Heaven Is for Real

Some atheists seem to think that if they relentlessly attack theists and blame God for all the evil in the world, they will eventually succeed and completely eradicate all religious beliefs.

Frankly, that will never happen. The goal is simply unattainable.

As long as people inhabit the earth, at least some of them will believe in a supernatural God.

Nevertheless, a rather persistent atheist acquaintance recently posted links to several news stories on Facebook about mothers who had allegedly murdered their own kids because they wanted the children to go to heaven. His argument apparently was that religious beliefs, not mental illness, motivated these women to commit such heinous crimes.

Now were the situation reversed — for example, if I insinuated that people who believe Darwinian theory explains their existence were all prone to become serial-killing atheist cannibals and used Jeffrey Dahmer as an example, I would be committing the same flawed, illogical “guilt by association” argument my acquaintance had attempted. And that would be just as juvenile, and wrong.

Two wrongs don’t make a right. Nor do two left turns, but three do.

This acquaintance went so far to direct a question specifically to me, asking, “how many more have to die before someone says ‘Stop!’ This heaven stuff isn’t real?”

My reply was to say that I believe heaven is for real. However, I also know that I can’t prove it any more than an evolutionary biologist can prove that I share a common ancestor with an oak tree.

I won’t claim to know heaven exists beyond all doubt, because that would make me a liar.

On the other hand, I have looked at some fairly compelling evidence that strongly suggests heaven exists. I have personally investigated numerous accounts of alleged near death experience and spoken to multiple people with various claims of visiting either heaven or hell.

It turns out that there are quite a few very specific examples of scientific evidence known as corroborated veridical NDE events. That evidence is extraordinarily compelling.

Conveniently, the movie Heaven is for Real deals with most of the relevant questions we should be asking both science and each other about NDEs.

I will admit that normally I don’t particularly care for movies of this genre because they leave too many questions unanswered, or they avoid controversial subjects entirely.

However, the writers and directors of the movie did a remarkably good job of presenting both sides of the arguments.

They didn’t just deliver the audience the “feel good” message that there is life after death. For example, Todd mentions in church that Colton never “flat-lined” during surgery — although the surgeon clearly didn’t expect him to live, technically Colton never died.

Yet he claimed to have visited heaven, where he allegedly saw remarkable things.

Also in the film, an atheist college professor tells Todd that she believes that supernatural phenomena like extra sensory knowledge could be possible in a materialist world, though her character fails to explain how. They even talked about Colton’s claim that Jesus owned a multi-colored horse.

Poignantly, a grieving mother who attends Todd’s church wanted to know why her son was killed in combat, while Colton was spared from his near fatal bout with appendicitis. She wondered if God didn’t love her son as much as He loved Colton.

In my book Counterargument for God, I talked about several incidents of this same phenomena that were well supported by medical evidence, such as the NDE of Pam Reynolds or Michaela Roser.

The movie Heaven is for Real gives at least three examples of such corroborated veridical NDE events. The first example occurred during surgery: four-year-old Colton claimed that he left his physical body and watched as his father “yelled” at God.

True, Todd Burpo is a pastor. His son Colton was exposed to religious beliefs at a very young age. And it would be quite natural to expect a father who is a pastor would be praying passionately in a chapel while his son is critically ill.  But “yelling” at God? Why would it be normal, or natural, for a four-year-old whose father preached at church every Sunday to hallucinate that his father was very angry with God at the same time doctors worked desperately to save his life?

I would be remiss if I failed to point out anecdotes like this one crush the idea that Christians are glad when their children die, and want to kill their children, as this particular atheist acquaintance had suggested on Facebook.

The second and most significant example of a corroborated veridical NDE perception came later in the movie, when four-year-old Colton told his mother that he knew an older sibling died in her womb, because he had met that dead sister while visiting heaven.

There is not a logical or rational explanation for how such a young boy would know such a painful and intimate family detail, especially at such a young age. Until that point, the movie had portrayed the mother as most skeptical of Colton’s alleged experience, which would be a natural reaction from most people. His knowledge of that miscarriage changed her mind, though.

The third, example of corroborated veridical NDE events was that Colton also recalled meeting and described Todd’s grandfather, a man who had died long before Colton was born.

The film also connected Colton Burpo’s description of Jesus the work of Akiane Kramarik, which I wrote about when I read first the book on which the movie was based.

Skeptical atheists may claim that young Colton had been exposed to all of this information due to family conversations, or his father’s work as a pastor. Or a darker assumption might be made that the story had been fabricated as a deliberate ruse concocted in order to sell millions of books.

However, Colton Burpo’s emergency appendectomy is scientific evidence of a medical nature. There are hospital records that document that he was very sick and would have died without surgery.

Yet the movie also drives home the fact that Colton never “officially” flat-lined during surgery. To classify his experience as an NDE would probably be technically incorrect. The important point was not how near death the person in question may have been, but whether or not the information they claim to have learned while their physical body was incapacitated.

My atheist friends frequently make the mistake of assuming the most important information to be gleaned from an alleged near death experience whether or not medical science had declared the person dead prior to resuscitation.

That doesn’t seem to be the critical piece of information we can learn from an experience such as Colton’s, however.

My atheist friends like to fixate on the more fantastic, unverifiable claims that Colton made of heaven, such as that Jesus rode a beautiful multi-colored horse. Claims such as those make the experience sound somewhat hallucinogenic in nature, which supports the atheistic theory that NDE “observations” are merely the product of chemical reactions in a dying brain.

The most salient facts about an NDE are those pieces of information he could not have acquired through his normal sensory processes at the time he allegedly learned them, specifically the three examples of corroborated veridical NDE events.

As I try to tell these atheist friends of mine, if you don’t like or believe the story of Colton Burpo for whatever reason, simply move on to the next best example. Because if you believe that everyone who experiences an NDE has a euphoric experience and goes to heaven because of chemical reactions in their dying brain, you should check out the accounts of Matthew Botsford or Howard Storm.

Heaven isn’t a metaphor or a fairy tale. I can’t prove it, but heaven is for real. Unfortunately for some, so will be hell.

The good news is that all we have to do to avoid hell is exercise our free will, and love God.