led by the hand of christ a woman's journey to paradise-and back book review

disclaimer: i havent read the book led by the hand of christ, i have merely read its description, but the concept of the persons life after death experience is what i am reviewing.

i had a near-death experience when i was shot as a teenager and having been raised mormon i remember seeing god and jesus as 2 separate beings, talking about me from a distance. i am now in my 30's and have found out that the LDS church is not true and have left. the LDS church is one of the few (if not only, although i hate definitives like that) that teach that god and jesus are 2 separate physical beings. this leads me to believe that we see what we want to see when we die or nearly die. it has even been said that we are not "really" dead until after something like 5 or 6 hours after being pronounced clinically dead. so a "life after death" experience really might not be what we think it is after all. that which someone experiences before those 5-6 hours after "death" cannot really be taken as "proof" of the "real" post-mortem state.

update 20100531
heres a recent interesting article similar to what i propose:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1282598/Near-death-experiences-explained-Scientists-believe-gasp-dying-brain.html

marx, christianity and the afterlife

in an article on defending voodoo and why there was a bit about karl marx and his criticism of christianity:

Marx's critique of Christianity was that by getting people to concentrate on the afterlife, they would tolerate the oppressions which Marx so detested in the early capitalism of England in the early and mid-1800s.

i have also independently made this same observation in my own life. i sometimes find myself justifying laziness because "we're all going to die some time and when we do, things will be so much better".