The Search for God Page 2.1.3.2.3
- Personal experiential knowledge
- Rational knowledge
- Information from others
You must acquire knowledge to know about death.
Personal Experiential Knowledge
Since I personally have never experienced death, I cannot answer from a “personal experiential knowledge” perspective.
I could go and try to investigate death, maybe run some tests, examine corpses, put some type of probe on people who are dying and gather data. Would that be the truth? Not really.
We want to know if death is a realm, an actual place like earth.
- Maybe we could send a probe?
- Does the realm of death seem like a physical material place like earth?
It doesn’t seem so since the body gets left behind on earth. So, what type of probe would we need?
This would be like trying to find and travel a wormhole or a black hole. This has not been accomplished, and I feel confident to say it never will in my lifetime. So we won’t find the truth from a personal experiential standpoint.
Rational Knowledge
So what about rational knowledge, since my mind and thoughts are intangible, maybe I can think about death and send my mind there. The same problem, is this just our imagination?
How do we know that the place our mind conjures is the TRUE place of death? Did some person who resides there confirm we went to the proper realm? So rational thought is no help either.
Information from Others
Our last option is information from others. This information could come from a human who dies and comes back or another being that either resides there or can travel there or sees that realm.
We need knowledge and experience we currently are unable to obtain. Even if such a person or being told us or showed us, how would we know that is the truth?
When we, as a human, acknowledge something as true, we place our belief and trust in the information or the person from whom we received the information.
- Do we sometimes get misled?
- Have people followed charlatans or liars?
Let’s say for fun that a being came and offered to take people to the realm of death as a tour guide.
- Would you go?
- How would you trust this being?
- What would be the goal and motivation of such a creature?
All these questions would arise, but just like a roller coaster, you would want to know that if you give your life into the hands of this ride, would you survive? Even more, is this being showing you the correct place, or just placing you in some hallucinatory environment?
So either we wait for answers which probably will never come before the “sweet embrace” or we find a being we can trust who will tell or show us this realm. Who is this being?
Because I demand an answer from a Being with all-knowledge about ultimate reality and demand the absolute truth, this is why I am searching for God.
I have to be able to trust any Being providing knowledge I cannot verify myself. I hope I can trust such a being. How will we verify the knowledge, will be covered later. Trust will be up to the individual.
What Next?
- What is the crucial concept?
- Truth involves trust.
- Absolute truth is reality.
- We need God to tell us about death.
- Why is that significant?
- I can refuse to believe absolute reality because I cannot personally know it and have to trust someone else, and therefore, never find the truth about death before I experience it.
- If you agree, the next steps
- If you disagree, please consider reading
References and Links
NDEs Videos
Near-Death Experiences: The Stories They Tell
The Neuroscience of Near Death Experiences – Dr Tamara Russell, PhD
Is There Life after Death? Fifty Years of Research at UVA