Comment Re:finally... (Score 1) 692
One could postulate for any given observed event and it's (non-supernatural) cause, that the said cause is simply the mechanism by which a deity causes that observed event. For example, one might postulate that God causes arrows to fly when fired. The non-supernatural explanation is that the tension on the bowstring accelerates the arrow. This could be explained as the mechanism by which God causes arrows to fly.
But such an explanation is not parsimonious. It has an extra assumption (I.E., that God is affecting arrows) which is not necessary to explain the observation. A sufficiently broad and abstract notion of God encompasses everything and explains exactly nothing (as per the deistic viewpoint). It is an error in reasoning, therefore, to conclude that NDE's are, despite ketamine's effect on a person, nevertheless related to heaven (unless/until further observations warrant this hypothesis). That the ketamine simply causes a hallucination (as many other chemicals can do) is a much simpler explanation, and, as such, more likely to be correct.
I will note that the problem of induction (I.e., any induction can be definitively refuted but not definitively confirmed) means that nothing can ever completely rule out supernatural involvement in anything. This experiment only shows that heaven is not necessary to explain NDE's. But saying that something is supernaturally caused says, precisely, that we cannot explain it (by definition); it just doesn't accomplish anything.