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I did and agree that his story is a little dubious. However there is no upside to disbelieving what the doctor experienced since we all would like this episode to be genuine. However I’m not completely convinced, and I sense a little hint of disbelief from the author as well, but I embrace this book for it’s honesty.
ricksreviews.blogspot.com
 
Weeeellll a leetle healthy disbelief can lead you to the truth, I've always found that a mixing my faith (in whatever from an advert for breakfast cereal to the bigger truths in life) with a little scepticism has kept me from falling prey to snake oil merchants ;)
 
One of the parts that leads me to believe that he doubts himself is when he says..."I never heard Om's (God's) voice directly, nor saw Om's face It was as if Om spoke to me through thoughts..." And when the Doctor said..."So I was communicating directly with God? Absolutely. Expressed that way, it sounds grandiose. But when it was happening, it didn't feel that way." I think every good person would like to believe, except the NDE's that a lot of people had of going to hell in lieu of heaven. Didn't Harry Houdini promise us that he would come back and let us know the truth?
ricksreviews.blogspot.com
 
Arguing purely logically for a moment - lets assume heaven and God are real - as we must if we are to evaluate these experiences properly. (It's no use arguing from the perspective they are not real because then you have nothing to measure the validity of the story against as it is all suspect). My question is - if heaven and God are real, and some one went there and returned - wouldn't they be filled with a sense of overwhelming wonder at the encounter with the divine? If they are not, if the experience is anything less than a transformational encounter with something greater than one's self, then I must conclude that the experience was not what the person thought it was. The question of the reality of heaven, God and the afterlife then remains open until such time as there is a real and unmistakable encounter. The absence of experience is not proof of non-existence, for example, Australia existed prior to any knowledge of existence, before Columbus there was America and so on, before Edison there was electricity and before Galileo the earth revolved around the sun. Lack of knowledge and/or experience is not proof of non-existence of a thing.
 
How does one know when they have had a real encounter? Are you saying that Eben was not enthused enough? Based on the almost 6,000 reviews on Amazon, the jury is still out. His past thoughts and recent illness point to his epiphany of God that seemingly didn't exist before. As I said, I'm not 100 percent sure he believes what happened to him is real. How can one find the answer? Does God himself have to appear before we postulate the answer? There is no way to find the answer, but I don't think his thoughts are flapdoodle.ricksreviews.blogspot.com
 
The Fall - Camus :star4:
Thoroughly enjoyed this. I know now, that there are lots of deep philosophical questions to ponder when reading Camus, but I have found the two I've read now to be for the most part enjoyable, beautifully written morality stories. And I can't help but laughing out loud in parts. Then I feel guilty about laughing. Which makes it even funnier.

The Walking Drum - Louis L'Amour :star4:
Review in the historical fiction section.
 
ricko said:
How does one know when they have had a real encounter? Are you saying that Eben was not enthused enough? Based on the almost 6,000 reviews on Amazon, the jury is still out. His past thoughts and recent illness point to his epiphany of God that seemingly didn't exist before. As I said, I'm not 100 percent sure he believes what happened to him is real. How can one find the answer? Does God himself have to appear before we postulate the answer? There is no way to find the answer, but I don't think his thoughts are flapdoodle.ricksreviews.blogspot.com
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Sorry I meant to reply to you this am and then decided it was too much to write on my phone and then forgot. :(

So ... well no, I'm not saying anything about Eben because I haven't read the book, but there are plenty of these type of books around and I am just sharing how I judge them. If that helps you with your questions about this one, then great, otherwise take it as it comes :)

The way I see it (apart from how I have outlined above) is that if I think about moments in my life when I have encountered something or had an experience that has been life changing (and one assumes that an encounter with God and Heaven OUGHT to be life changing right?) either one of two things have happened - it has been such an intensely personal experience I have only shared it with a very few trusted people, or I have not been able to be quiet about it. EVERYONE heard about it. I'm not sure that the process of writing a book constitutes the same level of excitement in and of itself. It is in a way a very cold process in which you have to distance yourself from the writing at a certain point in order to do rewrites and edits. If that was me, with that experience, I'd have trouble with that. Also I, personally start having issues when people start making money off these 'moments'. Sorry just the way I feel about it. I've personally had many moments in my life that I could turn into a book but I don't because they are intensely personal and I couldn't see my way to selling them. They already enriched me. And doing so would cheapen the experience.

I'm also not aware of an religious system in the world in which God proves Himself to any one. I'm open to correction on this but religion is generally based on faith and faith, in all definitions I'm familiar with, is belief in the unseen. Now if God was going to show up on some one's almost death bed and send them back with some kind of esoteric message, one has to ask why He just doesn't do that for every one and solve this whole doubt issue once and for all. Because He clearly doesn't do that, and how all the major and most of the minor belief systems I'm familiar with require some version of faith, for me it kind of brings the entire notion of these experiences being genuine into question.

Yeah sure they could be real, but then, you are dealing with a very arbitrary deity with a peculiar sense of humour and I have trouble with that too.
 
I'm also not aware of an religious system in the world in which God proves Himself to any one. I'm open to correction on this but religion is generally based on faith and faith, in all definitions I'm familiar with, is belief in the unseen. Now if God was going to show up on some one's almost death bed and send them back with some kind of esoteric message, one has to ask why He just doesn't do that for every one and solve this whole doubt issue once and for all. Because He clearly doesn't do that, and how all the major and most of the minor belief systems I'm familiar with require some version of faith, for me it kind of brings the entire notion of these experiences being genuine into question.
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I would have to disagree Meadow. God, in the Bible generally appeared in a personal manner to a very select few. Personal communication (like speaking to Elijah in a still, small voice) is different than signs and wonders (allowing Elijah to call down fire from heaven onto the altar in the presence of the nation of Israel). Why would God operate differently now? He spoke to Moses privately and commanded Moses to take the message out into the world. The people had a choice to believe the message or not. Of course Moses message was backed up by signs and wonders. However, God commanded Jonah to go and tell Nineveh to repent. They listened to him without the benefit of signs and wonders to bolster their trust.
So people may react differently to a message from God, but God typically delivers the message in the same manner. He picks one, or a small group and communicates His wishes. Then they go out and spread the word.

Regarding earning profit from the message, it is questionable. I would tend to agree that that might be a pretty big obstacle to believing a story like this. It is not really mentioned whether the prophets had money. Most of them seemed to live pretty meager lives, often depending on God for basic life requirements like food and shelter.
 
753C said:
I would have to disagree Meadow. God, in the Bible generally appeared in a personal manner to a very select few. Personal communication (like speaking to Elijah in a still, small voice) is different than signs and wonders (allowing Elijah to call down fire from heaven onto the altar in the presence of the nation of Israel). Why would God operate differently now? He spoke to Moses privately and commanded Moses to take the message out into the world. The people had a choice to believe the message or not. Of course Moses message was backed up by signs and wonders. However, God commanded Jonah to go and tell Nineveh to repent. They listened to him without the benefit of signs and wonders to bolster their trust.
So people may react differently to a message from God, but God typically delivers the message in the same manner. He picks one, or a small group and communicates His wishes. Then they go out and spread the word.

Regarding earning profit from the message, it is questionable. I would tend to agree that that might be a pretty big obstacle to believing a story like this. It is not really mentioned whether the prophets had money. Most of them seemed to live pretty meager lives, often depending on God for basic life requirements like food and shelter.
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People who already believe have divine encounters and the encounter doesn't prove the existence of God to them. They already believed, or in some instances were searching, but none were just arbitary.

FYI , while I find the research repugnant, the results are interesting.

NDE's explained: http://bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23672150
 
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Moses wasn't necessarily a believer, nor was he searching for anything in particular when God spoke to him. He became a believer, at least in God, if not himself upon hearing the voice of God.

That research is interesting. It sort of makes sense I suppose. You hear stories of people who have come close to death and one fairly common experience is that they say they visually see everything with unusual clarity and detail. Every blade of grass, every pebble, etc. I suppose the brain probably would become super agitated and might account for some of the near death stuff.
 
Yeah the research is interesting but why they have to kill innocent animals to do it is beyond me. Surely there are enough people who are terminal or high risk in surgery they can get to agree to be wired up for research.
 
I think this was a great discussion, but it should be noted that my beginning entry was solely the first paragraph of my review of Proof of Heaven. I have to admit that I have no prior knowledge of NDE's, other than the book I just read by the doctor. If you haven't read it, you should, just to get a yeoman's education on the subject. Also, if you read my entire review it is noteworthy that in my comment section...A lot of people have had NDE's to hell, so it's not one-sided.
ricksreviews.blogspot.com
 
NEW EARTH:
The premise of this novel was innovative and ingenious for the first hundred pages or so. Then it sputtered and fizzled out like a dud firecracker. Why? Ben Bova is a six-time winner of the Hugo Award. What made this promising story turn into a turkey? Umm, I think it’s a case of a highly capable author resting on his laurels. I’ve seen this happen recently with great sci-fi writers like Larry Niven ( recently flopped with Bowl of Heaven ) and I’m wondering when I’ll read another sci-fi classic like Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama . Maybe sci-fi writers have so many good ideas in their heads that they rush through a novel just to get to the next. The result is a clunker, not a total loss, but a missed opportunity to deliver a classic story. I believe this novel was one of those missed opportunities. 3 OUT OF 5 STARS :( ricksreviews.blogspot.com
 
Patrick O'Brian - Master & Commander :star4:

I've finally got around to reading the first instalment in the series about Captain Jack Aubrey and his surgeon-friend Stephen Maturin. A great nautical adventure, well researched with lots of details (I have to confess that I didn't really get into all the various kinds of sails and stuff, but that didn't matter too much for grasping the story itself) and unforgettable, colourful characters. Certainly won't have been my last encounter with Aubrey and Maturin.
 
A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle. Quite good as a curtain raiser, introducing Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in style. Exotic setting in the form of North American desert nomads mingled with a strange case of murder in crowded London. Loved it in parts, though I expect to see more challenging stories by Arthur Conan Doyle.
 
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