Dancing Past the Dark ~ distressing near-death experiences

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Distressing NDEs as Scary Rites of Passage, #3

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This is part #3 of what I presented at the 2015 IANDS conference, somewhat amplified by things I wish there had been time to say in San Antonio. If you missed the previous segments, you might want to scroll down to read the two posts below this.

We need a new post-Copernican viewpoint

Copernicus – Loss of stability. Are we safe?

It was six hundred years ago that Copernicus put forward his earth-demoting observation of the heliocentric solar system. It was not simply a great scientific discovery – it changed everything. We overlook the enormity of that shock to the people of the West –the destruction of their ancient and stable sense of How Things Work, their cosmos, their very earth, their central identity, their orderly universe governing orderly social conventions. Our thoughts and language show how we are still clutching at remnants of those more secure times, still struggling theologically, philosophically, and psychologically to adapt to this “new” reality.
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BONUS post: There Is NO Hell — God Just Couldn’t Be Meaner Than We Are

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As anyone who deals with near-death experiences knows, their reality is often seen less in their description than in their effects on people’s lives. The same is true of any beliefs, for what happens in the world is driven by what we believe to be true. Regular readers here know my conviction that belief in hell has consequences in the world of everyday life.

Into this reality comes a powerful blog post by Frank Schaeffer, who is as big a Name as there is in the circle of writers whose viewpoint began with but has profoundly changed from a fundamentalist or neo-conservative Evangelical Christian background. Here, posted with his permission, is why, beyond religious discussions, the “hell issue” is so important to the entire world.

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