Encounter (Vol.2, No. 2, 2002; Webpage issue 8)

The web journal of Godsearch, Inc. (journal formerly entitled Point/Counterpoint).

The skeptic and seeker's guide for investigating religions and world-views through debate, interview, analysis, and discussion.

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What is Encounter? (Home Page)

Jim Morrison's Grave

 

Near Death Experience:

The Dark Side

 

The 36th God: Gyalsang's Story

The Journey of a Sherpa Tibetan Buddhist

 

Scientific Evidence for a Designer of the Universe:

Reason #33 (of 123)

 

Living to Die

 

 

Jim Morrison's Grave

by steve taylor

 

AM I A PILGRIM?

OR ANOTHER SOUVENIR HOUND?

IN THE CITY OF LIGHTS

I SET MY SIGHTS

ON A KING'S DOMAIN

IT WAS A MANHOLE

DUG OVER AT THE EDGE OF TOWN

AND A SPRAY CAN SCRAWL

ON THE CEMETERY WALL

SAID 'YOU'D BETTER BEHAVE'

 

JIM MORRISON'S GRAVE

 

IT'S GETTING COLD HERE

AND THERE AIN'T A LIZARD IN SIGHT

DID THE END BEGIN

WHEN YOU SHED YOUR SKIN

IN THE HOME OF THE BRAVE?

SOMEBODY SHAKE HIM

FROM THE LAND OF LARGER THAN LIFE

WHERE THE REMNANTS WARN

OF A LEGEND BORN

IN A DEAD MAN'S CAVE

 

JIM MORRISON'S GRAVE

 

I STAY DRIVEN 'CAUSE THERE'S NOWHERE TO PARK

I CAN'T SHUT MY EYES--I'M AFRAID OF THE DARK

I LIE AWAKE

THAT STONE LEFT ME CHILLED TO THE BONE

SOUND THE ALARM BEFORE IT'S DONE

FIND JIM MORRISON

COME AWAY TO PARIS

LET HIM SEE ANOTHER DAY

LET HIM FADE OUT SLOWLY

ONLY FOOLS BURN AWAY

LET A TRUE LOVE SHOW HIM WHAT A HEART CAN BECOME

SOMEBODY FIND JIM MORRISON

FIND JIM MORRISON'S GRAVE

 

I GET WEARY

LORD, I DON'T UNDERSTAND

HOW DOES A SEED GET STRANGLED IN THE HEART OF A MAN?

THEN THE MUSIC COVERS LIKE AN EVENING MIST

LIKE A WATCH STILL TICKING ON A DEAD MAN'S WRIST

TICK AWAY

 

A stream of consciousness graveside meditation on the folly of dead-rock-star worship. And speaking of Kurt Cobain--who was, I think, far more honest and far less cruel--when anyone takes an unblinking look into the well, if they don't find living water, they find nothing but a black hole. I assume Kurt Cobain could only see the latter. Some wonder what causes so many people to commit suicide. I wonder what causes so many people not to. Everyday I'm convinced afresh that apart from God,
nothing makes sense.

 

(steve taylor is an alternative rock artist, and, more recently, producer)

Lyrics and commentary used by permission. From Now the Truth Can Be Told, Sparrow Recordings, 1994.

 

 

Charlie McKaig's heartbeat stopped and the physician began CPR. When the Doctor stopped the chest compressions, the heart would stop again, "and Charlie's eyes would roll up, he again would sputter, turn blue, and begin to convulse." Dr. Rawlings records, "I would reach over and start him up again. But this time he was screaming the words, 'Don't stop! Don't you understand? Every time you let go I'm back in hell!'"

"When he asked me to pray for him," Rawlings recalls, "I felt downright insulted. In fact, I told him to shut up. I said I was a doctor, not a minister and not a psychiatrist. But the nurse gave me that expectant look. What would you do? That's when I composed a make-believe prayer."

Rawlings wasn't a Christian at the time but he had enough of a religious background to think of something to say. He essentially told Charlie to call upon Jesus Christ as the Son of God and to tell him he would give him his life if he got him out of "hell."

"Then a very strange thing happened that changed our lives," Rawlings relates. "A religious conversion experience took place. I had never witnessed one before. He [Charlie] was no longer the wild-eyed, screaming, combative lunatic who had been fighting for his life. He was relaxed and calm and cooperative. It frightened me. I was shaken by the events. Not only had the make-believe prayer blown out the soul of Charlie McKaig, but it backfired and got me too."1

For a number of years now researchers have been looking into the claimed afterlife experiences of people who have been clinically dead and resuscitated. The reports of these near death experiences (NDE) seemed at first too have been uniformly appealing. At the end of a tunnel (usually) a being of light awaits one and all, good and bad, with acceptance and bliss. Sometimes the being would carry on a non-judgmental life review. Dead relatives and friends might be encountered along the way to this being. Before seeing the tunnel one might recall floating above the death scene, observing and later verifying the presence of persons, objects, and events which they could not otherwise have known.

One researcher claimed to have never run into a bad near-death experience, only to rescind his statement later when more cases were examined. So glowing were the initial reports that couples would commit suicide together and unrepentant murderers would face death unafraid.

But then some of the "bad" experiences began coming more into public view. It's not that these are entirely new. The agonizing death experiences of the past famous (like Voltaire) and the not so famous have long been known.2 Past experiences are more subject to doubt however. Only more recent accounts have the potential of more certain verification. Nevertheless, many of us know our own tales of relatives or friends who on their deathbeds cried out because of the encroaching flames or demons. One person I know of had the surrounding family members pick up his bed to raise it above the fire. But it didn't stop the flames.

Family members are rarely apt to pass on stories like this. Another reason so few negative deathbed and near-death experiences are reported (compared to the good experiences) might be because of our human tendency to repress or selectively forget bad experiences. Often resuscitated individuals will not recall a negative experience unless interviewed very close to the time of the events. Even then the subject might deny that a bad experience had occurred. An individual will sometimes give every indication of undergoing a horrifying experience distinct from the resuscitation process, only to deny any knowledge of it even immediately after the crisis is past.

The negative experiences vary. One person entered a tunnel that turned into fire at the end. He also described a lake of fire, a desolate landscape, a hill covered with slabs of rock, aimlessly moving people, elongated shadows, a stone building that was mostly rubble and crammed with people.3

"The darkness was so real you could touch it and it would burn you," said another. The walls of his tunnel were filled with demons.4 Another recounts a dry heat that burns the body inside with each breath as well as outside. "The darkness of Hell is so intense that it seems to have a pressure. "It is an extremely black, dismal, desolate, heavy, pressurized type of darkness." It has "a crushing, despondent feeling of loneliness," "tongue and lips are parched and cracked with the intense heat," "eyeballs are so dry they feel like red hot coals."5

Others variously reported snakes and fires and hideous things,6 a male or female figure of death, voices of lamentation, layers of hell, "lakes of fire, fire on the mountains, fire in the deserts--or no fire at all."7 One reported being in a black, desolate location in space and forced "under severe penalty" to quickly perform punitive Sisyphean tasks by an unseen force.8 One saw shuffling people, crushed and hopeless, a depressing world without color.9 Another saw "a landscape of barren, rolling hills filled to overflowing with nude, zombie-like people elbow to elbow doing nothing but staring straight at her."10

Nancy Bush, president of the IANDS group at Yale, reports three kinds of negative afterlife experiences. One, those who felt they were "losing control" in their experiences. For some of these the light in the tunnel is a reflection of the fires of hell. Two, those "caught in the frightening void of a 'great cosmic nothingness,' frequently resulting in long-term despair." Three, those who experience a place where people are tormented.11

One investigator, P. M. H. Atwatter, comments in her book Coming Back to Life that many "admitted meeting what they feared most in dying, which confirmed and strengthened their already strong belief that their 'sins' would be punished."12

All of the reported negative experiences correspond to the Christian concept of hell; a place for those who knowingly reject God and his drawing power. The differing degrees or kinds of punishment accord with Jesus' teachings that the punishments of hell will differ according to one's sins. (Luke 10:12-14; 12:47-48; 20:47). Whether literal or figurative, temporary or permanent; whatever it is like, the Christian scripture is clear that the lost will receive exactly what they deserve and that this is to be avoided at all costs.

But the most important question is not how we should catalogue and categorize near death experiences or how they fit religious beliefs, the most important question is whether or not what was experienced was really there. Let's consider several possibilities. (Technically it isn't correct to speak of experiences as being true or false, only statements or propositions are true or false. Experiences are veridical or non-veridical).

Option 1: All NDEs Are Non-veridical

One possibility is that all of these experiences, both negative and positive, are delusions; they are solely created by the human brain. They occur under the unique stress of seemingly inevitable and quickly encroaching death. One problem with this view is that all of the physiological studies fail to support it. For example, oxygen deprivation, a common explanation, was no more evident in children who had such experiences than those who did not. In adults, enough oxygen was measured for normal brain activity. The natural euphoria producing pain relievers that are released by the human body during trauma do not produce hallucinations. Neither could electrical stimulation of the brain produce other than memory hallucinations. Furthermore, individuals on drugs are the least likely to have these experiences and epilepsy is uncommon in NDE.

Another problem with this view is that it cannot account for the verified psychic phenomena: the identification of people and events in rooms inaccessible to the subject; the detailed identification of items in the room, medical instruments, clothing, jewelry, conversations, etc.

The greatest problem with the psychological delusion view is that the most natural explanation is that these experiences do give glimpses of a real post-death world. If we accept that our normal sense experience accurately depicts a real world, so we have no less reason to believe that one's NDE depicts a real world. Only if we first assume that there cannot be an afterlife can we reject this evidence. Philosophical arguments against the possibility of an afterlife have been notoriously weak (at least in this writer's view). Even as hardheaded a philosophical empiricist as the famous A. J. Ayer said of his NDE that he was no longer sure that death ends in oblivion. He said he encountered a being of light and that he was intuitively aware that this being controls the governance of the universe.

Unless we can come up with independent evidence against an afterlife, these experiences have to be considered as veridical as any normal sense experiences. We cannot arbitrarily reject one (say the NDE) without rejecting the other (sense experience). And we cannot accept one without accepting the other.

There is one special problem with the afterlife experiences in this regard. If some have experienced a glimpse of hell in which the unrepentant are punished and others have experienced a heaven in which the unrepentant are not punished, then both experiences cannot depict events as they really are. Shouldn't we assume that both are delusive? No, we do not reject all of our sense experiences just because we might also experience hallucinations, optical illusions, or vivid dreams. We determine which are veridical and which are not and why. And so we should do the same with afterlife experiences.

Option 2: All NDEs Are Veridical

This brings up the second possibility, that all of the near-death afterlife experiences should be accepted. We have just seen that this cannot be. At least one of the two conflicting experience types cannot be veridical. Perhaps we could come up with some quite arbitrary mechanism that determines that some unrepentant sinners should go to heaven while others should go to hell, but this possibility no one can consider seriously. Furthermore there are sometimes communications during these experiences, such as with the being of light, that indicate conflicting claims. One communication might indicate that all without exception will immediately enter paradise at death and another might indicate that the unrepentant will not. So we cannot avoid conflicting, mutually exclusive experiences. All of the accounted afterlife NDEs cannot be veridical.

Option 3: Universalistic NDEs Are Veridical, Particularistic NDEs Are Not

A third possibility is that only the positive, universalistic experiences actually depict the true state of the afterlife. These are the ones that indicate that everyone will be admitted to paradise without qualification. But what reason might we have to reject the negative experiences?

Some have pointed to the fact that the negative experiences are far fewer than the positive ones. But why should this make a difference in our assessment? The quality, vividness, and certitude of both kinds of experience are equally intense. Indeed, in the negative experiences there is usually a greater sense of certitude. Often in the positive cases the individual will question the reality of the experience while in the negative experiences they never do so. Furthermore, we have already mentioned some good explanations as to why the negative experiences might be so few and yet be veridical (personal repression of negative experiences and relatives and loved ones less likely to admit to or pass on such accounts) and we will mention another reason shortly.

We do not reject dreams and hallucinations because we have less of them than we have of normal sense experiences. They are judged nonveridical because we can construct better explanations of all of our experiences in total if they are rejected. If we can come up with an equal or better explanation that says that at least certain of the dreams or hallucinations are veridical as well as normal sense experience, then we would have equal or better reason to accept them both. So likewise we have to ask if there is a better explanation for accepting only the universalistic afterlife experiences (the ones that claim that everyone without exception will immediately enter paradise) or only the particularist experiences (which claim that the unrepentant who knowingly reject God will enter punishment). We will suggest some reasons in our next section for the universalistic interpretation so that we can better compare these with the alternate scenario. So far we have not found any good reason for accepting only the universalist experiences.

The fact that we cannot accept both experiences is (so far) not really good enough reason to reject one in particular. At this point both the universalistic and the particularist experiences are equally warranted.

Option 4: Particularistic NDEs Are Veridical, Universalistic NDEs Are Not

Can the view that there will be some in hell take into account both kinds of experience and offer a good explanation for each type of experience? In fact it can.

Before getting into this let me give some needed background information. Let me give what I consider to be the view of biblical Christianity regarding how one can find acceptance by God and avoid the punishment we deserve in the life to come. First of all the person who has reason to believe Christianity is true and who trusts in Jesus for salvation will be saved in this view.

But what of those who believe that they do not have such reason to believe. Shouldn't such a person be willing to say, "God, if this is really true, I would trust in Jesus if only I could know"? One could even say "God, I don't even know if you are really there but if you are I would give you all that you ask of me." The biblical view is that anyone who does seek God in this way will find God and will find all that one needs to know and to do to be accepted by God. In this view a person can only be certain of attaining God's acceptance and to be kept from spiritual deception if one seeks God, wills to do God's will, and seeks the truth from God.

As was noted, one need not even presuppose one has a knowledge of God's existence to follow this procedure. But according to Romans 1, all of us do have this knowledge. If one does not, this is usually because this knowledge has been repressed and rejected. So this knowledge does come sooner or later, though perhaps only in hints and suggestions at first. It might start with nothing more than something like a whisper in the ear, "What would you do if I am really here? Would you seek me? Would you follow me?" Enough of this knowledge of God comes through for a person to reject it and to be guilty of rejecting it. As it is rejected it will come less frequently or more weakly. On the other hand, if it is accepted and acted upon, more knowledge will be given. One will come to seek God, to will to do God's will and to seek the truth from God. One will reject and repent of one's sins. According to John 7:17 one will come to know that Christianity is true and to trust in Jesus for salvation. Even a person who has rejected God's drawing all one's life can still take up the challenge of John 7:17 and seek the truth from God on just the possibility that God is there. In any case the bottom line is this: for anyone who rightly acts upon whatever knowledge is given, that person will be accepted by God.

Should one fail to trust in Jesus or fail to fulfill this universal spiritual obligation, one cannot be assured one will find the truth or find acceptance by God. God would have no reason to keep one from seemingly credible experiences which are actually brought about by deceiving spirits. Neither would God be obligated to keep one's mind capable of rationally accessing evidence and arguments. This is particularly the case if one represses unwanted evidence. Such repression breeds only a further loss of one's rational ability to access spiritual truth.

How then could it be possible that there really is a hell and yet that there might be some who experience that there is not? Remember first of all that this scenario is not claiming that all of the experiences of heaven should be rejected, only those experiences that claim that everyone without exception will immediately enter there. In this view, the non-judgmental being of light would be a deceiving spirit who only appears as an angel or God of light. An actual event is copied but only in part, since there is a true being of light, a God "who dwells in unapproachable light," who will be confronted by all one day with either judgment or with acceptance into paradise. If the deceiving spirit is aware that the person who is near death will not return to life, only then might that spirit dispense with the masquerade and let them immediately see hell as it really is. Because these spirits are not all-knowing or powerful and because God desires to show mercy to those who reject God, sometimes the unrepentant will see the reality of hell and yet have the opportunity to return to life. (Here then is another possible reason the negative afterlife glimpses are few in comparison with positive ones. A large percentage of the positive ones are created by deceiving spirits or a deceiving spirit in this view.) If there is a real hell and some of the encounters with the being of light are just masquerades, then both kinds of experience are taken into account. But following the recorded experiences alone, can we discern which paradise experiences are non-veridical. Here a distinctly biblical Christian view is evidenced. For example, we have no NDEs of people going to hell, repenting and believing in Allah and in Mohammed as his prophet, and then experiencing paradise. We have no such known experiences under any other religions other than Christianity. Some of those who had experienced hell were Christians who had seriously fallen away from their commitment to Jesus and most were not Christians at all. But it is interesting that no one recorded has experienced hell who had repented of their sins and trusted in Jesus as their savior and had sought to follow him in obedience. There are some cases that are close to that but which lack sufficient documentation to consider. One better documented account describes a Christian who was sent to hell who failed to forgive his wife for a particular offense.13 There is some pretty strong scriptural evidence that whatever one's professed status as one who has "trusted in Jesus for salvation," still, if one fails to forgive, one will not be forgiven by God (Mt 6:15, 18: 21-35). Possibly there are some who are Christians only in name and who have for all practical purposes rejected their faith. Also there are some who in NDE and other vision or dream-like experiences claim to have experienced hell as a means to warn others of this place. These latter are always given explicit or implicit information that this is the reason they were given this experience. Without a better understanding of the questionable cases, of Christians who experienced hell, we lack any good evidence that they were professing Christians outside of the categories touched on above.

Can those who think that there is no hell offer any other way to take into account all of the experiences? Perhaps the universalistic experiences are real glimpses of the next life and the negative experiences are creations of deluded minds. Out of obsessive fear, some might at first experience what they anticipate the next life to be like; that is, until they experience what it's really like in its true beauty.

The first problem with this possibility is that it is just as likely that the negative experiences be veridical and the universalistic ones be a self-created result of wishful thinking.

Another problem with this view is that there is nothing distinctive about the negative experiences that would suggest that they would more likely be non-veridical. For example, the universalistic experiences do not occur at a specific stage, perhaps a latter stage of clinical death (if such a stage can even be determined), more often than do the negative experiences. We should expect something like this to distinguish these experience types if this scenario is correct, if the negative one is self-created but the other is a veridical realization of the reality of heaven.

Another problem is that it is very difficult to come up with any good reason the all accepting being of light would have for allowing these negative experiences to occur? We have already suggested the reason non-veridical universalistic experiences occur if there is a hell: God has no reason to keep from deception those who do not seek God. There is simply no place for this kind of negative experience in the universalistic world view.

Suppose there exist deceiving spirits who create the negative experiences but not the positive universalistic ones. But it is difficult to imagine why there might be deceiving spirits in this view or why such beings, if they do exist, would be given the power to deceive anyone. If all are unconditionally accepted into paradise, what would be the point of having some deceived? On the other hand it is very clear why they should be allowed in the particularist view.

Researcher Nancy Bush suggests a possible universalistic account of the negative experiences. She says, "Of course, a negative experience does not necessarily mean you are a bad person. It only means you have work to do to improve."14 But that seems a strange conclusion in light of the experiences she considers. Can we imagine that those seen in torment--those the observer anticipates joining very soon--are just enduring this because they need to improve? The experience makes sense only if this is a punishment that is justly deserved. And what are we to make of those who have done far worse things who only encounter the all-accepting being of light? Do those who need to improve less need greater punishment or chastening while those who need to improve more need none?

The best explanation of the various afterlife experiences is that there is a great divide between the lost and the saved. The redeemed experienced heaven; the lost experienced sometimes the reality of hell and sometimes a false heaven that will soon be torn away once it was clear that they would never be able to go back to tell what they saw. (We mentioned earlier that this is one more reason there are many more experiences of paradise than of hell.)

Unless one's sins are forgiven, one must face the consequences of one's sins. Without accepting whatever means of atonement God offers, one must endure the punishment, the hell, those sins entail. If God has provided the means by which we can be accepted by God and we knowingly reject it or ignore it, then it is certainly clear that we deserve such punishment.

If the reader finds this argument unpersuasive then it might be helpful to look at the issue from another view point. Few people will claim that they have never willfully hurt anyone or that they have never done anything wrong in their lives. Many will chafe at the thought that their sins should deserve punishment; but the logic of justice is difficult to avoid if one is honest. One deserves the same pain one has inflicted on others. Unless God provides a means by which we can have those sins removed, it is only right that we endure that punishment.

Imagine at death finding yourself meeting the being of light and being welcomed into paradise along with people as different as Hitler and Mother Teressa. You might hope that this is the real thing but every moment you anticipate the facade being torn away to find yourself falling into a lake of fire. On the other hand imagine at death finding yourself in hell hoping every moment, but not anticipating, that this facade will be torn away to find yourself in paradise.

Should we take the chance that the scenario we hope to be true is really true when it could far too easily be false? And should we really expect it to be true that God's universe is so totally devoid of justice as to allow this kind of heaven? (One might wonder what kind of heaven it would be to be constantly watching one's back or guarding one's "mansion" if one happens to live near Ghengis Khan or Al Capone.)

Don't we have an obligation to ourselves to call upon God (a God who is just and who deserves our commitment) on just the possibility that this God is really there and has provided a way to deliver us from the punishment our sins deserve?

And even if you are sure that there is no such God or that you have no such obligation, will you deny that you have the spiritual obligation to will to do God's will if there was a God who deserves this commitment? Would you admit to such a commitment? Would you ask God to show you if it is true on nothing more than the sheer possibility that there is such a God?

You may object that though you may have sinned in your life, you, at least, have never done anything deserving of the biblical "Lake of Fire." One should remember that both Jesus' teachings and the experiences documented here indicate a great variation in the type or intensity of punishment. Some experiences, we may recall, involved nothing more than an anguish at the awareness of the meaninglessness and emptiness of existence. If separation from God is the essence of hell and if an awareness of the pointlessness or absurdity of existence is the essence of separation from God, then it shouldn't be hard to see that if we are offered a way to be brought back to relationship with God and we reject that offer and if God cannot force our will, then hell is not only what we deserve, it is also unavoidable.

In our dialogue with Michael Tooley (following his debate with William Craig) and in our dialogue with Antony Flew, we discussed the problem of an eternal hell. The reader may want to look at those debates and dialogues for a more detailed discussion of this problem. The particular Christian view of hell we had presented there says that one aspect of hell might be only temporary, consisting of whatever punishment one deserves for whatever evil one has done. After that, it might be that one would be offered a means of redemption, Jesus' sacrificial atonement. To refuse this offer is to continue to remain separated from God and to endure the inherent anguish and despair this separation entails. This is the punishment this sin deserves so long as one continues rejecting God and his offer.

Some other alternatives were also considered: it might be that the second aspect of hell is eternal though God, out of mercy, would allow one a reduced awareness of the anguish of separation from God. This later possibility may be the case even if one has no option of leaving this place of separation from God. Though the idea of such an eternal hell still has some difficulties (discussed in the earlier mentioned articles) and we would reject it for those reasons, such an eternal hell no longer has the difficulty of impugning the justice and goodness of God and it shouldn't be difficult for the non-theist to accept in principle. But if this punishment is still too great, it might be that out of mercy God will allow one to cease to exist.

The bottom line for our consideration of near death experiences is that whether hell is eternal or potentially temporary or even if the annihilationist view is correct (extinction of consciousness after a period of punishment) does not matter. These are all biblical views that correspond with our analysis of the near death experiences and they are views which do not deny God's goodness.

It also follows that the best analysis of the NDEs would evidence biblical Christianity. Christianity best explains both the negative and positive experiences. The universalist view is rejected because it cannot adequately account for the negative experiences. Thus the Christian explanation would have it that some of the positive experiences would be rejected as being non-veridical (some experiences of heaven would be created by deceiving spirits). Other particularist religions that hold to a doctrine of hell are rejected because we have no negative experiences evidencing those religions like those that support Christianity (like the NDE account given at the beginning of the article.)

References

1 Maurice Rawlings, To Hell and Back, (Nashville, Tn: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1993) 40-41.

2 See S. B. Shaw, The Dying Testimonies (Noblesville, Newly Book Room, 1969).

3 Rawlings, 63

4 Rawlings, 65.

5 Marvin Ford, On the Other Side (Plainfield: Logos International, 1978), 93-94. Cited in Rawlings, 66-67.

6 Rawlings, 67

7 Rawlings, 69-70.

8 Rawlings, 71

9 Raymond Moody Jr., Reflections on Life After Life (NY: Bantam, 1977) 18-19. Cited in Rawlings, 80.

10 P. M. H. Atwatter Coming Back to Life (NY: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1988), p. 13. Cited in Rawlings, 107.

11 Rawlings, 81.

12 Atwatter, 13.

13 Videotape, Raised From the Dead, CfaN Productions, Box 590588, Orlando, Fl 32809; www.cfan.org.

14 A television interview cited in Rawlings, 81.

I'd like to share with you [an] amazing but true account. . . . [First I should say something about my family.] Father is from the Tamang group, so when he displeased his family by marrying Dolma, a Helambu Sherpa, his family gave him a home where only one other house had been built. It was on the least desirable land around, a hillside near a temple where ghosts and demons were said to live. It wasn't surprising that Father usually held out his big, curved Gurkha knife in fear as he entered the house, and like others in the area, he drank a lot of millet and wheat whiskey. After seven years, I was born.

In 1983, when I was 10, Mother and I went out daily to graze the jomos and protect them from the wolves and snow leopards. One partly cloudy day in May of that year we were out with the herd, Mother in front and the stragglers and I bringing up the rear. At midday I lay down in the grass to doze a few minutes. I felt I woke up, but I could neither see nor hear because it seemed that two black shadow-men kept surging back and forth in front of my face. Mother said she heard me shout and came running. She couldn't shake me to consciousness, and splashing me with cold water didn't help. She called others who were also grazing animals nearby, but in the evening she had to carry me back to the shelter, still unconscious. It was too dark to go for a witch doctor, so Mother and Father slept, one on each side of me, on the shelter floor.

During the night the shadow-men spoke to me in Sherpa. "Don't worry, we want to use you. We want to show you the Buddhist Way. Your parents are very afraid, so tomorrow they will want to call a witch doctor. Tell them not to call such a person. Tomorrow you will be better, but from now on you must sleep alone." Having said that, the shadow men left and it was morning.

The following night the shadow-men returned, wanting to take me somewhere. It took some time and was as if I had left this world. Then we were in a dark, unnatural place where no other living thing seemed to exist. The shadow-men retreated and there in front of me I dimly saw a Buddha image. A voice spoke, "From today, I want to use you. I'll teach you about my ways."

The shadow-men emerged from behind and took me back through the dark place to the world. They said, "From today you are not to mix with others. Stay alone with your parents. Whenever your father and mother enter the shelter they must first cover themselves with incense." After that, every night for three years, I slept with a butter lamp by my head. While I slept I had to go to the place to learn the Buddhist teaching. My father was amazed as I reported all I learned: it corresponded precisely with what he learned from the Khamba Lamas years ago. As directed, we bought the religious dress, drums, and bells. Father was further amazed that though I'd never been taught [this difficult ritual], I could play the instruments [perfectly]. [It wasn't long before some of the people of their village of Syabru became convinced that Gyalsang was the incarnation of the primary spirit of the village.]

After some time of receiving teaching and witnessing such wonders, the shadow-men took me to the Buddha image, but this time a plate was attached at the knees. Letters were etched on it, and a voice explained the meaning. I couldn't even read Nepalese or write in straight lines. Nevertheless, everyday I wrote clearly and neatly in a notebook the message from the Buddha's "screen." [He also wrote in another language, which to this day no one has been able to identify.] I could always read what I had written and from these writings; I could also tell Mother and Father amazing things, such as their present thoughts and their past sins. [Insights simply came to his mind, and he communicated what he was feeling or hearing in his heart as he read from the strange script.] I also gave them instructions concerning how they could atone for those sins: they had to buy strings of 108 seed beads and go through them by saying the traditional Buddhist chant. At one point we were given 10 days to go to Kathmandu in order to buy Buddhist idols. Every Saturday we had to perform a special ceremony. As time passed we had to carry out more and more rituals.

I was given a list of 35 gods' names. Each night all of us had to prostrate ourselves three times for each of the gods, saying the god's name as we bowed. The Dalai Lama was number 35, the lowest in rank among the gods. Then one day my notebook said, "After the Dalai Lama, bow down to Yesu." I didn't know that Yesu is Sherpa for Jesus. In fact, I had never heard of Yesu (Jesus) before.

Every Saturday we opened my notebook for teaching and week by week, month by month, the name Yesu rose higher in rank. With the name of Yesu came teaching about this unknown God. We learned of Adam and Eve, and the first sin, and about Yesu--the Son of God--and His crucifixion and resurrection, and much more. We were also told that God will come to judge the world.

It was now 1985. Two months later Mingmar [Gyalsang's brother] wanted to quit his job at the cheese factory in order to reopen our house as a lodge. He asked me to look in my notebook for guidance in this matter. I bowed down three times and began to read. "If Mingmar wants to open a lodge that is fine, but don't sell alcohol. When the lodge is opened, followers of Yesu will meet you." Mingmar happily opened the lodge, and six months later the disciples of Yesu came. . .

Actually, Jon and Dan had been praying earnestly for the Helambu Sherpa people for two years. (It had also been about two years since the name "Yesu" first entered my visions.). . .

[When the followers of Yesu arrived at the lodge, they entered into conversation with Mingmar. Jon told him] about God, creation, sin, and finally about Jesus--His life, death, and resurrection, which had made the Way for us to God.

"The things you've told me and the things my brother has told me differ not even in one area!" Mingmar exclaimed.

"Where is your brother?" asked Jon, "Can we meet him?"

"He seems to have gone crazy," was the reply. "I can take you to where he lives in the jungle, about a three-hour walk up the mountain from here."

Just two weeks after this [they] came to us. Recently the name of Yesu had moved up to second in rank on the list of gods we were to bow down to. It had been exactly three years from my first vision. . . .

Barnabas began by telling how Yesu was born, loved, was crucified and three days later, rose again. . . . Most of the evening I sat quietly, intent to hear every word, but finally I was so excited that I jumped up and got my notebooks. Flipping through the pages, I found and read some sections corresponding to what we had heard. (During a later visit from Jon and a Nepalese coworker, I read from one of my notebooks the complete accounts of how sin entered the world in the Garden of Eden, and of Yesu's life, death, and resurrection. Jon, amazed, said I had confused Pilate's name with Caesar's in the part about the trial, but everything else was just as recorded in the Bible, God's message to the world!)

That night the shadow-men came as usual and escorted me to the Buddha image. A voice came, "Today my kingdom is finished in you and you no longer need to serve me. One comes after me who is greater than I. You must do what the men say and follow Yesu." I had no power to question. The dark men took me back. It was my last vision. Morning came and I felt as if a heaviness was gone.

Jon told us that God doesn't want us to bow down to the idols--as we'd been doing. Barnabas explained more about why Yesu had to die in our place, how He fulfilled all of the requirements of righteousness, ritual, and law. He also clarified that believing in Yesu means entrusting ourselves to Him. . . . They also showed what new life in Christ is like. Though no one suggested I do it, I yanked the charms and beads from my neck and I told Yesu I would follow Him. Mother had been out milking the jomos, so Jon and Barnabas gave her the Good News too. She also wanted to follow in faith and by herself she prayed a beautiful prayer: "From now on You are my Lord. I don't know much, but you are my Lord."

Leaving the Buddhist way, the way of our ancestors, was a struggle at first, especially for Father. After Jon and Barnabas had left, I saw him light some coals and incense in a pot, bow down three times, then sob uncontrollably. I hated to hear him cry and went to him, telling him the words I'd heard from the Buddha image in my last vision, two nights earlier. He calmed, and when peaceful again, agreed to stop the rituals.

[This is] how God lovingly reached down to me, my family, and our Sherpa people in perhaps the only way we would have listened.

Used with permission from "The Name Above All," Immanuel's Foundational Teachings, Spring 2001, 4-5. Newsletter from Immanuel's Church, 16819 New Hamshire Ave., Silver Springs Md 20905. Additional information from Beyond Imagination by Dick Eastman (Grand Rapids, Mi.: Chosen Books, 1997) 121-28.

Dark energy or the space energy density term (sometimes called the cosmological constant, though this is still not certain) is an antigravity factor; ". . . space, independently of any matter associated with it, has the property of stretching itself, and the more stretched out it becomes, the faster it will continue to stretch." (Ross, 1999, 2). If dark energy varied by 1 part in 10¹²⁰, physical life would be impossible. Lawrence Krauss calls this "the most extreme fine-tuning problem known in physics," (Krauss, 1998, 461; cited in Ross, 2001, 53). It is far too unlikely this universe or anything close enough to it could have occurred as it is by chance. Only an intelligent Creator can account for this. Famous cosmologist Fred Hoyle who discovered one of a now long list of these extreme cosmic coincidences, is said to have stated of his discovery that nothing had ever so shaken his atheism (Gingerich, 134-5).

If the space energy density term were much smaller (top of above image), the universe would expand so slowly that it would collapse into black holes before life supportable stars could form. If the space energy density term were closer to its current value, yet still even slightly smaller than it is now, it would result in unstable orbits and too much radiation. Extremes of heat and cold would result from orbits that reach too close to or to far from their star. Planets would eventually be swallowed by their star or cast out of orbit.

If the space energy density term were greater (lower part of above image), the universe would expand so quickly that solar type stars could not form. (Ross, 2001, 157, #33) Too large of stars burn too quickly and erratically for life to form or continue for long. For a smaller star, the orbiting planet must be very close for adequate warmth. But that would lengthen rotational periods so greatly that extreme temperature differences would result on the dark and light sides of the planet (189, #15, see 179-80; 190, #26, see 181-82).

It is no longer reasonable to question that the space energy density term exists (Ross, 2000, 29) and hopeful avenues of escape from this embarrassing finding may provide only a more "disturbing cosmic coincidence problem" (Straumann's terms, 2000; Ross, 2001, 55). At any rate, the track record supports the conclusion that this problem will not be mitigated or removed; and even if it is, greater fine-tuning coincidences will likely supplement or replace it. From a couple of parameters in the 60s to over an hundred now, the list keeps growing (Ross, 2001, 187). None is as extreme as dark energy but some come close, at least in our inability to comprehend such numbers. To explore the current contenders, look over Hugh Ross' list in chapters 14 and 16 of Creator and the Cosmos (see below).

It is also interesting that the above probability ascribed to dark energy cannot be reduced by altering the value of other laws and constants. [last paragraoh added 21 Mrch 09]

*Dark energy is number 33 on Hugh Ross' first list; See below, Creator and the Cosmos, ch. 14.

Owen Gingerich, "Let There Be Light: Modern Cosmology and Biblical Creation," in Roland M. Frye (ed.), Is God a Creationist: The Religious Case Against Creation-Science (Scribners, 1983) 134-5.

Lawrence M. Krauss, "The End of the Age Problem and the Case for a Cosmological Constant Revisited," Astrophysical Journal, 501 (1998) 461.

S. Perlmutter, et al, "Discovery of a Supernovae Explosion at Half the Age of the Universe," Nature, 391 (1998) 51-54.

-----, "Measurements of ½ an L from 42 High-Redshift Supernovae," Astrophysical Journal, 517 (1999) 565-86.

Hugh Ross, "Einstein Exonerated in Breakthrough Discovery," Connections 1:3 (1999) 2-3.

-----, "Flat-Out Confirmed!" Facts for Faith 1:2 (2000) 27-31.

-----, Creator and the Cosmos, (NavPress, 2001).

N. Straumann, "The Mystery of the Cosmic Vacuum Energy Density and the Accelerated Expansion of the Universe," European Journal of Physics 20:6 (November 1999) 419-427.

Facts for Faith and Connections are published by Reasons to Believe, Inc., 731 E. Arrow Hwy, Glendora, Ca 91740-2269, 629-335-1480.

and Jesus the Messiah. . . . "

Editorial and Material Contributors:

Gyalsang. Dennis Jensen, Maurice Rawlings, Steve Taylor

Some of the specific writers in this issue wish to remain anonymous.