Discussion Can I Still Go to Heaven?

[esse_est_percipi]

I believe that an NDE is the brain's way of making it easier for you to transition into non-existence. This could be why they vary so much in nature depending on one's belief system.

Possible.
There is the theory, though it hasn't been proven yet, that at the moment of death the pineal gland releases large amounts of the chemical dimethyltriptamine (dmt), which would explain the NDEs.
As you say, it could just be the brain's way of making the transition to non-existence easier. Or the dmt could be acting as a gateway chemical to a whole other reality.
At any rate, I don't fully trust NDE accounts.

 

[CarbonMonoxide]

Or the dmt could be acting as a gateway chemical to a whole other reality.

I've read about this too, dmt is a powerful hallucinogen. It could be either way, a soothing lapse into nothingness or a gateway to the unfiltered consciousness you refer to in your posts. I think both possibilities would be okay with me.

 

[esse_est_percipi]

I've read about this too, dmt is a powerful hallucinogen. It could be either way, a soothing lapse is nto nothingness or a gateway to the unfiltered consciousness you refer to in your posts. I think both possibilities would be okay with me.

Although I admit it's hard to understand how the personality could survive death given that damage to specific areas of the brain can completely change a person even while they're alive.

But maybe if you take away all the aspects of a person's psychology/emotions/sensations that are dependent on or modulated by brain sections/ neurochemicals/neurotransmitters/synapse connectivity patterns, a residual primitive first-person experiential awareness can persist. But then why wouldn't this awareness persist when a person blacks out/goes unconscious?

Reason and science says this residual consciousness is very unlikely, but an intuition and irrational inkling says it could still be true. I'm torn between the two, between reason and 'faith' for want of a better word, though at this point I would lean 70/30 in favor of death= end of all consciousness. Which is ok with me too.

 

[CarbonMonoxide]

But then why wouldn't this awareness persist when a person blacks out/goes unconscious?

It seems that we as humans are hard wired to resist the idea of nothing. Even what we thought of as nothing, the void, is actually something. The so called empty space appears to contain 'virtual particles' blinking in and out of existence. Nature abhors a vacuum and rushes in to fill it.

I guess as part of nature, we too simply cannot comprehend the idea of non-existence. The nothing that comes with death is too mind boggling for us so we rush to fill it up with all kinds of ideas. The afterlife appears to be just our minds trying to cope with a traumatic, unnatural event.