I was flipping through the stations while driving the other day and I stopped at the local conservative religious talk radio station when I heard Lee Strobel's name. Strobel is the author of The Case for Christ, The Case for Faith, The Case for a Creator, and I think a few others. He was promoting his newest book, The Case for Grace, which claims to lay out an evidence-based argument which supports belief in Jesus/God based on people's personal experiences. Strobel says these personal experiences are "necessary but not sufficient" to believe in God, mainly so he can deny that they mean anything when a non-Christian has an almost identical experience.
What I found interesting was a health scare he had recently in which he claims he had visions of hell. According to Strobel, he was having a number of medical issues which caused his blood-sodium levels to drop to levels that are often fatal.
In the interview, Strobel explains that hyponatremia can cause "mental confusion and hallucinations." He then says he hallucinated going to hell. Afterward he seems to take extra care to explain that this was just a hallucination.
What struck me was that it was no different than a typical Near Death Experience (NDE) where the person sees visions of heaven, and yet the evangelical community never dismisses these as symptoms of a brain chemistry that's gotten out of whack--even when their medical charts show that's the obvious and most likely explanation for their visions. When the vision is of heaven, conservative theists will swear with their last breath that it was a genuine Capital-V Vision from God, which of course is a promise of things to come for them. But when they see hell, it's just a hallucination brought on by trauma to the brain.
How convenient.
Here is a link to the podcast page for the show. Strobel's visit to hell is from the 2015-03-11 5PM Hour 2 show, about 30-35 minutes in.
