New study of Near Death Experiences find evidence for God and reveals that people experience `God` beyond death. A major result from NDE researcher Rene Jorgensen's new study of near death experiences revealed in his book Behind 90 Minutes in Heaven shows that people overwhelmingly agree to call the core of their experience - an experience of `God.`

When asked: “What would you describe the core or essence of your experience as”, the study found that 53 percent checked the box with “pure being,” and 60 percent said yes to “essence of existence.” Moving further into trying to put a name on this core or essence the consensus became higher with 73 percent agreeing to call it “the Light,” and a majority of 80 percent calling it “God.” 

Usually people who have NDEs prefer to call themselves “spiritual” rather than “religious” since organized religion will often seem too confined or limited for what they have experienced. However, while experiencers will sometimes object to using the word “God” it is clear that if we look behind the disagreements of how to interpret God, what this name points towards has very clearly something to do with what people experience in their NDE:

"If you want to call the light God. I have no trouble calling it God. To me it was God and it was for a long time. Now, I think of it as a greater consciousness that we are all part of or something like that. But that can be called God too, so I don’t have any difficulty calling it God."

Here David, one NDEr taking part in the study, agrees to call the light God but he clearly also tries to open up the concept, which is something that we often find with people who have NDEs. Generally in NDE research, NDErs tend to use the term a “being of light” and while they will use God to describe this form of being, it is to be understood as God in a very broad sense. Rather than an experience of God that fits a particular religion, NDErs will have an experience of God in a sense that is spiritually neutral.

There are many theories that try to explain away the near death experience, such as REM activity or hallucinations caused by the lack of oxygen to the brain. However, the fact remains that no theory to date is able to explain all the elements of the NDE. Most of these skeptical theories involve a brain that is active while near death experiences happen during flat EEG (no brain function), and therefore, classical science is challenged as clear vivid experience should not be possible.

When we add the scientific evidence to support that these experiences are indeed real to what Rene Jorgensen found in his study we have evidence for God. If we define God as 'ultimate reality' or ontological as that which is greater than what we can conceive, then Jorgensen's study found a strong case. Along with 80 percent saying that they had an experience of 'God,' the study also found that the same amount said that they were either not certain if or they could not "interpret precisely in human language" what they had experienced beyond death.   

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