Heaven is for Real

MagicMarker

Anyone else read this? I 'acquired' a copy amongst some other books I 'acquired'.

It's the 'true' story of a kid who goes to heaven during a near death experience (he doesn't actually die) and it ended up at the top of the NY Times Best Sellers list and has a crazy amount of top reviews on Amazon (over 2000), which I do actually pay attention to when looking for things to read. So I figured, it's only 190 pages so what the heck, sure it's only 3 hours of my life I have to sacrifice.

Overall, it's a good well written story but surprise surprise, it's written by the boys father who is..... a pastor! :eek:

I'll happily 'lend' it to anyone who wants to have a read.

chin_grin

Ugh, this infuriates me.

Vivid imagination =/= a divine experience.

It's religio-ganda fuel for the sheeple.

Beruthiel

Talk about messing with a childs head.

MagicMarker wrote: »

I'll happily 'lend' it to anyone who wants to have a read.

I'll pass, thanks.

MagicMarker

chin_grin wrote: »

Ugh, this infuriates me.

Vivid imagination =/= a divine experience.

It's religio-ganda fuel for the sheeple.

In this book claims are made that the kids saw things in heaven that he couldn't have known about, like his grandfather who had died in the 70s, his miscarried sister who he apparently wasn't aware of etc.

chin_grin

MagicMarker wrote: »

In this book claims are made that the kids saw things in heaven that he couldn't have known about, like his grandfather who had died in the 70s, his miscarried sister who he apparently wasn't aware of etc.

Uh-huh. Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure. And conveniently written by the father you say? So how leading do you think the questions were to this four year old that he conveniently filled in the spaces?

Damn right I'm wearing my tin foil hat!

Zulu

I'd appricate a "loan". Thanks. Whats 3 hours?

number10a

All you need is a kid with an slightly above average imagination and then say to them "So, did you meet Jesus while you were asleep for your operation?" and you'll get back "Yeah! He had sandals, and long hair, and a pet lamb, and a basket of bread and fish, and, and, and......."

tricky D

Anbody for a sequel: Hell is for Real. Afterall some reckon us lot are going there.

Penn

number10a wrote: »

All you need is a kid with an slightly above average imagination and then say to them "So, did you meet Jesus while you were asleep for your operation?" and you'll get back "Yeah! He had sandals, and long hair, and a pet lamb, and a basket of bread and fish, and, and, and......."

"And I saw an angel and...."
"Wait, was that angel the spirit of your miscarried sister that you didn't know about?"
"Yeah, and she had wings"

Shenshen

One more reason to avoid books on the NY Times bestseller list...

MagicMarker

If (and it's a big if) things happened as they were explained in the book then the father tried his best not to ask leading questions, he said himself that is was wary of feeding him the information.

Zulu, I'll pass it on to you this evening.

Penn

Heaven Is for Real is the true story of the four-year old son of a small town Nebraska pastor who during emergency surgery slips from consciousness and enters heaven. He survives and begins talking about being able to look down and see the doctor operating and his dad praying in the waiting room. The family didn't know what to believe but soon the evidence was clear.

Colton said he met his miscarried sister whom no one had told him about, and his great grandfather who died 30 years before Colton was born, then shared impossible-to-know details about each. He describes the horse that only Jesus could ride, about how "reaaally big" God and his chair are, and how the Holy Spirit "shoots down power" from heaven to help us.

Told by the father but often in Colton's own words, the disarmingly simple message is heaven is a real place, Jesus really loves children, and be ready there is a coming last battle.

Right, firstly, the kid is 4. Every question would have been a leading question.

Secondly, describes the horse that only Jesus could ride? Bunch o' bull****

Thirdly, "be ready there is a coming last battle". So this boy goes to Heaven, and while he's there, Jesus tells him there's a last battle coming. Jesus doesn't love children, Jesus loves scaring children. What sort of Saviour would say that to a 4 year old who has just arrived in Heaven as he's dying on an operating table?

My nephew is four. I could get him to say all these things. Easily. I could make him say God was a woman and that Heaven smells like Ikea, even though *shock horror* he doesn't know what Ikea smells like.

What a bunch of f*cking nonsense.

Beruthiel

Zulu wrote: »

Whats 3 hours?

Dinner and a bottle of wine.
The first half of the Thieves Guild quest in Skyrim.
A trip to the cinema.

Penn

Zulu wrote: »

Whats 3 hours?

Time you'll never get back.

nozzferrahhtoo

There are people on these very forums who happily claim that the parents of missing girl Madeleine actually did the deed themselves in order to cash in on the media coverage, book royalties and more. Whatever you think about THAT is irrelevant but I mention it only to highlight that it is certainly not beyond the realm of possibility that the father who wrote this book primed a kid in order to cash in on the book.

The market for milking the gullible is not the sole purvey of established religions. There is money there to be made and it does not take a genius to realize that using an innocent faced child as a tool in achieving that is going to reap rewards.

I have read peoples commentary on the interviews with the child in question here and have read more than a few comments that the boy is always looking to his father for prompting/reassurance that he is getting the answers “right” as if he was primed to answer as he does.

Even if you dismiss all that conspiracy approach however I am infinitely wary of claims that go along the lines of “X knew something they could not possibly have known”. Children are sponges and they are sponges from ages a lot earlier than people imagine. Even before using words themselves they are understanding more of them than you think and storing them. And words are far from the only method of taking in information.

We simply do not remember every conversation we have had, everything we have said, or who may have over heard. A conversation forgotten about a “dead sister” in one isolated phone call might not be forgotten to a child who over heard it… leaving you baffled later when they regurgitate information you simply were not aware they had.

Leading questions, no matter how much you claim you… or even firmly believe you…. did you best to not ask do have major influence on the answers you get especially from children. Penn’s example above is clearly a comical extreme but even the most subtle verbal inflection in a question can lead people to give answers that fit your expectations as the questioner.

As an argument for any claim at all therefore this line is simply useless to me. As an argument for a claim as monumental as gods and afterlives even more so. Couple all that with the likelihood of a failed writer cashing in on a bad book and you really have put my skeptical leanings off the chart.

Beruthiel

I think it nothing short of abuse to shove your innocent little 4 year old child in front of the media like this.
The father has not for one second thought about how that will effect the child over the coming years.
Child = cash cow.

Zulu

Penn wrote: »

Time you'll never get back.

You never get any time back.

I'm happy to spend mine with an open mind, you?

Beruthiel wrote: »

Dinner and a bottle of wine.

Please Beruthiel, I'm a married man!

It saddens me you waited 6614 posts to ask me out

Beruthiel

Zulu wrote: »

It saddens me you waited 6614 posts to ask me out

I didn't want to appear too eager.

robindch

number10a wrote: »

All you need is a kid with an slightly above average imagination and then say to them "So, did you meet Jesus while you were asleep for your operation?" and you'll get back "Yeah! He had sandals, and long hair, and a pet lamb, and a basket of bread and fish, and, and, and......."

Reminds me of something I wrote back in June about a book I found stuffed in an old bookshelf back home. No idea where it came from:

robindch wrote:

One I vaguely recall described two kids whose mum died or was sent to a home for the sinful, the soldier dad went on the booze, leaving the authorities to send the slightly older boy to one orphanage and the girl, perhaps four years old, to a convent orphanage in Cork somewhere. The nuns did the religious thing, so she was made pray, go to mass etc, etc. At some point, the girl started acting up and was initially suspected of satanic possession and was beaten for it, but subsequently, the religious authorities realized that she was actually receiving heavenly visions and they began to treat her as a saint. She died a few months after this happened, perhaps a year after entering the orphanage.

In my minds eye, I like to think that the girl was smart enough to figure out the nature of the fools she was with, and use that to her advantage. It's better than the alternative, that an unloved child was removed from the remnants of a family who didn't care, shoved into a dank convent filled with obsessed, sexless women, abused, then turned into a propaganda image, before she died at around the same age as my kid is now.

Certainly, this appalling book paints a four-year old her as nothing but a saint, but reading in between the lines, the story is hopelessly heartbreaking.

robindch

MagicMarker wrote: »

It's the 'true' story of a kid [...]

One word:

Marjoe

Penn

Zulu wrote: »

You never get any time back.

I'm happy to spend mine with an open mind, you?

But open to what? There's no way of verifying any of it. There's no way of knowing the inner workings of either the child's mind or the father's mind. Loads of people claim to have near death experiences where they see one thing or the other, but there's no way to verify any of it. Not to mention, the child is four so his own account isn't exactly going to be the most reliable or accurate account there is. As for knowing stuff he couldn't have known otherwise, there are ways he could have known them otherwise, or was manipulated into falsely remembering them.

I like to keep an open mind, but at the same time, Occam's razor an' all that. There is nothing in this story from what I've seen to indicate that the version of events where the boy goes to Heaven, meets his miscarried sister, gets told to prepare for a battle by Jesus (presumably on his Jesus-horse) etc, is even remotely possible.

b318isp

Reminds me of the book "The 5 people you meet in heaven" which I was strongly recommended to read last year. Let's say it was 8 hours of my life I will not get back. I was stunned to find it listed in one of those top 100 book lists somewhere.

Zulu

Penn wrote: »

There is nothing in this story from what I've seen...

...you read the book? Oh sorry, I didn't think you had.

When I finish reading it, I'm sure I'll join in derailing it with you, but until then I'm gonna hold off. I'd prefer to make an informed judgment.

nozzferrahhtoo

b318isp wrote: »

I was stunned to find it listed in one of those top 100 book lists somewhere.

Enjoy the feeling while it lasts. I have LONG ago stopped being surprised at the kind of tosh that tops popularity lists in our species. Not sure when the ability to be surprised by such things died in me, but I am sure if it was still alive recently... or could somehow be resurrected.... that X-Factor would have killed it off all over again.

Standman

Zulu wrote: »

...you read the book? Oh sorry, I didn't think you had.

When I finish reading it, I'm sure I'll join in derailing it with you, but until then I'm gonna hold off. I'd prefer to make an informed judgment.

I don't think you need to read the book to make a judgment on the claims it makes. They explain pretty clearly what happened in a few interviews readily available on YouTube.

i have to giggle at the jesus-horse

anyway i've read some of these OBEs and heaven visits before, meh...

Penn

Zulu wrote: »

...you read the book? Oh sorry, I didn't think you had.

When I finish reading it, I'm sure I'll join in derailing it with you, but until then I'm gonna hold off. I'd prefer to make an informed judgment.

Firstly, I said "from what I've seen", not "from reading the book".

Secondly, if a 4 year old told you that one night after going to bed, they met Iron Man and helped save him from being killed by the Crimson Dynamo, even though the 4 year old doesn't think they've ever heard of the Crimson Dynamo before that, and woke up the next morning back in bed because Iron Man brought him home... would you need to read a book about it to make a judgement on that?

Tell you what, read the book, time yourself to see how long it takes, and after you've read it if you honestly and truly believe that the boy did in fact go to Heaven and that that is the most logical explanation for what happened, I'll make a promise to donate any organ to you should you ever need it, so you can have a chance at having that time back, because I'll have clearly wasted my life.

Zulu

Firstly: ...meh, I'd be surprised if I believe any of it.

Secondly: I often listen to my four year old niece: she tells bloody interesting stories. Better than the stories most of my adult friends tell.

Anyways this book has nothing to do with Iron Man.

iron man isn't cool enough to have a horse

Penn

Zulu wrote: »

Anyways this book has nothing to do with Iron Man.

I'd read it if it did....

Zulu

why would you need a horse in heaven?
and, nore importantly, is heaven a horses hell?? an eternity of lugging people around sounds a bit poxy

robindch

Zulu wrote: »

why would you need a horse in heaven?

It's an old religious trope which predates christianity by centuries, if not millennia.

Mohammad had a horse too, name of Buraq:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buraq

Whence, incidentally, the name Barack (as in Obama).

Sonics2k

bluewolf wrote: »

iron man is too cool to have a horse

FYP

MagicMarker

More importantly, there are swords in heaven.

nozzferrahhtoo

Sonics2k wrote: »

FYP

Reminds me of the Tommy Tiernan line where he says "I am not poor enough OR rich enough to own a horse".

EKClarke

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVtNzONbaiU

God I hate Gretchen Carlson.

Newaglish

Howcome Scientologists and Buddhists never see Jesus when they pass out?

Reminds me of a story of this doctor who had signs placed facing skywards on the top of the cabinets in his surgery. Whenever anyone said "I was floating above the operating theatre, watching everyone below me", he would ask them what the signs said and surprisingly, nobody ever knew.

MagicMarker

Newaglish wrote: »

Howcome Scientologists and Buddhists never see Jesus when they pass out?

Reminds me of a story of this doctor who had signs placed facing skywards on the top of the cabinets in his surgery. Whenever anyone said "I was floating above the operating theatre, watching everyone below me", he would ask them what the signs said and surprisingly, nobody ever knew.

That's because the signs were in Hebrew*




*May not be true.

nozzferrahhtoo

Newaglish wrote: »

Whenever anyone said "I was floating above the operating theatre, watching everyone below me", he would ask them what the signs said and surprisingly, nobody ever knew.

Actually interestingly there is work in progress right now by a scientists who DOES believe in out of body experiences to test this. So I am looking forward to the result as no accusations of bias can be claimed if the work fails to show results.

The experiments from what I have read involve placing things in random surgeries (even the doctors do not know which ones or what the something is) and seeing if any people who experience floating over body see any of them.

If memory serves the person in question doing the study is called Sam Parnia and given previous work is likely more biased towards a positive result than against.

So far I have only heard people explain simple things with such experience. The first time I hear a study suggest patients were saying things like "Yea I left my body, I was looking down on everyone in the room and.... you know what.... weirdly there was a large red digital read out concealed on top of that cupboard over there with the number 483757 on it...." I think we can start to take notice.

the_syco

MagicMarker wrote: »

In this book claims are made that the kids saw things in heaven that he couldn't have known about, like his grandfather who had died in the 70s, his miscarried sister who he apparently wasn't aware of etc.

Written by his father who did know all about them...

Penn wrote: »

Secondly, describes the horse that only Jesus could ride? Bunch o' bull****

On earth: no so special, son or man, etc. In heaven: special horse no-one can go on.

Penn wrote: »

"be ready there is a coming last battle"

Would make sense except that Jesus is a peace loving hippie

Beruthiel wrote: »

The father has not for one second thought about how that will effect the child over the coming years.

I can see the child trying to talk to his sister again, except it won't be under the surgeons knife...

robindch wrote: »

It's an old religious trope which predates christianity by centuries, if not millennia.

And yet pets can't be buried in cemeteries? :eek:

aidan24326

Beruthiel wrote: »

I think it nothing short of abuse to shove your innocent little 4 year old child in front of the media like this.
The father has not for one second thought about how that will effect the child over the coming years.
Child = cash cow.

And child who's been to heaven equals big cash cow.

Also, why in the name of Zeus would god need a chair?

Wait for Tubridhead to bring them on The LLS and all the tools in the audience lapping it up.

seamus

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Penn’s example above is clearly a comical extreme but even the most subtle verbal inflection in a question can lead people to give answers that fit your expectations as the questioner.

Indeed, various studies of behaviour and communication indicate that as social beings we do a number of things like mimicking to connect more with the person that we're communicating in order to get them to like us. In many cases, people will alter their answers or alter their intonation ever so subtley to something that they think will please the asker.

This would be especially true in a child-father relationship where the child will do his level best to say things which garner approval from his father, even if the child isn't aware that he's doing it. It's the same reason why we see grown-up adults afraid to admit to their aged parents that they're no longer catholic. They don't fear punishment or reprisal - they can't be punished, they're adults - but they fear their parents disapproval.

That's not rocket surgery; if the child notices that his father has become noticeably awed or happy because he claims to have met Jesus, then the child is going to continue on down that line.

tricky D

tricky D wrote: »

Anbody for a sequel: Hell is for Real. Afterall some reckon us lot are going there.

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought
23 Minutes In Hell: One Man's Story About What He Saw, Heard, and Felt in that Place of Torment
Somebody beat you to it.

Would anyone here write a book like that just to cash in?
Would you go on the talk shows etc?

the_syco

Deleted User wrote: »

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought
23 Minutes In Hell: One Man's Story About What He Saw, Heard, and Felt in that Place of Torment
Somebody beat you to it.

Would anyone here write a book like that just to cash in?
Would you go on the talk shows etc?

"My sincere hope is that this book is the closest you will ever come to experiencing hell for yourself"--Bill Wiese saw the searing flames of hell, felt total isolation, and experienced the putrid and rotting stench, deafening screams of agony, terrorizing demons, and finally, the strong hand of God lifting him out of the pit--"Tell them I am coming very, very soon!"

Sounds like a dream/nightmare i once had. Except that's the thing: I know it was a dream/knightmare (although I found it odd that I could smell the smoke, feel the heat, and hear the screams of the tormented), but I didn't really think much of it. I was just thankful that I had a gun in my hand at the time (in the dream). Frightening, yes. Did I think it was in any way religious? No.

If I see a fluffy cross in the shape of a cross in the sky, I see a shape of a cross made of clouds in the sky. Some people will see a sign that the end is nigh. Some people are generally just f**ked up in the head, I find.

MagicMarker

seamus wrote: »

That's not rocket surgery; if the child notices that his father has become noticeably awed or happy because he claims to have met Jesus, then the child is going to continue on down that line.

This is definitely the impression I got while reading the book.

amacachi

I assumed this thread was going to be about drugs but it's way worse than that. :pac:

Chuck Stone

MagicMarker wrote: »

It's the 'true' story of a kid who goes to heaven during a near death experience (he doesn't actually die)

Sorry, but I laughed when I read that bit.

Sarky

Axe Cop is a story made by a 5 year old. It's freaking awesome. There are lasers and dinosaurs and robots and everything.

Galvasean

Sarky wrote: »

Axe Cop is a story made by a 5 year old. It's freaking awesome. There are lasers and dinosaurs and robots and everything.

The best part is it's all true!

irishh_bob

EKClarke wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVtNzONbaiU

God I hate Gretchen Carlson.

only thing missing from that video clip is for the dad to tell fox news , jesus is real and he votes republican

Dave!

Zulu wrote: »

You never get any time back.

I'm happy to spend mine with an open mind, you?

Yeah forget all the other bogus attempts at evidence for NDE/afterlife; this book may just be the proof we're after!

There comes a time when you don't have to indulge every bit of fanciful nonsense just to show (yourself or others) how open-minded you are.

See for example this rather scary thread in the Paranormal forum! The OP apparently finds it interesting (plausible?) that sasquatch exists... and can do the following:

Read

Write

Shape-shift

Project Their Voice

Create Infrasound that affects the environment

De-materialize at will, or cause you to have an experience of lost time so you think they de-materialized.

Travel 300 miles a day on foot.

Live in well-lighted underground facilities

Contact and live with Star People

Tell us about our past and our future.

Have lived here longer than the human race.

Better read through the pile of shíte website it's taken from, just in case we're missing out on some key evidence in the hunt for supersasquatch! :eek:


Sorry for the sarkiness... Just find the 'open your mind' argument a bit grating.