I’ve been thinking about how NDE testimonies and spiritual experiences can be used to prove existence of a transcendental, supraphysical reality with great ease, making materialistic atheism untenable.

However, there’s quite a step from there to using it to prove any particular theology.

If anything, it seems to disprove certain religions, like Islam; the character of God as seen in NDE experiences and mystical experiences is exactly the opposite from Allah as revealed by Muhammad, the recommended way of life is opposite to Islamic (formality is irrelevant, religious conflict is unimaginable, a believer/unbeliever dichotomy is irrelevant, basically everything Islam is, is irrelevant or wrong). The fact that some kind of God does exist doesn’t mean that religions that believe in God are validated. Religions that believe in a vengeful, spiteful bully crybaby God are in fact completely invalidated by a God who is love, wisdom, understanding, clarity and, basically, high consciousness. The entire theory that says that if there is a God, religions must be right, is in fact indefensible, because the fact of existence of something doesn’t say anything about its nature or character. So, basically, according to the reality check, it’s better not to believe in any kind of God but be a loving person who treats others with kindness and aspires to greater knowledge and higher consciousness, than to believe in one God but think that unveiled women are fair game for rape, that infidels should be killed or subjugated and that God cares anything about how much you bow before him. A paradox is that NDE experiences validate Buddhism, which doesn’t necessarily believe in any kind of God, and they invalidate Islam, which believes in God and heaven, because a God of NDE experiences essentially is a Buddhist.

Some will say that some NDE experiences, as well as the spiritual experiences of some religious converts, directly confirm Christianity, but I would rather say that this means that Christianity has the “mandate of heaven”, that its basic tenets of love, forgiveness, faith and universal kindness are supported by the spiritual beings in charge. You could expect the same thing within the Hindu paradigm, where God would take the form that is closest to the person and reveal the most useful truths in that form, which is easiest to understand, or from the Buddhist paradigm, where a dakini would take some form that is the closest equivalent of transcendence in the mind of the person in order to manifest a spiritual message.

You see now why I think it’s very difficult to use spiritual experiences as proof of some specific theology; it’s because the experiences validate a certain spectrum of religious beliefs, while invalidating religions from another spectrum, but when you get to the specifics, it’s wiser to conclude that they don’t matter all that much, than to waste time nitpicking. That’s why I don’t waste time defining myself in terms of religious beliefs – it’s an exercise I leave to those with nothing better to do. I stand for certain principles, for certain general things, and against certain general things. I do certain things that are in accordance to my beliefs, and I avoid doing things that oppose them. That’s why I can function just fine with people whose beliefs and practices are of a certain spiritual spectrum, regardless of their adherence to some formal belief system, but it’s also why I’m at war with people whose beliefs and practices are from an opposed spectrum. You can’t think that a guy who approved enslaving and raping prisoners of war is a prophet of God and be on good terms with me, because I’m your sworn enemy. I’m the friend of those enslaved and raped, because God is with the victims of evil, never with the villains.

There’s a historical tale that I like a lot, about a medieval Hindu warlord who waged guerrilla warfare against the Muslim occupiers, I can’t remember the name, but basically at one point he captured a Muslim princess of some sort, and she expected to be enslaved and raped, because that’s what the Muslims would do to the “unbelievers”. However, the guy wasn’t a Muslim, so she was in for quite a surprise, because Hindu scriptures order men to treat all women other than their wife as they would treat their mother. He told her “it’s a pity that my mom wasn’t as beautiful as you, because I’d probably have turned out better” and basically treated her like an honored guest.

So basically, if you have evidence of powerful spiritual beings who commend treating others kindly and lovingly, Christianity would get a pass, Hinduism would get a pass, and Buddhism would get a pass, because, guess what, their religious scriptures say you should treat others kindly. Even Satanism would fare better than Islam, because according to Satanism you should treat others kindly unless they really fuck with you. If they do, you should tell them to stop. If they don’t, you should tell them again, more forcefully. If they still fuck with you, destroy them. Since this is basically reasonable, a practicing Satanist could actually fare rather well in the eyes of God, but a Muslim, who is told to lie to the “unbelievers” and to deceive them, then to subjugate them, enslave them, rape them and kill them, he’d get really, really screwed when he meets the actual God for whom there is actual evidence, unlike their Allah which is basically a hallucination of a madman based on distorted hearsay of Bible. Now don’t tell me that a Muslim can be a good person. I know he can, but he can’t be a good person and a good Muslim at the same time, because Islam is inherently evil and spiritually corruptive.

Religions tell us that the most important thing for salvation is to believe in a certain kind of God and to belong to their sect. As it turns out, nothing could be less important. What’s actually important is what you are and what you do, and what you should aspire to, essentially, to be like those spiritual beings of light from the NDE experiences – to radiate understanding, loving kindness and knowledge, to be the clarity that calms the disturbed minds of others and introduce knowledge and light, to be the light of God that shines in the world and leads others from darkness. That’s the purpose of life.