Question from Kamil:
Hello! Thanks for your reply on the Pam Reynolds NDE case, it made sense. My next question fits with other ones, that is the validity of Jesus. I have noticed in a few NDEs that when people have negative experiences that they may be in darkness or in torment when they call out to Jesus, and they claim a light appears and rescues them. Then, there are a few testimonies of seeing Jesus by non-Christians like Afshin Javid who was in a prison in Malaysia when he was meditating, felt he was being killed by djinns, and called out to Allah (no answer) then to Jesus and he says a bright light appeared telling him it was “the light and the way” and that it was Jesus Christ. He still cries when he tells this testimony. Then there was another Muslim lady who claimed she had gallbladder issues, called out to Jesus in the hospital, a light appeared and then the gallbladder stones were gone after inspection. Finally, Nasir Siddiki had severe shingles and almost died. One night, he woke up in his hospital bed to a bright light reporting to be Jesus, this light gave him information on the bible he had not known about, and the next day after showering he was fully cured. Would you say all these people describing Jesus as “light” in different situations (NDEs, meditation, life threatening events) shows consistency and gives Jesus a possibility of really showing himself?
Answer by SmartLX:
Funny you should ask about these two Kamil. I’ve done an article on Afshin Javid, and an article on Nasir Siddiki, and a third article when someone asked about both of them together.
The full analyses are linked above but to summarise very quickly, Javid’s experience was exclusively personal and had no bearing on the outside world, and there’s no evidence that Siddiki was ever as sick as he claimed (and shingles really leave marks).
There’s always a possibility that Jesus really did appear to one or both of these men, because it’s impossible to rule it out. To actually make it worth believing that it happened, however, evidence is needed and yet absent. The threshold of knowing something didn’t happen is not right on the same spot as the threshold of believing it did; there’s a lot of space in between.
Hi
I can add other things why I do not believe there was a miracle involved with Nasir Siddiki. I will be using this video as a source of his claims https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1DL9ANF-m4&feature=youtu.be. So here are my skeptical thoughts:
1. He was send to a hospital where they took care of him. We do not know what drugs he was given. He was in a intensive care unit which means they took intensive care. Which again means they did everything in power to save him.
2. The disease even according to the youtube video was not deadly and also the moderator said he had the same disease and it was not deadly – I had shingles but I could have not die from it.
3. Nassir insists it was deadly even when the moderator said its not. – Nassir also calls his shingles the worst in history – again I did not know that Nassir read all the history books on shingles. He is making it sound bigger then it was. He wants to make a 100 percent case it was a miracle.
4. If Nassir brain would be cooked like he claimed how could he have overheard the doctors and remember what they said? He would know nothing about it and remember nothing about it. He is lying here.
5. Possible explanation is that the disease went into remission that can happen and it happens many times thanks to drugs who start to work later on or just thanks to the immune system that it kicked in.
6. Siddiki is also a evangelist so no wonder that he has a agenda and needs miracles to feed his flock: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasir_Siddiki
These are my skeptical thoughts about this case. If someone has anything to add. Please you are welcome.
finally a word of sanity
My KIDNEY STONE DISAPPEARED in six months after it had been detected on X-ray.
After NO JESUS came to me, nor did I ask for him, knowing that, even if he ever lived, he was no ‘god’, for the simple reason that there is no such thing as ‘god’,
I started aggressively EATING ONLY . H E A L T H Y . FOODS,
Thou I am the MOST DARN ATHEIST I know in my personal life.
I am saying our loud to strangers that I am at no. 6 of
RICHARD DAWKINS’ ‘GOD’ NON/BELIEF SCALE,
But, secretly, I am at no. 7 !!!
How about THAT ?! (the disappearance of kidney stone)
Thanks for the answer LX, although my main question actually pertains to the “light” or “appearance” of “Jesus”. Do you think the consistency of Jesus showing up as a light to people who call for him in hellish NDEs or in events like Javid’s and Siddiki’s give the concept of Jesus appearing more probability?
No, not really. If Jesus appears as Jesus that’s one thing, but if these people are just seeing bright lights for any number of physiological reasons (and often in hospitals, which use many bright lights) and thinking the lights are Jesus because he said he’s the light, that’s more of a self-fulfilling thing with people making the connection themselves. They’re all aware of Jesus and his common associations going into their supposed brushes with death, even if they don’t believe yet.
I’ve only just noticed that the previous article concerning Javid and Siddiki also mentions the same Muslim woman you do, Amy Ghazal. Are you sure you and “Kole” aren’t comparing notes? Or perhaps you both got the same list of people from another page?
A general note, I have an impression that this site is gradually losing the right to be called ATHEISTIC site, and is becoming the host of ‘NDE’s…
I have an impression that this site is gradually losing the right to be called ATHEIST, and is becoming the host of ‘NDE’
Thus, I am losing my interest in it…
Pity.
I answer the questions that come in. This is one dog toy they just won’t spit out. If folks want different content, they can ask different questions.
Yes, I know this, but the question is
W H A T. KIND OF FOLKS ask and read this site,
seems mostly the THEISTS, interested in proving to us, atheists, that THERE IS ‘AFTERLIFE’, i.e. that there is a CREATOR of the Universe, ‘GOD’.
Your answers are always perfect, of course, but you can, as you said, only ANSWER what someone ASKED.
WHAT A THEIST ASKED, and it’s never about atheism, but only about their obsession, theism. They use this site as their forum to prove to us, atheists, that we are wrong, and that they are right, about
‘GOD’ question.
‘AFTERLIFE’ questions are only their very transparent curtain, hiding their saying that there is ‘god’.
I am NOT saying that you can do much about it, but, what I AM saying is that if you have a good look at other atheists’s sites, quite different from this one, different in a positive way generally, because of their content and participants, mostly atheists, then, maybe, you could get a queue, an idea, on HOW they became so different.
One, a negative, thou, example, is ‘ATHEIST REPUBLIC, that I liked very much before, but it has recently turned into it’s boss, an ex Islamist, an Arab man, now atheist, talking to other people on different issues, most of them having nothing to do with atheism itself, but, instead, having a lot to do with what ISLAMIC world does wrong, while my opinion is not WHAT it DOES WRONG, but that te whole idea of ISLAM IS WRONG. W R O N G. It imitates animal world where males maltreat their sometimes grossly large harems of females, the sea lion is a grotesque example of this. In my opinion some portion of Muslim men want to be one of see lions, and the rest of the males, because in each and every animal species, us, humans, including an equal number of males are born as are females, for male competition for sex, of course, nature wants only THE BEST OF THE BEST of males to be stallions for ALL females, while the rest of the males can, well, jerk it. This is then animal society, not human.
What I mean is, each and all atheists’s sites show strong inclination of WHO their BOSSES are, instead of being simply atheists’ sites. If it were so, but, unfortunately, it is not, that an atheists’ site is what it says it is, an ATHEISTS’ site, then much more atheists would participate in them, which is, sadly, not the case with most of them, and with this one too.
As far as I can see it is only Tim, Gerald and myself who are participating here, and of the three of us only Tim and I are atheists. Gerald is, well, GERALD, AND YOU, OF COURSE ARE A SHINING EXAMPLE WHAT A BORN, I.E. TAUGHT TO BE A THEISTS, CAN BECAME, A PERFECT ATHEIST, BETTER EVEN THAN MYSELF, BECAUSE I HAVE NEVER BEEN A THEIST.
Unfortunately, I have no easy solution to offer, propose, to you, for this problem, except of what I already said in the beginning of this rant of mine, that you give a good look and thought on other atheists’s sites, and try to analyse HOW they became what they are, of course, picking only the ones you like the way they are.
ATHEISTS’ SITES.