This book was recommended to me but I have not yet read it. It is supposedly better than Eben Alexander's Proof of Heaven (which I still recommend). http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1585427136/ref=oh_details_o09_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Yes, I read it and recommended it and bought it for everyone I knew. It's a remarkable book and his themes of "heaven" cross many belief systems. I bought it for some Mormon and Jewish friends. He is not an eloquent writer because he is a surgeon, but he manages to present a vision of a "heaven" that encompasses a "hell", a "limbo", a three-level heaven (Mormonism); lack of time passing, without labeling anything. His experience was not a NDE - Near Death Experience - he was dead. You have to read the book to grasp what he experienced. A friend recommended a "better" book which just arrived - something like "Surgeon with a Scalpel" (yeah, I know that makes no sense). I'll go get the title and post. But I highly recommend Eben Alexander's book. He also has Facebook page and I try to catch him when he gives interviews. Not a long read.

Anonymous wrote:Slightly OT but kind of relevant. Doesn't the fact that we exist at all just blow your mind? For me that was one of the driving forces in investigating the existence of higher power - in my case God/Jesus. I really find it amazing that people dismiss God outright without any attempt at finding out if He exists.

This is the stupidest comment I have read today. Thanks.

Anonymous wrote:Slightly OT but kind of relevant. Doesn't the fact that we exist at all just blow your mind? For me that was one of the driving forces in investigating the existence of higher power - in my case God/Jesus. I really find it amazing that people dismiss God outright without any attempt at finding out if He exists.

Three decades ago Belinda Carlisle proclaimed "Heaven is a place on Earth". Doesn't the face that the song even exists just blow your mind? I really find it amazing that people dismiss this outright without any attempt at finding out where it is.

Anonymous wrote:Slightly OT but kind of relevant. Doesn't the fact that we exist at all just blow your mind? For me that was one of the driving forces in investigating the existence of higher power - in my case God/Jesus. I really find it amazing that people dismiss God outright without any attempt at finding out if He exists.

You can't find out if he exists - it's beyond human capacity to know that. You can believe or not believe, but you can't know.

Yes, I'm blown away that we exist at all. Evolution is mind-blowing. It's also incredibly fortuitous that millions of sperm met millions of eggs just at the right time over millions of years to produce me and you!

Slightly OT but kind of relevant. Doesn't the fact that we exist at all just blow your mind? For me that was one of the driving forces in investigating the existence of higher power - in my case God/Jesus. I really find it amazing that people dismiss God outright without any attempt at finding out if He exists.

I read it..
I believe in Heaven...not so much as a place as much as an experience of being fully present in the presence of God...
I guess what he experienced is real...i don't find it hard to believe

I read that second book...and now I can't remember the name. I'll post back when I do. It was quite good, and was not - at all - about "proof of heaven" but was instead about the science that shows that some conciousness remains after the brain has shut down, and exploring what that might mean, scientifically. The author believes that these death experiences are so similar and specific and provable that they are "real": they aren't just dying brain farts. What "real" means about souls and afterlife etc. can't yet be shown scientifically, but the author believes there will be a time we can explore those things using the scientific method. Very interesting.

Actually, there's another book out now by a scientist that says near death experiences are remarkably similar across cultures. He's studying how near death experiences may prove that there is a different layer/level of consciousness or being that exists for awhile after medically defined death. He doesn't say this is a type of heaven but instead is another state of being that requires very specific conditions for it to be demonstrated.

Sounds like this clever harvard-trained neuro-surgeon found a way to make some money on a book

Anonymous wrote:

It's kind of uncanny how people's near-death experiences are conditioned by their own belief systems and cultures - rarely (never?) is it polytheistic, and feature a more vengeful deity.

+1 This is very wise.

When you're about to die, there is a surge of hormones in the brain. It's like the body's natural, evolutionary shut-down mechanism to make death more "pleasant." Occasionally, someone makes it back from that surge.

It's kind of uncanny how people's near-death experiences are conditioned by their own belief systems and cultures - rarely (never?) is it polytheistic, and feature a more vengeful deity.

He claims (and he'd studied and worked on the brain all his life as a neurosurgeon) that his brain was shut down and it was impossible for him to have hallucinations.

All a chemical reaction.

I believe in heaven. But these near death experiences are not proof of its existence.

Has anyone read this book? If so - what do you think?

For those who haven't it's by a Harvard-trained neurosurgeon, who didn't believe in God and was a doctor and scientist all his life. Then was in coma, had a near death experience where he saw different beings, dimensions and God. He started going to church after that.