Evidence of life after death, or lack thereof

Evidence of life after death, or lack thereof Sept 13, 2017 15:14:36 GMT

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Post by FilmFlaneur on Sept 13, 2017 15:14:36 GMT

Sept 13, 2017 14:43:53 GMT johnblutarsky said:

Sept 11, 2017 21:10:23 GMT Arlon10 said:

Most recently Colton Burpo and Dr. Mary C. Neal

I'm not sure about the examples that you provided. Perhaps a link would help.

FYI:

Colton Burpo is the child who, while the surgeons were fighting to save him – he visited heaven, sat on Jesus’s lap, patted his rainbow-striped horse [sic] and was serenaded by winged angels. The youngster’s extraordinary story has since been turned into a Hollywood movie called Heaven Is For Real. One can see how Burpo's account is coloured more by childhood fantasy than an account of any objective reality.

Dr Mary C Neal (who also has a book to sell, namely To Heaven and Back) is a spine surgeon who almost drowned while kayaking on a remote South American river. She experienced life after death. She went to heaven and back, conversed with Jesus and experienced God's encompassing love. She was returned to Earth with some specific instructions for work she still needed to do, some of which had to do with the coming death of her oldest son. Her life has been one filled with the miracles and intervention of God and her story gives reason to live by faith. Oh, and did I mention she has a book to sell?

One can see that both these examples specifically see their experience from a traditional Christian perspective- which is interesting as the research into such alleged instances has shown them to be more convincing as an experience when non-specific culturally and impersonal; ah well.. Granted, Neal did not get to see the rainbow-coloured horses (being not mentioned in Revelations and, er, not at all suggestive of hallucinations) or even sit on Christ's lap, but still managed to fit in a few angels and miracles apparently.

This is a review off Amazon:

To Heaven and Back by Mary Neal is one of least believable books I have read in a long time. While miracles do happen, this seemed just a little too fishy. Everything about it was so circumstantial that if its purpose was to bring people to want to believe in God more, it really missed the mark. This book starts off with a seemingly regular family whose mother, Mary Neal, goes through a miraculous experience in which she goes to heaven. If that already does not sound odd enough when her friends realized she was not dead they found an ambulance in a third world country in the middle of nowhere. Ambulances are hard enough to find in the country she was in but this one just so happened to be parked on the other side of the woods.
The book continued on with miracle after miracle. I am a firm believer that miracles do happen but the reason they are miracles is because they are rare, they are not everyday occurrences. She had so many miracles right after the last miracle she just got done having. This made the book nearly impossible to believe. I feel as if Mary Neal had good intentions with her book but she over embellished and did not deliver her message correctly.
Now, I did not just have a problem with how hard the book was to believe. It was also poorly written. The reading level required to understand this book was no further than ninth grade. It felt flat and overall just not complicated to understand. That is not innately a bad thing but I feel I should at least have to think when I am reading a book.

It ought to be said that there are favourable reviews too, characteristically gushing and credulous.