Cornering the Market, Continued: The NDE Niche

Question from Kamil:
After emailing back and forth with a near death experience expert, I got a figure that from the NDEs he collects, about 13% of NDEs that people have include seeing Jesus. There are not too many Islamic NDEs, but there is yet to be one where a person encounters Muhammad. There are a few Hindu NDEs which differ from Christian ones, but again, almost no mention of Krishna. Would you say 13% of NDEs seeing Jesus would give Jesus more of a chance of being real than the other deities? I have heard that Islamic people may be quiet on encounters with Muhammad as it may be seen as taboo to mention a Muhammad encounter. however, I have seen testimonies of people dreaming about Muhammad and mentioning it, so I’m not quite sure how “taboo” it would be. My question is, if there was never a single NDE of Muhammad but NDEs with Jesus, does this mean Christianity has a better chance of being true? Also, I have seen forums on this topic, and no one can seem to figure out why Muhammad never shows up in NDEs. I do know that Christians on the web will proudly point this out and say “We see Jesus, others don’t see their deities, so we are correct!”. I would like to know an atheistic standpoint on this.

Answer by SmartLX:
I concur on two points. All the research done so far has failed to come up with a statistically significant amount of NDE claims involving Muhammad, and as shown here some Christians do point out Jesus’ supposed monopoly on NDE appearances as support for the reality of his divinity.

Firstly, at 13% of all NDE claims it’s not much of a monopoly. Jesus is not a part of the vast majority of NDE claims even by Christians. Even if it’s really Jesus, he’s not making good use of his omnipresence. But more importantly, when all appearances by Jesus in all claims made so far aren’t enough to convince non-believers due to the lack of good evidence any given claim provides, it means little to point out that other religions do not have the same claims. “Oh, your rivals don’t have this same support that isn’t any kind of support anyway? Well whoop-de-do.”

A more likely reason for the discrepancy than the occasional genuine presence of Jesus, expanding on what I wrote here and here, is that this form of NDE is an almost exclusively Christian cultural meme at this point in time. People are aware of prior claims, so if they have an experience that gives them even a fuzzy feeling of a divine presence (often attributable to medical effects) they will subconsciously shape the memory to fit the expectation. And of course if they’re making it up entirely they will custom-tool it to the memetic specifications.

Now if a recognisable Jesus appeared to someone who had never heard of Jesus, that would be something. But it would also be nearly impossible to prove after the fact, as I’m sure we’ll explore if anyone has a claim like that to share.

6 thoughts on “Cornering the Market, Continued: The NDE Niche”

  1. Oh, for ‘god’s’ sake, how can ANYTHING be in favor of ‘god’s’ existence, and, why don’t you ask theoretic PHYSICISTS about the possibility of Jesus’ existence, just because some other suckers say they saw and/or spoke with him you think there is a chance of this being true! I saw my mom the other day (in my dream) but I am not trying to say she exists, you don’t ask them, the theoretic physicists, maybe because they don’t give a shit for shits like you and others that say ‘god’ is possible, or, because you are afraid of their answer, cause you know they will humiliate you, so if they can, then why wouldn’t I be allowed to do the same, even if they BOTHER to talk to YOU and people LIKE you. You can try if you dare to, putting these idiotic questions of your on google or Quora, and some physicists will answer, I know, I did it and a physicists told me that matter came from energy, and as to the origin of energy, Mr. Einstein told me it is eternal, never became – never will cease, and as a clever girl I trusted he knew what he was talking about because a bunch of other clever people in Stockholm of Sweden, the Nobel committee, gave him a million of their money for his knowledge and brains and findings about the Universe. And if you dare say Einstein was religious, google it and see it all and you will find that he was not, you will find it all, only search well. But fortunately for you and the like or you they don’t bother to talk to you but you should be lucky if one does.

    SmartXL however very intelligent and knowledgeable in the field, is not a theoretic physicists, but he reads the stuff they put on the Internet and learns.

    Try Stephen Hawking, hahaha!!!

    I am putting you in the same sack as the other suckers resembling you, because, just like them, you, too, give ‘god’ a possibility of existing, even a slight one, but yours is not at all slight. 13 percent, hahaha!!!

    IT IS ZERO.

    Z E R O !!!

    So, I, in spite of science’s failure to explain the origin of the Universe, I don’t give ‘god’ a chance of being even a possible FIRST CAUSE of the Universe, not even one, no percentage, not even promille, because nothing becomes of nothing, and, for your info, when scientists say the Universe become of nothing, be sure that they mean A PREGNANT NOTHING, just pay attention when they explain the ‘nothing’ they call nothing, which is actually a something in the making, just hidden. It’s already there, not seen, it’s a nothing containing something within it, so, it comes to that this nothing, actually the something, has never become, it has always been there, it’s the essence of the Universe, IT IS THE UNIVERSE, the energy and matter, because without it in the space the space would not even exist, because we cannot say that nothing exists. We can only say that something does not exist. Only something can exist, and when there is nothing, it’s an absence of something and you cannot say that absence exists. It doesn’t it’s the absence of something, a non existing non thing, nothing. And, there has never been such a space, a Universe of just space without anything in it. Never.

    This is just like

    ATHEISM IS NOT A RELIGION. IT’S AN ABSENCE OF ANY RELIGION.

    So, nothing is not anything, only something is something. Without this something we wouldn’t have anything to talk about, leave alone that without energy and matter in the nothing, the state of the Universe that led to Big Bang, we wouldn’t be here to talk about it.

    But you misuse the opportunity and talk about ‘god’. For ‘god’s’ sake, it is too much to endure even from a simpleton like you and the like of you.

    You are human, you should have some respect for your HUMAN INTELLECT. And, if you don’t feel smart enough, as is the case, ask the smart ones who are the experts by their education on the subject. The theoretic physicist.

    But, no, you ask our SmartXL, just because he has the name, well, my name is NIKI, which means VICTORY in Greek, but I am not at all victorious. SmartXL is very smart and knowledgeable, but he is not as smart and knowledgeable as theoretic physicists are.

    ASK SHELDON COOPER !!!

    1. That “pregnant nothing”is God. He created everything and us.
      If you concede that energy has always existed. And you do believe this because someone told you this and so you take them at their word for this because someone paid them money, so you accept this due to the fact it is more comfortable for you to believe, even though there has been no proof offered to support what they said. But if it was a possibility that energy has always been then it should not be a stretch of your imagination that God has always been and through His energy we are and have our being.

      1. Supposedly your god creature created everything, including slavery. You worship a slavery god, Preacher Gerald.

        Just because someone gets paid to do research does not mean that they are lying about the results of their work. I paid as a civil engineer, does that mean that I lie about safety concerns? You’ve not only insulted physicists, you’ve insulted anyone who gets paid to do anything. What a shallow and insincere remark by you.

        If you really want to talk money, how about all the preachers who fleece millions from their flock? Scientists don’t drive Bentleys or own private aircraft, but there sure are preachers who do:
        http://www.newser.com/story/137915/10-pastors-who-are-absolutely-loaded.html

        Seems being in the god business is rather lucrative, eh?

        Meanwhile, you insult Niki (and others) by thinking they just accept what science says without skepticism. Only most people don’t do that. I’ve asked you several times over the years to go talk to academics, and visit libraries and read journals, and go to museums and learn about fossils, and you’ve never done that. Because that’s what all of us have done. We checked out the claims. Not you though, preacher. You just cut and paste pseudo science garbage from creationist websites you didn’t even bother to read (which I’ve proven many times by catching you making claims that the articles weren’t even making).

        You are too scared to research it yourself, preacher, because you are afraid of what you will find…

  3. You’re somewhat obsessed with NDEs Kamil !
    I can understand reading about them leaves one with a sense of awe and mystery.
    But there’s other interesting stuff too you know … past life regression for one had me deeply interested around 15 years back when I was very young and very impressionable.

    Then, just like some people find Jesus, I found … Reason.

    I now, unfortunately, I get very tired and bored with NDEs, Miracles etc. and I cannot for the life of me match the inquisitiveness & enthusiasm of those (like you) who want to get to the bottom of such phenomena and draw conclusions about whether particular religions are truer than others.
    God bless Smartlx for answering such questions tirelessly 🙂

    You see the world remains more or less as it is and things tend to improve usually only due to spread of technology & communication … despite all these miraculous events (NDEs etc.) happening all around the world all the time to people of most religions.
    It’s almost like god’s left the hard technological bits of actually uplifting our situation to us humans … while he resorts to magic tricks to take our minds off our worries now and then.
    I guess he is still mad at Son of Adam for the original sin 🙂

  4. “Supposedly your god creature created everything, including slavery. You worship a slavery god”. Tim, just where did God say to take slaves? He allowed it at that time until the time He set His people straight. Just like He allows us to sin and not suffer the penalty immediately, but gives us time to change. You can see all through the Bible where God allowed His people to go into slavery when the refused to listen to Him. And the times when He miraculously free when they called on Him. He tells us in the Old and New Testament that He wants to set us free from the slavery of sin.

    “Just because someone gets paid to do research does not mean that they are lying about the results of their work.” No, but it doesn’t mean that they don’t either.

    “If you really want to talk money, how about all the preachers who fleece millions from their flock? Scientists don’t drive Bentleys or own private aircraft, but there sure are preachers who do”. But there are plenty of politicians and lawyers who do also. And they do fleece the public. And the so called individuals who have made a living misleading their flocks who are pastors in wolf’s clothing have been denounced by true Christians. And if you look, without having to do so very carefully, there are plenty of pastors who don’t fleece their flocks. And there are many Christian scientists who don’t make a lot of money yet tell the truth about the lie of evolution that many other scientists who are Atheists try to fool the public with. And there are other true scientists who are not Christians yet who also say that evolution does not hold to be a true science. Yet you still hold on to your poor belief that there is no God.

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