2 Cor 12 [3] And I know that this man was caught up into Paradise -- whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows -- [4] and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.
4 year olds are very smart. He heard mom and dad talking about losing the baby sister. Little kids have big ears. You would be suprised what the average 4 year old knows about their parents.
Do you have any evidence of this, or are we merely speculating? And that is the point. A critical examination of these things requires an evaluation of the known statements. Other than speculation, what do you have to back up the claim? The parents have stated that they never mentioned it all around him (again, assuming that they even knew the gender of the fetus). Most people who lose a baby in miscarriage do not walk around spouting it off? So why is that more likely than what the parents have published? A narrartive that no on associated or involved in the process has yet disputed in terms of accuracy? Why should speculation be treated as more truthful than the report itself? Could be and most likely are two very different standards are they not?
Even when you think your kids are sleeping in the other room they hear things. You can not say for sure that the never spoke of the miscarrage. They knew it was a girl. All parents do talk about losing a child it is natural.
The parents can, and indeed did. THis is the point: When something happens it deserves, indeed should be, looked at critcially. So to should all the alternate explanations. The goal should be to figure out what is MOST LIKELY true. Granted this is hard when we have only secnd hand knowledge of the incident, but, we see how the same thing can be done with alternate hypothesis - a reason to express doubt found as well. It really comes down to your spiritual view on this one. Those that doubt will find reasons to doubt and those that affirm will find reasons to affirm. The real question? What is most likely the truth of this report - and that, goven our biases and prejudices (on both sides) is a very difficult question to answer. For the record, I have no real concern with whether the story is true or not, but it does provide a vessel to make the point about how we treat the reports of miracles and events.
There is a laser experiment that seems to suggest that observation can affect physically affect what we consider to be reality. http://www.paulfriedlander.com/text/timetravel/experiment.htm Single photons from a laser are guided through slots. Unobserved by detectors they create 3 slits of light. When detectors are placed before the photons go through each slit, the result is what we expect, 2 slits of light. Could it be that by observing we are affecting the physical world on a quantum level? Research is on-going. Frankly, I don't discount the boy's story it could be true...FOR HIM. I believe our universe is much more awesome and complex than we can imagine.
To the OP, I've already addressed this topic here: http://www.politicalforum.com/religion/199457-hank-henograaff-rips-into-heaven-real.html This isn't news, but it certainly is controversial.
