I recently watched a program on Near Death Experiences (NDEs)-a fascinating phenomenon that has intrigued both the public and the scientific community.
NDEs often report a variety of experiences, some of which are quite common across different accounts. These typically include:
• A sense of being dead
• Feelings of painlessness, well-being, peace, and other positive emotions
• A tunnel experience or entering a darkness
• A rapid movement toward a powerful and brilliant light
• Encounters with beings perceived as angels, deceased loved ones, The Virgin Mary, or even Jesus himself.
The show, for obvious reasons, was interesting, even entertaining, but hardly evidential to persuade me from my rational, scientific belief in life and death. The meter didn’t move on this one.
I’m a humanist. I don’t believe in God, any version of an afterlife, or the immortality of the soul.
My humble opinion and I very well could be wrong, is that death is the cessation and finalization of life. Period. Done. Next.
My guy intuition, though, admittedly, hardly scientific, is that these NDEs are better explained by some combination of natural, emotional, and psychological influences.
Perceived miracles, again, in my humble estimation, tend to be science that is yet to be framed, named or claimed.
Interestingly, right after watching this program, and of no relation, I jumped immediately into a 2-hour edit of my iPhone photography.
It was truly, as I recall it, a Near Life Experience (NLE)
What a juxtaposition!
I believe in what I can see and experience, in real life.
Every photo I looked at, over this 120 minutes, resonated with memory, life, humanity, and intimacy.
Photography has the power to, emotionally transport us to other worlds.
Photography is alive. Photography affirms. Photography recalls and helps us remember real life.
I truly and honestly believe the world would be a better place, if we spent more time celebrating and honoring the here-and-now rather than worrying about or planning for the by-and-by. Just saying.
Here’s to life, to history, to science, to memory, to reality, to things we can see, to photography!
I am so glad to be alive.
Click
Jack Hollingsworth
P.S. The funniest part of the program to me is where the faithful, recounting their NDEs, would see Jesus. And describe him as a white dude, with curly, long, surfer-like hair, dressed in a pristine white robe, speaking English.
