Bestseller “ Boy who came from heaven” – admits he made it all up…

 

Alex Malarkey was in a car accident that left him paralyzed and in a 2 month long coma when he was 6 years old. The book he wrote with his father is the “true story” of events that unfolded during that time where he went to heaven.

In an open letter for the Pulpit and Pen blog, the now teenaged Alex stated, “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.” I will not go into the fact that the bible was also written by man.

A great deal of profit was made from this book and others like it – what Alex experienced is something called “heavenly tourism” and the Christian industry is cashing it in. People find this very interesting and with good reason, because nobody knows what happens when we die and to read about brings comfort. But even if you did believe this account of Alex’s story to be the absolute truth – it should not be a surprise that it was a lie. Alex was a 6 years old kid and suffered major brain trauma.

From salon article:

“…Pulpit and Pen has posted emails suggesting that LifeWay president Thom Rainer received direct information months ago that “Alex does not support this book.” Note that Alex’s mother Beth – who is now divorced from his father — wrote last April that “Alex was a kid with major brain trauma which alone should raise questions as to validity,” and that “Alex’s name and identity are being used against his wishes (I have spoken before and posted about it that Alex has tried to publicly speak out against the book), on something that he is opposed to and knows to be in error according to the Bible.”” –

http://www.salon.com/2015/01/16/boy_who_came_back_from_heaven_he_didnt_go_to_heaven_after_all/

I am not going to go into the delusion of religion – my main point here in this blog is that here you have a Christian publishing industry exploiting a child and then trying to keep the poor kid from coming clean – all for the profit motive. People made allot of money using this child by exploiting people’s beliefs even though they knew the book was a lie. As long as the book sells it’s all that matters.

The writer of the salon article ended with a very cool question:

“And if heaven were real, I’d question today who, in the very lucrative and dubious world of Christian celestial tourism, would actually deserve a ticket to it — and who would be turned away.”

Just because the TV said so Does not mean it is...

 

“”The researchers sat through 40 episodes of the “The Dr. Oz Show”; from those, they identified 479 separate recommendations he or his guests made to his TV audience. After winnowing the selection down to more forceful recommendations, they randomly selected 80 and weighed them against the existing medical literature, evaluating each claim for “consistency and believability.” Only 46 percent of the advice, they found, had evidence supporting it, and just 33 percent of the time were those claims supported by “believable or somewhat believable evidence.” For just more than 1 in 3 recommendations, they weren’t able to find any supporting information at all (despite, they note, “being quite liberal in the type and amount of evidence we required”).

Interestingly, the researchers noted that about 58 to 59 percent of the time, Oz never specified the supposed benefit of what he was recommending — the implication, apparently, being that viewers should do things simply because the TV doctor is telling them to. They observed as well that the show rarely detailed the potential harms and costs of recommendations; thus, they write, “anyone who followed the advice provided would be doing so on the basis of a trust in the host or guest rather than through a balanced explanation of benefits, harms, and costs.”’”

http://www.salon.com/2014/12/19/scientists_prove_that_you_shouldnt_trust_anything_dr_oz_says/

It’s in TV so it must be true. It’s in the Newspapers so it must be true. TV has always been a clever way for companies or people to make money. With shows like DR. OZ and Oprah it is mostly based on trusting the person presenting the stuff and not whether the products being sold actually works.

And as we can see from the article above, most of the things being presented have no real proof if it works or not and the only reason why you would buy it is because the person on the TV said so, It does not have to based on actual facts. With this there are people behind the scenes cashing in on people who trust the TV.

It’s the same with the news – you cannot know how true the story is unless it’s actually about you personally. I have had the experience of a newspaper writing an article about us and the end result turned out to be 100% opposite to the actual facts. Yet, it’s in the paper and people believe it to be true.

The point I’m making here is that you cannot trust anything solely based on “Its TV so it must be true”. The same with newspapers and even the stuff you buy in the stores – just because it’s not the shelves does not mean it’s safe to eat. The only real way of knowing if something is true or not is to go and investigate yourself which is something that is simply not practical for most of us. And this leaves us with a dilemma, because how do you then know if it’s true?

So, next time you see something on TV that tells you to buy this great and amazing thing – first do your research and investigation and do not simply trust what the TV tells you.

Why you should NEVER Believe In Yourself...

 

 

Today I am going to write about the following principle:

Living the principle of self trust – as I commit myself to remain constant in my living of self honesty, self responsibility and self awareness, I stand as an unbending trust that I always in all ways know who I am no matter what I face and that in this I know, as proven in the constancy of my living that I will always honor and stand by what is best for all and so best for me.

Specifically Starting with: What is self-trust?

Has anyone ever told you to Believe in yourself? It is something I heard many times in my life. Through school they use this as self-motivating or to inspire people. “ Just Believe in yourself and you can achieve anything!!”. Today I am telling you stop listening to these people – I am telling you to NEVER believe in yourself. Here is why:

Let’s look at the definition of the word believe:

1.

accept that (something) is true, especially without proof.

The key words here: “especially without proof”. So to believe in yourself or to believe that you are able to something is a limited and ineffective method, because you do not actually know of you are able to do this particular task since there is no proof.

Let’s look at the definition of self-trust:

1.

Reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of (yourself).

Even simply reading that you see for yourself which is the most effective statement. So this is why you should never believe in yourself – instead you should trust yourself.

Self-trust is something that you build within yourself. Like when facing a new task that you have never done before you may be faced with doubt whether or not you are able to. The only way to find out is to actually do the task to the best of your ability. Once you have done the task you can now say that you are in fact able to this task and thus you have built on your self-trust. So next time you face this task you know for a fact you can do it, because you already did it. Another step further is that you can trust yourself when facing something new that you will give it your best.

So next time when someone tells you to just believe in yourself tell them: NO – I trust myself.