This isn't Mary on a piece of toast, or a statue suddenly weeping. This isn't the Virgin Mary appearing to remote peasant girls. This is an actual trip to heaven where an almost 4 year old boy saw his great-grandfather; the biblical figure Samson; John the Baptist; and Jesus, who had eyes that “were just sort of a sea-blue and they seemed to sparkle,” Colton Burpo, now 11 years old, recalled.

Using Sarah Palin's ghost writer, he has written a book of his experiences that is selling like hotcakes as people starved for a look into heaven want to read his story. More than one and a half million copies are in print. His father, a minister, has rebuffed allegations that the family is in it for the money. Even the parents were skeptical of the story at first, saying that he and his wife, Sonja, were not sure if they could believe their son’s story, which came out slowly, months and years after his sudden illness and operation in 2003. The details persuaded them, Mr. Burpo said. Colton told his parents that he had met his younger sister in heaven, describing her as a dark-haired girl who resembled his older sister, Cassie. When the Burpos questioned him, he asked his mother, “You had a baby die in your tummy, didn’t you?” While his wife had suffered a miscarriage years before, Mr. Burpo said, they had not told Colton about it. “There’s just no way he could have known,” Mr. Burpo said.

And the Burpos said that Colton painstakingly described images that he said he saw in heaven — like the bloody wounds on Jesus’ palms — that he had not been shown before. How one could verify exactly what these wounds look like is not stated.

Read more:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/12/books/heaven-is-for-real-is-publishing-phenomenon.html?hpw

John 20:25

The other disciples therefore said unto him, "We have seen the Lord." But Thomas said unto them, "Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe."

Can't be said any better than that.

Saw it at 4 and then the book is written at 11. With brain washing for 7 years, I am really surprised he didn't see the ghost of Ronald Reagan.

All I had to read that he was using Sara Palin's ghost writer - that said it all for me......

Philosophically speaking, is it "worse" to be a Doubting Thomas or Judas Iscariot? Just asking.

Best regards,

RA1

3 year old sees heaven....do we ever get beyond that toddler mentality when it come to religion?

Allessio77, welcome to the boards. I look forward to more posts from you. As for the boy, do anyone of us remember anything that happened to us at the age of 3? How would he know who Samson was at that age?

Just think of all of these people coming up to greet him in heaven. No Virgin Mary, no Holy Spirit...definitely not a Catholic visit!

I think this is all the work of his minister father, which would make him a sinister father. Money, money. Who is immune?

I thought we had finally gotten the ergot out of the bread supply.

Oh, well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergot