Our Newest Book Project!
Some of the most fun and illustrative content that Ziztur and I have dived into on this blog were our grossly in-depth book reviews; You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, but You Can't Make Him Think, by Ray Comfort, and the classic Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis. Well, we decided that it's high time we started in on a new book.
Thus, Evidence of the Afterlife, The Science of Near-Death Experiences, by Jeffrey Long and Paul Perry. This book has only been out since January 19, and became a best-seller almost immediately. An in-depth review of this book appealed to us for several reasons. For one, its cultural appeal is incredibly broad. The arguments and evidence in this book, as well as a thorough, critical examination of it, are relevant to Christians, atheist, spiritualists, and everyone in between. The arguments here are unique. Ziztur and I have beaten all the old arguments for the existence of God to death, but an argument for the afterlife, based on near-death experiences, is something we haven't carefully looked at on the blog yet.
A few interesting notes: Jeffrey Long seems to have assembled the data for this book by simply accepting people's near-death experience testimony via a form on his website (at least, that's what it says on the Near Death Experience Research Foundations's website).
Look for us to dive into Jeffrey Long's specific claims and arguments soon. If reading this kind of "evidence" and "science" makes you a feel slightly ill, laughter is the best medicine. Thus, I leave you with the words of Tim Challies, a Christian reviewer of best-selling books, and his thoughts on this evidence of the afterlife.
Thus, Evidence of the Afterlife, The Science of Near-Death Experiences, by Jeffrey Long and Paul Perry. This book has only been out since January 19, and became a best-seller almost immediately. An in-depth review of this book appealed to us for several reasons. For one, its cultural appeal is incredibly broad. The arguments and evidence in this book, as well as a thorough, critical examination of it, are relevant to Christians, atheist, spiritualists, and everyone in between. The arguments here are unique. Ziztur and I have beaten all the old arguments for the existence of God to death, but an argument for the afterlife, based on near-death experiences, is something we haven't carefully looked at on the blog yet.
A few interesting notes: Jeffrey Long seems to have assembled the data for this book by simply accepting people's near-death experience testimony via a form on his website (at least, that's what it says on the Near Death Experience Research Foundations's website).
Evidence of the Afterlife is by far the largest scientific study of NDE ever presented, and is based on researching over 1300 NDEs shared with NDERF.Of course, Ziztur and I, being curmudgeonly skeptics who care about science, would point out that claiming a "scientific"conclusion based on anecdotes submitted to a website is as unscientific as it gets. It would be very difficult for the authors to screw up the scientific method any worse if they actually tried. We could reasonably dismiss the entire book's conclusions based on a sampling method as grossly biased as this, but of course we're going to take a closer look.
Look for us to dive into Jeffrey Long's specific claims and arguments soon. If reading this kind of "evidence" and "science" makes you a feel slightly ill, laughter is the best medicine. Thus, I leave you with the words of Tim Challies, a Christian reviewer of best-selling books, and his thoughts on this evidence of the afterlife.
The accounts are too common and too consistent to ignore entirely. So we see that such experiences do appear to exist and that they seem to lead directly away from what the Bible teaches us. What recourse do we have, then, but to state with some confidence that these experiences are somehow a trick of Satan?
Labels: Evidence of the Afterlife, Flimsy, research, science
posted by Flimsyman
at
8:00 AM
4 Comments:
Looking forward to your review on this one.
My big question for them, how are they differentiating between NDE's, and people who are faking them. If they do based on their own opinion, the results are invalid. If they didn't differentiate, then the results become invalid because there are always people out there who will claim one thing, when it never happened.
It will be interesting to hear how they attempt to defend their so called science.
My biggest question when it comes to NDEs is (as I’ve often said) this:
Some NDE supporters claim that the mere fact that a patient had any kind of experience while clinically dead is compelling evidence that something Significant happened. But how can we ever be convinced that this is the case?
Suppose that we have a subject whom we consider to be impeccably honest and whom we absolutely trust to give an honest account (a pretty big supposition). Suppose that this subject gives us an account of what he perceives as having happened during the, say, 120 seconds that he was clinically brain-dead. What reason have we to believe that the experience he relates actually happened during those 120 seconds, rather than in the anoxic mental fog preceding death, and in a burst of neural activity as the revived brain struggles to patch up the temporal gap?
Before you delve too deeply into this, I recommend you also read "Passage" by Connie Willis. It may be fiction, but it clearly presents an alternative theory that explains the phenomena associated with near-death experiences. I find it very helpful for answering the question "How else do you explain all these results?"
Also, it's a really good book.
--
Kne
Actually, Tom, he does indeed briefly address that exact question, and pretty early on, too. We'll certainly discuss it in the review.
Hey, Kne! Welcome to the blog! I looked up "Passage," and it sounds pretty interesting.
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