NDE's are evidence for an afterlife

If Pro could refrain from the childish "us vs them" behavior, let's keep it civil, no need to use skeptics as a pejorative. (1) I'm a bit surprised that anyone would present the cases presented in Mindsight as "solid evidence" : Vicki Umipeg, recounting 20 years after the NDE.... Brad Barrows, recounting 25 YEARS after the NDE. Marsha, not blind, plus no evidence that she was near death at all. And these are the STRONGEST cases, they're the only one presented in details in Mindsight... This is not strong evidence. One thing that shocked me upon reading Mindsight myself is the way e.g. Vicki was interviewed, and it's clear the interviewer was leading the questions and getting the answer he wanted, instead of letting Vicki describing the experience by herself. Excerpt: "Interviewer:"What could you see around you" Vicki:"I saw lights" Interviewer:"Lights of the city?" Vicki:"Yes"" This, right there, is putting words in her mouth. Even if she agrees, she has been lead to it, and if her experience weren't that of lights of the city but orbs around her, we will never know thanks to the poor interview. What's also interesting about this study is the way the cases were collected. They were collected via an advertisement in a near-death studies newsletter.. Hardly an unbiased selection.. One other thing to add, only 14 of the 31 cases in Mindsight were blind from birth, the other were perfectly aware of what seeing was, their brain could make hallucination of seeing without it being extraordinary. Furthermore, blind people seeing is not an extraordinary occurrence: There exists a condition where blind people experience vivid visual hallucinations, the Charles Bonnet Syndrome, and it's not linked to "near death" at all. Read Mindsight for yourself: http://books.google.ch... http://en.wikipedia.org... As always, extraordinary claim require extraordinary evidence. A few unreliable anecdotes is not proof that the blind can see. (2) No sources provided, nothing. Anything that is put forth without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. (3) As I've shown in the blind studies, the way the testimony is gathered is very important. In the brain, any recollection of an event is not different from recreating the memory of that event. The more a story is told, the more details change. And if at any point during the time between the NDE and the gathering of data (which should be neutral, i.e. no leading questions from a NDE-enthusiast researcher) the child is in contact with an adult that suggests things, the testimony is not a reliable snapshot of what the child really experienced. And to say that children don't pick up any cultural references whatsoever, even when they don't express them directly, is laughably naive. In the links provided there is no strong evidence (cases) of children who saw things during an NDE that can't be explained by non-paranormal means. (4)(5) Are not relevant to the subject of NDEs, at all. My own arguments: Let's start with an hypothesis and see where it leads: "NDEs are a result of damaged/panicked brain function and/or faulty memory recollection". What would the consequences if that hypothesis is true ? - NDEs wouldn't be universal, because each "near death" is unique in the way the brain is or is not deprived, which areas, etc. That's what we see: 80% of "near death" (recovering from cardiac arrest, this sort of things) never experienced any NDEs. http://pimvanlommel.nl... - NDEs would be tied to the person/brain that has it. That's what we see: NDEers see the religious figures of their religion, they see loved ones, as they think they should based on the pop culture that surrounds them. http://www.infidels.org... - NDEs wouldn't be tied to death but to the fear of death. That's what we see. Panicked people who think they will die, even when they are not medically in danger, will experience NDEs that are no different to the ones of people who were in real danger of imminent death. http://www.lancet.com... - NDEs wouldn't be tied to near death at , but specific phenomenon characteristic of them would be found in other areas. That's what we see: feelings of disembodiment of leaving your own body, of feeling as one with the universe, of timelessness, whatever, all of these can be found in one way or another even when death is not close at all. Source: Clinical studies of artifically provoked NDE-like hallucinations are abounding.