Near Death Experiences
Agnosticism and Life after Death
Can you still be agnostic and believe in life after death? This is a question I have wondered about frequently over the years. The truth is that I do not believe in a monotheistic God, the religious God of my childhood. Still, I have always been fascinated by the idea that human consciousness may survive physical death. I believe that death is not the end but the beginning of a new and completely different experience of conscious existence.
Does this belief conflict with being agnostic? At first, it may seem so. Many of my readers who are in twelve-step recovery and identify as agnostics may also have strong opinions about this question. Does life after death exist? I write this introduction to the blog because those of you who have read my previous blogs will know that my AA buddy, Eileen, and I, both agnostics and recovering Catholics, set out on a journey to research all avenues of spiritual enquiry.
We sought a spiritual dimension that did not evoke the God of our childhood. One of those was the exploration of Near-Death Experiences. To answer my own question, can you be an agnostic and believe in life after death? I asked Artificial Intelligence (AI) that very question. You may be interested in what it had to say:
The question I asked Gemini AI
Can you be an agnostic and believe in life after death?
“Yes, an agnostic person can absolutely believe in life after death. This might seem contradictory at first, but it’s helpful to understand the core of agnosticism.
Agnosticism is about knowledge, not belief.
* An agnostic is someone who believes that the existence of a God, or other divine matters, is fundamentally unknowable. They don’t claim to have knowledge one way or the other. This is different from an atheist, who actively believes there is no God.
* Agnosticism, by its nature, is a state of uncertainty. It’s a position of “I don’t know.”
When it comes to the afterlife, an agnostic’s position is the same. They would say that it’s impossible to know for sure what happens after we die because there is no definitive, verifiable evidence.
However, a person can still have a personal belief or hope in an afterlife. The key is that they don’t claim to know it’s true. They might be drawn to the idea for emotional comfort, a sense of purpose, or based on personal experiences (like a near-death experience) without ever claiming it is a fact.
For an agnostic, the position on the afterlife is often one of a hopeful possibility rather than a concrete certainty. They might entertain the idea of reincarnation, a spiritual continuation, or a heaven-like state, all while acknowledging that they can’t prove any of it. This separates them from a religious person who holds a firm, dogmatic belief in a specific afterlife.”
Eileen and I go down the rabbit hole of NDEs
I was sitting at home, watching a movie, when I received a text from Eileen. “Listen to this,” she says, “and let me know what you think.” I opened it and saw that it was a testimony of someone who claims to have had a near-death experience. Despite not believing in the religious idea of God, I always believed in life after death. It was a subject I had never really explored, but if it came from Eileen, it was worth looking into. The movie I was watching wasn’t particularly interesting, so I put on my headphones and started listening.
The fascinating NDE of Dr Mary Neal
It was the story of a spinal surgeon from Wyoming who died in a kayaking accident on a fast river in Chile. Pinned underwater, she was dead for 30 minutes before resurfacing. Amazingly, following multiple rounds of CPR, she was revived. This is the story of Dr. Mary Neal.
I was utterly blown away! Coming from a spinal surgeon, this was a very compelling testimony. Eileen, being Eileen, immediately sent me two more NDE testimonies, both from doctors who died and came back. They, too, were fascinating. First, there was Dr Betina Peyton, an atheist and a neurologist who died during the birth of her third child.
Dr Eben Alexander’s testimony
Next, we have the story of Dr Eben Alexander, a neurosurgeon who died of a deadly form of meningitis. They all died, and all came back with incredible and life-changing stories to tell. Being an addict, I was soon hooked.
I spent weeks on YouTube, going through countless testimonies of people who were pronounced clinically dead and came back. In my opinion, many of the testimonies I listened to were fake. Having sifted through literally hundreds of NDE testimonies, I have chosen the best and most convincing for you to listen to.
Anita Moorjani
Anita Moorjani’s story is also fascinating. Here was a woman who was crippled by low self-esteem and fear all her life. She died of lymphatic cancer in a Hong Kong hospital, came back, and made a spectacular recovery from her lymphoma. Her story is nothing short of a miracle. When she was admitted to the hospital for ‘end of life’ care, she had tumours in her body the size of lemons. After returning from her Near-Death Experience, within days, the tumours in her body began to shrink and were soon undetectable.
When she was on the other side, she was told and empowered to go back (to her life on earth) and live her life fearlessly. From a frightened person with low self-esteem, she now travels the world and speaks in front of large audiences about her NDE. It has completely transformed her life. Why? Because she was shown the truth of who she really is.
Finally, we come to Anthony Chene Productions. Anthony makes documentary films and has developed a keen interest in recording testimonies of people who have had near-death experiences. They are some of the best and most genuine cases recorded. Here is a playlist of 23 videos that Anthony recorded of NDEs. They are all worth watching.
Does consciousness survive brain death?
The experiences of these people convinced me that consciousness exists after the brain has died. This consciousness merges with the universal consciousness, the nature of which is unconditional love and the unity of all things. The entities that exist in this realm are either dead relatives, beings of light that people describe as angels, or ascended spiritual masters. They facilitate a life review and instruct the deceased person’s next steps. Either to return to the body, or to go forward into the eternal light permeated by unconditional love and everlasting peace. This was very different from the punishing God that I learned about in church on Sunday.
What was very interesting about many of these Near-Death Experiences is that the first being that many encounter when they cross over is Jesus. They are overwhelmed by his compassion and unconditional love. There is no judgment in his demeanor, only love and compassion. Jews, Muslims, and Hindus who have these NDEs and encounter the unconditional love of Jesus all seem to abandon their respective religions and start following Jesus when they return to their bodies.
The truth of NDEs and traditional Christian belief
If there were a God, could he really be so loving and forgiving? In direct contrast to what I was taught as a Catholic, if there was an afterlife, was it a place of no condemnation and punishment? With most NDEs, people report having a life review. In these reviews, they are lovingly shown their mistakes so they can better understand themselves and learn from them.
Dr. Mary Neal’s experience completely changed her perception of herself and her life experience. She understood the impact of any harm that she had inflicted on others because she had to experience it as if she were that person. Moreover, when she was shown and understood the painful history of the people who had hurt her, forgiveness came naturally and easily.
Agnostic or recovering Catholic?
Listening to all these NDEs, I came to a significant realization. I was not an agnostic in the usual sense of that word. In truth, I was more of a recovering Catholic, who, in childhood, had negative experiences with the Catholic religion and the Catholic caregivers in my foster family. I rejected God the Father and Jesus, not because of who they were, but because my “fundamental idea of God” (BB We Agnostics p. 55) had been too negatively warped by my religious upbringing.
In a future blog, I will share with you how, through reading certain books, listening to YouTube podcasts, and getting close to certain people, I was introduced to a very different Jesus than the Jesus of my childhood. Considering Jesus kept appearing to so many recipients of Near-Death Experiences, as an enquiring agnostic, I owed it to myself and my spiritual growth in AA to make an exhaustive study of the man Jesus and who he was. Was he a man, or was he something entirely different?
In fellowship
Andy F
Here are links to books on Amazon written by the recipients of these Near-Death Experiences that I mention in the blog.
