Why Search for the Living Among the Dead?
A doctor named Melvin Morse followed in the path of NDE (Near Death Experience) doctor and author, Raymond Moody, who wrote a bestselling book entitled, Life After Death. That came out in 1975. Dr. Morse, however, focused on the NDEs of children.
Dr. Morse studied 26 children at Children' Hospital in Seattle who nearly died. Twenty-four (24) of these kids had NDEs similar to those described by Moody in his 1975 book. Serenity, separation from their bodies, and light seemed to be the norm, even though the experiences were quite idiosyncratic in their particulars. One child entered into an "animal tunnel" where a bee gave him some honey and took him to heaven. Another story appearing in the February 2006 issue of the Readers Digest was a NDE in which the child rode a noisy schoolbus. Two tall doctors showed her a green button she could push to wake up.
Dr. Morse didn't receive the applause of his colleagues when he published his and his fellow researcher's findings in The American Journal for Diseases of Children. Just the opposite, according to the article; they scorned him.
How he dealt with his study and his peers' response to it is the subject of this post. Dr. Ian Stevenson, a professor at the University of Virginia, a man who studied children from India who "recalled past lives," told Morse that his research was a gray area as it related to reincarnation. Dr. Stevenson had evidently studied reincarnation for about twenty-five years. Why did Morse inquire of him?
Dr. Morse also reported something Carl Sagan had said about the NDEs being a replay of people passing through the birth canal. (Melvin Morse discounted Sagan's answer for NDEs because many of the children who had nearly died were born by C-section.)
Why did (or does) Dr. Melvin Morse seek for living truth among the dead? The Bible says the unsaved know nothing as they ought to know it. Sagan and Stevenson did not spiritually qualify as the living. What kind of counsel can one expect to get from the unquickened? The angel at Christ's empty tomb told Jesus's disciples they should not seek for the living among the dead. They shouldn't look into tombs to find the living Christ. However interesting NDE episodes may be, we, too, cannot hope to find truth through examining such experiences.
The Readers Digest article does not end well for Dr. Morse. Towards the end of the piece, it says of him, "At times it seems as if the universe itself is preventing him from finding the answers he seeks."
"I tell you, there's a mind at work here," he says. "One that is perversely skewed toward keeping us from ever proving its existence."
Did anyone ever hold a Bible before Dr. Melvin Morse's eyes and say, "My friend, read this and you will have a different opinion about God? Will Dr. Morse ever look for truth in the right places? Any Christian reading this post who can contact this doctor, please let me know. He too can know the Truth that will set him free. He can experience the Truth and the Life when he kneels before the Lord of all the living.
Dr. Morse studied 26 children at Children' Hospital in Seattle who nearly died. Twenty-four (24) of these kids had NDEs similar to those described by Moody in his 1975 book. Serenity, separation from their bodies, and light seemed to be the norm, even though the experiences were quite idiosyncratic in their particulars. One child entered into an "animal tunnel" where a bee gave him some honey and took him to heaven. Another story appearing in the February 2006 issue of the Readers Digest was a NDE in which the child rode a noisy schoolbus. Two tall doctors showed her a green button she could push to wake up.
Dr. Morse didn't receive the applause of his colleagues when he published his and his fellow researcher's findings in The American Journal for Diseases of Children. Just the opposite, according to the article; they scorned him.
How he dealt with his study and his peers' response to it is the subject of this post. Dr. Ian Stevenson, a professor at the University of Virginia, a man who studied children from India who "recalled past lives," told Morse that his research was a gray area as it related to reincarnation. Dr. Stevenson had evidently studied reincarnation for about twenty-five years. Why did Morse inquire of him?
Dr. Morse also reported something Carl Sagan had said about the NDEs being a replay of people passing through the birth canal. (Melvin Morse discounted Sagan's answer for NDEs because many of the children who had nearly died were born by C-section.)
Why did (or does) Dr. Melvin Morse seek for living truth among the dead? The Bible says the unsaved know nothing as they ought to know it. Sagan and Stevenson did not spiritually qualify as the living. What kind of counsel can one expect to get from the unquickened? The angel at Christ's empty tomb told Jesus's disciples they should not seek for the living among the dead. They shouldn't look into tombs to find the living Christ. However interesting NDE episodes may be, we, too, cannot hope to find truth through examining such experiences.
The Readers Digest article does not end well for Dr. Morse. Towards the end of the piece, it says of him, "At times it seems as if the universe itself is preventing him from finding the answers he seeks."
"I tell you, there's a mind at work here," he says. "One that is perversely skewed toward keeping us from ever proving its existence."
Did anyone ever hold a Bible before Dr. Melvin Morse's eyes and say, "My friend, read this and you will have a different opinion about God? Will Dr. Morse ever look for truth in the right places? Any Christian reading this post who can contact this doctor, please let me know. He too can know the Truth that will set him free. He can experience the Truth and the Life when he kneels before the Lord of all the living.
posted by Don Daniels at
9:10 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home