A Recent Read Number 15

"I desperately wanted to talk to a human being, but knew I would never get the chance. You are kept from any form of fellowship, conversation or human interaction. "

NOTE: This review is written about 5 months after I finished reading the book. This is the last of my back-logged book reviews for now. This review CONTAINS SPOILERS.

23 Minutes In Hell - By Bill Wiese. Before I begin this review, this is another near-death experience book written by a Christian author that skeptics will pass off as an oxygen deprived fantasy. There have been a few reviews and website postings that point out some inconsistencies in the telling and then go on to crack jokes about the book and it's author.

In a nutshell the author a Christian preacher came home one night, went to bed and then had an awful experience. He was in his bed and then at "3:00 AM" he was suddenly falling and finds himself landing in a dark prison cell. The cell walls are solid stone, he then becomes aware of nasty evil creatures that then proceed to torture him physically. At some point he manages to escape from them and "explore" other areas of the dark world he has found himself in.

He describes pits of fire, with people burning in them screaming and trying to escape only to fall down or be pushed back be other nasty looking creatures. His descriptions are in line with everything about "Hell" that is in the Bible in fact later chapters go on Ad nauseum about where the Bible mentions hell, the exact wording and how many times it appears.

The first couple of chapters tell of the author's Hellish adventure, which is similar to other books I've read one being My Decent Into Death: A Second Chance At Life by Howard Storm. The descriptions of Hell are pretty much the same, how they got there is where they differ.

I'm not sure what to think about this book, as I had originally heard nothing but the nay-saying skeptical "reviews" of the book. I tend to question the authors knowledge of the timing. How did he know was "3:00 AM" when he first "fell" into Hell? Was he looking at the clock at that exact minute? He was supposedly sleeping before he found himself in Hell. I can understand his knowing it was 3:23 AM when he came back as people usually check the time when they get back home after being someplace else. Seeing the time when you come back gives some sense of comfort.

I will leave it up to people who read the book what to think about it, and wither or not they believe the author really experienced what he has written about. As I said at the beginning skeptics will take this story with a grain of salt and call it a fantasy. Christians may get scared of some of the things in it and try to increase their faith in God and in Jesus.

23 Minutes In Hell by Bill Wiese 2006 Charisma House (A Strang Company) 170 pages - **

A Recent Read Number 14

"He's Alive! The dead man started singing with me."

NOTE: The review for this book is being written about 6 months after I had finished reading this book. It does CONTAIN SPOILERS.

90 Minutes In Heaven by Don Piper. This is an interesting "autobiography" about a man who had an out-of-body experience. Skeptics will say that what he experienced was a typical chemical induced mind created fantasy. The author and many Christians believe that he actually experienced the after-life in Heaven.

On the cold rainy evening of January 18, 1989 Don Piper an ordained minsiter was returning home from a Baptist Church conference. He didn't make it home. He was in an accident on a small bridge with a very large truck. When the paramedics arrived on the scene, they found no pulse on his mangled body, he was pronounced dead at the scene.

A fellow Baptist preacher came upon the scene. He was told by God to pray for this man, even though he was told, and knew that he was dead. It turns out that he knew the man he was praying for, although he didn't know it at the time as the body was covered with a tarp and he didn't lift up the tarp. He was there to pray for this man, even though the emergency workers at the scene told him the man was dead and nothing could be done.

State law said that he had to be officially pronounced dead before the body could be removed from the scene. While they were waiting for someone who could make that official pronouncement a preacher was praying over the body. He only knew that he had to pray for the dead man and to pray that there were no internal injuries. He then began to sing. He sang a hymn called "What A Friend We Have In Jesus", the man who "was dead" then sang along. The preacher alerted the emergency workers on the scene. The authors very long road to recovery then began. He would never be completely back to normal but he has gone a long way.

The first three or four chapters describe the accident and the authors experience of Heaven in great detail. The other chapters then describe his pain, and the progress of getting back to his life. As he tells of his recovery he also tells of the tests of his faith in God and his desire to return to the Heaven that he caught a glimpse of.

Skeptics of these types of experiences will say that he didn't see or experience Heaven. It was all just chemical reactions. Christians may believe this fascinating story of one man's trip to Heaven and the Hell of pain he has endured to tell others his tale.

Unlike typical near-death experiences the author didn't travel down a dark tunnel to a light. From the moment of the accident, he was enveloped by an intense light and then was in Heaven. His vision of heaven was being surrounded by immense love and people he had loved in his life who had gone on before him. Family, friends they were all there and they were all happy. Music was all around being sung and also being experienced. The only thing missing is an image of Jesus and angels floating on clouds playing golden harps.

I am not going to try to determine if what the author experienced was real or not. I'm not going to say it was all just a well meaning fantasy. I think that each person that reads the book needs to decide that for themselves. I feel that for books like this one Christians will probably have their faith in God reinforced, and skeptics if they choose to read it will pass it off as a fantasy produced by an oxygen deprived hallucination.

90 Minutes In Heaven by Don Piper 2004 Revell (Baker Publishing Group) 207 pages - ***

A Recent Read Number 11

"For the record, I should state what is hopefully obvious by now. If you asked me the question 'Are you trying to use science to prove the existence of God?' my response would be, 'Absolutely not. What I am attempting to do is to use the scientific method in an open-minded manner to enable God - if he/she/it/they exist - to prove his existence himself.'"

The G.O.D. Experiments: How Science Is Discovering God In Everything, Including Us by Gary E. Schwartz with William L. Simon. Wow what an interesting angle to an age old debate. First off this is not a pro-Christian book attempting to Bible thump at skeptics and atheists the Gospel of Jesus. This is an open-minded exorcise that leaves the question of "Is there a God, or Not" still pretty wide open. The author at the time of publishing was a professor of psychology, surgery, medicine, neurology, and psychiatry the University of Arizona. He approaches the age old question of "Does God exist?" from a skeptical scientists view. Rather than quote the Bible at every opportunity and say "It's in the Bible, so there!", he conducts psychological experiments to try to show that there is some sort of force or energy that influences the universe. He uses a rather clever term "Guiding, Organizing, Designing" Process (G.O.D.) rather than God.

Even though this book tends to read like a college text book, it does have some pretty interesting events and results. One thing that I think readers will come away with from reading this book is that the universe is not just made up of random cause and effect events. There is some sort of force that at least started some organization in the universe. The author doesn't attempt to claim that the G.O.D. process he describes is the Abrahamic God of the Bible, or that God even still influences people and events in the universe. He leaves all that up to the reader to make his/her own conclusions.

It has been several months since I last read this book to when I am writing this, so my initial thoughts I had while reading the book have been lost to time. Just as the author lets his readers draw their own conclusions about the existence of God or of Intelligent Design of the Universe I will let readers of this review draw their own conclusions about whether or not they wish to read this book.

I do recall that when I heard about this book and saw a description of this book, I had some questions that I thought this book would answer. Well those questions were not answered. The book does follow a similar train of thought that I have had for several years concerning the nature of God. Most peoples views about God don't fit that thought. People who are looking for some kind of physical or human trait God will be disappointed. This book tends to follow the belief that what we tend to call God is actually some sort of force or energy that has some influence on the universe in ways that we don't really look at.

The G.O.D. Experiments: How Science Is Discovering God In Everything, Including Us. by Gary E. Schwartz 2006 Atria Books (Simon & Schuster, Inc.) 305 pages - ***