Question from Kamil (sent before I answered his previous one):
Hello there, a few weeks ago I asked about NDEs with many faces aka Jesus. I just wanted to give you only a few of about the 160-200 accounts I have found online of NDE meetings with Jesus, they are all pretty consistent, and I wanted to see if these convince you.
Here are a few descriptions of meeting him:
“Someone was waiting for me where the path ended. I knew it was Jesus. He was tall and strong, with long dark hair and a wonderful tender smile. His eyes were unforgettable, immense, dark, so loving and full of wisdom… He was wearing a long white tunic, and sandals. He was there all by himself and smiling, just waiting for ME. He welcomed me. He didn’t say a word, I didn’t either, but we were communicating without talking.”
” I felt someone pick me up in their arms and I was surrounded by light. I looked in the smiling face of a man, who said his name was Jesus. He told me not to be frightened; he was here to take me back. He had shoulder length brown hair and dark brown eyes. He was wearing leather sandals on his feet with straps that went between his toes and tied around his ankles. He had on a long white gown with long gig sleeves, with a long light blue tunic over it. There was a gold color rope tied around his waist. His voice was very soft and kind, almost musical, and I felt a feeling of pure love, complete safety and trust.”
” I felt a presence in there and tried to clarify whom it was. I could not see a face but felt the presence of Jesus on a throne. I said ‘who are you?’ He replied ‘I am your Lord Jesus’ and I fell to my knees. Jesus said ‘Don’t be afraid, I love you’. I do not have the words to express the feeling of his presence. He had unconditional love towards me and said ‘what do you think of your life so far?’ I had a strong sense I had not completed what I need to learn as a human being. Jesus said ’You may stay with me or return to being a human being”
” Jesus Christ was seated next to God. The throne room was pure white. Then I stood there in absolute awe at the beauty of Jesus. Jesus was wearing a white robe with a purple sash and had flames in his eyes. His golden crown had many bright jewels in it. The jewels were purple, green, and red. I looked back at Jesus and his sash. Then the sash turned red. I was looking into His eyes. I saw forever in them: He was so beautiful.”
“I only had a clear sight of a man that stood to the far right of me. I knew immediately that this man was Jesus. I never saw him before, but I knew that he was the master and my lord. I understood that he knew every fine detail about me. Jesus wore a white roman like cloak from his neck to his feet with long arm sleeves that were very loose. A red loose ban of clothing stretched from his left shoulder across the chest to his right waist. He had long brown curly hair that dangled to his shoulder length. Everything happened so fast that I didn’t see his wounds in his hands, face, nor see the color of his eyes.”
“Our conversation differed from a typical face-to-face speech. Somehow, I was able to communicate with the choice by mouth or the mind. Jesus spoke to me with his lips and spread his arms and said, “It is not time for you to die yet.”
“I had the pleasure of having a discussion with Jesus. I knew it was him and that I can never deny. I also received a wonderful hug from him. I felt his body with my spirit and there are times, especially when I do have occasional bouts of depression, I can still feel his physical body with my fingertips and I know he was real and that what he brought to the world was wonderful.”
” He was more beautiful outside. This was like the Jesus images I saw in the Bible. His face was shining and he was smiling. His eyes were so deep. I felt that he could sent me lights of love. I wished to stay like that forever. It was the most amazing experience in my whole life! It was like he was taking me to heaven with him and I was happy to follow him. ”
“There was Jesus standing there about one hundred feet tall, with his right arm extended. He was glowing, with long brown hair, copper skin, and a long white robe.”
“Next to me on my right side was a presence. They were similar to the ‘light beings’ I had seen when I was three years old. But this time, the presence turned into a likeness of Jesus. He stood next to me and looked in my eyes. Then he touched/rubbed my right cheek. I immediately was able to breath and was free of pain and fear.”
“Then, Jesus walked up to me. He was tall and so beautiful! His hair was dark and wavy, and very long down to his waist. His skin was dark and his eyes were a warm, liquid-brown. Jesus had a smile that melted my heart. He told me that He loved me, that He had walked beside me every day of my life. He told me that He had never left my side and never would leave my side, not ever.”
“”I saw a pinpoint of light in the distance. As I approached it, I noticed the figure of a man standing in it, with the light radiating all around him. As I got closer the light became brilliant – brilliant beyond any description, far more brilliant than the sun. I saw that the light immediately around him was golden, as if his whole body had a golden halo around it, and I could see that the golden halo burst out from around him and spread into a brilliant, magnificent whiteness that extended out for some distance. I felt his light blending into mine. And as our lights merged, I felt as if I had stepped into his countenance, and I felt an utter explosion of love. It was the most unconditional love I have ever felt, and as I saw his arms open to receive me I went to him and received his complete embrace. There was no questioning who he was. I knew that he was my Savior, and friend, and God. He was Jesus Christ, who had always loved me, even when I thought he hated me.”
There are many more accounts like this all over the internet, I counted about 160 accounts I could find. They just tend to be so deep. Many describe Jesus as having dark hair, while his pictures in the USA make him look almost blond, so the American paintings don’t usually mesh with the description of him.
These experiences like I said seem so deep, the people have personal conversations with Jesus, and they know its him, there are not any NDEs I can find from other faiths where people have such deep experiences with other deities. Do these accounts not mean anything to you???
Even Kreps who studies Muslim NDEs says other faith NDEs seem much more sketchy than the Christian ones, the Christian ones are so vast and detailed.
Answer by SmartLX:
Normally I try to take every question at face value, but it’s especially interesting to come back to this subject after you finally got down to your own motivations in your previous post. You’re still convinced by all this after we’ve covered all the probable reasons why, simply because that is how it strikes your brain – or did once, before you had even learned about the extent of this, and now you’re collecting this stuff to shore it up.
The more or less consistent depictions of Jesus in these quotes may be cherry-picked specifically in order to be consistent, firstly. Even if they are properly representative, though, the culturally accepted image of Jesus has been in place since the 6th century and it’s there in the subconscious of every Christian. What they expect to see is either what they conjure in their mind’s eye or what they gradually nudge the memory towards after the fact.
The emotional impact or “deep”-ness of these experiences is also cherry-picked just by the nature of the fact that they were documented. People who saw Jesus in a much less affecting context in a dream or other state of unconsciousness might not bother to tell people. But again, having got the idea that they saw Jesus triggers subsequent emotions that can be projected backwards into the experience. One’s wedding day is often remembered as uniformly blissful despite a large proportion of it actually being spent adjusting clothes and wrangling family members, because of its significance to one’s life.
Finally (for now, though I think comments will add to the counterpoints), if any of these stories are made up completely, of course Jesus is exactly as people expect him to look, and of course each is a profound spiritual experience. Even the stories that are based on an unexplained vision and embellished later will be shaped in one’s head unerringly towards the expected experience, not away.
So yes, the accounts do mean something to me. They are indicative of a great many social, psychological and memetic phenomena whether or not they are true. But they are very unlikely to mean that apparently the most common type of NDE is genuinely supernatural. You probably knew I’d say that at the end, but maybe just read it a couple of times to let yourself get past some of the emotion and see it through my eyes. It’s a good exercise, according to Aristotle: “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
Category: Faith
NDEs: One Man’s Last Bastion of Belief
Question from Kamil:
Is it worth it to believe in religion if the only reason I have to believe is NDEs? I mean, I know you might say no one can tell me what to believe, and I can’t choose what to believe, but the thing is, the nearest NDE study coming out that is supposed to be really large isn’t coming out until probably 2021, which is a long time.
The ONLY thing that compels me, as obvious from my posts, to believe is the NDEs, I see many of hell, many of Jesus, and I fear rejecting fully, in case I do end up getting punished for it. However, if I knew for a 100% fact NDEs were not really the soul leaving the body, I would have absolutely no reason at all to believe, nothing else is compelling at all, or makes any sense. The religious texts don’t make sense, filled with inconsistencies, and contradictions. The idea of “something can’t come from nothing” is not compelling, because then where did God come from? If God can always exist, then why can’t a few particles or even the smallest amount of energy exist? Even if that were debunked, it still wouldn’t mean a God exists. The story of Jesus at surface level seems like a fabrication, or at least part of it.
I believe a man named Jesus existed, and walked on earth, and gave advice/help to people. However, I find it hard to believe that he performed real miracles (maybe he was a good magician), that he came from a virgin birth, or that he really rose from the dead. However, then I am somewhat afraid to question that out of fear. I also find religion somewhat annoying, so when I first started questioning things, I was a tad rebellious. I am afraid that this may partially be contributing to my view to “want” to dump religion, sadly. I know that is biased, and that is also why I am not sure fully where I stand. However, honestly, it is probably 70% the fact that I don’t believe most of it, 10% of me is somewhat stubborn and wants to forget religion, and 20% is just this fear of what if, and in that it is the NDEs that make me uneasy of dropping it.
Should I really wait until 2021 before I can (potentially depending on the results) sincerely call myself an atheist, or should I take everyone else’s word and say “NDEs are just in the brain” and reject it? I know I keep asking this, but it really does seem that NDEs prove Jesus over other deities, I know I live in a Christian part of the world, and maybe other NDEs haven’t been recorded, or people just don’t post them. People from other faiths just say NDEs are not real, but that’s not tackling the issue. If NDEs are hallucinations which are culturally based, then a Muslim should report seeing Muhammad, as their brain would pull from their knowledge of religion. However, getting beside the point, what should I do? Should I wait for 2021 or should I not?
Answer by SmartLX:
After all the arguments for the supernatural or divine nature of near death experiences presented by you, a few other determined repeat contributors and a host of one-offs, the case for this still appears to be very poor. Therefore I wouldn’t judge NDEs to be a worthy reason to believe in gods and an afterlife. That’s not really how it works though; you didn’t decide to believe in them for good reasons or otherwise, you were convinced by what you had read and all our exchanges have been attempts to rationalise this after the fact.
You reject major Christian doctrine and the divinity of Jesus on an intellectual level, and yet you fear to deny Jesus out loud. This nakedly baseless fear is part a seldom discussed but very common phenomenon which I’ve named faithdrawal. Faith is maintained far more by emotion than by intellect, so this is the element of it that dies hardest. Fortunately, without constant reinforcement it fades inexorably.
I may have confused your past writings with those of others, but regardless there are discussions here of all the components of your summary argument for Christian NDEs. You do not understand why Christian NDE claims are so common and other types are almost non-existent if the experiences aren’t really caused by Yahweh and Jesus, but this is your inner argument from ignorance and the core fallacy you ignore through cognitive dissonance. Explanations have been presented, such as the Muslim doctrine that NDEs of Muhammad don’t happen which keeps Muslims from reporting theirs, and the runaway success of the Christian NDE meme in our culture which invites mistaken claims and outright lies, so there is no argument from elimination to be made, but since the alternatives don’t resonate with you the completely undemonstrated supernatural explanation still seems likely to you.
Don’t wait until 2021, because nothing will change as a result of that study. If it supports NDEs as an almost uniquely Christian phenomenon, you will allow it to renew your latent faith and ignore other explanations. If it does not, you will focus on any unanswered questions, of which there will be many. Think through this now and get it over with.
Focus on this, if you will: if there is no God and no afterlife, there is no punishment waiting after death, and if you are confident that religion is wrong then you have nothing to fear. If you did not want or need NDEs to be genuine, if you thought about them through my eyes or those of another indifferent person you’ve discussed them with, how likely would they look? How much of all this is just you holding on for literally no good reason that anyone else can see?
Spoiler: the first time you really ponder this, whether now or later, you will get angry. Let it happen, go think about something else, and come back to it, multiple times if you must. Accept that there are things about your own way of thinking that you do not understand, and take it slow.
The Greatest Trick the Devil Ever Pulled
Question from Jared:
First of all I want to apologize if this has been asked before. Unless it’s just my browser, there doesn’t seem to be a search function at the top right of the page as mentioned. (I didn’t see a “devil” or “Satan” tag so I guess it might not have been asked.)
Someone I know has an argument that goes as follows (more or less): “The devil’s ultimate goal is to get people to believe that he and God don’t exist and if you are an atheist, you’re playing into his trap”. How can you rationally respond to that?
Answer by SmartLX:
This is not an argument for God, it is an assertion. Specifically it’s an attempted rationalisation of the very existence of atheism in a universe with an all-powerful god who wants everyone to believe in it and is nevertheless failing to achieve this. The rational response to it is to call it out as an assertion and ask for evidence, not only of the existence of God and the devil but of the devil’s specific intentions. How does your acquaintance know any of this?
The alternative, which you might or might not bring up, is that the ultimate goal of churches is to get people to believe that God and the devil do exist, because new believers bring publicity, money and social and political clout, and if you’re a Christian you’re playing into their trap.
This had not been asked before, but there’s at least some material on Satan here, this piece for example. The search function should appear as a grey magnifying glass in the top right hand corner. If you see it, give it a click. The tags in the tag cloud are not the only ones in use, just the most common ones. If all else fails, Google “ask the atheist” in quotes, and outside the quotes put in your keywords. That’s what I do to find my own stuff sometimes.
“ONE VOICE…MANY FACES…”
Question from Kamil:
I have done more research on Jesus NDEs, and found that while he does come up more than other deities from other faiths ex: Muhammad, that it may make some sense. I mean, Christians view Jesus on the same playing field as God, and they feel like they have a relationship with him. That may be why whenever they see a light in their NDEs they assume it is Jesus. Muslims do not feel like they have this kind of relationship with Muhammad, and they don’t worship him. Also there are no pictures of Muhammad, so during an NDE, their brains would be less likely to come up with seeing Muhammad potentially.
However, this leaves me with one question: what about the NDEs where Christians see Jesus, but he doesn’t look exactly like depicted in the paintings. Many report seeing him with dark hair, and some even say olive skin. Different people say he has different physical characteristics, and NDErs argue that he appears to each person differently so that they can understand who he is and so that their souls can learn in the best possible way. So person A may imagine Jesus as being tanned with black hair and brown eyes while person B may imagine him having fair skin with blue eyes, so he will manifest in those images for each person. My question is, does this mean that since he shows up to some people in ways that don’t reflect cultural imagery that NDEs with him are likely to be genuine?
And even though I feel Muslims would be less quick to jump to the idea that seeing a light or having a good “familiar” feeling is the result of Muhammad, it still seems Christian NDEs are much deeper with more life lessons and reinforcement of Jesus than Muslims are of their cultural beliefs. Does this prove Christianity?
Answer by SmartLX:
Kamil, did you start with the final sentence, “Does this prove Christianity?” and work backwards? Because if you read your question from the start up to that point, there is nothing approaching a proof there even if everything you write were true.
Jesus as described in the Gospels was one person, with one physical appearance. Shapeshifting was not one of his documented miracles. If different people who claim to see him are clearly not describing the same individual, this is a glaring inconsistency which contradicts the general claim that the same person is appearing to them all. The idea that Jesus is deliberately appearing to different people in different guises is an excuse for this inconsistency. The existence of an unsupported suggestion as to how the visions of Jesus might be both inconsistent and real is not evidence that they are real; it is at best an argument against utter disproof, which is a very, very long way from proof.
It would make the combined stories a lot more compelling in concert if the images of Jesus were separately verified as consistent AND did not fit the common media images. This would suggest that one person, independent of the cultural meme of Jesus, was reaching out to people. That still wouldn’t be proof, but it would be an interesting phenomenon which warranted further study. The reality is nothing like it.
Into My Baths, O Lourdes
Question from Jacob:
Hey, have you ever heard of Lourdes, probably? In any case, how do you explain the alleged scientifically proven miracles that happen there every year?
Answer by SmartLX:
Yes, I know of Lourdes and its magical healing spring water. It is just that, relatively pure potable water that comes through in the grotto in the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, France.
Anywhere associated with the Virgin Mary (“Our Lady”, owing to claimed visions of her in Lourdes in 1858) is miracle country for Catholics, so sick Catholics come in their thousands to bathe in the grotto. Some get better, and credit their holy bath. Others don’t, and generally keep their mouths shut about it. None of the recoveries are scientifically attributable to the Lourdes experience, because the water has no discernible effect besides cleansing and hydration (not to mention the possible transmission of viruses and bacteria from the thousands of other sick people) but correlation is as good as causation when you want something to be true badly enough. Scientific proof of any miracles is definitely only alleged at this point.
Grandma Sees Dead People
Question from Deco:
Ok, so I don’t know if this is really an “ability”, but my grandmother prides herself on having this sort of ESP where she can apparently detect the death of a person while it is taking place. I was skeptical of it, and I asked her a bit about it. She told me that at least 50 times in her life, she has had this sensation or feeling when someone dies. It has come to her in the form of dreams where she will have a dream about a person and being with them in heaven or some form of afterlife, and then she will wake up, and find out at the time of her dream that the person really did die. She has also had what I assume are hypnogogic hallucinations where she will see a person’s face in what she assumes is in the form of a ghost, and then see the devil’s face, and then later find out the person died. One of the weirdest examples is the time that her cousin died. She had a dream of him coming to her and saying that he had drowned. The next day, she found out that he did in fact drown. She has had these dreams with religious imagery, e.g. sometimes she claims Jesus tells her these messages, sometimes it’s family, seeing devils, angels, etc.
I guess my question is, put aside the fact that these claims sound too good to be true, let’s say if she could prove it, would that constitute proof of souls of the passed on communicating with her? Or, could there be another explanation for it that doesn’t require a supernatural component? Perhaps our brains have a method of picking this stuff up that we are not aware of, and her brain interprets the info in a certain way which causes her to dream with a religious background? Or could it be a combination of an active mind, (constantly thinking of people close to her and worrying about them) so sometimes when she has these sensations they are true? Maybe with this she counts the hits, ignores the misses?
Being an Orthodox Christian, I would like nothing more than for this to be true, but I am asking for an atheist perspective here, which is why I am posting it to an atheist community. I have asked many Orthodox Christians and received their opinions, now I want yours. My grandfather says that he has also seen my grandmother get these hits a lot, and he is very surprised by it, but he himself says he doesn’t think it points to the supernatural, even though he admits he cannot explain it. I guess I’m just curious. I don’t want you guys to just dismiss it as “lying” or “fake”, I mean, you can think it is a lie or fake, but I am asking kind of for fun, let’s just assume for a second that this ability were as true as I am claiming, what would you say? Would you then suddenly believe in afterlife and a spiritual realm, or would you still say “I don’t know, but I can’t conclude it is really anything supernatural”?
Answer by SmartLX:
My first question would be, on any of these 50+ occasions, did your grandmother tell anyone else (e.g. your grandfather) that she’d had one of these experiences before checking to confirm? Ideally, did she name the person or give a description before receiving any information from the outside world? (Someone’s always dying somewhere.) This is what would show that she wasn’t just claiming these after the fact.
That’s the all-important skepticism out of the way, and you’ve done a good job of this too by bringing up two possible sources of confirmation bias. So, let’s play with your enormous “if”. If she really were being informed through visions alone of the deaths of particular people, I’d be satisfied that something supernatural was going on, because visions can’t do that via natural means except by pure coincidence. They don’t convey information from outside the person’s senses, they can only work with what the senses are receiving and whatever the brain conjures up for itself, from memory and imagination.
The question would be by what specific supernatural means she was getting it (assuming someone wasn’t in her bedroom subconsciously feeding her the info). Interaction with the souls of the dying/dead would be one possibility, but not the only one. Someone living could be using conscious or unconscious telepathy to send her images of the newly dead. She could be psychic herself, and able to see the faces of those about to die, slightly before or after the time of death, but without help from their souls.
One specific point against the soul hypothesis is that the visions apparently aren’t consistent in their depiction of the afterlife. They could all be different aspects of the same afterlife system, or they could just be contradictory flights of fancy accompanying the real information regarding the identity or appearance of the deceased.
You’ve realised for yourself the difficulty a religious person would face when discussing even a confirmed supernatural effect: actually claiming credit for it on behalf of the “right” supernatural entities from your model of the spiritual world, as opposed to the countless others people believe in, plus the ones no one has thought of yet. Atheists would be challenged if something like this were proved beyond doubt, but in most cases the first thing to go would not be their atheism but rather their materialism. But then, there are already plenty of non-materialist atheists who do believe in ghosts, souls, psychics and so on, because they have a spiritual model in mind that does not include any gods. I’m not one of them, but they’ve written in before.
A Passively Ominous Screed
Question from “once an atheist”:
I have to be very careful what I say because the comments I get from the atheists might backfire and I wouldn’t want them to get in trouble. Call it karma, luck, repercussions, god, it always happens when someone tries to touch me with their unbelief, or harm me with their insults. I was once an agnostic atheist like my parents were before in a 30 second span of time, they were changed forever. It’s amazing to me how many people with exceptional IQs cannot establish the truth in their lives. The smarter you get, the more of a fool you become in God’s eyes. It’s in the rule book that almost everyone knows. I believe the Dead Sea Scrolls might have been embellished by people who wrote them. I could be wrong. The rule book of life (KJV Bible) is supposed to be used to uplift people not make them hate and tremble at the sound of the word god for he is love. Don’t believe it? Jesus says he would rather have mercy than sacrifice. I have seen so many people condemn other people because they wont do exactly what the rule book says. And now I could condemn atheists and agnostics if I wanted to but I’ll just meditate more and learn to love all humans because karma or god really doesn’t need me to judge or convince others, he’ll do it all himself just like he did it to my folks. I wasn’t proselytizing them. I prefer to think with my heart instead of my head now.
“In the beginning was the word and the word was with god and the word WAS GOD” and the word became FLESH and dwelt among us”
Answer by SmartLX:
It’s hard to address this, since there’s not a formal question or challenge, so I’ll just pick up on a few points.
– Your warning that any attack on you will be met with divine retribution will not frighten or dissuade any non-believer. Kids have to believe there’s a boogeyman before the threat of it can be used to make them eat their vegetables.
– Christianity has a long history of anti-intellectualism, concurrent with a long history of claims of intellectual superiority. You’re clearly on the “smart is bad” side.
– Jesus may have wanted mercy, but the God of the Bible wants fear. That’s why “God-fearing” is a compliment.
– I’m sorry for your loss, whatever happened to your parents, but their atheism probably didn’t make it happen. It just fits your story to say it did.
Shawn Weed’s Adventures Through the Noose
Question from Kamil:
Hello there, thanks for answering all my questions thus far. I keep worrying about hell, and this testimony hasn’t helped, by Shawn Weed. His video can be found on YouTube, and he seems so genuine. He cries in his video, and I can’t imagine how someone could hallucinate absolute knowledge ex: he wants to know the demon’s height, and knows automatically it is 13 feet tall. Then, he claims he saw such a beautiful angel, again, how could he hallucinate that?
Here is his story, as his video is very long winded, but in the video, he tears up a lot.
Here are the details about Shawn:
-Was in the marine corps. Had a choice to chill with other broke comrades, go to Disney Land in CA w/ comrades, or Vegas w/ comrades. Lacking funds so he chilled with three others.
-One dude wants to take a picture of him in a noose.
-One other dude sneaks up and while in the noose actually gets Shawn Weed in the noose and it tightens.
-Loses consciousness and eventually dies; his soul leaves his body.
-Describes his soul as himself exactly except he is not physical. Shawn tried to enter his body while he was dead, sort of like matching a the last puzzle piece into the last spot. Didn’t work.
-Ends up in a dark parallel plane that extended forever. Complete darkness. He described it as a “darkness you can feel” and the only light was the dim glow of his own soul or essence. There was a ceiling that he could touch but no walls or doors. Just a never ending chasm dividing Heaven and Hell basically.
-(^^^) He would later describe that place as the doorstep of Hell.
-A demon grabbed him by the shoulders and he describes the demon and the pain he went through.
-Demon: 13 feet high, either blackish red skin or redish black skin, fingers as thick as a wine bottle length little more than a ruler per finger, width of hand was like 8-10 inches, says it’s a fair guess when he estimates the demon weighed 3,000 to 4,000 pounds, built like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime just ripped, grotesque face that scared him terribly (not afraid of no man on the planet will fight anyone no matter how big, etc. but only looked for one second with absolute horror and turned away), the demon was strong and in complete control; there was no fighting this thing.
-Pain: As the demon grabbed him by the shoulder, his legs popped and were kicking up and down rapidly kind of like when you twiddle your index and middle finger up and down quickly, pain in the spiritual is all around according to him meaning if you get pain in your ear you’ll feel it all through your soul all the way down to your feet. He described the pain as electrical current that didn’t stop, he could feel the pain everywhere whereas a cut finger will hurt near the finger an not much further…There are no pain receptors the pain of that finger would flow throughout the entire spirit/soul.
-Sees a light and his hand, almost instinctual, reached for this light that grabbed his hand and it was Archangel Michael. He described him as the most handsome man and the most beautiful woman but shaped like a man. Strong, “not bodybuilder muscle popping out strong but trainer strong” and claims he was definitely there to fight. He says he had the most perfect blue eyes, like flawless perfect blue eyes as if the blue sky were taken and put into his eyes.
-Michael says it is not yet his time, and while the demon still had a strong grip on his shoulder, Michael basically hit the demon like a palm to the neck sort of strike and this demon went flying back like a cartoon bent in half mid-air (hands touching toes) sort of way.
-Michael points a direction and Shawn follows, instantly back in his body alive.
***He claimed that once he knew the demon was taking him from the doorstep of Hell to the actual fire and brimstone part of Hell he kept repeating it in his head like “I’m going to Hell” “He’s taking me to Hell” over and over. Said it was mortal doom basically. And he described the hope he had in him sort of ooze out of him after that realization and he became numb and every bit of energy and will to live was gone drained from his soul.***
He said he was an average guy. Never murdered, stole, etc. Did some drinking and drugs nothing excessive just your average guy. Claims that there are good people in Hell, people who would call themselves Christians. His belief is that God doesn’t want average he wants full devotion and the people who follow Christ and God one foot in one foot out end up in Hell. Full devotion to the best of your ability is what God requires. That was the part that blew me away, to think that good people would be allowed to burn eternally for being lukewarm, spit out into Hell.
Answer by SmartLX:
Found it here.
Weed doesn’t have to be lying to be wrong. His experience can have been entirely real to him and yet not involve any supernatural beings. This is the nature of dreams, hallucinations, and false memories.
Whatever really happened, the more he tells this story the more he reinforces it in his own mind (especially with his emotions engaged), until he may believe it entirely when once he didn’t. All kinds of new and specific details can creep in that way too and become canon, so to speak. This could include not only the height of the demon but his memory of how quickly he knew it, so it actually is possible to fabricate a memory of having certain knowledge. Imagining a beautiful angel is pretty straightforward if you believe in angels.
Much of the story is consistent with him having fabricated the whole thing, consciously or not. It reflects his existing beliefs and even special interests. Besides the obvious Christian imagery, bodybuilder Weed portrays the entities involved as distinct beefcake body types. The bit about spitting out lukewarm people paraphrases Revelations 3:16, and reflects many other Bible verses telling Christians to be active in their faith. (Some evangelicals call it being “on fire for Jesus”.)
Let’s not forget that there isn’t even any obvious support for the non-supernatural parts of the story. We have only Weed’s word that he was in the noose in the first place, let alone accidentally strangled until clinically dead with three close friends present. For this story to be taken as evidence of anything, surely it should be the first pre-requisite to establish that he even had an opportunity to experience the afterlife.
Take note anytime you take “I can’t imagine how” as evidence for something. This is acceptance of an argument from ignorance, unconsciously made to yourself. It may well convince you at the time but it has no right to.
Muslim Exorcism as Medicine
Question from Morrisozio:
Demon possession exists and it occurs. No doubt. There were and there are lots of people (personally known to me) who are ill, and blood used to come from ears and noses. Doctors were never able to cure these so called hidden diseases. They always stated they didn’t find anything. Everything seemed fine. While these poor patients keep suffering. However, when they have been religiously healed, all problems disappeared, since the demons inside were forced to leave. One of these healing was even done in hospital, without the permission of any doctors. Can you imagine that? The medical science has been challenged!!!
Some psychologists say that unknown powers exist which control human minds, which are beyond our comprehension.
In addition, Arab exorcists, since they are already rich, do healing for free. In fact exorcism is also used as something acceptable in these Muslim Sharia countries.
Could you give any reply? Please a proper reply, even short one is okay, but don’t reply with words like “coincidence”, “lucky”. How come that these type of physical and mental problems can be cured by religious healers or TRUE exorcists (not the fake ones) and not by physicians?
Thank you.
Answer by SmartLX:
I have only your word for any of this, so it’s not much to go on and it’s not very powerful as testimony given the extreme claims.
I find it hard to believe, first of all, that doctors were of the opinion that patients bleeding from the nose and ears without physical injury “seemed fine”. If a physical injury was present, on the other hand, everything might well be fine afterwards with or without an exorcism. But discussing the details is not very useful without specifics in the claim.
Generally speaking, a miraculous cure needs three things to be effective as evidence for a miracle:
1. evidence that the illness was present in the first place,
2. evidence that the illness is now gone, and
3. a consensus that no conventional medical treatment that was also given to the patient/victim could have treated the illness effectively.
In my experience, the one most often missing from these claims is #1.
I have no doubt that Islamic exorcism or ruqya is popular and encouraged in countries with self-proclaimed Sharia law, even if it performs no better than a placebo. Muslims are subject to fear campaigns trying to convince them that Western medicine aims to poison or defile them, and choosing Islamic spiritual treatments is touted as a way to demonstrate one’s faith and also support fellow Muslims financially.
Nasir Siddiki, Jesus, and Shingles
Question from Spivak:
I would love to know your impression of this video, do you believe it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1DL9ANF-m4
Answer by SmartLX:
For those who don’t feel like watching, Nasir Siddiki claims that he called out to Allah and Muhammad for help as he was dying of an extreme case of facial shingles combined with chicken pox. Jesus answered instead, he got better, and after 90 minutes in the shower his blisters were all gone and he doesn’t have a mark on him. (To save you a search, shingles leave scars and bad shingles leave bigger scars.)
That’s a straight-up medical miracle, for which there is no evidence presented but his own testimony. He does name the hospital, Toronto General, so this would be on record there if anyone has the ability to check, but doctor-patient confidentiality probably makes that difficult. I do note that the only appearance by his doctor is via the guy playing him in the re-enactment.
To establish an impossible cure there has to have been evidence that the illness existed, and was as severe as described, in the first place. Here’s a relevant story I don’t get to tell often: a Native American healer named Bobby Runningfox once touched my friend’s abdomen and announced that he had cured a small cancer. It had not been detected before his act, and whether he was genuine or not one would not expect to detect it afterwards. So as far as anyone can say, he touched my friend and did nothing.
The other similar claim that comes to mind is the minor character in Monty Python and the Holy Grail who accuses a suspected witch: “She turned me into a newt!…I got better.”
There’s another interesting angle on Siddiki which has nothing to do with the medical aspect, brought up by this video. A Muslim has gone through another video where Siddiki tells the same story, and attempted to debunk the claim that Siddiki was actually a Muslim before the event. This responder does the same with many such “ex-Muslim” videos, and frankly appears to be reaching in some parts, but perhaps someone more familiar with Islam can say if there’s anything to it.