No Sacred Cows

by David G. McAfee

  6. Herbert W. Armstrong, “What Is Going to Happen!” Plain Truth, June– July 1934.

  7. Herbert W. Armstrong, “Democracy Doomed!” Plain Truth, April-May 1940.

  8. Herbert W. Armstrong, “The World Tomorrow,” Plain Truth, May 22, 1953.

  9. Herbert W. Armstrong, “Brethren & Co-Worker Letters,” Plain Truth, January 3, 1980.

  10. Matthew 24:42: “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.”

  11. Another version of this is found in Matthew 16:28: “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

  12. Book of Revelation 19: 11–20 and 20: 1–3, 7-15 and John 5:28–29.

  13. William P. Lazarus and Mark Sullivan, Comparative Religion for Dummies (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2008), 237.

  14. Book of Revelation 13:16–18: “It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. That number is 666.”

  15. Isaiah 17:1

  16. Ansar Raza, “Fulfilled Prophecies of the Holy Quran,” Al Islam, Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, www.alislam.org/library/articles/prophecies.html.

  17. Qur’an 55:19–20

  18. Waleed el-Shobaki, “Qur’an’s Confirmation of an Amazing Undersea Discovery,” TruthPrevailed.wordpress.com, January 7, 2012.

  19. Jacques-Yves Cousteau, FindAGrave.com, Memorial no. 9889, June 7, 2000.

  20. Ben Anderson, “USGS Researchers Participate in Research Cruise Studying Iron Biogeochemistry in the Gulf of Alaska,” US Geological Survey, March 2008.

  21. https://www.flickr.com/photos/kentsmith9/4955772693/

  22. Ben Anderson, “Mythbusting ‘The Place Where Two Oceans Meet’ in the Gulf of Alaska,” Alaska Dispatch News, February 5, 2013.

  23. Kate Maguire et al, “PTF10ops—a Subluminous, Normal-Width Light Curve Type Ia Supernova in the Middle of Nowhere,” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 418, no. 2 (2011): 747–758.

  24. B. P. Abbott et al., “Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger,” Physical Review Letters 116, no. 6 (2016).

  25. Albert Einstein, “Über Gravitationswellen,” Sitzungsberichte der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin), 1918, 154–167.

  26. Scott E. Hygnstrom, Robert M. Timm, and Gary E. Larson, eds. Prevention and Control of Wildlife Damage, 2 vols. (University of Nebraska-Lincoln, January 1994)

  27. Atheist Engineer, www.atheistengineer.com/.

  28. “The ‘Prophecies’ of Dr. Seuss,” Atheist Engineer, June 6, 2015, www.atheistengineer.com/2015/06/the-of-dr-seuss.html.

  29. In actuality, Green Eggs and Ham was the result of a bet between Seuss and his editor, who challenged him to write a book using fifty words or fewer. Stacy Conradt, “10 Stories behind Dr. Seuss Stories,” CNN, January 23, 2009, www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/wayoflife/01/23/mf.seuss.stories.behind/index.html.

  30. Peter Lemesurier, Nostradamus, Bibliomancer: The Man, the Myth, the Truth (Pompton Plains, NJ: New Page Books, 2010).

  31. Edgar Leoni, Nostradamus and His Prophecies (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2000).

  32. James Kalat, Introduction to Psychology (Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning, 2016).

  33. Steve Bright, “Nostradamus: A Challenge to Biblical Prophecy?” Christian Research Journal 25, no. 2 (2002).

  34. Benjamin Radford, “Nostradamus: Predictions of Things Past,” LiveScience, October 23, 2012, www.livescience.com/24213-nostradamus.html.

  35. Rick Joyner, post on Facebook, January 25, 2016, www.facebook.com/RickJoyner.MorningStar/posts/1183456831687132.

  36. A. Ralph Epperson, The New World Order (Publius Press, 1990).

  37. Richard N. Soulen and R. Kendall Soulen, Handbook of Biblical Criticism, 3rd ed. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 204.

  13

  AFTERLIVES AND NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES

  “You have two lives. The second one begins when you realize you only have one.”

  —Unknown1

  As a naturalist, I’m often asked what I believe will happen when I die. But for me, it’s not about what I believe; as usual, it’s about the evidence. The brain stops working after death. We are no longer alive, and our memories and everything that makes us us are no longer available. This is all proven and, if there is something in excess of that, it will have to be shown to exist.2 Until then, it is common sense to abstain from believing in it.

  HUMANS ARE ANIMALS

  When approached about my thoughts or opinions on the afterlife by believers, I like to respond by asking, “What do you think happens to a fish or a bird when it dies? Or, for that matter, what happens to a fungus at its death?” It’s truly amazing that so many people think humans are somehow divinely separated from other animals, and are therefore deserving of a second, eternal life filled with either pleasure or pain.

  If you understand and accept evolution by natural selection, you can see that we are still just animals sharing an ecosystem with other animals—and we can trace our evolutionary trail back at least 85 million years.3 Homo sapiens is a part of a branch of great apes called the hominin clade, which evolved from our hominid ancestors. In fact, we are the only surviving members of this group, which once included other apes with standing posture, tool use, etc. All of these apes, including our species and the extinct hominine species Sahelanthropus tchadensis, as well as all other animals, are members of the Kingdom Animalia.

  People who don’t think humans evolved alongside other animals often argue that we are separate from the rest because we walk upright, or because we have large brains for our size or premature births, and these are all for the most part true. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t animals. It means we are animals with larger brains, proportionally, than many others—and that, as a result of those large brains and other factors, human babies are born when they are relatively undeveloped. This doesn’t make us superior, and in many ways this is a disadvantage as our children are brought into this world helpless. As for bipedalism, it’s an important part of how humans evolved but it doesn’t mean we are special and distinct from other animals. Birds walk on two feet, too, as do some other apes. A number of lizards can even run bipedally—and an ancient lizard-like reptile was likely the first to do so!4

  We have different sets of skills, but humans are not objectively better than the other animals, even though so many believe we are somehow spiritually above them. We are animals like any other and we are all made of the same biological materials.5 We may be more aware by our own standards (although there’s not yet a way for us to determine this with certainty), but other animals are superior in other ways according to other standards. And many animals, like us, think, feel, change their environments, communicate among themselves, and more.6 As Southern California attorney Edward Alberola pointed out, “Those who describe animals as not having any thoughts or feelings come closer to that description than the animals they are trying to describe.”

  Humans are inherently inclined to think we are superior to other animals, just as those animals likely see themselves as the center of their worlds. Try to put yourself in the position of an American robin, who could be thinking, “The earth was made for me! If that weren’t the case, why would it have all these twigs with which to build my nest?” Despite these skewed perceptions of worth, however, you and I aren’t important to the universe, which is indifferent toward animal life in general.7 Because of our desire to be special or somehow more important than other creatures, many people forget how often our “animal instincts” still guide our daily decisions. From with whom we mate to what we eat and more, the process of evolution by natural selection affects our choices ever
y day just as it does with other creatures. And our wishes and beliefs to be different don’t make us so. It was Australian philosopher Peter Singer who drew attention to the fact that humans and many other animals share the most important things in life, including the ability to suffer and feel pain.

  “All the arguments to prove man’s superiority cannot shatter this hard fact: in suffering the animals are our equals,” Singer said.8

  In the end, there’s no reason to believe anything special happens to humans after death and any other position is contrary to all available evidence. Think about it: if you accept evolution, but you also believe humans have a “soul” and are therefore subject to a special afterlife beyond what’s been proven to exist, then when did we gain that soul? Did Homo habilis have a soul? Homo ergaster? Do you believe a god or other force spontaneously added a soul once we were officially classified as Homo sapiens? Whether the question is of our origin or our destination, I’m more comfortable accepting scientific understandings—as opposed to embracing cultural myths as reality out of familiarity or a desire to feel superior.

  AFTERLIVES AS COPING MECHANISMS

  Heaven and Hell are the most commonly accepted afterlives, especially in the United States, where polls show about 72 percent of the adult population believes in Heaven and 58 percent in Hell.9 Contrary to popular belief, however, heavens and hells aren’t unique creations of the Abrahamic religions. Both of these concepts have been around for as long as people have had folklore, and they represent our desire for a sense of justice in opposing forces.10 Versions of these myths that predate Judaism include Aaru (ancient Egyptian), Trayastrimsa (Hindu/Buddhist), and Tartarus (ancient Greek). Heavens and hells make sense to many people because they believe good and bad behaviors should be rewarded and punished, respectively. Despite their popularity and presence in myths from all around the world, however, there is no objective proof either of these planes exist as anything more than literary tools and emotional security blankets.

  There is no scientific evidence to reasonably suggest the existence of any afterlife, be it reincarnation, Heaven, Hell, or any other spirit world. These are most likely man-made ideas that arose because we, as members of an intellectually advanced species, are aware of our own impending death. Some people are so fearful of knowing they will die that they cling to illusions—ideas that sound fair or just or simply make them feel better in general. In that regard, afterlives are often nothing more than coping mechanisms. We are told that our family members and other loved ones are in Heaven, or that they are ghosts or that they’ve been reincarnated, for the very same reasons we were told our childhood dog “went away to go live on a farm.” It’s important to recognize that, while many people believe in various forms of life after death, these concepts have no established place in reality.

  The lack of evidence for an afterlife doesn’t make me sad because I see that we, like all other animals here on Earth, get one amazing life to live … and the fact that it is finite is what makes it special. Not only is this mentality based on facts instead of emotion, but it also encourages us to make the most out of the one life we are guaranteed to have. Mark Twain may have said it best when he said, “Annihilation has no terrors for me, because I have already tried it before I was born—a hundred million years—and I have suffered more in an hour, in this life, than I remember to have suffered in the whole hundred million years put together.” I can say that I see death in a similar light as Twain, as I’ve never feared it, only accepted it as an inevitability—a motivator for accomplishing as much as I can in this life without dreaming up a next.11

  A popular objection to the commonsense notion that this life is all we get is that, “There must be an afterlife. Our energy can’t be created or destroyed!” But this argument is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of “energy.” If you talk to any physicist, you’ll learn that our energy isn’t destroyed at death. Every particle that composes us remains here in this world, the same particles that made up stars billions of years ago; they are just redistributed differently. This energy might disperse into the atmosphere or the earth through cremation or decomposition—but it will always be here.

  NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES

  A lot of people claim to have special knowledge of a particular afterlife that was revealed during a near-death experience (NDE), including a neurosurgeon12 and a six-year-old boy who told his story about meeting angels in The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven and later said he made it all up to get “attention.”13 Scientific evidence, however, suggests these events are caused by chemical reactions within the brain and are not real-world occurrences from any external forces.14 It may surprise you to know that, while they often seem magical when we are experiencing them, NDEs aren’t exactly mysterious. By that I mean that, although there are differences of opinions among researchers about exactly what parts of the brain are responsible for which types of feelings and hallucinations, these disagreements are scientific—and not theological—in nature.15 And perhaps most importantly, scientists are looking into and discovering more about NDEs all the time.

  One of the scientists uncovering the secrets of NDEs is Dr. Sam Parnia, assistant professor of critical care medicine and director of resuscitation research at Stony Brook Medicine, who led the world’s largest medical study on the state of mind and consciousness at the time of death.16 The international study, which took place over the course of four years, analyzed 2,060 cardiac arrest cases and concluded that there are at least seven types of memories that patients retained related to their own death. Those recollections were categorized as fear, animals/plants, a bright light, violence/persecution, déjà vu, family, and recalling events after recovery from cardiac arrest. Parnia stated that death, contrary to popular belief, “is not a specific moment but a potentially reversible process that occurs after any severe illness or accident causes the heart, lungs and brain to cease functioning.”

  “If attempts are made to reverse this process, it is referred to as ‘cardiac arrest’; however, if these attempts do not succeed it is called ‘death,’” Parnia wrote in a news release published by Stony Brook. “In this study we wanted to go beyond the emotionally charged yet poorly defined term of NDEs to explore objectively what happens when we die.”

  Researchers from the University of Maribor in Slovenia have also looked into NDEs. In one study,17 the scientists investigated whether or not different levels of carbon dioxide play a role in the mystical experiences reported by a relatively high percentage of cardiac arrest survivors.18 They looked at 52 heart attack patients and determined that higher concentrations of CO2 “proved significant” and that higher serum levels of potassium “might be important in the provoking of NDEs.”

  “As these associations have not been reported before, our study adds new and important information to the field of NDE phenomena,” the authors of the study wrote in the conclusion. “As quality of life of NDE patients might be affected, NDEs warrant further study. Likewise, more rigorous measures to establish good acid-base equilibrium should be adopted in resuscitation guidelines.”

  Not all brain specialists agree with the conclusions of the Slovenia study. For example, neuropsychiatrist Dr. Peter Fenwick, a senior lecturer at King’s College, London, has rejected the idea that CO2 plays a role in NDEs.

  “The one difficulty in arguing that CO2 is the cause is that in cardiac arrests, everybody has high CO2 but only 10 percent have NDEs,” Fenwick told National Geographic,19 adding that heart attack patients might not have the brain power necessary for vivid experiences. “[T]here is no coherent cerebral activity which could support consciousness, let alone an experience with the clarity of an NDE.”

  While some researchers have suggested NDEs are dissociative defense mechanisms that occur in times of extreme danger, conflicting studies have put forth explanations based on reduced supplies of oxygen to the brain, endorphins, and abnormal brain activity in the temporal lobes.20 Still other near-death researchers disagree about the very natu
re of the experiences themselves. For example, researchers at the Phase Research Center (formerly known as OOBE Research Center) in Los Angeles, which purports to study and help people control out-of-body experiences, lucid dreams, and astral projections, claim they can “deliberately reproduce” NDEs. They say their 2012 NDE-simulating experiment,21 in which 20 volunteers in no danger of dying were able to experience flying through a tunnel and other events associated with near-death memories, “casts doubt on many earlier theories” on the origin of these events. Michael Raduga, founder and head of the Phase Research Center, says REM sleep “may indeed help explain at least a portion of near-death experiences.”

  “This is vouched for by the ability to artificially reproduce the near-death experience using techniques for achieving out-of-body experience, itself only being possible during REM sleep,” Raduga wrote in the conclusion of the study. “In terms of sensation, experiences thus achieved differ in no way from spontaneous near-death ones at clinical death, and specifically—flights through a tunnel towards the light.”

  Despite there not being a scientific consensus on the specific origins of NDEs, the fact that this phenomenon can be studied, and even recreated in a laboratory setting by administering ketamine and through other tactics, shows us that it is likely a completely natural occurrence—as opposed to a paranormal or divine one. Dr. Caroline Watt, a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Edinburgh and a founding member of the school’s Koestler Parapsychology Unit, is one of many experts who has criticized supernatural assertions made by NDE researchers, including Parnia’s claim that 2 percent of patients who experienced the phenomenon were capable of “seeing” and “hearing” certain events while they were unconscious.

  “Basically the objectively verifiable test of awareness was hidden images on shelves. The one ‘verifiable period of conscious awareness’ that Parnia was able to report did not relate to this objective test,” Watt told Sharon Hill of JREF.22 “Rather, it was a patient giving a supposedly accurate report of events during his resuscitation. This included hearing an Automated External Defibrillator machine. But it is possible that he had previous experience of such machines, for instance from watching medical dramas on TV. So was he recalling something from a period of unconsciousness, or was he possibly reconstructing a plausible sequence of events based on memory and prior life experience?”