A Near-Death Experience Near Death

They used a hard vocabulary to contain the terrible softness. Greased they 'd say. Offed, lit up, zapped while zipping. It wasn 't cruelty, just stage presence. They were actors. When someone died, it wasn 't quite dying, because in a curious way, it seemed scripted, and because they had their lines mostly memorized, irony mixed with tragedy, and because they called it by other names, as if to encyst and destroy the reality of death itself. "

Kate Miller said, “The question shouldn't be, is there life after death? But instead, Is there life before death? This quote is saying that not everyone or everything is alive before they die. People are not happy and therefore are not truly living their best life. This quote could also work for inanimate objects, with the possibility that the objects have a mind of their own. These are both true in the book, Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury. Throughout the book, Guy Montag starts to discover what living is like, and what death truly is. In society today, life is something that everyone is afraid of losing while death is something people are afraid of. When in reality, these labels don’t matter at all. There are no labels to what is alive, and what is dead.

There is survival after death where the death becomes parts of the soul and the body.

The concept of life after death has been around practically as long as life itself. Our beliefs about life after death can have a profound effect on our attitudes toward life. Most individual's beliefs about life after death are directly related to their cultural or religious affiliations. According to Montagu, "Of all the many forms which natural religion has assumed none probably has exerted so deep and far – reaching an influence on human life as the belief in immortality" (1955, p.15).

Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once said, “The real question of life after death isn 't whether or not it exists, but even if it does what problem this really solves.” The idea that death is inevitable is well known by everyone, yet no one is certain as to what happens afterwards. Even though the subject of life after death has been argued for centuries by many philosophers and theologians. In the article Sign Here If You Exist, Jill Sisson Quinn adequately employs figurative language, rhetoric questionings, and personal anecdotes to demonstrate a controversial argument on the topic of life after death.

Some patients may benefit from interventions to cause death, however, for death to be beneficial, the condition of being dead must be superior to the condition of remaining alive.

Theologically and scientifically the concept of death has remained unopposed for centuries, however the idea of how do we conclude what is the true essence of living continues to be widely debated. A curveball case would be one regarding brain-dead patients. In December 2014, patient Jahi McMath of Oakland California – a state in which one who is brain dead is classified as not legally alive - was declared brain-dead by three doctors, thus lawfully ordered to be removed from life support. Valiant disagreement ensued upon her parents refusal to accept this judgement and till today Jahi is on life support. (Drummond, 2015). Fieser (2008) argues that the neurological theory holds the most rational denotation of death, in which absence of any form

The definition of death is another issue paramount to this discussion. Robert Rakestraw, professor of theology at Bethel Theological Seminary in his article on this very subject

“I looked up and I saw this light; it wasn’t a normal light, it was different. It was luminescent. And it grew. I kept looking at it like, ‘What is that?’ Then it grew large and I went into it” (Sunfellow, David). Near death experiences and the knowledge of near death experiences have become more common in today’s society. Countless books have recently been written on them such as Heaven is for Real, Near Death Experiences of Suicide Survivors, Proof of Heaven, and 90 minutes in Heaven, but not everyone believes in these experiences. Some atheists, scientists and doctors have all tried to debunk the theory, but are they nonbelievers or disbelievers? A non-believer is one who does not have faith or believe, a dis-believer refuses to believe. Many people have stated that they have had near death experiences and of course with that comes the naysayers. The point is to look beyond scientific belief and to look at the proof we have from doctors records or for some, their own experiences. There are still many skeptics about NDEs but with countless records and so much proof, there draws a thin line between real and make believe. In order to prove that these experiences are true to the non-believers we need to not only gather records but also scientific proof of these phenomenons.

A lot of us have asked ourselves the question what happens after death. After we ask this question to ourselves we don’t really go much into depth about the question we simply ignore it and go with our daily routines. Roach Mary, a scientist, says, “we have all wondered if there is an afterlife, but only a few are brave – or foolish – enough to try and find out.” There are many theories and ideas on what happens after death, some backed up with research and data and some are just plain silly. After researching many ideas, I came upon 3 ideas that caught my attention. One of these is published by THE JOURNAL OF RELIGION AND PSYCHICAL RESEARCH, it is a Philosophical series by Sylvia Hart Write. The other is an article by scientist Mary Roach. Lastly The 21 grams Theory by Dr. Duncan MacDougall. These 3 articles share similarities and differences, like one is more spiritual than the other and one is more scientific. After analyzing them and reading these articles profoundly I saw which were the “silly” articles and which article made the most sense and was backed up with evidence and research. This great question has created a large amount of curiosity in many scientists. Adam Withnall from independent.co.uk states, “It’s a question that has exercised humanities finest minds since those humans have been around to have them – and has been recently the subject

There have been many variations of what the definition of total death should be over time. Until the Harvard Medical Committee formed their definition in 1968 the common definition of death was that, once cessation of cardiovascular activity occurred, a person was considered dead. This was changed when the Harvard Medical Committee released their own definition, stating the adoption of the “irreversible coma” as being the new standard for determining end of life (Jonas, 132). Presently in the United States, the commonly accepted definition of death is formed under the Determination of Death Act which essentially states that “permanent cessation of the integrated functioning of the organism as a whole” (Morris, 55) and includes both cardiovascular function and brain function as the qualifiers for death. There are two positions present now that are laid out by Edmund Pellegrino in Controversies in the Determination of Death a White Paper of the President 's Council on Bioethics: Position One states that the current neurological standard is not biologically sound and should be redefined, and Position Two states that the neurological standard is biologically sound and should not be redefined (Pellegrino, 52-58). In this paper, I will argue that the neurological standard to determine whether a human being is dead should remain the primary method because it states that a human being needs to be working as a whole in order to be alive. This means that, for a person to be considered

It was a warm fall day in early October, a day that I recall quite vividly. The smells of the transition from summer to fall were in the air, accompanied by the sounds of birds singing and the wind blowing through the trees. It was on this beautiful day that my existence was almost terminated. A quick hunting trip could have ended my life.

One thing that ponders almost all who live is what happens after one dies. There are multiple theories about life after death, or the absence of it, many dependent on one’s religious beliefs. However, this is also a question philosophers have faced and come up with theories for. Bertrand Russell, a well-known philosopher from the twentieth century, has a theory on the matter. His theory on life after death, in standard form, is as follows: There is a strong correlation between brain states and mental states. In particular, the correlation between brain damage and impairment in mental capacity. So, probably all the mental states and capacities that we associate with a particular person are ontologically dependent on the continued functioning of that individual 's brain. So, if one 's brain ceases to function, then one 's mind ceases, as well. If you survive death, then your mind must survive. But, brain functioning ceases with death. Therefore, you will not survive death (Zelinski “On”). The argument is valid but some question whether it is sound. Russell 's argument is sound because the third premise, if one’s brain ceases to function, then one’s mind ceases to function, is true; the fifth premise, brain functioning ceases with death, is also true; that all leads to the conclusion, your mind will not survive death, being true.

Life after death is a concept that has been around for many centuries. Many philosophers came to the idea that there had to be something after our life ends. For some, they believe in the afterlife. Another concept is that of reincarnation. Reincarnation is the believe that once the physical body dies, the soul is then reborn as a different being. Some religious teachings are actually said to have skewed some of the details about reincarnation.

The abstract idea of life cannot be explained by such simple ideas as being animated, breathing, or speaking. Ordinary machines in this century can perform all of these basic functions. The quandary with defining death is not as abstract and elusive as that of life. The problem of defining life and death has plagued philosophers and the religious bodies for thousands of years for one reason; each philosophy or religion has tried to define the meaning of life and death from only their certain perspective. The seemingly appropriate approach to this problem would be to understand the ideas presented in various philosophies and religions and through this knowledge create a new definition for each idea of life