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Renowned Christian apologist and philosophy professor Gary Habermas recently expressed caution when it comes to believing those who say they have had a near-death experience.
Habermas was part of a group of experts recently interviewed on an episode of Dallas Theological Seminary’s “The Table” podcast. During his speech, Habermas warned that many claims regarding afterlife visitation lack evidence and cannot be objectively verified.
“A lot of times people don’t want to believe in these Christians because they think they’re going to get in there, that a Hindu says he’s going to heaven because an angel or something told him that,” he said. he declared.
“It’s no different than you living next door to a Hindu and he tells you he thinks he’s going to a good place when he dies. This is his testimony… But I don’t know if he was in Heaven, and I have no evidence to believe that an angel said anything to him.
Habermas also criticized the minority of reported cases in which a person claims to have visited hell instead of heaven, echoing his criticism of the lack of evidence.
“You go into Hell’s business, Hell’s business too. I have no proof that these people were sent there, so I cannot guarantee where they are,” Habermas continued.
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He noted that there were many examples of “near-death experiences” in which a person reported experiences while their heart and brain were not functioning.
“When the guy says I’ve gone to heaven, blah, blah, blah, I don’t think you can put much stock in it because you’re not going to get proof,” he said.
“The evidence, however, says that you are conscious. This is what they show. And you say, “Well, yeah. But it could last a few minutes. But some of them last for hours.
Mikel Del Rosario, an assistant professor at William Jessup University, spoke about his criticism of times when people claim to have died and seen loved ones or similar stories of near-death experiences.
“We can’t really verify it. So it’s difficult to really give credence to this kind of story. They definitely had some sort of experience, but what that means, I don’t know,” Del Rosario said.
“But there is evidence… that helps us see, you know what? Maybe there’s something to that because if people can report on things that aren’t just in their heads or in their private mental states, we can actually verify them.
Del Rosario said there were “fascinating” accounts, such as near-death experiences from “blind people who report things they can see.”
“When they were in their bodies, they couldn’t see it because they were blind. And during the operation, they report on the types of tools and procedures used, and it’s just amazing,” Del Rosario added.
Regarding the question of non-Christians claiming to have visited Heaven, Del Rosario responded that “what they tell you tells you a lot more about them and their interpretation than about the experience they are having, especially if it does not there is no evidence for this. »
“I could have a very vivid dream where I was flying over campus and it felt like I was flying. It was a real experience. But the reality is that objectively, I laid in bed all night,” he explained.
“So someone, whether they are conditioned by their culture to see Jesus or to identify the light as God, or if they see Hindu characters because of their culture, we can’t really judge what is happening. pass there, because again, it’s just a private matter. , mental states.”
Besides Habermas and Del Rosario, the podcast episode also featured Daniel Hill, assistant professor of theological studies at DTS, and was moderated by Kymberli Cook, senior administrator of the Hendricks Center.
Near-death experiences are a popular topic in Christian and evangelical circles, with several faith-based books and films published on the subject.
A popular book released in 2010 was Heaven Is Real: A Little Boy’s Amazing Story About His Journey to Heaven and Backwhich was later adapted into a film.
At the center of the book was the claim that when he was 4 years old, Colton Burpo, the son of a pastor, met Jesus and many relatives who died after undergoing emergency surgery in 2003.
“People may have doubts about my story, but the fact is that I was not persuaded to do this,” explained a teenage Burpo in 2015.
“I wanted to tell people about my experience. In fact, I started sharing my story with my friends and people in our town long before there was a book called Heaven is real.”
Many have been skeptical of these accounts, with some pointing the finger at people who initially claimed to have had a near-death experience only to later recant their original story.
An example was Alex Malarkey, the subject of the book The boy who returned from the skywho admitted in 2015 that he lied about going to heaven in 2004 after a car accident.
“I didn’t die. I didn’t go to heaven,” Malarkey wrote in a letter to various Christian booksellers. “I said I went to heaven because I thought it would get my attention.”
“When I made these statements, I had never read the Bible. People have profited from the lies and continue to do so. They should read the Bible, which is enough. The Bible is the only source of truth. Not everything written by man can be infallible.
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