My T.V. was on but all I got was snow. Why didn't he ever talk me when I was willing? ------------------ The Belief that there is only one truth and that oneself is in possession of it seems to me the depest root of all evil that is in the world -Max Born [This message has been edited by 666 (edited November 10, 1999).] [This message has been edited by 666 (edited November 10, 1999).]
Lori, Ok... let's have it. I want to know how you know that you are not deceived? I am being serious here..very serious. How do you know that God of the Bible is who it says he is? How do you know that this antichrist is the master teacher which will deceive all? If Satan's goal is to deceive people all for the sake of them going to hell..why doesn't he just have all the non-believers killed right away. I mean..the bible says if one has not accepted Jesus as their Lord then they will go to hell..basically. So, why go through all this trouble of having the aliens to deceive the non-believers? You say the rapture will happen..that is when the christians will be taken off this planet..right? Well, that would leave only non-believers..so if they would die instantly..then all will go to hell. It just doesn't make sense... see what I am trying to say?
Truestory, In my original post, I tried not to imply a connection with God to aliens from your abduction. In fact, I didn't. You did. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! No need to defend something I haven't brought up. Truestory, I specifically asked you to offer something else as a rationale. If you don't want to use that brain of yours, I'm certainly not going to pound the keys trying to make you. Like it or not, you have accepted these apparitions (the positive ones) to be God without testing them. And as the bible says to test spirits, you haven't. I know that in your shoes I would be on my knees praying as well. But you're guilty of the fallacy we are all taught in college logic classes called appeal to authority. That; we both know of. As an outsider, I'm only trying to get you to think for a minute. And please note that questioning and denying are not the same. If there's ever anything you'd like to ask me in these forums to counter my own beliefs, please do so. I enjoy being humbled. But in the meantime, my question stands.
Boris, One reason that I believe that God has communicated with humans from the beginning is that God has defined a relationship with man, from the beginning, throughout recorded Biblical history. A second reason is that I have personally shared in this relationship. A third reason is that there is evidence of man's spiritual nature and belief in an afterlife and heaven prior to God's covenant with man concerning a savior. In the areas of Latvia and Lithuania, for example, archeologists have found the dwelling sites established 11-12 thousand years ago by Paleolithic man. Although art-finds from this period are rare, there are some which reflect the spiritual world of the ancient Paleolithic Age. For example, heaven is shown as an extension of earth with animals inhabiting the stars. Burial grounds from the Paleolithic Age have also survived. The fact that these ancient people were found to be buried together, with their clothes, decorations and arms, witnesses their belief in an afterlife. This was approximately 8,000 years before God's covenant with Moses concerning a savior.
truestory- No, I didn't really expect you to respond. Asking you nicely has proven to be totally pointless. My second post was more to show how stubborn you are being. This really has little to do with "my behavior"(sorry Mom!) But really though, It's your life and not my business...enjoy. [This message has been edited by JMitch (edited November 11, 1999).]
truestory, Actually, I've been involved in rather a bloody scrap about "evidence for God" on this board with someone called Dumaurier last summer. The poor guy probably left because he coldn't take it any more. So I warn you, tread lightly. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I will understand if the justification you find for your beliefs is not nearly as important as the beliefs themselves. Yet, I just love pointing out to people that they have no basis whatsoever in their religious doctrine. The whole rationality vs. irrationality angle makes for quite a home field advantage... <hr> This is unclear. What do you mean by "defined a relationship"? Are you referring to the "definition" present in the Bible? In that case, you are arguing circularly. Since I'm doubting the very fact that God ever communicated with humans, it doesn't do much good to refer to the Bible, since you end up assuming the very result in question. On the other hand, if one indeed accepts the evolutionary story of humankind's emergence, there's no relationship with God inherent in it; just "simple" genetic games. From yet another perspective, given your assumption how do you account for the pre-judaic religions (the Egyptian, the Hellenic, the Druid, etc.)? What about pre-biblical history? So, I'm not sure what exactly you are trying to say here. This may sound presumptious or even patronizing, but it needs to be said. You are most likely wrong in your interpretation of whatever experiences you had. Humans are atrociously bad at interpreting novel situations, or their own internal states. So forgive me when I say that your testimony carries absolutely no weight. You are not an impartial, nor an objective, not an independent, nor even a reliable, observer. Much less are you a reliable interpreter. Your testimony would carry more weight if at least we all had the same reference point. I.e. if we all had similar experiences, and could at least relate to what you are talking about. Unfortunately, even that is not the case. So sorry, but personal testimony simply does not cut it any way you slice. This is the fun part. You are claiming that a universal belief in a spiritual realm is indicative of that realm's actual existence. Not good. Not good at all. To brightly illuminate your fallacy, consider another universal belief that turned out to be false: that the earth is stationary in an absolute sense. Not only does the Earth move about on its various orbits, but it also spins about its own axis. Yet, they all used to firmly believe otherwise. Examples like this are too numerous to mention, and even too numerous for me to think of them all. So... Is the belief in spirituality an indication of spirituality, or merely another faulty anscient theory? As I've mentioned elsewhere, humans are notoriously apt to anthropomorphize absolutely everything they come in contact with. This can actually be viewed as an evolutionary trait, since it seems to be a natural extension of the assumption of other minds. (The other minds problem is a notorious philosophical conundrum: how do you know that anyone other than yourself has a mind? In an even more extreme solipsistic version, how do you even know anything except yourself even exists?) We seem to just naturally assume that other humans have minds akin to our own. Unfortunately, we don't stop there and proceed to assume that absolutely everything has a mind. You find this simple animistic assumption at the core of most "primitive", and certainly all "pagan" religions. As you can see, it is rather easily explained by an obvious failure of our inherent "theories", with no need for divine communication. Now, if we are to realize that animism is a natural outgrowth of the human mind, it is easy to see how mystical universal gods are a similarly natural outgrowth. After all, many mystical universal events do occur (e.g. change of seasons, astronomical phenomena, volcano eruptions, etc). So if one is to attribute a mind to each of those phenomena, one ends up with somewhat abstract and mysterious gods of nature. This is also fairly common to all "primal" human cultures, and it is so natural that I am convinced it could never fail to arise in any newly-isolated population of initially naiive individuals. Now, once you've got gods of nature, it is not too big of a leap to eventually look at the universe as a whole, and postulate a single God-in-charge-who-created-it-all-in-the-first-place. For Greeks, it was Zeus, Egyptians, Hindus, and many others have their own primary Gods. The next step taken by judaism is to discard all the "lesser" gods and just believe in the master God. As you can see, there is nothing unnatural or mysterious about this chain of thought. In fact, I can't see how it could go any other way. And, we see plenty of evidence for this process, as even now there are societies all over the world, whose cultural/religious heritage occupies one of the stages in the "ladder" I proposed. Most obviously, this mundane explanation requires no divine communication. In fact, it casts all religions merely as bad theories at the outset, getting progressively worse with time. As to the afterlife, perhaps it's too obvious a thing to even wander about. In fact, it is hard to conceive of one's own <u>in</u>existence. It is actually impossible to "imagine" it, as long as one actually exists and is conscious of oneself. Thus, a rather simplistic conclusion that one's existence, once began, will go on forever. Yet another anscient line of thought, so simplistic, and so belonging with all the other anscient fallacies that have been exposed as humanity's knowledge progresses. So... Nothing you cite constitues evidence for God or communication therewith. In fact, there is no evidence! There is only wishful and rather selective interpretation. On the other hand, my questions are much more pointed than you seem to have assumed. I question specifically the judaic God, the Jehovah. While the overall pattern of human cultures spanning the spectrum from animism to monotheism is consistent, the individual religions are not. And, if one assumes the anthropological evolution I briefly sketched above, no two distinctly originating religions in the world could actually be expected to closely resemble each other! Which means that the variety and uniqueness of religions in the world argues strongly for my "bad theory" explanation. If, on the other hand, all religions of the world, even if they arose independently within isolated populations, were highly alike -- <u>then</u> we would have evidence for divine communication (or otherwise, high dependency of thought on genetics). As it stands, there is precisely none of such evidence present. Which strongly argues against God's communication with any significant fraction of humans at any moment. (And, if you tie God's communication with God's existence, the above strongly argues against God's very existence as well.) ------------------ I am; therefore I think.
Boris, 1. I was contacted by a entity which manifested itself in a visual manner and which gave me a specific, clear and audible message. 2. I later learned that simlilarly described experiences with an entity delivering the same message was recorded by individuals and groups of indivduals throughout recorded history. 3. If you had experienced what I had experienced, you would understand that I did not need to learn about the others to validate my experience, however, it did further substantiate it.
truestory, That may be. But it should be evident to anyone that your experience is much more of an exception than a rule. But even aside from that, let's look deeper into your own description of this experience. First, you get this conflicting signal of "get out of here" and "wait, something good's going to happen". Next, you see an apparition of a woman in the air. The woman mentions some "Father", and you see an apparition of an old man, who mentions a "son", after which you see an apparition of an infant. "Through Him, all good things will come." Do you realize how nonsensical all of this really is? In fact, were you not well-informed in the Christian lore, your experience would have been baffling and bewildering in the extreme. (Just imagine how much sense all that would make if you were, say, an Australian aborigine and spent all your life in the brush?) In order to interpret these bizarre experiences, you simply HAD to rely on <u>prior</u> Christian knowledge. You keep trying to make the impression that you were not particularly (or maybe not even at all) religious at the time. Yet, you personally use phrases like 'I immediately "knew" it was God', 'The message itself confirmed what I already knew to be true', 'I "knew" the Son to be Jesus Christ'. You could have "known" none of this, had you not already been appropriately educated; you could have made no such associations if Christianity was not foremost on your mind. If this is an example of divine communication, then it is a poor example indeed! You already had to know many things before you could communicate. Which, once again, begs the question of how these "communications" started out -- since at some point back in history, not even a single human knew a proper interpretation of the "Father", "Son", or "salvation". You have an initialization problem, in other words. Which goes to the root of your claims about universal communication of God with all humans. Additionally, why is your experience so special and solitary? Why does it not happen to you every day? In his infinity of infinities, surely God would find it no sweat at all to keep in constant contact and dialogue with all of his faithful throughout thte universe? If you are indeed a good receiver of God's broadcasting, why are you not receiving all the time? But more importantly, what happened to the other over 200 million Christians in this country alone? What about the Jews and Muslims? As I understand it, even among Christians such "spiritual" communiques from above are a very rare phenomenon. Yet, surely a much greater number among them are open to God's communication than are actually "contacted"! Moreover, I just have to wonder: why does God not perform the same light show for the Jews? After all, they accept God with all their heart, they just don't accept Jesus as the Messiah! What better way to guide the Jews the truth? Or are you suggesting that they are no longer in tune with God's broadcasts? And what is even worse, you have a frightening interpretation problem. Assuming your alleged experience indeed occured, you must agree that you were not an objective observer. You were already heavily biased to interpret anything bizarre within a Christian world view. Christian knowledge, imagery, and language was already deeply embedded in your mind. Given that, who is to say that the entire experience was not manufactured by a "glitch" in your brain, in the first place? The presense of such an extreme bias makes your entire experience, even if "true" -- highly suspect. Various shamanic cultures record their own recurring experiences, which are entirely different from Christian experiences. They believe in a river of death, for example, which dead souls must cross on their way to the afterlife. This dark, gray, cold river is repeatedly reported by their people in NDEs and shamanic visions. (Incidentally, the Greeks had a similar story with the river Styx.) On the other hand, many cultures in Africa engage in ancestor worship. They claim frequent visions, interactions, and conversations with their departed ancestors. Their "experiences", once again, are nothing like Christian. This series of examples can go on and on. In fact, for every single religion in the world, the population that practices the religion exhibits a certain fraction of "prophets", "psychics", "medicine men", or what have you -- that maintain frequent "spiritual" experiences, always in the strict (and unique!!) confines of their respective religion. In this light, your purported experience is merely yet another one of such cult phenomena. Certainly, given this wider perspective, you cannot rely on the members of your own sect to substantiate the "validity" of your own experience -- since the record of humanity as a whole contradicts this purported "validity" undeniably and emphatically! But, considering what I've mentioned above, you certainly did have to "learn about the others" in order to have your experience in the first place! Furthermore, I cannot accept that you were completely ignorant of the counter-arguments and, more importantly, counter-evidence I've just presented. Which threatens to give your claims a bit of a hypocritical odor. ------------------ I am; therefore I think.
My mother, who is a "born-again" Christian, has also experienced some strange spiritual stuff since her conversion. Once, while praying, she said that "Satan" threw a heavy book off the sofa onto the floor. She said she just kept on praying and praising Jesus' name, and the entity left her alone. This was soon after she became a Christian. I know that she wouldn't lie about it, but I wonder if this little show didn't have its intended effect after all? What better way to convince a Christian that they are on the right track than to make it look like "Satan" is quite displeased with their choice? I think if there was a "Satan" he'd have better tricks up his sleeve than that. And if there is a "Satan", it would certainly seem to me that he'd be smart enough to know better than to come up against Jesus in a direct confrontation, don't you think? Maybe what my mother experienced was poltergeist activity that originated from her own mind? Maybe she wanted confirmation that she was on the right path so much that she caused the book to be thrown from the sofa herself, without realizing it? Does anyone else know anything about telekinesis or poltergeists? ------------------ www.indigenousrocks.com
Searcher- In the paranormal forum I posted a bit about poltergeists and PK activity. What you described sounds exactly like psycho-kinetic energy.
Boris, I agree with you Boris, that one would certainly think that this was the order that the events would have to have ocurred. I would be thinking the same way today if it had not happened to me but, in reality, in my case, the chain of events was exactly the opposite. Believe it or not, Boris, I was not a member of a sect... I read and learned about the others AFTER I had my experience.
truestory, You did not have to be a formal member of the Christian Church to belong to the Christian sect. You were already well-aware of all the relevant Christian tenets and stories. You already believed (even if only so vaguely). This is what I mean by "sect" -- a pool of individuals (not necessarily formally organized!) that share common religious beliefs. Btw, by the statement you quoted above I meant that you already had to be a member of the Christian faith (however informally!) in order to have your experience. ------------------ I am; therefore I think. [This message has been edited by Boris (edited November 13, 1999).]
Sorry, Boris: 'Twas not the case. Just as I had "heard" of atheism and the denial of the existence of God I had "heard" of religion and the belief in God - however, I was not familiar with God's specific plan for salvation through Jesus Christ prior to this experience... By the way, Boris... What was the glitch in my brain that told me where to find my daughter when she was missing? What was the glitch in my brain that enabled me to hear a message from my deceased mother (which made no sense to me) to be delivered to another family member? What was the glitch in my brain that told me that the man was not really leaving the New Year's Eve celebration (as everyone else believed) but, rather, that he was going to get a knife? What was the glitch in my brain that warned me not to allow my teenager to get in the vehicle that ended up in the fatal collision? Do you think that, perhaps, I am given these specific messages because of some kind of heightened awareness to perceive them, a trust in my own senses and the wherewithal to actually act upon them (without fear of the skepticism or ridicule of others)? [This message has been edited by truestory (edited November 13, 1999).]
truestory, Ah, but there is a big distinction between having experiences, and attributing them to a specific mechanism or source. Then, there is the amazing frequency of your experiences compared to zero frequency for the vast majority. Then, there is the question of whether you get more "psychic" premonitions than you care to recall, most which do not pan out, and like bad prophecies, get quickly forgotten because they are "inconvenient" and unremarkable. Then, there is the question of whether, due to the frequency of your "experiences", you are in fact not exhibiting a neural cognitive abnormality. Then, there is also the question, given that practically nobody else has such experiences, and assuming you are perfectly normal, that you are making all this up just to make a point, with yourself, or with your audience, or with both. Remember, I am a skeptic, and I am an outsider. And so should be most rational people. Testimony alone doesn't cut it. The only way to convince me, personally, would be for me to have the same experiences you did. Remember, also, that nobody is born an atheist. As a child, in fact up to high-school age, I was actually very open to and interested in, and researching the paranormal. My "open-mindedness" had plenty of chance. But eventually, I had to simply conclude that enough is enough. Am I complaining of being "left out"? No. I'm just offering <u>my</u> testimony, to provide some counterbalance to yours. And I am pretty convinced that my experience is far more representative of other people's. And for us "mundanes", objective measurement is all we know. And that is all I accept. ------------------ I am; therefore I think.
Boris, What I hear you saying is that your life experiences are the only ones that are real to you. I can see that, I guess. To me, it seems a rather infantile way of seeing the world, but understandable given that you are only 22. You may never have experienced starvation, but there are those who have. You may never have lived through a tornado, hurricane, earthquake, volcanic eruption (you fill in the blank), but there are those who have. You may never have stepped foot on the moon, but there are those who have. The experiences of other individuals are as valid to them as yours are to you, and some of your life experiences may be as unreal to them as theirs are to you. Who knows, perhaps it is all just an elaborate illusion? In that case, your experiences are no more valid than the next person's. Wouldn't that be a kick? ------------------ www.indigenousrocks.com
Boris, If you were simply being skeptical and questioning the existence/non-existence of certain things, there would probably be much more that you and I could agree upon. However, what I see you generally do (even within your "atheism") is to "deny" the existence of things which you have not yet seen or do not yet understand. As I pointed out in another topic, there is a big difference between questioning and denying. Also, as I indicated in another topic, given your self-proclaimed, ultimate skepticism... Do you not question your own ability to perceive?
Searcher, truestory, Do I question my own ability to perceive? Do I realize that my experiences are limited? Of course! I would never dare to call myself an aspiring scientist if I didn't doubt absolutely everything -- even icluding my own perceptions, my own sanity, and my own existence. That is why I will never depend on subjective testimonies. I need redundant information from multiple sources. I need measurement through unbiased instruments. I only accept those things that can be independently verified, through varied measurements that do not include the human being as the primary measuring device. I actually have experienced starvation. And though I have never experienced a tornado or an asteroid impact, there is redundant and multifaceted physical record in the world -- enough of it to convince me of reality of such phenomena. The reason I invoked my own experience, is to demonstrate to truestory that God indeed does not communicate with everyone who would listen. I was providing a direct counterexample, which serves to emphatically invalidate her theory. And I am pretty sure that I am not the only one, or even in a minority, of those who can provide such counterexamples. Of course, as I've cited in other posts, there are plenty of other counterexamples as well. From archaeological, to anthropological, to simply logical. ------------------ I am; therefore I think.
