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Overview
A prominent atheist dies unexpectedly and goes to hell. Or so it appears, but nothing is what it seems in this engrossing allegorical novel about the afterlife. In the tradition of C.S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce and John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Michael Phillips has produced a riveting tale of eternity. Hell and Beyond is a lively and fascinating trip through the afterlife—one that will inspire you to rediscover the significance of your life here and now.
“Phillips has offered a breathtaking and important addition to the world of traditional theological allegory, joining Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and C.S. Lewis’ Pilgrim’s Regress . . . It is beautiful beyond describing and stunning in its impact.” —William Paul Young, author of The Shack, from the foreword
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781625391759 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | RosettaBooks |
| Publication date: | 09/15/2021 |
| Series: | The Beyond Trilogy , #3 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 200 |
| Sales rank: | 564,969 |
| File size: | 668 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Reflections
I had been planning a writing getaway for several months.
My schedule had been impossible for two or three years, ever since my book The Christ Myth had topped The New York Times bestseller list. What with relentless travel, speaking engagements, television appearances, autograph sessions, radio interviews, even invitations to the White House and Ten Downing Street, I had scarcely had a moment to myself.
I was an outspoken atheist long before the book appeared. Yet even I was unprepared for the explosive response to its message. Every author, of course, hopes that he will strike a chord in the public mind. But in all honesty, I miscalculated to what an extent thinking men and women in the western world were ready once and for all to recognize the damaging influences of religion in general, and Judaism and Christianity in particular. I was delighted, of course. Yet that so many millions enthusiastically embraced my challenge to discard the ancient voodoo of the former and bigoted beliefs of the latter came as a surprise both to my publisher and myself. The tawdry edifices of the two belief systems were breaking apart amid the scrutiny of modernity, and I was happy to play a role in their collapse.
The years since, however, though exhilarating, had been hectic and exhausting. All along I had envisioned a second book to follow the first, a historical chronicle of the excesses, cruelties, and evils of both Judaism and Christianity from their inceptions to the present. I also had in my mind a third volume that would gather together all the philosophical arguments and proofs against the existence of God, from the ancient Greeks all the way down to the enlightened scientific rationalism of the present day. It had been my experience through the years that deep down, deathbed conversions notwithstanding, most people possessed the common sense to recognize the obvious — that no such being as "God" could possibly exist. At the same time, they were so bound by the superstitions of tradition that they were afraid to admit it. I hoped to provide the factual, historical, and philosophical evidences that would enable them to leave those superstitions behind and step into the freedom of modern progressive thought. But my schedule had prevented making headway on either of the two follow-up volumes.
Finally, I carved out a two-week slice of time. I blocked the days off on my calendar and allowed nothing to intrude. Then I made plans to seclude myself at a friend's lodge in the Colorado Rockies. During that time, I hoped to get both books generally outlined and two or three chapters roughed out on each.
I also wanted to reestablish some of the health routines that had suffered since publication of my book. I had long been a regular jogger. Travel, jet lag, hotels, and unfamiliar cities, however, are not conducive to running, and I hated exercise machines. Nor was extensive travel conducive to a wise diet. Restaurant meals are death to the waistline. The result was that I had put on twenty pounds and found myself puffing more than I liked when climbing stairs. I had always fought a bit of a cholesterol problem, but daily running kept it in check. Along with the twenty pounds had come a thirty-point increase in my combined numbers. My doctor suggested meds, but I declined. I'd be on my running regimen again soon, I assured him. The weight and cholesterol would drop back down.
That was another priority of my two-week retreat. Hiking and jogging trails abounded around the lodge. I would run every day. I would eat well. The nearest restaurant was five miles away. My wife packed up two weeks of prepared and frozen meals and everything I would need — oatmeal, salads, plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, juices, healthy snacks, cheese, nuts, wholegrain breads, yogurt, several roasted chickens ... a veritable smorgasbord of health. There wouldn't be a Coke or Big Mac for miles!
Thus it was, in the third week of June, that I drove into the mountains, my car loaded with books for research, two laptop computers, my running shoes and trunks, and several ice-chests overflowing with my wife's ministrations for my well being.
Actually, there was one other item of business on my To-do list — a long-postponed letter to my father. That might prove to be the most difficult assignment of all. I had always considered my father distant, cold, uncommunicative, and critical. Nothing I did was good enough. I could never win his approval. I had labored under the pressure of it for so long that during my college years I distanced myself from him emotionally and never went back. Ever since, it had been one of those so-called "estranged" relationships, which were so much the norm these days. I dealt in my own way with the "woundings," as they had come to be called, that his cold and critical spirit had caused. I read several pop psychology books that affirmed to me that I was "okay" in spite of the scars my father had inflicted. But our relationship remained strained, awkward, and silent.
I knew that my outspoken atheist views were troublesome for my mother and father. They were not religious people. I had been raised in a thoroughly modern and progressive environment. For me to become an international spokesman for atheism, however, was beyond the pale, even for them. Yet, six months before, I had received a very heartfelt letter from my father to which I had not known how to respond. It was not like him to communicate from his heart. Essentially, he told me that he loved me, that he knew he had disappointed me in many ways, but that he was proud of me ... as a person, as a man. He couldn't go along with all my views, he said. But he was proud to call me his son. My first thought was that he must have contracted some terminal illness and was trying to put things right in his life. But that did not turn out to be the case.
His letter rattled me. For six months, I had procrastinated making a reply. I knew I couldn't put it off forever. I didn't know what I would say, or how thoroughly I ought to unburden myself about my own pain from the relationship. But I had to write him.
I arrived at my mountain retreat late on a brilliant sunny afternoon. The lodge sat at some seven thousand feet and the air was crisp. Some snow still lay on the ground and covered the mountains all around. I noticed the altitude immediately as I carried my things inside. If I had puffed up stairs at sea level, the least effort here was enough to wear me out. I had to sit and catch my breath after lugging a mere two boxes of books onto the porch!
Whew! I said to myself. Jogging at seven thousand feet will be a chore! I'll either kill myself, or get back into shape in a big hurry.
I did no work that first evening. I built a fire in the massive stone-hearthed fireplace, then unpacked my books and computers and set up a workplace so that I would be ready to go in the morning. After a call to inform my family of my safe arrival, I went out for a walk — a slow one! — in the chilly evening air. I then settled in for the night with one of my wife's light suppers, followed by a cup of tea and a book I had brought along for leisure reading.
The mountain air agreed with me. I slept soundly, dreamlessly, and long, aware only throughout of an occasional filling of my lungs from the open window with air so deliciously cool and fresh that it felt drinkable, as if borne through the nighttime breezes from one of the crystalline streams fed by the surrounding snowy peaks.
The temperature dropped substantially during the night. A fire was the morning's first order of business, along with a pot of coffee. While waiting for the fire to warm the place, I bundled up in all my warm clothes and stepped onto the expansive wood deck that surrounded the lodge, a steaming mug in my hands, to enjoy the gradual rising of the sun over the mountains.
I sat down in one of several wooden chairs and gazed around with pleasure. The view was stunning and spectacular. It was at moments like this that I found rising within myself a begrudging admiration for the Christians' argument that no accident of spontaneous creation and evolutionary development could possibly have led to all this. It was the manliest argument that could be forwarded for the existence of a divine hand in creation. The conclusion was flawed, of course. But the argument — every design must have a designer, a painting a painter, an invention an inventor, a masterpiece a master — was not itself intrinsically absurd. Darwinism had of course proved beyond doubt that much in nature had arisen without benefit of design or planning. All about us every day were multifold evidences of beauty, order, structure, symmetry ... but they were just the products of the physics of the universe following the laws of nature, nothing more. Followed backward to the beginning of beginnings, the design argument for the existence of God was undone. Still, as I say, it was a worthy line of reasoning. The sheer beauty and wonder of the world could not but fill one with awe.
I sipped at my Starbucks — I never traveled without my own supply! As I did, my thoughts strayed to that ever-present dichotomy faced by atheists and deists alike: the perplexing, fascinating, irresolvable interplay between doubt and faith.
Could God's existence be proven? Of course not. No one had ever seen him.
On the other hand, could it be proven beyond all doubt that God did not exist?
I had devoted my life to arguing publicly for the veracity of that conclusion. But I knew as well as anyone that it could not be proven. I had been willing to stake my life on my conviction that the evidence — indeed, the facts — all lay on the side of atheism.
But the Christians weren't convinced. So where was my proof? People believed what they chose to believe. They believed what they believed because they chose to put faith in those beliefs.
Atheism and deism both attempted to probe the unknowable. That was the big Catch 22 of the universe. There were no ironclad proofs.
When I attempted — a beginning I hoped to make that very day — to put into perspective the many arguments and so-called "proofs" on both sides of the question, I knew I must address that aspect of the philosophical issue without flinching. I could not prove there was no God any more than the Christians could prove that a man called Jesus rose from the dead.
I smiled to myself as I recalled an exchange with a fiery young Christian during a question-and-answer session after my talk only a few days before.
"If you are right," he had challenged me, "it won't matter anyway. There will be no afterlife and no one will ever know. If you are wrong and God does exist, you will wake up one day and find yourself in hell. So why take the chance?"
It was the most fatuous of all the Christians' arguments — the classic line of reasoning based on what was called Pascal's Gambit. They were indeed fond of it. I heard it trotted out at least once a month as a rationale for religious belief. Bill O'Reilly once said almost those very words on national television as justification for his Christianity.
A more juvenile line of thinking would be hard to imagine. What about truth, as they were so fond of talking about? The why-take-the-chance argument held less water than the imbecilic old stand-by, "The Bible says it so I believe it."
On the other hand, the uncertainty argument, as I called it, pointed out the reality that doubt played as great a role in philosophical and religious questions as did faith. Was anyone really free from doubt? I had spoken with enough sincere and honest Christians to know, when they were brutally honest with themselves, that there were times they wondered whether everything they believed was true. Of course it took an unusual Christian to admit it.
As for me, I didn't really doubt my beliefs. I had no fear of encountering God some day and having him throw me into the fires of hell. Yet there were times, almost humorously, when I allowed myself to fantasize on such an encounter.
That would be an awkward meeting indeed!
I would never admit to such an idea lurking in the shadows any more than most Christians owned up to their doubts. I had never hinted at such thoughts in print or in words ... and never would. Where would my reputation as a feisty atheist be if I let something like that slip! My colleagues would never let me hear the end of it. The last thing I wanted was for a string of prayer breakfasts to be held with my soul the chief item on the agenda paper. Still, the idea of doubt and faith added an intriguing dose of personal spice to what otherwise might be a rather impersonal philosophical debate.
As my reflections continued and gradually coalesced around the topics that had brought me there, I rose and went inside. The lodge was still cold, but I was ready to have something to eat and get to work.
As the day advanced, in spite of the refreshing night's sleep, a sluggishness gradually overcame me. I felt forty pounds heavier, not twenty. My breathing was more labored than was comfortable. The effects of the altitude were more pronounced than I had anticipated.
I had planned to go out for my first jog that afternoon. Instead, I took a nap and awoke feeling tired and unable to catch my breath.
When at last I lay down in bed for the night, I was beat.
CHAPTER 2A Waking
My second night in the mountains did not pass so comfortably as the first. I woke often, aware each time of an inability to get enough air. A tightness constricted my lungs, preventing normal breathing. Each time I drifted back to sleep, my slumber was haunted by strange and undefined dreams. I was vaguely conscious of tossing and turning almost constantly.
An occasional pain in my shoulder roused me. Each time sleep returned, until all at once a great jolt seized my ribs. I felt my hand go to my chest. The spasm was intense but lasted mere seconds.
The next instant, I was consumed by a dream more vivid than all that had preceded it.
A bright vision of the mountains I had gazed upon that morning filled my mind's eye. My first thought was that morning had come and I was again seated on the deck. I soon realized, however, that my vantage point was dramatically changed. I could not be seated on the deck, for the peaks of the hills were much closer and I was far too high to be seeing them from below. As I gazed about, with something of a shock I looked below me and saw the roof of the lodge. There was my blue Volvo beside it.
I was flying above it all, among the mountains. This was a pleasant dream, I thought. Since earliest boyhood I had longed to fly. All my happiest dreams had been of flight.
But something was weirdly different this time. It was too real. I felt as if I really were flying! The pleasure was immense. Such a sense of well being, of power, of infinite life swept through me. All pain was gone, all the heaviness of the day vanished in pure lightness. I weighed nothing!
Higher and higher I rose. The lodge and trees and streams disappeared. Soon even the mountaintops faded like specks of white beneath me. I was among the clouds ... flying ... flying into the infinite blue beyond.
Then slowly the blue, the clouds, the sense of flight all faded. A brightness of pure luminescence engulfed me. As I had felt earlier about the delicious night mountain air, the light was so full of life that you could taste it, drink it, eat it. It went through me, and into me, as if replacing the blood in my vessels and veins down to the tiniest corpuscle with living, pulsating, throbbing light.
The light was suffused with pure energy. My body had entirely lost its mass. My consciousness remained but was now pure consciousness, utter being-ness. I was bombarded by waves moving at the speed of light, but waves without mass. I was alive and floating — or flying! — in the midst of Einstein's mysterious equation conflating energy, mass, and the speed of light. I felt nothing from the assault of the waves of light ... only energy — live, living energy.
I soon became aware that I was no longer floating in the ethereal regions of empty space, but standing upright, though I saw nothing of my surroundings. At first awareness of this change, all I knew was that I stood in a shower of light coming at me from all sides.
It was now for the first time that a vague sense of disquiet began to steal over me. I realized that this was like no dream I had ever experienced. The hazy film of unreality which imbues all dreams with queer other-worldliness was altogether missing. My senses felt more awake than ever. In fact, I felt more alive than ever! Every sense of my being had been dramatically altered.
The changes that continued to come over me occurred quickly, yet by degrees. I became aware of an impulsion to move. I did not feel my legs and feet obeying the summons, yet I knew that an undefined momentum began to take me forward. I felt the light passing by me to the right and left and overhead. To say that I was progressing through a tunnel of light would not convey the sense that the light was everywhere. Yet I was moving through it.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Hell and Beyond"
by .
Copyright © 2012 Michael Phillips.
Excerpted by permission of Bondfire Books, LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Foreword,
Preface,
One: Reflections,
Two: A Waking,
Three: A Question and a Choice,
Four: The Naturalist,
Five: Unsettling Vistas Beyond,
Six: The Brilliant Young Man and the Courageous Boy,
Seven: Purpose of the Fire,
Eight: The Town of Isolation,
Nine: A New Guide Explains,
Ten: The Importance of Choice,
Eleven: The Desert of Introspection,
Twelve: The Garden of Moments,
Thirteen: The Consuming Fire that Did Not Consume,
Fourteen: The Hill of Betrayal,
Fifteen: The Sea of Burnished Souls,
Sixteen: The City of Debt,
Seventeen: Healing the Past,
Eighteen: The Waters of Forgiveness,
Nineteen: To the Edge of the Fire,
Twenty: The Essential School of Childness,
Twenty-One: The Crowd at the Precipice,
Twenty-Two: The Outer Darkness,
Twenty-Three: The Consuming Fire,
Twenty-Four: The Alabaster Heart,
Twenty-Five: The White Stone,
A Final Word from Michael Phillips,
Michael Phillips Titles Available at Bondfire Books,
The Works of Michael Phillips,
About the Author,