Turns Out the Boy Did Not Go To Heaven [EvolutionBlog]

Anyone surprised to read this?

A bestselling Christian book that claims to detail a boy’s trip to heaven and his return to Earth is being pulled from stores after one of its co-authors admitted he made the whole thing up.

The 2010 memoir, The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven, was written by Alex Malarkey and his father, Kevin Malarkey, a Christian therapist in Ohio.

In 2004, when Alex was 6, the two were badly injured in an automobile accident. Alex ended up in a coma for two months, and the book claims to tell the story of his trips to heaven during that time.

Malarkey described a heaven with a “hole in outer heaven” that goes to hell. He detailed his conversations with Jesus Christ and meetings with the devil, who at one point blamed him for the accident.

But on Tuesday, the boy, who was left a quadriplegic in the accident, took it all back. The Pulpit & Pen website published “An Open Letter to Lifeway and Other Sellers, Buyers, and Marketers of Heaven Tourism, by the Boy Who Did Not Come Back From Heaven,” written by Alex.

Also, it appears that the publisher was made aware of the story’s dubiousness, but chose not to act.

Millions of people bought this asinine book. Keep that in mind the next time you hear the New Atheists criticized for attacking a straw man.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/154CvNj