活泉甘霖的帳戶下來了! 詳情請點擊這裡

comment on a news article about near death experience of heaven

Content Format: 

For  your information, Zion Lin, my uncle, made the following comment to a news article concerning a neurosurgeon's experience of heaven when he fell in comma. 

 

Heaven is real, says neurosurgeon who claims to have visited the afterlife

 
 
Zion's comment:
 
Not all Christians believe in this kind of claims.
I am a theologian holding PhD in Theology and yet don't think all these near-death experiences prove the existence of heaven, rather they disapprove it. The reason is very simple: conflict of testimonies. If there is a heavenly palace, whoever have visited there will come back describing it exactly the same. It is like whoever visited the Congress building would tell you what it looks like inside and out, and all the descriptions will be similar. But the testimonies from the near-death experiences conflict with each other. In our church history, there are plenty of testimonies by people who have visited heaven and hell in vision or trance. But their descriptions vary to such a great degree that would disprove or discredit themselves. The conflict of descriptions means they have not visited the "real" heaven or hell. Rather their visions reflect their innermost or subconscious imaginations of their own. In the OT, people went to heaven by chariot of fire or chariot that can fly. In the middle age when horses are powerful travel tools, people dreamed that they rode horses to heaven. In the early 20th cent. a flying train is used by the visionaries to describe how they are carried to heaven. In the mid-20th cent., it is airplane. Now in our church the dreamers testified or will testify that they ride spaceships to heaven or travel on light beams. Nevertheless, in our church, people dreamed different kinds of floor for heaven, some described it as made of marble, some of gold and silver, some of jade, crystal, etc. Even the entrance of the heaven or the temple has been described so differently that one would wonder: do they go to the same place? 

All these prove that these visions are not true descriptions of heaven, but mere reflections of our own imaginations or ideas about heaven, or hell. But I am not saying that there is no heaven or hell. "Heaven or hell" is to be "believed" by faith, rather than "proved" by current scientific tools or theories, which are incapable of doing that.

An honest neurosurgeon who has brain should know his limit of knowledge on brain and its function, not to mention the unknown heaven or hell. Today people with lofty scientific degrees or titles don't even know their claims are unscientific or illogical. And media follow the suit for different purposes. Church pastors also like these kinds of immature testimony. What a secular world!