Skepticism and the Hereafter

Nothing rains down contempt on one's head faster on any of a number of atheistic and humanist blogs than the suggestion that the decision not to believe in a supreme being, creator, god, prime mover, or first cause is -- in fact -- a decision, and not simply an assertion of a lack of information. Indeed, a "lack of bias" is an article of "faith" among almost all non-believers.

It is wrong to think that a non-believing worldview is more objective than that of a person of faith. Both points of view rely on the subjective assumptions of each person -- including their presuppositions. However, skeptics will have no truck with this concept. In fact, they find it offensive.

I have been deeply moved in the past twenty-four hours by viewing the final YouTube video post of Ben Breedlove, an 18 year-old boy who died on Christmas morning while playing with his younger brother in their back yard. Ben was born with a heart problem which made him sick for most of his short life. He literally died (and was then revived) from cardiac arrest at least three times before the fourth and, it turned out, final episode. I urge you to view his last video, which if you are of a certain age may jog your memory for Bob Dylan's original music video (Subterranean Homesick Blues, complete with cue cards, years before the music video was officially "invented" on MTV).

I have read several books by people such as Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, Raymond Moody, and Mario Beauregard, as well as watched many people on TV trying to explain their near-death experiences. I myself have had one, though it did not follow the typical "tunnel of light" motif.

Due to advances in modern medicine over the past 50 or so years, more of these stories are now available for study. And doctors can objectively verify that some of these people are aware of objects in the room, conversations in waiting rooms, and occurrences in operating rooms which happened during the moments that these people were unconscious and "dead". That shifts the entire experience out of the purely speculative and into the empirical. So much so that some physicians in the US and Great Brittan are now placing objects high up out of sight so that later they can verify this phenomenon.

I contrast this with other other psychic phenomena such as alien abduction, for which there is no empirical proof whatsoever. The "near-death experience" is beginning to accumulate a formidable body of scientific evidence, based on the testimony of first-person, trained observers.

In watching Ben's video, and the interview with his mom and dad the day after he died, I came away with a great sense of peace and joy. It is obvious to me that Ben knew where he was going. He does not preach, nor does he espouse any one savior or religion, really. His final two cue cards ask, simply -- "Do you believe in angels or God? --- I do". In earlier cards he had briefly hinted at what he saw when he "died". Most of all, he was happy and felt utter peace. He said he did not want to leave that place.

But you know what? I also watched as the comments poured in last night, one per second. Too fast to read, but the gist was clear. There were many that simply said "R.I.P." Many who said his video made them cry, or changed their lives. But there were many who blasted out in hate, angry that Ben is getting any attention, angry that he "believed", and screaming that "there is no god", calling him vile, obscene, and hurtful (to his parents, perhaps) names.

I don't understand this at all, unless these haters feel so in the minority in our society that they see fit to use this death to unload all their frustration. I do not want to believe that ordinary thinking people can be this filled with hate, just because a boy died believing in angels and God. I wonder if Ben is now in a much better place. And I am not really sad for him, though I have great empathy for his folks.

I have been a skeptic for most of my adult life. And I have been deeply hurt by Christians, especially the pastor of my youth. But I do not begrudge anyone their beliefs, so long as they not insist that I must share them. Maybe that insistence is why some of these people are so bitter. But if that is true, time and tide seem to be turning in their favor in our culture just now, but what we end up with may not be the Utopia they dream of.

And that leads to the very real, empirical question of what their last breath of this life will be like for them, when that moment arrives, as surely it will. I very much hope that mine is similar to Ben's. And I am grateful to have heard his story, however brief.