Near Death Experience (NDE)

I accept the Con position of this debate with the resolution "NDE is a actual true experience known only to those who have experienced it and gives unshakable proof to the recipient that Life is Eternal and that physical existence is but a reflection of this." Given no definitions I am forced to assume that by NDE my opponent is referring to this http://en.wikipedia.org... as you can see from the article, Dr. Karl Jansen was able to reproduce NDE scientifically without threatening the life of subjects through the use of ketamine. This shows us that NDE have a biological cause and are ultimately unrelated to death. It must first be proven to be related purely to death to show it has anything to do with the the afterlife. I am aware my opponent did not say 'afterlife' but again without definitions I am left to assume that by saying 'Life is Eternal' he is not referring to carnal biological life witch of course is ridiculous but rather to the life of a separate entity your soul. 'Afterlife' is just my reference to that souls continued existence without the body witch most would agree that is a necessary consequence of the souls being eternal when your body is obviously not. Being a christian I do in fact agree that the soul is eternal but not because I think proof exist, but by faith. The proof in fact does not exist, not even for 'the recipient' of the NDE as noted in the Wiki article the phenomena does have a rational explanation that does not need reference to life beyond this carnal one. The who process is obviously just a strange way of entering the R.E.M state of the sleep cycle and experiencing Lucid Dreaming. http://www.luciddreaming.com... Even under the assumption that the recipient can rationally accept the experience as truly of another form of reality and not something merely biological, it does not in fact prove that life (of the soul) is indeed eternal. It would simply be 'unshakable proof' that life is of a greater length in duration than the life of our body. You would need much more than a Near Death Experience to prove that, you would need a Full Death Experience so that you could stroll through heaven or hell or wherever you think you go after leaving this physical world for a while and interrogate the residents of that realm who have been living as the 'eternal souls' that they are without bodies for a while now and see if they report anyone in the history of that realm 'dieing.' If they report that some souls have been annihilated out of existence then of course the soul is not eternal as it can still on day cease to exist. In fact from data we have their is already been theologians forming just such a hypothesis about the eventual annihilation of the soul in the next life. http://www.ses.edu... That of course isn't a proven belief, it based just scripture interpretation witch you first must accept as true out of faith anyway for that to hold any water for you personally as proof. But though its not proven, it is not ruled out as impossible. So if it is possible, then the soul being eternal is not the only possibility even granted NDE as proof of the souls continued existence without the body. Now for the third part of your resolution that I think will be the most difficult to actually prove in your arguments; that NDE proves "physical existence is but a reflection of this" NDE taken to be truly a brief awareness of your existence as purely a soul without body would never prove any relationship between your eternal life and physical existence simply 'reflecting' it. In fact, if physical existence reflected the fact that life is eternal then from physical existence it should be obvious that life is eternal without consideration of the rare times its residents have NDE. We should be able to gather the data that life is eternal without the NDE from physical existence. we obviously don't as their are many on this very sight that claim their is no such thing even as a soul so its obviously apparent that the 'reflection' from physical existence is not 'obviously' apparent to them. physical existence is proven to be a failure at reflecting anything about your life's eternalness because you in some way require a NDE as necessary proof of that fact. so in short............ 1) even for the recipient of the NDE the phenomena can be explained without considering a 'soul' to exist. 2) even granted you have a soul and NDE is truly just experiencing being it alone briefly; it does not prove life is eternal, for the recipients never have time to question those already living as souls without bodies if anyone has died in that life. Annihilationism remains not proven false even with NDE 3) If one needs NDE to prove anything then physical existence obviously reflects nothing concerning what NDE needs to prove. Pro to fulfill burden of proof in proving A) that NDE can only be explained by the existence of the soul and not by biological means; B) that granted A, it somehow proves that that soul is eternal and does not one day go through its own death; and C) that physical existence reflects that the soul is eternal. If Pro cannot prove A, B, & C then the resolution remains negated as then NDE's would not be "Unshakable proof" of any of those things. I await my opponents response.