christian theologies. God isn’t supposed to literally pull souls out of Hell, and certainly not after only a few moments. Your judgement happens, then either you stay in Hell forever or you never even see it. If on the other hand God is only showing you a vision of Hell instead of actually dangling you in there, He could supposedly do that at any time, not just when you’re at death’s door.

2 thoughts on “A Moment in Hell”

  1. Why is ‘god’ male, but not female, or it?
    ‘It’ is supposed to have created the world, while it is common knowledge that this is the prerogative of females, or, at least, all well educated people know this, that all embryos are female in the beginning of pregnancy in females, not males and that’s why men have tits.
    Females kinda create living organisms, animals, that is, not males!
    Males only help with their genetic pools. Females supply their genetic pools, too, and all the rest. THE WOMB IS IN FEMALES, NOT MALES. AND, LATER, THE NURSING BY THEIR OWN MILK.
    If anybody, then ‘god’ is a female, but even more so, of neuter gender. SURELY NOT MALE.
    So, why, why, why ?!
    P.S. I know why, but I wander how one can apologize this particular NONSENSE of religion.

  2. We’ve certainly seen a lot of NDE questions at this website lately.

    For anyone that thinks the volume of claims somehow equates to validity of those claims, please do me a small favor.

    Every time you want to think that NDE claims are valid because there are many of them, substitute “NDE” with “UFO”, or “Bigfoot”, or “leprechaun”, and see if you buy that argument. Maybe then you will realize that lots of claims about something that has no evidence backing it up does make those claims realistic or true…

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