Mod+ 255. IAN MCCORMACK’S EXCLUSIVELY CHRISTIAN NEAR-DEATH EXPEIENCE

Exactly as Ian Thompson said.
Only a fundamentalist christian can bring the testimony of NDEs into the paranoid realm of christian fundamentalism.
All their beliefs about lucifer and everyone who doesnt believe what they believe going to hell is entirely irrelevant...from the point of view of the Divine.
I know many sincere & devout christians who are terrified of dying.

Furthermore I dont know about you Ian Gordon, but for me the discovery of NDEs was very good news indeed; and continues to be.
What some of us forget is that many fundamentalist christians have a particularly materialistic idea of the resurrection. They take it be a resurrection of our physical bodies on some new kind of physical earth. This is contrast with the idea of a spiritual heaven in which we live and talk and meet people with our spiritual bodies. This 'spiritual world' is supported by NDE experiences, but not the ideas of purely physical resurrections.

So people like McCormack are filling a serious gap of ignorance, and his information will be extremely useful when fundamentalist christians actually die. We do not want them to be stuck with strange ideas like 'sleeping on the bosom of Abraham' (from a literal reading of the bible), and hence in the spiritual world wanting to sleep inertly rather than getting up and about to enjoy the wonderful delights and musics and colors (and much more)!
 
Credit to Alex for using the term 'fundamentalist bullshit' in this interview. The guest used 3 classic tricks of the fundamentalist Christian: 1. This isn't what I say/think. It's what the Bible/Scripture/God/Jesus says/thinks. 2. I'm not interested in religion. Islam, Buddhism etc are religions, but Christianity isn't. It's about a relationship with a person, Jesus Christ. 3. We'll find our who's right about hell eventually. Are you willing to take that risk?
 
3. We'll find our who's right about hell eventually. Are you willing to take that risk?

This is the funniest one. [Or would be if it wasn't the kind of thing that makes people fly planes into buildings.] As if anyone can claim with certainty that they have the winning ticket in the Belief Lottery to avoid damnation.

Not to mention how creepy it is to have God of Love who plays Dr. Mengele on the Day of Judgement, sorting believers and nonbelievers into the saved and damned.

But Ian McCormack's an obvious joke - what's interesting is whether the NDE drove him insane or were his reasoning skills always so pathetic?
 
My favorite story about a fundamentalist comes from the great Bob Price. He was talking about a fundamentalist friend of his who was saying that the Bible is simple, clear, plain, easy for anybody to understand on issues like homosexuality, hell, women, war, capitalism, etc., and on the shelf behind him was an enormous book called the Encyclopedia of Apparent Biblical Contradictions!
 
It'll be interesting to see what happens when the aging fanatics driving fundamenalist and materialist evangelism die off.

A world less afflicted by both those diseases will ideally find it easier to seek out the truth of reality.
 
This is the funniest one. [Or would be if it wasn't the kind of thing that makes people fly planes into buildings.] As if anyone can claim with certainty that they have the winning ticket in the Belief Lottery to avoid damnation.

Not to mention how creepy it is to have God of Love who plays Dr. Mengele on the Day of Judgement, sorting believers and nonbelievers into the saved and damned.

But Ian McCormack's an obvious joke - what's interesting is whether the NDE drove him insane or were his reasoning skills always so pathetic?

I regret I don't have much more to offer except a continued fascination with the essential NDE itself. We all heard of one of the most famous NDEs of them all. By the founder of analytical psychology, Dr. Carl Jung. I submit it here because of its simplistic beauty and confounding similarity to others we've read about.
http://www.near-death.com/jung.html
 
This is the funniest one. [Or would be if it wasn't the kind of thing that makes people fly planes into buildings.] As if anyone can claim with certainty that they have the winning ticket in the Belief Lottery to avoid damnation.

Not to mention how creepy it is to have God of Love who plays Dr. Mengele on the Day of Judgement, sorting believers and nonbelievers into the saved and damned.

But Ian McCormack's an obvious joke - what's interesting is whether the NDE drove him insane or were his reasoning skills always so pathetic?

I'm not entirely in agreement with you here. The scary thing about fundamentalists is that when they're talking about other fields of study, and indeed about other people's religions, their reasoning skills are often perfectly fine. It's just in the case of their own religion that they have a blind spot.

There are some very smart and decent people out there who think that it's right and just that God gives up on people and allows them to suffer in hell for all eternity with no way back. This is a terrifying thought.

So what's driving fundamentalists? Again, I think Bob Price has put his finger on it. It's essentially a slippery slope argument. They're worried that if they give one inch to the Christian liberals on contradictions and mistakes in the Bible then they're on the road to meaninglessness, moral relativism and chaos. Without something solid there at the foundation (i.e. the Bible), we're lost.
 
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I've just read the transcript, holy cow, think I'd better listen to it now :) I honestly don't know what to make of his experience.

Surely God can't be illogical, join my club or go to hell. Wouldn't it be rather hypocritical to convert to something only because you're afraid that you're going to get in trouble if you don't ? Having said that, this is a minefield and the truth is probably a very, very wavy line across it.... and I don't want to upset anybody.

Personally, this is why I just stick to "do we survive" ?
Hi- I am a new member I just saw your comments and I thought to tell you some ideas. This All or nothing idea about God and faith is a mistaken view. It's not that way at all. I've been reading the Bible slowly slowly but not indoctrinated in churches. Had some good preaching but mainly keep trying to get it straight from the source. I told God it was His job so I try to let Him do the work in my life, here's what I have to say: trying to reach past the initial unfamiliarity with the terms, it says things about dying in our sins and that we cannot by our own good works counter balance or overcome or make full restoration within our whole lives and the way that works - we cannot clean things up sufficient to be happy in the forever of eternity. Bible says there's been a dichotomy in heaven and in Genesis 6 fallen angels came and mingled with human kind. Bible also says these fallen angels as a conscious bunch of beings seek humanity's ruin because 'made in the image of God' we are higher than the angels but we just do not know it. Some kind of war between good and evil going on. If we die in our sins we perish "the wages of sin is death" but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ... who was the express image and indwelling of God himself in human form, unpolluted by the fallen angels bloodlines = you should read what He says to the religious hypocrites who are actually of the fallen: they HATE God. The New Testament book of John, chapter 8 in particular. I am finally understanding this. Christ gave a sacrifice of His pure sinless blood in the pain of all the sin the Romans and Jews and unbelievers mocked and heaped onto him - He became our Savior by a substitutionary death and then resurrection from death - to prove He is God (God's son being the term of him being the one unique incarnation of God - when you percieve Jesus you are seeing how God is, very very loving and very opposed to tyrants_... I hope this helps. When people stop a moment and if it all sinks in, they sometimes cry, and ask Him to be Saviour in their life also. Big huge adventure after that. Some say the faith properly finally united to the one who created us in His image heals the pineal gland. Certainly heals the life. Very incredible to those who are part of this, none are rejected, ever. He is faithful who not only calls us but 'cleanes' us from ALL 'unrighteousness' after all it is His creation/kingdom. It's just wrapped in so many layers of unbelief and also intelligent plausible untruths. Hillary Here on Facebook if ever anyone wants to write, just mention you are from Skeptico, Tops podcast hey?
 
Hi- I am a new member I just saw your comments and I thought to tell you some ideas. This All or nothing idea about God and faith is a mistaken view. It's not that way at all. I've been reading the Bible slowly slowly but not indoctrinated in churches. Had some good preaching but mainly keep trying to get it straight from the source..
Hi Welcome. not sure I agree... not a reliable source.
 
mainly keep trying to get it straight from the source.

Not sure I'd call the Bible "the" source. There are lots of accounts in lots of other ancient books that others might argue are "the source".

I would also point to the fact the bible has been edited to suit various power centers over the centuries so you cant even trust that it is an accurate depiction of actual events.

If the bible is the only place you are looking to find the truth, the only truth you will find is some variation of Christianity.

If that works for you, that's fine, but I would be hesitant to consider it the final word.
 
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