A Minor Request
14Nov. 09
Dear People Who Believe In Near Death Experiences (NDEs from now on),
I’m sure most of you are very nice people. And as such, you’d like to benefit humanity. And yet, time and time again I hear stories of people with NDEs who have missed a good opportunity. Many NDEs contain deceased friends and relatives who answer your questions, for instance about how Auntie Sabitha is doing in the afterlife. I recognise it’s very important for our emotional well-being to ask about deceased loved ones during NDEs. But we could also be asking questions that would benefit humanity.
There have been some calls that we should be asking the answers to scientific puzzles that have been plaguing us for decades or centuries. I like the idea, but we should probably refine the methodology. After all, it would have been a waste for someone in the 1950s to ask about Fermat’s Last Theorem or the Four Colour Theorem since ultimately these proofs have been discovered. By asking scientific questions we might answer without help from beyond the grave, we’re still wasting a valuable opportunity. Instead, how about asking for questions that we don’t have the opportunity to test?
“What might that be?” you might ask. Well, there are plenty of questions where a proper scientific trial will be unethical. Some of these are very important. For instance:
- Does computer-generated child pornography decrease instances of actual pedophilia by providing a release? Or does it merely inflame the urge to molest real children? Both arguments are used in public debate, but there’s no reliable data supporting either side, and we can’t do a controlled trial. And yet the answer is very important — if fake child porn really does minimise incidents it should be legalised and encouraged. So, please ask your spirit guide.
- Circumcision has recently been touted as a potential tool in preventing HIV transmission in some of the African countries with an HIV epidemic. However, for obvious reasons, none of the studies have been controlled. We can’t ask circumcised people to have unprotected sex and compare their rate of infection to those using condoms. And yet getting an answer could save hundreds of thousands of lives. Supernatural help would be very welcome. Please question your spirit guide.
- There are terrible diseases for which we have mediocre treatments (eg. those that extend life by a few years or months). This makes it very hard for an up-and-coming treatment to get properly tested. A controlled trial will mean some patients will NOT be given the existing treatment, and we can’t really take a punt for some diseases. However I’m sure some great treatments can come from punts. Enquire within, from your spirit guide.
- Sham surgery is showing that many common surgical techniques aren’t actually very effective. It would be great to weed those out without subjecting anyone to sham surgery. Plead with your spirit guide.
- Child welfare, sociologists and social services would work a lot better if we knew exactly how much abuse or neglect will do long-term damage to a child or turn them into a sociopath. And yet, those pesky ethics committees prevent us from ever knowing the answer. Beg your spirit guide.
I suggest then that you pick just ONE of the above questions and commit to REALLY remembering it, otherwise it’s easy to forget.
One more thing: please use a reliable random number generator to pick which question you’ll remember. Otherwise some of these questions will get remembered and asked less so the results will become skewed. And that’s just not scientific, dammit!
Thanks a lot
Michael
Michael is a sarcastic Sydneyite blogging about atheism, religion, science, philosophy and other nonsense at a Nadder!
November 15th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
[…] got a post up at Young Australian Skeptics. It’s a plea for those who have near death experiences to make the most of their situation […]
November 15th, 2009 at 9:04 pm
Not sure how this relates to the majority of these experiences. To be honest i might be looking in the wrong kooks blogs but i have never associated near death experience with asking dead people questions. I would imagine out of body experience would be a more common companion to NDE. For me this would have made more sense if you directed it at psychics.
November 16th, 2009 at 6:53 am
I have not relocated the book by a doctor that looked into NDE. He tried to be right there as they came out and asked them with still half zoned out and he reported that most of their stories were about dark place filled with torment and fear. but when he re-questioned them a day later their stories were of the light and joy and meeting loved ones. Interesting if nothing else. The doc was interviewed on TV where I heard of it but can’t remember the details. The above is the only part I remember.
November 16th, 2009 at 10:18 am
I’ve heard stories where the people that are encountered in NDEs relate some “important truths”
However if you’re not satisfied that this is what most NDE experiencers claim, you can substitute for NDEs any other form of new-age claims that involve some supernatural pursuit of these profound truths. So maybe the better analogy is that this is what you should be focusing on in your transcendental meditation — or if you are contacting people the dead you should be asking them these questions — or if you’re doing astral travel you should be going to the realms where the spirit guides can answer these questions. Which I’m sure we’ll agree are more important than the practitioner’s own spiritual well-being!