The boy "who came back from Heaven" files lawsuit, because he never got paid for that lie.

Courtesy of The Christian Post:  

A young man who as a boy became the subject of a bestselling book claiming he had went to Heaven and met Jesus following a car accident while comatose is now suing book publisher Tyndale House for damages. 

Alex Malarkey, now 20, was left as a quadriplegic following the 2004 accident, which was made famous in the 2010 bestseller The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven. 

A lawsuit filed on Monday at DuPage County Circuit Court in Wheaton, Illinois, claims that Tyndale made millions from his account, which in 2015 Malarkey admitted was a total fabrication made up by his father, Kevin Malarkey, who has since passed away. 

The suit explains that the father made up the story that Malarkey "had gone to Heaven, communicated with God the Father, Jesus, angels and the devil, and then returned," and that he had taken all the profits from the book.

Whenever I think about the innate gullibility of religious people this is one of the examples that springs to mind.

Once people convince themselves that the impossible is possible they are susceptible to any "evidence," no matter how flimsy, which seems to confirm their belief.

This is why televangelists have private planes, live in huge mansions, and wear Italian suits.

It is a cottage industry built around people's ignorance and need to embrace superstitious nonsense.

And in this day and age there is really no excuse for it.

From my daughter's Facebook page.

Yep, I done good.

Dakota Meyer seems to think that Heaven is guarded by the Marines. WTF?

Courtesy of the Dakota Meyer's Facebook page:  

Got into a debate today. Someone challenged the notion that Marines guard the gates of heaven. It got spirited of course. The wrap up is... they do, I am certain of it.

Okay this has so many layers of ignorance that it actually makes my brain hurt just to read it.

First off of course is that the concept of heaven is a primitive artifice used to control the behaviors of the simple minded.

Secondly if there WERE a Heaven, access to it is by invitation only from what I understand, so who exactly are the Marines supposed to be guarding it against?

And thirdly, according to legend, the place was created, maintained, and let's assume protected by an omniscient creature of infinite power so who exactly poses a viable threat?

I know that Dakota is not exactly the sharpest pair of gardening shears in the shed, but damn this kind of thinking is something I would expect from a small child, not a grown man.

And this just makes me all the more concerned about this poor child.

Source

Because let's face it if Dakota Meyer IS the father, and of course Bristol's the mother, well let's just say that it is unlikely that there is a Mensa membership in her future.

Pat Robertson says it's okay that God lets babies die because they might have grown up to be Adolph Hitler.

Courtesy of the Daily Kos: 

On his 700 Club television show, the right-wing televangelist (and son of a segregationist) was asked why God would allow a helpless infant to die in the hospital. 

His response? God willed it, because maybe your child would have grown up to be the next Hitler. No, I am not joking … 

"As far as God’s concerned, he knows the answer from the beginning. And he sees the little baby, and that little baby could grow up to be Adolf Hitler. He could grow up to be Joseph Stalin. He could grow up to be some serial killer. Or he could grow up to die of a hideous disease. God sees all that. And for that life to be terminated when he’s still a baby, he’s going to be with God forever in heaven. And that isn’t a bad thing." 

I’m sure the mother who tragically lost her baby in the hospital will feel great knowing that at least their baby didn’t grow up to be Adolf Hitler.

Yeah your baby is going to go to Heaven, and that's not a bad thing.

And it's a hell of a lot better than watching them grow up to exterminate a bunch of Jews, amirite?

Don't forget there are still people ignorant enough to send this charlatan their hard earned money by the bucket load. He is estimated to be worth in excess of $100 million, if not more.

Proving once again that you can say the most ignorant and horrific things imaginable just so long as you make people believe that God is on your team.

Perfectly protesting intolerance.

I'm not a believer in heaven or hell, but I can say unequivocally that wherever those two wind up will be a great deal more fun than wherever that guy ends up.

Stephen Fry on confronting God at the pearly gates.

"It's not right. It's utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean minded, stupid god who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?"

I love the interviewers face at the end of this response. He looks like he wants to literally crawl away.

I have so much respect for this man. I cannot begin to tell you.

Boy who claimed to have gone to heaven, and whose story became a best selling book, admits he made the whole thing up. Gee, really?

Courtesy of The Washington Post:  

Tyndale House, a major Christian publisher, has announced that it will stop selling “The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven,” by Alex Malarkey and his father, Kevin Malarkey. 

The best-selling book, first published in 2010, purports to describe what Alex experienced while he lay in a coma after a car accident when he was 6 years old. The coma lasted two months, and his injuries left him paralyzed, but the subsequent spiritual memoir — with its assuring description of “Miracles, Angels, and Life beyond This World” — became part of a popular genre of “heavenly tourism.” 

Earlier this week, Alex recanted his testimony about the afterlife. In an open letter to Christian bookstores posted on the Pulpit and Pen Web site, Alex states flatly: “I did not die. I did not go to Heaven.”

Here is Alex's letter:  

“An Open Letter to Lifeway and Other Sellers, Buyers, and Marketers of Heaven Tourism, by the Boy Who Did Not Come Back From Heaven.” 

Please forgive the brevity, but because of my limitations I have to keep this short.

 I did not die. I did not go to Heaven. 

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. 

It is only through repentance of your sins and a belief in Jesus as the Son of God, who died for your sins (even though he committed none of his own) so that you can be forgiven may you learn of Heaven outside of what is written in the Bible…not by reading a work of man. I want the whole world to know that the Bible is sufficient. Those who market these materials must be called to repent and hold the Bible as enough. 

In Christ, 
Alex Malarkey.”

Okay his last name is "Malarkey" and STILL people bought his book?

Well I have some bad news for Alex when it comes to placing his faith in the Bible. He is certainly not the first person to lie about God and Heaven in a bestselling book.

I have to admit that I have little sympathy for the morons who buy into this near death bullshit by the way.

First off science has essentially explained why it happens.

And secondly the very idea of heaven is so incredibly ridiculous that I find myself having a hard time respecting anybody who still clings to that fantasy. (Sorry if that hurts anybody's feelings, but it's true.)

However for those who are still desperately hanging onto the idea that heaven is not only possible, but that people have actually paid a visit, there is still at least one young man who has yet to recant his story.

And good news for racists, he says that Jesus has blue eyes.

Woman murders son because she believed it would be "better for him to go to heaven."

Courtesy of the New York Daily News:  

A Kansas mom stabbed and beat her son to death because she thought he'd be better off in heaven, police said. 

Lindsey Blansett was charged with first-degree murder after allegedly killing her 10-year-old son, Caleb, on Sunday, KAKE reported. 

Caleb's 9-year-old sister was home during the grisly attack, Wellington police said. 

The 33-year-old mom took a rock and a knife to her son's bedroom after he went to sleep Sunday, Sumner County Attorney Kerwin Spencer said in a court complaint. 

Earlier that evening, Blansett "decided his life would be full of suffering and pain and that it would be better for him to go to heaven" than to "face the world's problems," the complaint said. 

She allegedly hit him with the rock and then stabbed him in the chest. 

He died in his bedroom.

Years ago I was assigned to work with a boy who was actively trying to kill himself. A lot of troubled kids make these threats to get attention but this one was deadly serious.

The reason why is because life was too hard for him and his fundamentalist parents had taught him all his life that Heaven was this amazing place where all of his pain would be taken away and he would be happy forever.

We watched him around the clock for several weeks, and intervened during numerous attempts to take his own life. I personally had to unwrap another care coordinator's shoestrings from around his neck.

And during all of this protocol forbid us from criticizing his religion or from explaining to his young man that his parents were superstitious idiots. Essentially we simply had to avoid discussing his beliefs altogether and instead discuss with him all of the wonderful possibilities that he would miss if he took his life prematurely.

Today he is a grown man, with a job and a girlfriend. He is happy.

Don't ever tell me that religion cannot be incredibly destructive.

I have seen it myself.

Stephen Hawking on the afterlife.

"I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first," he said. 

"I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark," he added.

I sometimes find myself struck silent by the musings of seemingly intelligent people about the possibilities of an afterlife.

I think the realization that such a thing was not possible occurred to me quite young, and my research and musings since have only reinforced the obviousness of that realization.

Our consciousness is really only a collection of our memories and experiences, that are contained within the computer housed within our skulls.

Once that amazing machine is rendered inoperable our memories, our consciousness, our soul if you will, are also gone forever.

This would seem as obvious as the realization that once the heart stops pumping blood our bodies no longer function, and yet the opposite is held so dear by so many of us that to suggest the lack of a life following this is considered heretical even by many of those who consider themselves non-religious. 

I often think of it in terms of a USB flash drive.

Though it may be fairly bulging with documents, and pictures, and video of a person's life, if there are no more computers left to read the information it essentially does not exist. And it is as if the life contained within was never lived.

That is why I always stress the importance of experiencing all this life has to offer. Rather than mourn the loss of eternity, instead we should embrace and squeeze joy out of the one life that we have.

Every kiss should be savored, every laugh echoed by our own, and every moment of pain respected for the lesson that it teaches.

In that way we will touch the lives of those around us in a fashion which carries some small part of us forward. And as they touch the lives of others as well, perhaps our brief life will have an impact that lives past our final breath.

(Source)

Okay I think I just became a fan of pro-wrestler Steve Austin.

Courtesy of Raw Story:

In a podcast clip flagged by Deadspin on Wednesday, Austin explained why he doesn’t respect Christian opponents of same-sex marriage. 

“I don’t give a sh*t if two guys, two gals, guy-gal, whatever it is, I believe that any human being in America, or any human being in the goddamn world, that wants to be married, and if it’s same-sex, more power to ‘em,” he said. 

“What also chaps my ass, some of these churches, have the high horse that they get on and say ‘we as a church do not believe in that.’ Which one of these motherf*ckers talked to God, and God said that same-sex marriage was a no-can-do?” the wrestler asked. 

“OK, so two [men] can’t get married if they want to get married, but then a guy can go murder 14 people, molest five kids, then go to fucking prison, and accept God. And he’s going to let him into heaven?” Austin pointed out. “After the fact that he did all that shit?” 

“See that’s all horseshit to me, that don’t jive with me.”"

Growing up I was never a fan of pro-wrestling, especially after I  wrestled in high school.

However I love everything this man just said about Christians and marriage equality, and kid of wish I could buy him a beer now.

I can only imagine how this is going to blow the minds of some of those WWE loving rednecks down south.

Religious woman threatens restaurant staff with hell if they make her pay bill, gets arrested, and now her church is picketing them. Man I wish I was making this up!

Courtesy of Raw Story:

A Florida woman and her mother have been arrested for skipping out on a restaurant check after the daughter told the cashier that she would go to heaven if the meal was free, or go to hell if she insisted on charging the meal to her credit card. 

According to NewsChief.com, Willie “Mother” Lewis, 78, and her daughter Ruthena Lewis, 44, ate breakfast at the A&G Restaurant in Winter Haven, Florida, with the bill coming to $18.46.

After finishing, Ruthena Lewis took her mother out to the car and then returned to the restaurant to pay her bill. Lewis presented A&G cashier Crystal Henson with her credit card which was subsequently declined. According to the restaurant staff, Lewis held the cancel button down as the Henson attempted to process the charge. 

According to the police report, “(Ruthena Lewis) stated to (Henson) that if she gave them the meal for free she would go to heaven. If she ran the credit card again, she would go to hell.” 

Lewis then handed the cashier a business card with the name of her church pastor , Bishop Joseph Lewis of the Church of God the Bible Way, on it, saying to call him and he would pay the bill. Lewis is not related to the two women. 

Ruthena Lewis then left the restaurant, got into her car with her mother and drove off, however a restaurant employee got her license number and turned it over to Winter Haven police, who arrested the pair soon after. 

The mother, Willie Lewis, who was in the car and couldn’t see what had transpired, had $80 cash in her purse at the time of her arrest. 

Following the arrest Bishop Joseph Lewis went to the restaurant and paid the women’s bill, getting assurances from owner George Paragios that he would ask police to drop charges against the women. 

According to police reports, officers arrived at the restaurant to have Paragios sign a waiver of prosecution and Paragios declined. 

Since that time, members of the Church of God the Bible Way have been picketing A&G Restaurant urging customers to stay away.

Let's see, so you threaten that people who make you pay for food will burn in hell, drive off without paying even though you have the money, and then have your church members try to bankrupt the restaurant for holding you accountable.

This must be an example of the kind of morals that one can only get through religion. 

Looking forward to it.

I am well past the point of not finding the ideas of heaven and hell completely ridiculous, but if I thought there were a possibility that I might end up in heaven with the people who are constantly bragging that they are on the fast track to acceptance like Pat Robertson, Sarah Palin, and Ken Ham I would start knocking over banks and setting churches on fire just to make sure they took me off the invite list.

Besides I don't care how hot it is, the idea of hanging out with Albert Einstein, Richard Dawkins, and Mark Twain for eternity sounds like a hell of a party.

Idaho Republican lawmaker fights law aimed at curbing deaths that result from faith healing. Because you know, Jesus.

Courtesy of Raw Story: 

A Republican lawmaker in Idaho is trying to stop a law aimed at preventing the deaths of children whose parents eschew medical treatment in favor of prayer. The Associated Press reported that state Rep. Christy Perry (R) believes that a law proposed by Democratic Rep. John Gannon violates religious freedom of families who believe God’s will supercedes modern medicine. 

“This is about religious beliefs, the belief God is in charge of whether they live, and God is in charge of whether they die,” said Perry of the Followers of Christ, an extremist group who have let at least four children die of treatable illnesses in the last three years. 

“This is about where they go for eternity,” she insisted. 

Gannon proposed the law after a string of deaths in Marsing, Idaho among the congregation of the Followers of Christ church. Autopsy reports of multiple children showed that their deaths could have been prevented by medical intervention. Instead, their bodies now lie in a cemetery overlooking the Snake River. 

In June of 2012, 15-year-old Arrian Jade Granden contracted food poisoning. Her autopsy showed that three days of vomiting ruptured her esophagus, causing her to hemorrhage to death. 

Toddler Preston John Bowers died at age 22 months of pneumonia in March of 2011. That same month, 14-year-old Rockwell Alexander Sevy died of a respiratory infection that blossomed into pneumonia, according to Canyon County Coroner Vicki Degeus-Morris. 

Linda Martin, a former Followers of Christ member, lent her voice to Gannon’s campaign to narrow Idaho’s religious exemptions to its injury-to-a-child laws.

"This is about where they go for eternity." That essentially places more importance on access to a fairytale life after death scenario, than it does on keeping the child around for the one life we know for a fact they have available to them.

That is insane!

Every parent should prioritize protecting their children in THIS life, over concerns about what happens to them in the next. If religion interferes with that, then it meets the definition of evil in my mind.

This kind of thinking angers me to my very core. And parents who eschew modern medicine in favor of superstitious nonsense should have their children removed from their home.

Just saying. 

Another Gryphen's daughter contribution to IM. This one is pretty fascinating.

Courtesy of Elephant Journal:  

“Empathy is the opposite of Utopia. There is no empathy in heaven, I can tell you before you get there. There isn’t any empathy in heaven because there’s no mortality. There’s no empathy in utopia because there’s no suffering. Empathy is grounded in the acknowledgement of death and the celebration of life and rooting for each other to flourish and be. It’s based on our frailty and imperfections. So when we are talking about building an empathetic civilization we are not talking about utopia, we are talking about the ability of humanity to show solidarity not only with each other but with our fellow creatures who have a one and only life on this planet. We are homo-empathicus.”

In other words the idea that what makes us law abiding, compassionate individuals, with morals, comes from God, or the idea of a god, is pure crap.

What makes us loving, giving, empathetic creatures is our sense of connection to those around us. It is our humanity.

And what can strip that away are the artificial differences created by geographic distance, politics, and religion.

And in the case of religion the belief that this life is only a probationary life before the eternal one that we will enjoy as Christians, also removes the sense of the temporary which activates our empathy.

So when somebody calls us secular humanists, they are not insulting us. They are recognizing how truly wonderful, and loving, and giving we human beings can be.

Oh, and we raise great kids too.

12 year old girl hangs herself because she "wanted to be with daddy in heaven."

Courtesy of Mirror News:

A 12-year-old girl was found hanged in her bedroom with a note saying she wanted to be with her dad in heaven. 

Maria Kislo was left devastated by the loss of her father, Arek, who died after suffering a sudden heart attack in 2009. 

The tragic schoolgirl was found by her distraught mum Monika, 35, who had gone upstairs to read her a bedtime story. 

Maria, from Leszno in Poland, had left a short note, which read: "Dear Mum. Please don't be sad. I just miss daddy so much, I want to see him again." 

There are some who argue that there is no harm in believing in the promise of heaven, of a life eternal after this one has ended.

But then again, sometimes there is.

(H/T to the Friendly Atheist.)

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's take on the devil and the Atheists who do his bidding. Uh oh!

There is a new interview with Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, that is rather shocking in many ways. Scalia comes off as an extremist on almost all fronts, and somebody who should certainly NOT be sitting on the Supreme Court.

However there was one portion which I found especially troubling. Take a moment to read through it and tell me if you agree.

Courtesy of New York Magazine:  

You believe in heaven and hell? 

Oh, of course I do. Don’t you believe in heaven and hell? 

No. 

Oh, my. 

Does that mean I’m not going? 

[Laughing.] Unfortunately not! 

Wait, to heaven or hell? It doesn’t mean you’re not going to hell, just because you don’t believe in it. That’s Catholic doctrine! Everyone is going one place or the other. 

But you don’t have to be a Catholic to get into heaven? Or believe in it? 

Of course not! 

Oh. So you don’t know where I’m going. Thank God. 

I don’t know where you’re going. I don’t even know whether Judas Iscariot is in hell. I mean, that’s what the pope meant when he said, “Who am I to judge?” He may have recanted and had severe penance just before he died. Who knows? 

Can we talk about your drafting process— 

[Leans in, stage-whispers.] I even believe in the Devil. 

You do? 

Of course! Yeah, he’s a real person. Hey, c’mon, that’s standard Catholic doctrine! Every Catholic believes that. 

Every Catholic believes this? There’s a wide variety of Catholics out there … 

If you are faithful to Catholic dogma, that is certainly a large part of it. 

Have you seen evidence of the Devil lately? 

You know, it is curious. In the Gospels, the Devil is doing all sorts of things. He’s making pigs run off cliffs, he’s possessing people and whatnot. And that doesn’t happen very much anymore. 

No. 

It’s because he’s smart. 

So what’s he doing now? 

What he’s doing now is getting people not to believe in him or in God. He’s much more successful that way. 

That has really painful implications for atheists. Are you sure that’s the ­Devil’s work? 

I didn’t say atheists are the Devil’s work. 

Well, you’re saying the Devil is ­persuading people to not believe in God. Couldn’t there be other reasons to not believe? 

Well, there certainly can be other reasons. But it certainly favors the Devil’s desires. I mean, c’mon, that’s the explanation for why there’s not demonic possession all over the place. That always puzzled me. What happened to the Devil, you know? He used to be all over the place. He used to be all over the New Testament. 

Right. 

What happened to him? 

He just got wilier. 

He got wilier.

Isn’t it terribly frightening to believe in the Devil? 

You’re looking at me as though I’m weird. My God! Are you so out of touch with most of America, most of which believes in the Devil? I mean, Jesus Christ believed in the Devil! It’s in the Gospels! You travel in circles that are so, so removed from mainstream America that you are appalled that anybody would believe in the Devil! Most of mankind has believed in the Devil, for all of history. Many more intelligent people than you or me have believed in the Devil. 

I hope you weren’t sensing contempt from me. It wasn’t your belief that surprised me so much as how boldly you expressed it. 

I was offended by that. I really was.

Let me remind you that this man is one of only nine individuals sitting the United States Supreme Court and he believes that the Devil is a real person. 

Not only that but he seems confused as to why there are far fewer demonic possessions today than in centuries past, and seems to believe that Atheists are doing Satan's work.

And yes Scalia is right about the rest of the country. A Gallup poll from 2007 stated that 70% of Americans believe that the devil is real.

However as troubling as it is to recognize that the majority of my fellow countrymen believe that there is a constant tug of war between two great supernatural powers, one good and one evil, and that we are simply pawns in their conflict, at least THEY are not sitting on the Supreme Court!

P.S. By the way did anybody else think that Scalia sounded drunk during this interview?

(H/T to The Friendly Atheist)

Final thought for the day.

So much truth in those words.

New research may hold key to explain near death experiences. Spoiler alert: Neither God nor Heaven related.

Courtesy of Discovery News: 

There may be a scientific explanation for the vivid near-death experiences, such as seeing a shining light, that some people report after surviving a heart attack, US scientists said Monday. 

Apparently, the brain keeps on working for up to 30 seconds after blood flow stops, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  

University of Michigan scientists did their research on nine lab rats that were anesthetized and then subjected to induced cardiac arrest as part of the experiment. 

In the first 30 seconds after their hearts were stopped, they all showed a surge of brain activity, observed in electroencephalograms (EEGs) that indicated highly aroused mental states. 

"We were surprised by the high levels of activity," said senior author George Mashour, professor of anesthesiology and neurosurgery at the University of Michigan. 

"In fact, at near-death, many known electrical signatures of consciousness exceeded levels found in the waking state, suggesting that the brain is capable of well-organized electrical activity during the early stage of clinical death."

This comes as no surprise to those of us who count ourselves as Atheists but the questions surrounding these near death experiences have provided fodder for numerous religious debates, and have been used by the faithful to undercut the non-believers argument.

Personally I always trusted that in time science would answer this question beyond a reasonable doubt and it looks like it may have done just that.

However as we know that will do nothing to dissuade the faithful among us from clinging to the idea that books like this confirm what they so desperately want to believe.

However day by day, study by study, we are coming ever closer to proving Neil deGrasse Tyson right when he said,  “God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance that's getting smaller and smaller and smaller as time moves on.”

The question is, how much smaller does that pocket have to become before it is too small to hold people's faith?

Pat Robertson believes that killing characters in video games is a sin. Uh oh!

"If you're murdering somebody in cyberspace in a sense you're performing the act whether you like it or not. Here's the danger with this stuff. And it has to do with television, books, everything. You lose your sensitivity to God. And if you're keen for the Lord, you're in prayer, you're spirit is attuned to Him, you're seeing miracles in your life, you listen to the voice of God. That stuff will chop off your access. And you will grow dead in your heart. That's the danger of all of this."

Did Robertson just ask kids to choose between video games and God?

Because if he did, he may have just put a stake into the heart of Christianity for good.

He does realize that the images which appear to be people in these games are made up of pixels and polygons right? I mean they're not real, and every child sitting in front of their game console knows that.

But then again what can one expect from a man who thinks that hurricanes and tornadoes are called down by God to punish homosexuals and that clothes from Goodwill might be demonic?

Now if you will excuse me I will return to my game racing against Bowser. Koopa Troopa, and Yoshi. I hope I get one of those demonic turtle shells pretty soon.

(H/T to Mediaite.)

Last night's New Rules.

There are a couple of groaners but hang in for the last one about smart stupid people.

That is one of my all time most irritating pet peeves as well.

(P.S. If this gets yanked in the next few hours I apologize ahead of time. Just let me know and I will try to find a replacement.)