An interesting insight into how people can get drawn into wanting to believe in near-death experiences, heaven, angels and the things that they are already primed to associate with their religious beliefs, is that of Alex Malarkey, (real name) - aka the Boy Who Came Back from Heaven.
I can't pretend to do justice to this complicated story, but the essence is that as a child Alex was in a horrific car accident, subsequently spending some months in a coma. When he emerged, he then told his story of having been to heaven and met Jesus.
Additionally, Alex also told that he saw his father fly through the window to be caught and saved by an angel.
The book and the film were heavily promoted in the "heaven tourism" category by religious publishers and many had the proof that they needed of how heaven is real, and so on.
Except that it was all a lie.
To his credit, some five years after the accident, Alex recanted his story and admitted that he made it all up. Subsequently, Alex described the book as "one of the most deceptive books ever".
When you read on and around this story, it gets quite distasteful. There are suggestions of financial impropriety from the father, and the mother has indicated that she was getting fed up from people coming to the door in search of Alex.
That Alex and his mother have had to resort to the courts and public statements in order to get the book removed from sale, is a sad commentary on how easy it is to manipulate people's desires and how little effect reality has in tempering those desires.
Another interesting insight is to read the book reviews on Amazon.
Alex has disavowed this story for many years now, and it's a simple task to look around to see if the story has been revealed to be a fake. Yet, just as we see in this thread, there are still people gushing over an acknowledged forgery and using it to prop up their beliefs. Some Christians have attempted to alert others that it's indisputably untrue, but that doesn't seem to turn off anyone who wants - or needs - to believe otherwise.
Perhaps some of the saddest comments are the ones where people still maintain - even though they acknowledge that the story was made up - the tale as proof that their god exists, on the account that it was a "miracle" that Alex survived the accident.
That "miracle" people refer to is that the child survived the accident. The not-so-miracle being that he emerged from his coma as a quadriplegic.
Another interesting aside is that we often see an apologetic defence of "well, science has been wrong before so it can't be trusted". How strange that those sentiments are never applied in reverse.
As for science needing god beliefs - it functions very well in the presence of reality alone.
I can't pretend to do justice to this complicated story, but the essence is that as a child Alex was in a horrific car accident, subsequently spending some months in a coma. When he emerged, he then told his story of having been to heaven and met Jesus.
Additionally, Alex also told that he saw his father fly through the window to be caught and saved by an angel.
The book and the film were heavily promoted in the "heaven tourism" category by religious publishers and many had the proof that they needed of how heaven is real, and so on.
Except that it was all a lie.
To his credit, some five years after the accident, Alex recanted his story and admitted that he made it all up. Subsequently, Alex described the book as "one of the most deceptive books ever".
When you read on and around this story, it gets quite distasteful. There are suggestions of financial impropriety from the father, and the mother has indicated that she was getting fed up from people coming to the door in search of Alex.
That Alex and his mother have had to resort to the courts and public statements in order to get the book removed from sale, is a sad commentary on how easy it is to manipulate people's desires and how little effect reality has in tempering those desires.
Another interesting insight is to read the book reviews on Amazon.
Alex has disavowed this story for many years now, and it's a simple task to look around to see if the story has been revealed to be a fake. Yet, just as we see in this thread, there are still people gushing over an acknowledged forgery and using it to prop up their beliefs. Some Christians have attempted to alert others that it's indisputably untrue, but that doesn't seem to turn off anyone who wants - or needs - to believe otherwise.
Perhaps some of the saddest comments are the ones where people still maintain - even though they acknowledge that the story was made up - the tale as proof that their god exists, on the account that it was a "miracle" that Alex survived the accident.
That "miracle" people refer to is that the child survived the accident. The not-so-miracle being that he emerged from his coma as a quadriplegic.
Another interesting aside is that we often see an apologetic defence of "well, science has been wrong before so it can't be trusted". How strange that those sentiments are never applied in reverse.
As for science needing god beliefs - it functions very well in the presence of reality alone.
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