Time to cite your source.

I don't remember hearing about any atheists who saw hell.

I'm pretty sure no one sees either of those things.

Who is this....Christian?!?! you speak of?

When the famous English novelist, Somerset Maugham, was expiring in France, aged 91, he summoned the world-class atheist, A.J. Ayer, like a priest to his deathbed, to reassure him that there was no afterlife. Professor Ayer duly delivered the words of consolation Maugham longed to hear. But when Ayer himself was dying two decades later, he wasn't so sure. Having choked on a piece of smoked salmon that stopped his heart for at least four minutes, the famed philosopher saw, and heard things he had spent a lifetime denying. On his return from he knew not where, Ayer wrote a chagrined but enigmatic account of what has become known in Britain and beyond as Near Death Experience. Millions of people say they have had an NDE, as it is now commonly known, while many more are thought to have had the experience but are too embarrassed to talk about it. A Gallup poll in the United States indicated 8-12 million people (approximately the population of New York City) claimed experience of life beyond the grave; in Britain, a Mori poll showed seven people out of 10 believed NDEs happened and constituted evidence of an afterlife. An intriguing aspect of the claims is their similarity: a tunnel, a rushing sound, a brilliant light, a feeling of ecstasy and being told it is not yet time to die. Also frequent are: the out-of-the-body experience in which a person appears to observe his body from above - often watching medics trying frantically to revive his corpse; an instantaneous review of a person's whole life; and sometimes seeing dead friends and family. One woman said she met a brother she did not know she had. Her father told her later: "You did have a brother. I am the only one alive who knew about him." Of the many testaments on record, that of Jack Foreman, a US naval technician, combines most of the common elements. Foreman was "cooked" by a radar leak and had major surgery for a large hole in his diaphragm. Several days later, he appeared to die. "I could look down on my whole body," he later reported. "One medic was applying electric paddles to my chest to shock me back and shouting ‘Breathe, you sonofabitch, breathe.'" They stabbed needles into his lungs to extract fluid and injected adrenaline direct into the heart. Foreman says he saw his entire life pass in seconds: being in the womb, the ceremony of his Christening, an embarrassing incident as a small boy when he soiled his pants. He heard a loud rushing noise and appeared to be speeding through a dark tunnel with a light of unbearable brightness at the end. This light took human form and he received a message, though not in words, "You must go back." The tunnel experience happened in reverse. Because of its radioactive status, Foreman's body had been taken to a cleaning room. He had a feeling that he re-entered painfully through his toes and when he spoke, the medics were totally shocked. The majority of recorded claims link NDEs to feelings of joy and comfort. A statistician calculated that 69 per cent of the thousands of cases he investigated reported a feeling of overwhelming love. When he broke his subjects down by belief (Christian, Religious but non-Christian, Non-religious, New Age, etc) he found 100 per cent of people calling themselves atheists had experienced "tremendous ecstasy". Sixty-three per cent reported the life review experience. Stories such as these are denounced as laughable by skeptics, who argue that some people copy what others have said or project their own childish ideas of heaven: a robed Jesus, joy, flowers, cottages, even reunions with deceased pets. The existence of an American society, Hello From Heaven, is seen as proof of the battiness of these gullible dreamers. Scientific rebuttal usually refers to residual electrical activity in the brain cortex. Medics mostly argue that the feeling of peace could be caused by the release of endorphins in response to extreme stress or cardiac arrest and anesthesia of the brain state; neural noise and retino-cortical mapping could explain the rushing sound, the tunnel and the darkness and light. Ayer's account of his own NDE, for a man of such formidable intellect, was surprisingly similar to most of the others on record, though more elegantly observed. He wrote of "a red light for governing the universe" and some barrier he crossed, "like the River Styx." The experience, he said, "weakened my conviction that death would be the end of me, though I continue to hope it will be." For Ayer to admit doubt about his life-long conviction "no God, no afterlife" shook the academic establishment in Britain. As a student, he had debated with some of the greatest minds in the country, including the Jesuit Fr. Martin d'Arcy who described Ayer as "the most dangerous man in Oxford University." Not bad at age 21! Following the classic route of Eton, Oxford and the (Welsh) Guards, Ayer became that rare thing, a popularly-known philosopher, mostly through his appearances on the BBC radio program, the "Brains Trust." Serious research on NDEs has been going on since the mid-1970s. What put the subject back on the front pages was a new revelation concerning the Ayer experience. Many of his friends felt his published account reflected an academic's urge to embellish and tease the classical reference to the River Styx, for example. What's more, the doctor who attended Ayer suspected the smoked-salmon story was meant to impress his friends. He found no salmon in his patient's throat, but if you want a truly high-class way of dying, you couldn't do better than choking on this expensive delicacy! None of his circle, however, denied Ayer's claim to have had an extraordinary experience while his heart was stopped. And a year later, his wife said, "Freddie has been so much nicer since he died." What his friends questioned was whether his NDE account was the entire truth. Now the surgeon who attended him has broken a long silence. He told an author who wrote a play about the affair: "Ayer told me he saw the Supreme Being." There was no further elucidation. The physician said simply that when Ayer recovered, "he told me he saw the Supreme Being." His friends were astounded. Ayer had admitted there was a god! Was this another joke? If not, why did he withhold it from his story? Was it that he could not face the possibility that he had built a glittering career on a false premise? In the post-Christian age that is Britain today, few people are ready to admit to belief in the supernatural, at least not if Jesus or God are involved, though stone circles and pyramid power seem quite acceptable. However, a London magazine last week carried a strange claim from one of those least likely to fall victim to delusion, a veteran journalist. Robert Blair Kaiser is an author and a former correspondent for Time magazine. Reviewing a book about miracles he wrote: "In 1994, behind the wheel of my Mercedes, I lurched out of my driveway and was awakened from my dreamy preoccupation by the sight of a speeding car bearing down on me, not five feet away on my left. I knew I was a dead man. "All of a sudden, that car was on my right. The driver weaved a bit, braked for a moment and then drove off, shaking his head in disbelief, as I was. For it was clear to me, there was no way he could have missed crashing into me, no way he could have steered aside. His car had flashed through my car, his steel and glass and rubber passing through my steel and glass and rubber like a ray of light through a pane of alabaster." Kaiser ends his anecdote with a reflection: "This miracle moment was a turning point in my life, for I took it as a sign that God wasn't finished with me yet and that I had some new business to attend to." Mr. Kaiser may well be right. But has he reflected that maybe it was the other guy God wanted to keep alive? Dr. Barbara Rommer has this to say about atheist NDEs: It appears that disavowing the reality or possibility of the existence of a Higher Power may contribute to the why of a Less-Than-Positive (LTP) Experience: 19.4 percent of my LTP study group labeled themselves as atheist or agnostic prior to their experience. Dr. Kenneth Ring concludes that religious belief is not required: Religious orientation was not a factor affecting either the likelihood or the depth of the near-death experience. An atheist was as likely to have one as was a devoutly religious person. Regardless of their prior attitudes - whether skeptical or deeply religious - and regardless of the many variations in religious beliefs and degrees of skepticism from tolerant disbelief to outspoken atheism - most of these people were convinced that they had been in the presence of some supreme and loving power and had a glimpse of a life yet to come. Almost all who experienced a NDE found their lives transformed and a change in their attitudes and values, and in their inclination to love and to help others. Some atheists do not need to have a NDE to have their life changed. Dr. Diane Komp, a pediatric oncologist at Yale, was transformed by hearing about children's NDE reports, such as that of an 8-year-old with cancer envisioning a school bus driven by Jesus, a 7-year-old leukemia patient hearing a chorus of angels before passing away. Dr. Komp states the following about her conversion: I was an atheist, and it changed my view of spiritual matters. Call it a conversion. I came away convinced that these are real spiritual experiences. Dr. PMH Atwater concluded the following about atheists NDEs: No matter what the nature of the experience, it alters some lives. Alcoholics find themselves unable to imbibe. Hardened criminals opt for a life of helping others. Atheists embrace the existence of a deity, while dogmatic members of a particular religion report feeling welcome in any church or temple or mosque. Dr. Raymond Moody concluded that the identity of the Being of Light is based on the experiencer's religious background:: Of all the possible near-death elements, the light exerted the greatest influence on the individual. Patients interpreted the light as a being - a being that radiated love and warmth. Christians recognized the light as Christ. Atheists identified the spirit only as a guide. (The Light Beyond, p.22) Dr. Susan Blackmore concludes that a belief in an afterlife is not necessary: NDEs happen to people who don't appear to have any need to believe in an afterlife: they are as common among atheists as they are among the devout. In the IANDS FAQ pamphlet the question is asked: Are the people who have NDEs very religious? The IANDS answer is: People who report NDEs are no better or worse – and no more or less religious – than in any other cross-section of the population. They come from many religious backgrounds and from the ranks of agnostics and even atheists. The experience seems more closely related to a person's life afterwards than to what it was before. My own NDE research shows that atheists who return from a NDE may not believe in a God after it, but they do return recognizing a higher power in the universe and behind everything. Ruth Montgomery gave some examples of the death experience of an atheist who cares little about others: Let us take as an example a person who is so sure that there is no God and no hereafter that he treats others badly while on Earth and he feels no moral obligation to lend a helping hand or to be a decent citizen. When he makes the transition he is angry and tempestuous as he finds himself in a situation of his own making, surrounded by other greedy souls who, because they are in like situation, welcome him gleefully to the hell that they have created for themselves. He is shocked. These are not the type of people he wants to associate with. They are fiendish and ill-mannered, whereas he has been a stiff-necked, educated, and polished man, although he never gave thought to anyone but himself. He tries to break out of the fiendish group, but they surround him. He calls for help, but no one with a better nature can enter the group to save him. He has dug his own grave, so to speak, and is allowed to lie in it for a while. He is utterly miserable, for he now begins to see the folly of his ways but does not know how to avert his fate. He is left there until his own remorse for sinful ways begins to penetrate his being and he acknowledges to himself that he wasted a lifetime, a rare privilege, by thinking only of himself. After he reaches full repentance he is then able to free himself of the unrepentant creatures around him, and for a long time thereafter he searches his own soul to review the past mistakes. This is sometimes a long, drawn-out process because he will have to make his way alone. Only he is able to assess his wrongs and seek forgiveness, although there are many here willing to lend a hand whenever he reaches out to them for it. Concerning this example of an atheist's unpleasant NDE, it must be qualified by stating that not all atheists have unpleasant NDEs. The description of this atheist's death experience sounds uncannily similar to Rev. Howard Storm's NDE whom I profile on this website. Rev. Howard Storm was an atheist who was rescued from hell by Jesus. While in hell, Storm was subjected to extreme torment and torture by hideously dark souls. The following passage describes his conversion from atheism while in hell: Exactly what happened was ...and I'm not going to try and explain this. From inside of me I felt a voice, my voice, say: "Pray to God." My mind responded to that: "I don't pray. I don't know how to pray." This is a guy lying on the ground in the darkness surrounded by what appeared to be dozens if not hundreds and hundreds of vicious creatures who had just torn him up. The situation seemed utterly hopeless, and I seemed beyond any possible help whether I believed in God or not. The voice again told me to pray to God. It was a dilemma since I didn't know how. The voice told me a third time to pray to God. I started saying things like: "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want ...God bless America .." and anything else that seemed to have a religious connotation. And these people went into a frenzy, as if I had thrown boiling oil all over them. They began yelling and screaming at me, telling me to quit, that there was no God, and no one could hear me. While they screamed and yelled obscenities, they also began backing away from me – as if I were poison. As they were retreating, they became more rabid, cursing and screaming that what I was saying was worthless and that I was a coward. I screamed back at them: "Our Father who art in heaven," and similar ideas. This continued for some time until, suddenly, I was aware that they had left. It was dark, and I was alone yelling things that sounded churchy. It was pleasing to me that these churchy sayings had such an effect on those awful beings. Howard Storm's acknowledgement of a Higher Power led to his rescue from hell. This suggests that it is the way to leave hell. Ruth Montgomery gives another example of an atheistic death experience except that this atheists was a murderer as well. What of a murderer who deliberately kills another for his personal gain or satisfaction? This is not a pretty story. Full of hatred or vengeance, he expects to find nothing when he passes through the door called death, and for a long time that is usually what he finds - nothing. He is in a state like unto death for a goodly while, until at last something arouses him, and he wakens to find out that the hell he had every reason to expect is indeed awaiting him. It is not goblins and devils that he sees, but visions of his own face distorted by hatred, greed, malice, and other defeating emotions. He cringes from the sight, realizing that he sees himself thus, that he himself was possessed of a devil, and that except for his baser nature he would have been able unaided to cast him forth. He is appalled as he realizes that he wasted a lifetime of opportunity. Not for him is enrollment in the temple of wisdom or the higher school of learning. This soul will stay in torment for a long, long time, until he believes himself to be totally lost. When he eventually reaches this pit of despair, he may at last cry out to God to rescue him and that wail of despair is heard by God. Other souls are sent to ease his suffering, and if his will is truly uplifted toward spiritual development, he will slowly, slowly, slowly begin to work himself upward until he has learned the penalties for taking another's life which was given by God. When he is sufficiently strong to do so, he will accost the person whose life he took, and their reaction is such as to ring bells in paradise; for, as likely as not, the other soul has conquered self to such an extent that he has already forgiven the suffering soul who cut short his span of physical life. This forgiveness uplifts the murderer to such an extent that he is gradually able to take his place in the society of other souls and finally to learn some of the lessons of salvation. Remember that a soul on this side, just as on your side, is never without help from God and the good souls whom God created in his own image. Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it will be opened unto you. That is the law of the universe. Ask, receive; knock, open the door of your mind and let the rays of universal love flow in. The late Betty Bethards was an experiencer and paranormal researcher who concluded the following about atheists: If you don't believe in God or an afterlife, you will probably be kept in a sleep state for the first two to three day period. You will wake up in a beautiful meadow or some other calm and peaceful place where you can reconcile the transition from the death state to the continuous life. You are given teachings in the hope that you do not refuse to believe that you are dead. Bethards' analysis agrees with Ruth Montgomery's research who described an atheists being kept in a sleep state for a short period because of their disbelief of an afterlife. http://www.near-death.com/experiences/atheists01.html

You are saying that every single atheist who has had a NDE has seen hell? Where are your references for this statement. I don't think it is accurate at all.

They are real is why.

I thought almost everyone reported a bright light at the end of a tunnel.

Pretty much everyone who has one of these experiences sees pretty much the same thing: the light, the tunnel, the floaty feeling. All of which is caused by your brain misfiring as it begins to shut down, in the process of dying. LoriK's uber-long account pretty much proves the point : atheists and christians alike, as well as other religions that don't subscribe to a heaven, see basically the same thing. Which indicates to me that it's a physiological process that has nothing to do with the afterlife. I've never heard of this "atheists see hell" near death experience. And I'm pretty well-versed in this sort of thing.

So because of one video you think that all Atheists see hell when they come close to death?