Friday, January 16, 2015

Knockin' On Heaven's Door

atheist parenting, secular
Like everyone else this week, the kids and I have been talking about the little boy who claimed to go to heaven a few years ago, Kevin Malarkey. We admit freely that we did not really follow the story back in 2010 when the story broke and the amazing book went up to #1 on the bestseller lists. 

What we do recall about the story, though, is how many people seemed to grasp onto the story as, finally, at long last, evidence that a heaven exists. The story fed so many people's religious fervor and beliefs. The news and social media were saturated with people's stories about how wonderfully their beliefs were affirmed by Kevin's story about getting to heaven.

Here is what we found online representing Kevin's recant:

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.
~Kevin Malarkey


The kids and I have all read snarky responses and diatribes against this boy, but our thoughts are quite different.

We have compassion for the boy. What kinds of messages must he be getting from

...somewhere... that have prompted his behavior and public claims to be so manipulative in nature? What kind of family would celebrate such premeditated claims of the supernatural? And, today, what kind of bravery to acknowledge the deception and own it publicly? What weird metaphysical or mystical messages are running around in that house to create such duplicity?

He's a kid. We offer him our compassion and our hopes that he will, one day, learn a level of reality and allows him to move past the murky blur of mythology. We wish him peace.



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You may also like these posts:
We Want Peace
All-Knowing, All-Powerful, and Ever-Loving God
Build a Bridge


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