A Rainy Day, a Good Cigar, God and the Near Death Experience

I delivered some bookkeeping reports and checks to a client in Gilroy this morning, then swung by the Morgan Hill Cigar Company in Morgan Hill.  I bought five Churchill cigars for $7 each, and am enjoying one right now.  I am sitting in the backyard gazebo; the sky is completely overcast and the air is cold and moist with rain.  Great nap weather, and I shall avail myself of it after my cigar.

As I grow older, I think more and more about death and what comes next.  I am not afraid of death, but feel I need to prepare for it.   I am not a member of any religion, but I believe in God, not a big man in the sky with a giant beard, but as a force that permeates and includes the universe and anything beyond.

I have been reading books on the near death experience (NDE), and find them very interesting.  One of the best was Science and the Near Death Experience, How Consciousness Survives Death, by Chris Carter.  Carter discusses quantum mechanics and posits that consciousness is not produced by the brain, though it uses the brain to carry out bodily functions in the here and now.  Carter gives examples of how consciousness is greatly expanded at times when the brain is near death or otherwise nonfunctioning.  Of course, he points to NDEs as proof.  (Note:  it is not true that a nonfunctioning brain makes one into a Democrat, though the mistake is understandable.)  Carter spends some time refuting skeptic theories about the NDE.

Near Death Experiences sometimes occur when someone flatlines and is near physical death.  The person experiences an out-of-body perspective, where he or she watches from above a team of doctors working to save his or her life, from a vantage point on the ceiling.  If the NDE continues for a time, the voyager is pulled into a dark tunnel with a bright light at the end, and finds himself speeding toward the light, which grows bigger and nearer.  He meets and communicates with departed friends and relatives. He may experience a life review, where every moment of his life is replayed for his viewing and lessons learned. Wonderful gardens, colors and music are often experienced during the NDE as well.  The greatest impression NDE voyagers describe is being enveloped in great love, with a feeling of peace, acceptance and well-being.

Finally, those who live to tell about the experience are sent back to this life.  They are told "it's not your time, you have to go back," at which time they are returned to their body.  NDEs are fairly common, and have been described in many cultures and time periods.  One's religious persuasion usually has little effect on what the voyager sees, hears and experiences.  Most people who have an NDE lose all fear of death, and may find renewed purpose and meaning for their lives.

Another book I am reading is The Experience of God, by David Bentley Hart.  Hart's book seeks to clarify issues and terms for atheists, so that deists and atheists can at least be on the same page in the great debate.  His book clarifies some concepts for me, but his writing is highly technical and filled with vernacular, so frequent use of the dictionary is necessary.  The reader has to work quite hard to get to the meaning of his essays, and I suspect many will give up before finishing the book.  It is not written for the layman, unfortunately.

The opponents of both these writers are generally called "materialists," that is, people who believe there is no reality beyond our physical existence.  If they can't see it, smell it, taste it or measure it, then (or so they believe) it does not exist.  Needless to say, I am not a materialist.

Stephen Hawking Says Universe Created Itself From Nothing

Created Itself Spontaneously.

I shouldn't pick on Stephen Hawking.  He is severely disabled and is now in retirement.  Perhaps his judgment and scientific analysis are not as keen as they once were.

Nevertheless, I found it curious that Hawking believes the universe created itself.  He said:

“Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist.”

Okay. Maybe if I want a pizza, it will create itself from nothing.  I will call this "the Stogie Theory of Pizza."  I just hope it doesn't spontaneously create any anchovies.  Well, a few on the side is okay.

Hawking also stated that he does not believe a personal God exists.  Am I offended by this?  No.  But it seems so stereotypical of the establishment,  materialistic scientist, who can't see beyond his rack of test tubes.  Scientists are generally so cause-and-effect in their thinking (and that's a good thing), that it is curious to hear Hawking describe something so completely illogical and irrational in human terms:  that the universe created itself from nothing.

Maybe God created it.  Okay, but then who created God?  There is no plausible cause-and-effect scenario there, either.  Right.  I do agree.  Whether we are talking about God or the universe, the very existence of either is utterly impossible if we rely solely on human observation and experience.

But that's what human logic tells us -- and human logic is limited.  Human logic is based only on phenomena and natural laws that we can measure and observe, with our limited senses. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Lord Rees is said to be the greatest scientist in the United Kingdom, and he, like I, believes that the why and the how of the universe is beyond human understanding.  I always like to use my pet analogy, i.e. that we can no more understand the existence of the universe than a boll weevil can understand higher calculus.  No matter how hard that boll weevil studies math, or how advanced its calculator, it will never be able to understand E=MC2.  This is true even though the boll weevil has a big ego and believes there is nothing beyond the reach of his massive brain.

Lord Rees has his own analogy, and it ain't bad.  He says:

Some aspects of reality – a unified theory of physics or a full understanding of consciousness – might elude us simply because they’re beyond human brains, just as surely as Einstein’s ideas would baffle a chimpanzee.

Some other man, one J.D.S. Haldane described my position exactly when he said:

Now my own suspicion is that the universe is not only stranger than we suppose, but stranger than we can suppose.

Ah, great minds do think alike!

A materialist looks at a sky full of stars and sees a cosmic accident with no meaning or purpose. I, however, am more optimistic than that.   I see in the same sky a complex system that was purposely set into action, and though I do not understand it, that mankind is an important part of it all.  And it is good.

Update:  Reader Courtney sent me the attached graphic, "Atheism," in her comments on this post.  I liked it and I am adding it here!