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Kid recants BS near-death experience story

Michchamp

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 4, 2011
Messages
33,982
Link. Kid's name is perfect:
"Nearly five years after it hit best-seller lists, a book that purported to be a 6-year-old boy's story of visiting angels and heaven after being injured in a bad car crash is being pulled from shelves. The young man at the center of The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven, Alex Malarkey, said this week that the story was all made up."
Christians: "Ooh no. This is terrible. It's unthinkable someone could use my religious beliefs to profit off me like this. I feel so... betrayed!"

Atheists: "You know... uh... never mind."
 
"I did not die. I did not go to Heaven," Alex wrote. He continued, "I said I went to heaven because I thought it would get me attention. When I made the claims that I did, I had never read the Bible. People have profited from lies, and continue to. They should read the Bible, which is enough. The Bible is the only source of truth. Anything written by man cannot be infallible."

I wonder if the kid realizes the Bible was also written by man? And then lost, found, re-translated, abridged, re-translated some more, edited, re-translated, etc.
 
I don't blame the kid. He was 6. But, I think this proves that kids are not the best source of information. It also proves that we shouldn't take everything on faith. Jesus on toast, Statues that cry, mysterious shapes that kind of resemble people/angels...I'm looking at you.
 
Maybe if religious extremists so fervently beleive that there is a Heaven, Hell, and perhaps a Limbo or Purgatory (for some of the faithful) then perhaps that might indeed be their fate that awaits them after they pass. That is, unless some who believe that they will still be alive and kicking when (or more likely IF) the Rapture happens.

Me, I kinda lean towards reincarnation, but would prefer simple oblivion, especially if I was destined to return as some alien creature's next menu entree on another life-supporting planet.:ugh:
 
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Me, I kinda lean towards reincarnation, but would prefer simple oblivion, especially if I was destined to return as some alien creature's next menu entree on another life-supporting planet.:ugh:

I dunno...I look at reincarnation as like a box of chocolates...you never know what you're gonna get...
 
I dunno...I look at reincarnation as like a box of chocolates...you never know what you're gonna get...

Did I ever mention the box of chocolate I got that was Forrest Gump themed? I was a white box with Gump sitting on the bench like in the movie poster and it said "life is like a box of chocolates" on the side...but it a was chocolate covered mints. Basically, mini-york peppermint patties. Every one of them. You always knew what you were going to get.
 
I don't blame the kid. He was 6. But, I think this proves that kids are not the best source of information. It also proves that we shouldn't take everything on faith. Jesus on toast, Statues that cry, mysterious shapes that kind of resemble people/angels...I'm looking at you.

I know. apparently his dad wrote it, and now that the parents are divorced, the mom convinced him to try to right the wrong.

it's more ridiculous to me that something like this could ever become a best-seller. Like THAT many people bought this shit and read through it, without any critical or skeptical thoughts crossing their minds?

Did I ever mention the box of chocolate I got that was Forrest Gump themed? I was a white box with Gump sitting on the bench like in the movie poster and it said "life is like a box of chocolates" on the side...but it a was chocolate covered mints. Basically, mini-york peppermint patties. Every one of them. You always knew what you were going to get.

poor marketing & branding from whoever came up with that theme.

Whitman's Sampler or one of those should've adopted it... you never know what you're going to get from those boxes, and you just hope it's not one of the more disgusting ones, with nougat and some other weird flavor, or chocolate truffle.
 
I know. apparently his dad wrote it, and now that the parents are divorced, the mom convinced him to try to right the wrong.

it's more ridiculous to me that something like this could ever become a best-seller. Like THAT many people bought this shit and read through it, without any critical or skeptical thoughts crossing their minds?



...

although, maybe it wasn't really a best seller? to be fair, this could be another example of how Christians & Conservatives game best seller lists.

I've mentioned how this scheme works elsewhere on this board.

Write some BS, political or religious hack job, pushing whatever cause you purportedly agree with (along with pushing your own personal brand and reputation...), then hire a marketing consultant, or get some of your right-wing Tea Party buddies to bulk order the book & ship it to just enough different addresses to game the NYT's bestseller rankings, and voila... you're now a "best-selling author" and your book comes with all the credibility associated with the NYT Bestseller list. That often greases the wheels enough to drive additional legitimate sales of the book.
 
These life-after-death accounts do nothing to add or detract from my belief that I will live for all eternity. Even when they are false.
 
These life-after-death accounts do nothing to add or detract from my belief that I will live for all eternity. Even when they are false.
if you have kids, some % of your DNA will live on, with the % diminishing in each successive generation, as the genetic makeup of your descendants (as long as they continue to reproduce). That's kind of like life after death.
 
if you have kids, some % of your DNA will live on, with the % diminishing in each successive generation, as the genetic makeup of your descendants (as long as they continue to reproduce). That's kind of like life after death.

That is so sad. I'll go hang myself now. No reason to live.
 
if you have kids, some % of your DNA will live on, with the % diminishing in each successive generation, as the genetic makeup of your descendants (as long as they continue to reproduce). That's kind of like life after death.

Maybe in a culture with a positive birth rate. You're not in one of those. There's high probably you won't have that many kids and they won't have that many kids and your line might not catch on.
 
Maybe in a culture with a positive birth rate. You're not in one of those. There's high probably you won't have that many kids and they won't have that many kids and your line might not catch on.

Possibly so, but that's also the reason bears and wolves and deer and porcupines and fish...well that's why all animals fuck.

Fish aren't animals, but they still fuck for the purposes of procreation...that's why some of us don't drink water...because fish fuck in it...

...I think I probably started this post for a reason...
 
Possibly so, but that's also the reason bears and wolves and deer and porcupines and fish...well that's why all animals fuck.

Fish aren't animals, but they still fuck for the purposes of procreation...that's why some of us don't drink water...because fish fuck in it...

...I think I probably started this post for a reason...

Oh shit...I quoted the wrong post...you guys knew what post I was talking about, right?

The % of DNA that continues on...maybe Gulo or Monster or MichChamp posted that...

Anyway...THAT is exactly why fish fuck...so to like, continue their line, and stuff...
 
Bump... turns out Christian bookstores, or at least one chain of them, are so fed up with these fake life-after-death narratives that they stopped carrying them:
The chain is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, the country?s largest Protestant denomination, whose 2014 resolution on ?the sufficiency of Scripture regarding the afterlife? led to the decision. That document specifically condemns movies and books that try to ?describe heaven from a subjective, experiential source, mainly via personal testimonies that cannot be corroborated,? and notes that many ?contain details that are antithetical to Scripture.?
well, good for them for at least being consistent enough to stand by their Holy Book (though it may be internally inconsistent, ridiculous, unscientific, and suffered from thousands of years of revisions & re-translations, losing all sorts of context and original meaning along the way. For all we know, it could've started out as a primitive version of The National Enquirer, or something, not meant to be taken seriously.)
 
Possibly so, but that's also the reason bears and wolves and deer and porcupines and fish...well that's why all animals fuck.

Fish aren't animals, but they still fuck for the purposes of procreation...that's why some of us don't drink water...because fish fuck in it...

...I think I probably started this post for a reason...

Sure. Bear, and deer, and fish...but not the smart people in Idiocracy. And MC and his descendants are probably more like those smart people than like fish. It's remarkable. If I think about my closest friends from undergrad, 14-15 years after graduating we're somewhere around 0.6 offspring per male friend. (Around 0.3 counting all the spouses, but some were friends in college, some weren't, so I didn't want to just do a straight kid per friend number.)
 
Maybe in a culture with a positive birth rate. You're not in one of those. There's high probably you won't have that many kids and they won't have that many kids and your line might not catch on.

this is not something entirely outside of my control though, and of course, whether my line catches on our not is irrelevent.

Sure. Bear, and deer, and fish...but not the smart people in Idiocracy. And MC and his descendants are probably more like those smart people than like fish. It's remarkable. If I think about my closest friends from undergrad, 14-15 years after graduating we're somewhere around 0.6 offspring per male friend. (Around 0.3 counting all the spouses, but some were friends in college, some weren't, so I didn't want to just do a straight kid per friend number.)

I plan to have more kids, so it's not like I'm bound to comply with the trend you mention, though I do concur... as of 10 years out, none of my close male friends from Michigan had kids. That's changed since then, but the rate is still pretty low (about a quarter of us have kids). The girls we hung out with married earlier and have a few more kids than the guys.
 
My wife would be upset with this news.

More than provide some testimonial to her that there is life after death or that heaven existed, it helped her reconcile grief she'd experienced when our friends lost their son to cancer.

Death of a child is one of the saddest things ever so at least this 'story' painted a picture that it was 'okay' ....that the grief-stricken parents should be at peace.

I suppose for that there's always the Long Island medium or other resources.

[edit] I am thinking of Heaven is For Real ...though same premise
 
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