One of the things Gary Habermas asked Antony Flew about in their interview was what certain 20th century philosophers would have thought if they were still alive and had they seen modern apologetic advances and Flew’s apparent acceptance of belief in God.
One of these philosophers was A. J. Ayer, who was one of the architects of logical positivism (which was so anti-religious that it claimed religious statements literally had no meaning at all) in the 1950s (before it was pointed out that judged by their own criteria, central positivist claims also appeared to be meaningless, contributing to the movement’s collapse).
Ayer was venomously anti-religious, but before he died, he had a very unusual experience: In fact, he had a near-death experience. He choked on a piece of fish and was clinically dead for four minutes. When he came back, he reported his experience.
I’m not overly impressed with apologetic evidence allegedly offered by NDEs. In fact, I’m quite skeptical of them at this point.
Some of the press accounts of Ayer’s experience sound really weird and implausible–more like a hallucination than a genuine experience of the afterlife (though the Church acknowledges that the consciousness of a subject can mix elements into a genuine experience of the supernatural in private revelation).
Still, it’s a cosmic irony that Ayer–so long a proponent of the idea that talk about the afterlife was either meaningless or foolish–would have an NDE, following which he reported seeing the Supreme Being and saying that the event "weakened my conviction that death would be the end of me, though I continue to hope it will be."
His NDE made quite a splash in the press, both legitimate and illegitimate. After his experience was reported in an American tabloid (The Weekly World News, if I recall correctly), one of the professors in my philosophy department taped the story to his door and another (or possibly the same) professor wrote "Well, that’s it for empiricism" in the margin.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS GREAT IRONY.
“I’m not overly impressed with apologetic evidence allegedly offered by NDEs. In fact, I’m quite skeptical of them at this point.”
Nobody is impressed with evidense of NDE’s, until you have one. After experiencing an NDE, it usually becomes the fulcrum point of your entire earthly existence.
Having experienced one myself, it is true that it could have been a(n) hallucination induced by oxygen depravation, or whatever. Yet, I’m typing this comment today because of what happened during the NDE. So while NDEs may be hallucinations, or true spiritual encounters, they have very real, and very significant, effects on our lives.
But I understand the skepticism, I thought they were kooky before it happened to me.
I thought some of the skepticism was due to ndes
reflecting the religious or cultural background
of those having them, e.g. while Christians (or former Christians raised that way etc) see Jesus,
Hindus see their multi-armed gods, maybe a Muslim sees Muhammed or something, or even atheist ones like Kerry Packer who says he died for a while and nothing happened (just like losing and regaining consciousness). But there’s
also those recurring elements, like the famous white light tunnel and your life flashing before your eyes, backwards apparently, from recent events to earlier ones. So I think it’s probably a matter of some hallucinatory elements mixed in with genuine private personal revelation like Jimmy mentioned. Oh yes, and what I find interesting is that while most media focus is on visions of heaven in ndes, there have also been people who have had visions of hell. A guy compiled a lot of those cases into a book and he became a Catholic because of it. While some people who have those experiences repent or convert, others (not thinking that their fate can be changed or there is any alternative) just decide to enjoy life as much as possible while they can and live as long as they can, a ‘few years on the surface’ like in Perelandra.
A.J. Ayer’s own account of his NDE, “What I saw when I was dead,” can be found online at:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_n20_v40/ai_6701958
It should be noted that Ayer remained an atheist following that experience and he remained skeptical concerning the existence of an afterlife. Not everyone who has such an experience becomes a religious believer. In fact Ayer, in his account gives some reasons for us remaining skeptical.