Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: oopdavid@ubvmsa.cc.buffalo.edu (David J. Rodman) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: RE: Soul winners Message-ID: Date: 3 Feb 91 03:20:55 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: University at Buffalo Lines: 72 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article , linborg@cs.wash ington.edu (Jeff Linborg) writes... >I believe there is no life after death (just like the Jews did up until around 250 BC...) just as firmly as you believe there is. >There may indeed be a god, but if it is the god you describe I doubt very much that he is either perfect of loving. Well you sure said a mouth full. Let me expound on your certainties and bring up a few variables into your equation of our God and life after death. By the way, I am certainly not a highly religious person by education. I received an Episcopal confirmation, attended a Catholic college and went on to medical school. I have devoted my life to science and medicine. I have had very skeptical views in my life from time to time on life and religion like you apparently do. This is in response to my intellectual and vocational training and family upbringing. Now for my stories. Listen and read. My wife was a young 34 years old when she went to the hospital for a test to evaluate her high blood pressure. We had planned a pregnancy and her physician felt a kidney problem was present. We were greatly surprised when the test showed no kidney abnormality and a vascular lesion called an aneurysm off her aorta (the main blood vessel in her abdominal area). My searching of the literature led me to find only 70 to 80 cases of a similar aneurysm in this century. She had such a rare condition, surgeons in our city were split on a decision to operate. More X rays were obtained and we received a 4th opinion from a surgeon in Houston Texas, where the majority of these difficult operations are performed at this time. He reviewed the case, looked at the X rays, examined my wife and said surgery was required to prevent rupture during a pregnancy. Another X ray study was scheduled the day before the operation and we went home to return in 8 weeks for the operation. My wife is a person of great faith. She prayed continually a prayer of healing, others said masses for her and prayers were offered to Saint Jude and Saint Anthony. We entered the hospital planning on a difficult surgery and a two week stay. I went with her to the last test, the repeat angiogram. I was summoned to the reading room by the radiologist and was shocked by what I saw. The aneurysm was nothing more than a faint haze on the screen. New blood vessels were seen carrying blood to the organs in her abdominal area that had not appeared previously on any of her X rays. Her doctor, one of the most experienced surgeons in the country and in the world, said as he discharged my wife: " I have heard reports of this type of thing once before and never actually seen it. Go home and live your life. You do not need the surgery." I am a physician, I will never forget the tears of joy I shed at that time, for it clearly demonstrated to me the presence of a miracle. I know of no reason for this lesion to disappear at the 11th hour. The surgeon could not explain it either, we were told "I've heard of miracles before, but I have never seen one." I have thanked God daily for this grace since, and I will continue to do so, for the prayers we asked for, a speedy recovery of a dangerous operation, were answered a hundred fold and more. Secondly, to respond to your ideas of the lack of life after death, there are numerous accounts of near death experiences, when people recount similar circmstances of warm lights, glows, people, angels etc. I never held these things too highly, as they generally appear in the National Enquirer or similar scandal sheets. A patient of mine, relayed this experience: Many years ago, when she was a young woman, she was dying of a complication of a pregnancy. Actually, she was bleeding to death. Taken to a hospital, there was an attempt to recuscitate her. After a period of failure to keep her alive, the curtains were drawn, a grim physician came to her husband and pronounced her death. Approximately 20 minutes later, without any further life saving mechanisms she came back to life. Her experience is as follows: when she died, she felt a great relief, leaving her body below. There was an experience of a great expance with light (white) later and she saw great white horses, in gilded bridles. There was a reluctance to return to her body, but it nonetheless happened. These stories are to be shared by all. I hope they make the agnostics skeptics and the skeptics believers. I will not give up my faith nor will I refuse to believe in life after death ever again.