I’ve received an interesting e-mail in the wake of my recent article, “Near Death, Nearer to God”. It tackles the selective blindness of atheists in their response to near-death experiences. Here’s the text of the e-mail. My reply follows.

 

Dr. Pearce,  I enjoyed your article on your near-death experience.  I have been doing some work in this area, so it caught my attention.  I am wondering if you have seen the April issue of the Atlantic in which the author Gideon Lichfield deals with the association of near-death experiencers.  What is striking about the article is that the author and those involved are searching for some physical explanation and ignoring the possibility that other non-physical, or non-physiological, forces may provide the explanation. 

 

I haven’t seen the piece in the Atlantic. The problem with the materialists’ approach to these issues is that they are blinded by their own prejudice, which is itself the product of the myopic nature of their philosophy. I am reminded of Chesterton’s complaint that it didn’t matter how much he made the point of a story stick out like a spike, the critics always impaled themselves on something else! Since materialists refuse to acknowledge the existence of the spike, i.e. the supernatural, they have no option but to continually impale themselves on something else!