No

by Andrea Gerstner

Created on: September 12, 2011

Is There a Heaven?

According to Fox News polls of 85 percent of people believe in Heaven, and 92 percent say they believe in God. Wikipedia states that in many religions Heaven is a physical or transcendental place where people who have died continue to exist in an afterlife. Heaven is often described as the holiest place, accessible by people of divinity, goodness, piety, faith or other values. However, is there a Heaven?

Steven Hawking states that the Heaven of an afterlife that awaits us is a “fairy story” for people afraid of death. Hawking regards the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail.  In addition, Hawking rejected the notion of life beyond death and emphasized the need to fulfill our potential on Earth by making good use of our lives. In answer to the questions of how we should live Hawking says: “we should seek the greatest value of our action.” Quantum fluctuations in the early universe became the seeds from which galaxies, stars and ultimately human life emerged.

New images state that the evidence of an afterlife is a product of the brain. Neuroscientist Michael Persinger, in his laboratory at Laurentian University, Canada can induce all of these experiences in subjects, by subjecting their temporal lobes to patterns of magnetic fields. Apparently this experiment creates a mild out-of-body experience, or experiences of trips to Heaven. The Swiss neuroscientist Olaf Blanke discovered that they could bring about an out-of-body experience through electrical stimulation of the right angular gyrus in the temporal lobe.

Psychologist and paranormal researcher Susan Blackmore states that the visual cortex on the back of the brain is where information from the retina is processed. Lack of oxygen to the brain (which can occur near death) can interfere with the normal rate of firing nerve cells in the area. When this occurs, “stripes” or neuronal activity move across the visual cortex, which is interpreted by the brain as concentric rings or spirals. These spirals may be seen as a tunnel. Also the experience of visualizing things from above, as in out-of-body experiences is actually just a normal extension of a process called “decentering”-picturing yourself from above looking down.

Pim Van Lommel states that some theories result by physiological changes in the brain such as brain cells dying are a result of cerebral anoxia, and possibly created by the release of endorphins, or NMDA blockade. Lommel goes on to say that neurophysiological processes play a role in near death experiences, or trips to Heaven. These can be introduced by electrical stimulation of some parts of the cortex resulting in high carbon dioxide levels in the brain. This decreased cerebral perfusion results in local cerebral hypoxia that can induce out-of-body experiences. The loss of cortical function precedes the rapid loss of brainstem activity and these experiences arise during the loss of, or on regaining consciousness. The transition from consciousness to unconsciousness is rapid, showing brain activity to change within a few seconds who appear to the subject as an out-of-body experience or a trip to Heaven where one interacts with loved ones.

Deepak Chopra states that of the six billion people living today that in death not one person has returned to confirm for us beyond a reasonable doubt that there is life after death.

Eventually the grand mystery of consciousness and Heaven will be solved by the penetrating tools of science.

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