Apparently, as the Young Turks video above enlightens us, there’s an entire book genre called ‘Heavenly Tourism’. These stories of near-death experiences bring comfort to many people, and mean big money in the publishing world. But some (if not all) of the bestsellers describing heaven to impatient believers are completely fabricated. That might not come as a surprise to anyone reading this, but the interesting part of this story is that even after people knew the author had invented the whole thing, they continued to buy his book.
Alex Malarkey, who was severely injured aged 6 in a car accident, co-wrote the best-selling ‘The boy who went to heaven’ with his father. Now aged 15, he has retracted the entire story, admitting he made it all up for attention. While Alex’s father refuses to speak to the press about his son’s revelation, Alex’s mother was against the idea from the start and expresses disbelief that Christians continue to buy Malarkey’s book, knowing that it isn’t true and yet somehow managing to convince themselves that it is.
