We've read a number of books on after death experiences, noticed that some of them seem to be written to promote certain religions. These books of "true accounts" do a severe
injustice to people of all faiths, agnostics and atheists.The afterlife is NOT about religion. Religions are all created by man.
As someone who has written 4 books about the afterlife it's not about religion. It's about life transitioning to a different state of energy. You can call the other side whatever you want whether its heaven, paradise, valhalla, elysium... doesn't matter.
I'm not doubting that people have after death experiences, but some three books I started reading were so blatantly tailored to promote the writer's religion (in one case the book was written by a boy's father who was the pastor of his own church), that I can't get through them.
It's fine for writers to include their experiences, but not to promote their religion. In one book, written by a doctor's experience, I was disgusted to read "I was carried by Jesus (who is a Caucasian, brown-haired, blue-eyed man) and brought to Heaven." Jesus was NOT a Caucasian. He was of middle-eastern descent and archaeologists have already provided a picture of what he does look like- black hair, brown eyes, olive skin.
Further, the book was full of quotations from the bible. That's NOT an afterlife experience. It's a promotion for a religion. So, I couldn't finish the book and I threw it out.
Another book was about the experience of a young boy who had an after death experience. This one was made into a movie! It was filled with "experiences" of things that were taken straight out of the bible - like "streets of gold." That book is called "Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story..."
It turns out that that book was a SHAM to promote religion. It was written by the boy's father, who is a preacher in his own church!!!
USA Today reported on 4/21/2011 -"Heaven, released in November as a
paperback original with a first printing of 40,000 copies, was written
by Colton's father, the Rev. Todd Burpo, who has a small evangelical
congregation in Imperial, Neb. It was co-written by Lynn Vincent, who
collaborated with Sarah Palin on the best seller Going Rogue." Finally, another book by a man who was struck by lightning and died for 28 minutes, tells about his experiences that basically dictate the Mormon religion. I read a couple of chapters and quickly realized that this was a big promotion for the Mormon faith, so I discarded that one, too.
So, I'm not telling to not to read any books on after death experiences, but take the highly religiously slanted ones with a grain of salt. I'm not denying these people died and came back. I'm simply saying that after their experience they deeply integrated their religious beliefs into their books (except in the case of the boy's experience, where the preacher wrote it).
MY CAUTION: If some book about an afterlife experience practically quotes things from a religious text or a religion, then it's not worth reading. It's likely been written to promote the religion and not the experience.
