Boy Admits He Didn't Go To Heaven

It was all made up...

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2015/01/15/377589757/boy-says-he-didn-t-go-to-heaven-publisher-says-it-will-pull-book

Certain Christian friends will criticize me for finding Bigfoot stories to be interesting...

...but yet they find these "I died and went to Heaven" stories interesting.

Go figure.

Mortal wrote:Certain Christian friends will criticize me for finding Bigfoot stories to be interesting...

...but yet they find these "I died and went to Heaven" stories interesting.

Go figure.

I know the feeling.

Kinda makes you wonder if Heaven is for real...

I have a feeling that some folks will be saying...

"Who cares if he made it all up for attention? He made people think about God and Heaven, and that's a good thing."

I have heard these type of "defense" statements before.

Haha, they are the same ones who say "maybe it happened because you aren't meant to have it" when something bad happens to you for buying something you wanted to get. I remember I bought a Demon Hunter cd once and my aunt was telling me how they represent the devil because of their album covers. I wanted to show her how even christian online stores were selling their cds and the server was down. Then she says "Maybe God isn't letting the website work because I'm not meant to see the lies". I had no words.

Well, just because a "Christian Store" is selling something doesn't make it good, or bad...but yea, I've run into that line of reasoning as well; "Your car stereo fried because you were making an idol out of it and God destroyed it!"

Candlemass wrote:Well, just because a "Christian Store" is selling something doesn't make it good, or bad...but yea, I've run into that line of reasoning as well; "Your car stereo fried because you were making an idol out of it and God destroyed it!"

True, but I wanted to make a point to her and that websites server was down and she didn't let me show her any other sources like interviews of band members stating their beliefs. Instead I just got blown off with that comment which left me speechless.

^A favorite line of mine for moments like that is "I can't argue with that logic!"  Which is true!

I don't know this book, but I've always thought that the quote about putting our faith in Scripture rather than somebody's (alleged) experience made great sense.  I don't know this book, although I did read "Heaven Is for Real" and thought that it *could* be legit.  But the story of a young child is always a poor place to stake one's faith.

I really wonder about those who would say...

"Who cares if he made it all up for attention? He made people think about God and Heaven, and that's a good thing."

...It makes me wonder where their reverence for God is. It seems to have flown out the window.

It is not a good thing to make up lies about the King (God/The Lord) and His Dominion (Heaven) just to get attention.

Just because he made people think about "God" and "Heaven" doesn't make it right.

And the "God" and "Heaven" he made people think about were questionable from the start...and have now been proven to be fakes.

No...It is not a good thing that he made people think about "God" and "Heaven".

It's a dangerous thing.

Thank God the boy decided to repent.

I just wish that certain folks would repent also and get their reverence for God back instead of making up silly excuses for stuff like this.

I never heard of this story. I've heard about the movie 'Heaven is for Real.' I've never seen it nor wanted too. Maybe I should so that I can know it to counter argue it.

About this boy, I wonder, first of all, why anyone should trust a fantastic story by someone named Malarkey. I mean really, people are that foolish.

The only good news about this story is that it seems like the boy has a reverence for God's Word. I hope he's saved and that maybe God will use his testimony to affect his wicked father.

Mortal wrote:I really wonder about those who would say...

"Who cares if he made it all up for attention? He made people think about God and Heaven, and that's a good thing."

...It makes me wonder where their reverence for God is. It seems to have flown out the window.

It is not a good thing to make up lies about the King (God/The Lord) and His Dominion (Heaven) just to get attention.

Just because he made people think about "God" and "Heaven" doesn't make it right.

And the "God" and "Heaven" he made people think about were questionable from the start...and have now been proven to be fakes.

No...It is not a good thing that he made people think about "God" and "Heaven".

It's a dangerous thing.

Thank God the boy decided to repent.

I just wish that certain folks would repent also and get their reverence for God back instead of making up silly excuses for stuff like this.

Great points.

The worst thing about reading these kind of articles are the comments (Not the forum comments, but the comments on the actual source page.) Makes you want to live on a different planet.

Metal Blessing Radio wrote:The worst thing about reading these kind of articles are the comments (Not the forum comments, but the comments on the actual source page.) Makes you want to live on a different planet.

Amazingly callous, huh?

Yeah, I noticed the last name.  Too perfect!

Internet comments are always -- ALWAYS the worst.  I figure that it's because the only people who care enough to write comments on internet articles/youtube vids/whatever probably just have issues.  Otherwise any faith in humanity (not where faith should be anyway!) is out the door!

Mortal wrote:I have a feeling that some folks will be saying...

"Who cares if he made it all up for attention? He made people think about God and Heaven, and that's a good thing."

I have heard these type of "defense" statements before.

Some Christians feel that the end sometimes justifies the means. But when proclaiming the Gospel we should always do so with honesty and integrity. Can God still use things done under false pretenses ? Sure, but it is usually in spite of the falsehood.

You simply can't wrong with giving people the simple and powerful Gospel. We are a sinners who deserves hell, and the Father sent the Son to save sinners.

I never had much interest in these stories, nor any interest in smacking a label of "miracle" or "load of rubbish" on them or any one in particular....

Reading how the boy's parents are divorced and how this whole thing reportedly was the idea of the boy's father, I must admit I am suspicious that this whole thing is the idea of the boy's mother. If the boy was yanked in one direction by one parent, then who can say he isn't being yanked in the other direction by the other?

sentient 6 wrote:Some Christians feel that the end sometimes justifies the means.

If they were Christians at all, they should know better than that.

Metal Blessing Radio wrote:The worst thing about reading these kind of articles are the comments (Not the forum comments, but the comments on the actual source page.) Makes you want to live on a different planet.

+1

Mortal wrote:I really wonder about those who would say...

"Who cares if he made it all up for attention? He made people think about God and Heaven, and that's a good thing."

...It makes me wonder where their reverence for God is. It seems to have flown out the window.

It is not a good thing to make up lies about the King (God/The Lord) and His Dominion (Heaven) just to get attention.

Just because he made people think about "God" and "Heaven" doesn't make it right.

And the "God" and "Heaven" he made people think about were questionable from the start...and have now been proven to be fakes.

No...It is not a good thing that he made people think about "God" and "Heaven".

It's a dangerous thing.

Thank God the boy decided to repent.

I just wish that certain folks would repent also and get their reverence for God back instead of making up silly excuses for stuff like this.

Absolutely.

LemonMouse wrote:I never had much interest in these stories, nor any interest in smacking a label of "miracle" or "load of rubbish" on them or any one in particular....

Reading how the boy's parents are divorced and how this whole thing reportedly was the idea of the boy's father, I must admit I am suspicious that this whole thing is the idea of the boy's mother. If the boy was yanked in one direction by one parent, then who can say he isn't being yanked in the other direction by the other?

I thought of that too... Assuming the story is made-up though, I wonder if the kid came up with it all by himself, or by some prompting from his parents ("it's like you were dead... did you see heaven?"). It also seems interesting that he's now saying he didn't die at all - isn't that something the doctors would have been able to confirm/deny? Although death (truly dead? or just unresponsive/dormant? what is death?) is more difficult to define than it seems. Near death experiences are interesting (both those that appear to support a particular religion or something else), though I hesitate to place much confidence in them meaning anything applicable to the actual afterlife, if there is one.

A number of years ago, the Christian Research Journal ran a unique series on the entire NDE phenomenon.  Simply scintillating reading.  If you can score a link online (unsure if it's on teh Interwebz or not), it's a worthy read IMO.

Neal Morse Code wrote:A number of years ago, the Christian Research Journal ran a unique series on the entire NDE phenomenon.  Simply scintillating reading.  If you can score a link online (unsure if it's on teh Interwebz or not), it's a worthy read IMO.

http://www.equip.org/article/the-near-death-experience-part-one/

http://www.equip.org/article/the-near-death-experience-part-two/

Also the vid I posted earlier in this thread Hank reads excerpts from his book; "Afterlife."