Although it has existed since the beginning of human life, the process of death is still a relatively foreign and unknown process to humanity. There isn't much we know about the event except what we can see and hear for ourselves; i.e. paleness of the skin, decrease in body temperature and respiratory irregularities. As for what the dying individual sees and hears, there is no way for any bystander or medical professional to detect what is happening during that process. However, there is a small percentage of individuals who have "died" and have been able to regain their lives. This is a phenomenon known as a near-death experience, which brings me to the main focus of my research paper, Near Death Experiences: Religious and Scientific Responses. I will argue that because of near-death experiences many people convert to Christianity. I will explore this using Sumegi's Christian perspective theory of death, his studies of returning from the dead, and accounts of people who have had near-death experiences. This approach will allow me to conclude that paired near-death experiences will ultimately influence a person's religious interpretations and beliefs. Studying near-death experiences from a religious perspective is important because it leaves room for findings that cannot be explained by science alone. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay You may have heard someone jokingly utter the expressions: “Do not walk into the light!”, “Do not follow grandmother into the light!” after you have a minor injury that leaves you dizzy. Or have you also said the phrase: “I just saw my whole life flash before my eyes!” after a scary encounter. These terms are all expressions related to a psychological phenomenon known as a near-death experience (NDE). Scientifically, a near-death experience is defined as “a profound psychological event that can happen to a person who is close to death or who is not close to death but in a situation of physical or emotional crisis”. (Greyson B. 2015, paragraph 1). In a Christian context, an NDE can be defined as an otherworldly encounter in which the soul of a dying individual travels out of the physical realm in which we live and into the divine paradise that is heaven, or the perpetual torment that is hell. For an NDE to occur, a person must be considered clinically dead, that is, with the cessation of the functions of the blood circulation and respiratory system, close to death or in a state of severe emotional detachment. An NDE does not happen to everyone who is near death. In fact, a survey conducted by George Gallup Jr in 1982 reports that 15% of Americans who nearly died reported having an NDE and that approximately 774 NDEs are reported per day in the United States (MacIssac, Tara, and George Gallup. 2014). According to this statistic, not everyone who has experienced an NDE is religious. While many of those who have experienced this are devout Christians who know God and the Bible, there are also atheists and others who have never gone to church, read the Bible, or even prayed. Understandably, this leaves scientists baffled as to how a person who has never bothered to learn these things can cite things from the Bible that they saw with their own eyes during their NDE. When someone experiences an NDE, there are many possibilities as to why it is happening. It could be due to a terminal illness, such as cancer, cardiac arrest, or the adverse effects of severe physical trauma. But the thing that all NDE cases have in common is that they are describedlike an out-of-body experience. The International Association for Near-Death Studies states that there are two types of NDEs that occur, pleasant and distressing, each with four distinct phases (IANDS. 2017, para 3). The first phase described in a pleasurable NDE typically involves enhanced bodily senses, for example, sight, smell, sounds, and X-ray vision. The individual would be outside of their physical body and could see the world in an enhanced state. This is followed by the supernatural phase where the individual experiences otherworldly phenomena such as seeing the classic “light in the tunnel” or feeling a warm, comforting light envelop their body or even seeing heaven itself! Which of course would lead to the third phase called life review where an individual's life would be evaluated and sometimes they might be given a surprising amount of knowledge and insights into their life or the lives of their loved ones. Finally, the NDE ends with the return of the individual's soul to the physical body, either by choice or by force (IANDS. 2017, par. 6-8). Likewise, in distressing NDEs, the four types that can occur are helplessness, nothingness, torment, and uselessness. These all have the same four phases of a pleasant NDE, but with upsetting phases and negative feelings throughout the experience. Of course, to a scientist, an NDE is simply a hallucination invented by the individual due to the delirium he or she is experiencing. you are experimenting. There is no way to record the evidence of someone who has experienced an NDE other than taking the patient's word for it. Dr Dean Mobbs, neuroscientist at the Medical Research Council's Brain and Cognitive Sciences Unit at the University of Cambridge. Mobbs and Caroline Watt of the University of Edinburgh state that "Many of the phenomena associated with near-death experiences can be explained biologically" (Choi, Charles Q. 2011). Research shows that the brain releases a stress hormone called norepinephrine during high levels of stress. levels of trauma that can evoke hallucinations. Many NDEs occur during cases of extreme physical trauma such as a car accident. Just as the famous phrase "seeing the light at the end of the tunnel" has an explanation, which is exhaustion. blood and oxygen triggered by extreme levels of fear and oxygen loss causing tunnel vision (Choi, Charles Q. 2011). Scientific explanations for NDEs are pragmatic and only skim the surface of an encounter that occurs on a continuum that we as humans Living beings cannot even fathom our minds. Reports from those who have experienced NDEs have shown that science cannot prove everything there is to know about our physical realm, and that researchers are often baffled by these experiences. In his book “Understanding Death,” Sumegi talks about Jewish and Christian traditions that both described heaven and hell as places in the afterlife. Likewise, those who have experienced an NDE would describe going to one of these places; this is what would make the experience pleasant or distressing. You would expect an atheist to see hell or a Christian to see heaven, but what about those in between? What about the atheist whose near-death experience was warm and welcoming? What about the Christian who found himself in the fiery pits of hell and was given a second chance? This brings me to the topic of the human soul. Your soul is unaltered, pure and shows who you truly are. If you claim to be a thing in your physical body, but that doesn't match what you really feel in your heart, then, of course, there will be problems. The soul separates from the physical body and travels to one of these realms, and the life they lived on Earth would determine how..