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<\/a><\/p>\nThere are those who believe that science will eventually explain everything\u2014including our enduring belief in heaven. The thesis here is very simple: heaven is not a real place, or even a process or a supernatural event. It’s something that happens in your brain as you die.<\/p>\n
I first encountered this idea as I was researching my new book,\u00a0Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination With the Afterlife<\/em><\/a><\/em>. I was having lunch with my friend and colleague Christopher Dickey, who told me that his father, the writer James Dickey, had a fantasy of heaven in which all of his closest friends were sitting around a swimming pool, chatting. “There was nothing special about the pool itself,” wrote Chris in\u00a0Summer of Deliverance: A Memoir of Father and Son<\/em><\/a><\/em>. “Nobody walked on the water. And he never told me who the friends were … But what he took away from the dream was a sense of contentment, of being at ease with himself and the world, as if he had gotten a preview of heaven. He called that place ‘The Happy Swimming Pool.’ ” Chris believes that everything we think we know about heaven happens in the moments before death. After that, there’s nothing.<\/p>\n [[[MORE]]]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Scientists try to explain near-death experiences. There are those who believe that science will eventually explain everything\u2014including our enduring belief in heaven. The thesis here is very simple: heaven is not a real place, or even a process or a … Continue reading