Not wanting to work my way through all of the links you provided, I'll use one as an example of a point I wish to make. The whole whole idea of "science can explain the causes", therefore it's not anything mystical notion is a pretty flat and frankly uninteresting and uninformative thing in the big picture. It's great science can examine the physiological components of the experience, but to say they are "cause by the brain", and therefore they are nothing more than that is to say the least a bit myopic.
From the opening sentence of the above article it states, "Near-death experiences are often thought of as mystical phenomena, but research is now revealing scientific explanations for virtually all of their common features.". In response I will say they are not "thought of as a mystical phenomena", they actual
are a mystical experience. That is their very nature. Even if there is a "scientific explanation", what happens in the brain, they are still a mystical experience. The nature of what they are, the impact it has on someone's life, what it opens their minds to, and so forth are in fact "transcendent" in nature, going beyond the "normal" or mundane into what is commonly understood as "spiritual" or going beyond simple or "normal" mind/body experiences.
The very fact of the word choice alone in the opening sentence of that article treats "scientific explanations" as the final thought, the authoritative voice alone on the nature of NDEs. I think that is a sad limitation of a popular notion that science is the answer-king. This is not to deny that there are of course things going on in the brain during such experiences, or that science can in fact look at them. To me, that validates that the experience is not "made up" or "just in your head". It is physiological proof of an actual experience that is happening, just as all experiences are registered in the brain. That's first and foremost. It is proof that the NDE being reported, actually has certain signature marks in the brain.
But to interpret this as the experience is
caused by the brain, as in some sort of malfunctioning, that the phenomenon is nothing more than the brain "doing something" and we're
just along for the ride is completely erroneous and non-scientific! If this "conclusion" were true, then you have have to conclude your brain "made" you feel love for your spouse, that your love is not actually a real phenomenon that has any sort of actual truth or value or knowledge in and of itself, other than your love for them being a strange sort of entertainment factor as your consciousness rides the raft of your brain just "doing it's thing".
Sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander here. Such conclusions are NOT scientific, but philosophical. That is not science that concludes that, or "explains" it.
Likewise the "religious explanation" is just as speculative as the "scientific explanation". All that is happening in both instances is taking what available data there is and creating a model of explanation using the symbols of its framework of language. That we can see actual brain function, that we are using that language to help talk about the experience can be helpful, but to "conclude" anything is to say the least not going to tell us much or open our understanding of the nature of these things. It's the same thing with one's theologies about these things, that "It's the god that sends spirits to you from beyond the grave". That's a valid explanation too, based on the available symbolic system at their disposal. But it's obvious there is more to the picture than that! And there is more to the picture than the "scientific explanation" as well.
Science is itself ultimately simply a language, not Truth itself that concludes anything. Answers are not static points where we find "explanations" for and questions cease in the face of our "facts". That is a very bad notion of any system of translation of reality we use, and used like that it becomes a theology in itself, defining Ultimately Truth and Reality. Science used like that, is in effect just another theology making pronouncements about God.
