Allegro.cc - Online Community

Allegro.cc Forums » Off-Topic Ordeals » Uh-Oh, here comes a God vs Science thread

This thread is locked; no one can reply to it. rss feed Print
Uh-Oh, here comes a God vs Science thread
Matthew Leverton
Supreme Loser
January 1999
avatar

Probably not much, but can you prove any of it to be false?

I cannot prove the Quran is false. I cannot prove the Book of Mormon is false. I cannot prove the Bible is false. Each have a lot of believers. Each have withstood the test of time. None of that means anything.

For the scientific impossibilities, invoke God.

And other than that, what else is there? Nobody can ever possibly disprove something that allegedly occurred 2000 years ago.

So why bother asking the question when you don't allow there to possibly be a contradictory answer? What is this, a communist election? Do you like to pretend to yourself that you are applying some logical reasoning?

Instead of coming up with silly statements of how the Bible must be true until shown otherwise, you ought to focus on proof you have that it's true.

If, ultimately, you have no proof, then simply say you have faith, and that's that. There's no shame in that. However, there is shame in saying stupid things.

bamccaig said:

There's no good reason to believe it hasn't either.

Good grief, that's as ridiculous as Edgar's statement.

The oldest texts that date back thousands of years are extremely similar to each other, and it's usually quite easy to tell where the mistakes were made. You can go back and look at those any time you want! This isn't some he-said, she-said game.

Scribes devoted their lives to copying the text. It meant a lot to them, and they tried their hardest to do it perfectly. That pales in comparison to your wimpy writing skills.

23yrold3yrold
Member #1,134
March 2001
avatar

bamccaig said:

You seem to be making a particular assumption of the author's intentions, and of their motives for writing what they did. Whoever wrote the texts presumably wanted what they wrote to be accepted as "gospel", which apparently they were for many hundreds of years.

I don't know how you can keep saying that everyone else is making assumptions, and then say blatant things like this. ::) Especially since it's the same assumption (ie: the author's intentions). The Bible is a collection of historical documents, and their inclusion was decided anywhere from a few hundred to two thousand years after they were written. And you think the authors intended what? Okay, serious question: are you high? I defy any rational person to read the assumptions in your posts and conclude they're more rational than the ones you're arguing against ... especially when the latter has the document evidence on its side.

Quote:

You have absolutely no problem with "them", evidently, which probably means that it was a success as is.

I don't? The point was that I did. Seriously, start reading and stop reading into.

Quote:

What's the earliest version that you have? ;) Do you have any hand written Bibles in your possession, for example? To my knowledge, the originals of both "testaments" are lost. Without those there is no way of assessing the quality of the existing copies, regardless of whether or not the originals were truthful or completely bullshit.

"To your knowledge" being the operative. By your own admission, your knowledge is crap. ::) Look at the process historians use to cross-check ancient documents for changes and accuracy. Not your standards. Professional standards by actual people who know what they're doing. You know, experts? Not "religious" ones either?

Quote:

Compare it to the "telephone game" often played by children whereby the children all sit in a circle and whisper a secret from ear to ear from some arbitrary starting point to the end.

Read up on the process by which these documents were copied over the years. Things like copying each word individually while saying it aloud. There's a much higher standard to this than "children playing telephone". I know that's the atheist go-to excuse, but think about it for more than two seconds. Nobody cares about your "own personal experience copying text by hand" in school. Come on.

Rant over I guess, but really. I know how much more civil I can be while still getting your idiotic blind beliefs across to you. Maybe this is your way of showing me what you have to deal with from religious people? Are you just copying the worst fundie you ever met in attempt to troll? If so, good work. ;D

REVISION!!!:

Which is one of the things that scholars in the field have done (and continue to do).

I don't think he understands that people much smarter than him have confirmed all this. How many pages do you think until he catches on? :P

--
Software Development == Church Development
Step 1. Build it.
Step 2. Pray.

Neil Black
Member #7,867
October 2006
avatar

I don't think he understands that people much smarter than him have confirmed all this. How many pages do you think until he catches on?

Dunno. Facing information that's new to me, and goes completely against my beliefs and biases... I can't say I'd do any better than he is.

23yrold3yrold
Member #1,134
March 2001
avatar

Dunno. Facing information that's new to me, and goes completely against my beliefs and biases... I can't say I'd do any better than he is.

I know, but this doesn't really affect core beliefs that much, does it? I mean, just because the text has stood the test of time doesn't automatically prove God, right? This should be an easy one to accept. Relatively speaking.

It's just a book. Geez. ::)

--
Software Development == Church Development
Step 1. Build it.
Step 2. Pray.

Neil Black
Member #7,867
October 2006
avatar

Yes, but giving in to one argument can feel like switching sides entirely. I've experienced that fallacy myself.

Edgar Reynaldo
Major Reynaldo
May 2007
avatar

Personal experiences with God :
1) I heard a voice in my head saying someone in my family had been in a car accident. An hour or two later, my family member called saying they had been in a car accident a couple hours ago and just finished sorting it out with the police. Where did the voice come from, and how did it know what was taking place miles away? The simplest explanation is God (through the Holy Spirit), an Angel, or at the least some supernatural force.

2) I had just finished reading the book of Joshua, which details the fall of the city Jericho. Shortly after that I watched an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation and a character on the show said "Even the walls of Jericho fell". To me it seemed that God wanted to let me know that he saw me reading His Word.

3) I don't recall why, but I had said some really nasty hateful things to God, and I was generally in a foul mood for quite a while. When I had calmed down and reconsidered the things I had said, I apologized to God for being such an awful asshole and asked for His forgiveness in the name of Jesus Christ. As I repented, a vision of Christ on the cross came into my mind. I asked God why He would forgive me for such awful things and I heard a voice in my head say, "For the Glory of My Son Jesus Christ."

4) While listening to Shepherd's Chapel on TV I have several times experienced a peace and calm that was not normal for me. I believe this is due to the Holy Spirit (the 'Comforter', which Jesus said He would send unto us).

5) There was a time when I was fairly cynical towards God, and let Him know how I felt, that I didn't believe what He said and that it couldn't possibly be true. I spent many a day with fear and anticipation of how he would react to me. Once I repented, the fear and anxiety went away.

6) Numerous other occasions where after studying the Bible (reading, or watching Shepherd's Chapel on TV) things that were mentioned would happen in real life as well. It seems to be God letting me know that he can see the future, and that he sees what is going on all around us as well. Note that things like this do not normally occur with other environments.

So there you have it, my experiences with God.

Feel free to commence mocking me and calling me delusional and psychotic. Call what happened to me coincidental and purely circumstantial. Say that what happened to me is simply pyscho-sematic. I can take it. Your disbelief won't shake my faith.

May the LORD reveal Himself to you as well in due time. In Christ's name, amen.

Neil Black
Member #7,867
October 2006
avatar

I won't mock you or call you delusional. Although I have no way to verify your specific experiences, I believe that such things are possible.

That said, mundane explanations for most of the things you mentioned spring easily to mind. And when talking to someone who is already antagonistic to your point of view, they'll think of even nastier things. They might call some of them coincidence, or say that you subconsciously made yourself feel that way. Some might even outright call you a liar.

In short, experiences like that are wonderful (I've had a couple myself), but they don't make for very good arguments to give non-believers.

Neil Roy
Member #2,229
April 2002
avatar

Great stuff, very inspiring Edgar. I could tell a few myself, but I don't feel like putting my head on the chopping block again, so to speak. ;)

---
“I love you too.” - last words of Wanda Roy

Tobias Dammers
Member #2,604
August 2002
avatar

So you believe in the miraculous then? Jesus must have died about 30 years before he was born if your statement is correct, considering The Gospel of Mark was written around 70 A.D. and Jesus died around year 30.

(snip)

Quote:

But I do know there's no way you can say with certainty that they were written "100 years after Jesus' death." Why stop there? Why not make it 500 years?I think it shows a great deal of ignorance on your part to have to resort to spreading lies, Fox News style, in your fight against Christianity. There are so many valid ways to poke holes at common doctrines and beliefs of Christians, that you don't have to resort to such a thing.

Touché. I guess I remembered wrong (or maybe the article I read got it wrong or was based on outdated knowledge).

For the record, I'm not fighting Christianity here. There's a lot of good stuff there, and I don't think there's anything wrong with using the Bible for inspiration, looking at what Jesus said, and following his teachings.

What I am fighting is the ignorant, closed-minded, self-assured, unreasonable attitude that makes people refuse to participate in a normal discussion.

I cannot prove the Quran is false. I cannot prove the Book of Mormon is false. I cannot prove the Bible is false. Each have a lot of believers. Each have withstood the test of time. None of that means anything. For the scientific impossibilities, invoke God.
And other than that, what else is there? Nobody can ever possibly disprove something that allegedly occurred 2000 years ago.
So why bother asking the question when you don't allow there to possibly be a contradictory answer? What is this, a communist election? Do you like to pretend to yourself that you are applying some logical reasoning?
Instead of coming up with silly statements of how the Bible must be true until shown otherwise, you ought to focus on proof you have that it's true.
If, ultimately, you have no proof, then simply say you have faith, and that's that. There's no shame in that. However, there is shame in saying stupid things.

Thank you. Although I don't think we're going anywhere with this. It's been noted a few times already that the burden of proof is on those who make a claim, not on those who reject it based on lack of evidence.

---
Me make music: Triofobie
---
"We need Tobias and his awesome trombone, too." - Johan Halmén

Neil Black
Member #7,867
October 2006
avatar

It's been noted a few times already that the burden of proof is on those who make a claim, not on those who reject it based on lack of evidence.

And what about non-believers who go to a Christian and say, "The Bible is false and there is no God. Now you have to prove God is real and the Bible is true."?

I'm not saying that's happening in this thread. Indeed, I agree that here the burden of proof should lie squarely on the people defending Christianity. But I've seen people in the past make the assertion that the Bible is false.

There's a difference between saying that there isn't enough evidence to believe in something, and saying that something is false. Claiming something is false (rather than that there isn't enough evidence) should mean that there is some evidence of the thing being false.

That said, in most situations I tend to interpret an atheist's "the Bible is false" as "there isn't enough evidence to support it", unless they make it clear that they mean to assert falsehood and not just cite lack of evidence.

What really bothers me is when someone says "science proves the Bible is false," and then they go on to say that there is no evidence to support the Bible. Uhm... no. That's not proof that the Bible is false (although it would be an understandable reason to not believe). Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Matthew Leverton
Supreme Loser
January 1999
avatar

Feel free to commence mocking me and calling me delusional and psychotic.

I'm not mocking anybody. I'm just calling out bogus arguments, regardless of who makes them.

Quote:

Call what happened to me coincidental and purely circumstantial.

Why should I? I'm not trying to get you to change your beliefs. Defending your own faith is different from trying to push it onto others as a provable truth. Your personal experiences are a more valid basis for why you should believe than anything else you've been saying.

And what about non-believers who go to a Christian and say, "The Bible is false and there is no God. Now you have to prove God is real and the Bible is true."?

The Bible isn't "false until proven true" in the sense you are implying. It's simply unverified until proven true. Same with God.

But the bolder the claim, the more proof is needed to satisfy people. That's only fair. If I said I went bowling and scored a 50, you'd be likely to believe me even if I gave no proof. If I said I bowled a perfect game, I'd get the "pics or it didn't happen" treatment.

So while it's unfair to say the Bible is certifiably false until proven true, the likelihood of it being true in the absence of proof is very small given its incredible claims.

Neil Black
Member #7,867
October 2006
avatar

So while it's unfair to say the Bible is certifiably false until proven true, the likelihood of it being true in the absence of proof is very small given its incredible claims.

Oh, I agree with you. I was talking more about people who say that "science has proved the Bible is false", and the only argument they make is that "Christians have no evidence that the Bible is true." Even if it were true that we have no evidence to support the Bible, that would not "prove the Bible is false."

That said, without any evidence it's perfectly understandable to not believe the Bible. Just don't say it's been proven false on those grounds.

Polybios
Member #12,293
October 2010

nm

Derezo
Member #1,666
April 2001
avatar

I heard a voice in my head saying someone in my family had been in a car accident.

I have had experiences like this both big and small. Small in the sense that I know who is calling when the phone rings, and I awaken from my sleep moments before it occurs. To the big, where suddenly my entire body feels crushed for no reason, and an awareness of a horrible tragedy comes to light, like when my uncle died. To define that experience, I refer to the concept of the universal mind. I do believe in 'angels', but define them as cosmic beings who are so advanced in evolution that they are capable of influencing other beings within their own galaxy and beyond, using an awareness of the manipulation of the 11 dimensions of space and time which all life becomes capable of through the natural process of evolution, if it survives. Some people play the game of life better than other people, and Jesus did a pretty amazing job of it. Congrats to him, and to his teachings.

Quote:

I had just finished reading the book of Joshua, which details the fall of the city Jericho. Shortly after that I watched an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation and a character on the show said "Even the walls of Jericho fell". To me it seemed that God wanted to let me know that he saw me reading His Word.

I refer to this as Synchronicity, and to me it means you're following the path set forth to you by a cosmic being, but wikipedia's description is much easier to digest. I could give many examples of this in my own life. One much like yours happened in Psychology class last semester, we were talking about the nuances of languages and how they develop over time based on the needs of the culture that uses the language. The teacher said "Eskimos, for example, have many words for snow" [which wikipedia disagrees with], and for some reason I paid special attention to that portion of her lecture. Later I went home and started chatting with a friend, and in an unrelated discussion referred to "the puppeteers running the government". He recommended the movie Being John Malkovich, where Cameron Diaz makes the exact same Eskimo reference. Having never heard that before, and having placed specific attention to it, I immediately realized I was experiencing another synchronized event. Hearing it twice in the same day was a very odd experience. That movie was extremely thought provoking, as well. I hadn't watched a full length movie for about a month prior to that.

I've had many similar situations that point to a higher order beyond myself, but which I am also capable of invoking directly through ritual, meditation (prayer), intention and action. Defining this order as 'God' is very nondescript of the specific events that are unfolding. Referring to that level of God as 'Energy', 'Life', or other term where the ultimate source of origin of the thing is unknown is just as well. It just lacks a certain human quality that is bestowed upon 'God The Father'.

"He who controls the stuffing controls the Universe"

Evert
Member #794
November 2000
avatar

There's no good reason to believe the Bible has significantly changed from when it was first written.

With the caveat that not all of the Bible was written at one point in time, but grew over the course of centuries until about 2000 years ago. This is true of both the Old and New Testaments.
I don't remember exactly how old the oldest copies of the New Testament text are (Koptic texts?). The oldest copies of the Old Testament are the Dead Sea scrolls, which are about 2000 years old. They do show that the changes to the Old Testament text since then are mostly small, but sometimes very interesting.

Read up on the process by which these documents were copied over the years. Things like copying each word individually while saying it aloud.

People used to read by saying the words they read aloud. Either way, it's known that some copyists who copied the Bible couldn't actually read what they were writing, and even those who did made small mistakes. That doesn't matter one way or the other, except to say that it's not true that no mistakes were ever made copying the Bible.

axilmar
Member #1,204
April 2001

SiegeLord said:

How is that relevant? You get very useful theories well before you are 100% sure of their correctness. You're missing the point of science: find hypotheses which fit the observed data the best. Just because multiple hypotheses fit the data equally well doesn't mean they are equally favorable or that there is no objective way to choose between them. Bayes theorem, or it's popular corollary of Occam's razor specifies which theory is best if they both fit the data equally well.Get this idea of proving something 100% out of your head. You cannot prove things in the real world, every statement made about the real world has a non-zero (even if infinitesimally small) probability of being false. It also has the same guarantee about being true, even the most unlikely things might be true (but they are unlikely to be true).But above all, just because two theories are not 100% proven, doesn't mean that they are on equal standing and are equally likely. That is not the case mathematically, and it is not how science has advanced historically.

I couldn't agree more. All I am saying is that science disproves religions but it does not disprove the existence of a creator of the universe.

EDIT:

Reading the rest of the thread prompted me to write a few more things.

#1:

The Bible cannot be used as proof of God, because when we are trying to prove God's existence, what we are trying to prove is Bible's truthfulness. So the Bible cannot be used as proof, because it's the thing that we are trying to prove.

#2:

Christianity is obviously false, since being a Christian is the only path to heaven, which automatically disqualifies all non-christians born before Christ. This is valid for other religions as well with similar concepts.

#3:

A lot of the Bible text loses its actual meaning when translated from Greek to English. Me being Greek I can read the original ancient text, and let me tell you, the modern English Bible contains some serious mistranslations; for example, the English version talks about slaves in the modern sense, when the Ancient Greek version talks about slaves in the ancient sense (more like workers who lived with their boss).

#4:

Philosophically, an infinite God does not need to create anything, let alone a universe with people in it. Having a need means to be incomplete, and an infinite God cannot be incomplete, because otherwise he is not infinite in at least one domain.

#5:

The concept of creation (i.e. before/after states) itself requires a spacetime. If God created the universe, then God existed in a spacetime that was larger than God, making God finite. Therefore, someone created the spacetime God existed in, which creates a recursive question about who created the universe that God existed in when God created our universe. The paradox of infinite Gods means that most probably there is no God.

#6:

Coincidences are not proof of God. The universe is a huge state machine: billions of billions of billions of particles conspire every femtosecond to create every state possible; some of the states might create situations where it seems that there is a prediction. It's not, it's simply a coincidence.

Voices in our heads are not God's voice. It's just us talking to ourselves.

Experiencing feelings like being in peace or very angry has nothing to do with God. It's a self produced state of mind.

#7:

Philosophically, predictions do not make sense, because they contradict free will. It's either that God gaves us free will, and therefore the future cannot be predicted, or God didn't gave us free will, and therefore the future can be predicted. There is no middle ground, because the two concepts (predefined path / free path) are contradictory.

Vanneto
Member #8,643
May 2007

So, axilmar, what did you achieve with this?

None of them will change their minds. They'll read it but they might as well not read it - same shit.

I for one agree with all of you. :-)

In capitalist America bank robs you.

SiegeLord
Member #7,827
October 2006
avatar

Yeah, about that... what success rate have people been having with convincing theists that they are wrong?

"For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increases knowledge increases sorrow."-Ecclesiastes 1:18
[SiegeLord's Abode][Codes]:[DAllegro5]:[RustAllegro]

J-Gamer
Member #12,491
January 2011
avatar

None probably... Or at least not with theists who don't want to listen to reason.

" There are plenty of wonderful ideas in The Bible, but God isn't one of them." - Derezo
"If your body was a business, thought would be like micro-management and emotions would be like macro-management. If you primarily live your life with emotions, then you are prone to error on the details. If you over-think things all the time you tend to lose scope of priorities." - Mark Oates

23yrold3yrold
Member #1,134
March 2001
avatar

Tell me if I'm not listening:

1. No argument here.

2. That's why there was an old covenant and a new covenant. No one said being a Christian was the only way anyone got to heaven. Tsk; what a religious view. ;)

3: No doubt; that's why some people still go back to the Greek. I repeat for the zillionth time; show me any doctrine that is in question due to mistranslation.

4: I don't know why "infinite" came up; maybe this is someone else's comments. I thought we established that, literally and practically speaking, He wasn't.

5: See 4.

6: No argument here.

7: I've seen this one argued a lot of different ways. That's the view you choose to believe in? That's cool; I don't think being able to predict the future automatically discounts free will. I can go check the five-day forecast right now; doesn't mean my destiny is set in stone. :P

Evert said:

People used to read by saying the words they read aloud. Either way, it's known that some copyists who copied the Bible couldn't actually read what they were writing, and even those who did made small mistakes. That doesn't matter one way or the other, except to say that it's not true that no mistakes were ever made copying the Bible.

I'm only saying there were no errors on the level bammy and others are saying there were. It's not a 100% flawless process, but it's as close to perfect as humanly possible.

--
Software Development == Church Development
Step 1. Build it.
Step 2. Pray.

axilmar
Member #1,204
April 2001

Vanneto said:

None of them will change their minds. They'll read it but they might as well not read it.

It's ok. It's a very slow process anyway.

No one said being a Christian was the only way anyone got to heaven.

Quote:

John 3:3: "...no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again."

There are more like the above.

Quote:

I repeat for the zillionth time; show me any doctrine that is in question due to mistranslation.

Roman Catholic–Eastern Orthodox theological differences.

Had the original text been 100% clear, there would be no chance to interpret it one way or the other.

Quote:

I don't know why "infinite" came up; maybe this is someone else's comments. I thought we established that, literally and practically speaking, He wasn't.

God is presented as omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, correct?

I.e. God is everywhere at once, i.e. is infinite in quantity and size, God knows all past, present and future, i.e. has infinite knowledge, There is nothing God cannot do, i.e. he has infinite capability.

I.e. God is infinite.

Quote:

I've seen this one argued a lot of different ways. That's the view you choose to believe in? That's cool; I don't think being able to predict the future automatically discounts free will. I can go check the five-day forecast right now; doesn't mean my destiny is set in stone.

The weather forecast is a mathematical calculation about the future state of a system based on the present state of a system. This alone means that the weather forecast does not have a component that is based on 'free will'.

Any system that contains a 'free will' component cannot be computed, by definition.

Think about it as a mathematical formula: free will is a variable with an unknown value, and therefore the computation result cannot be known until we know this value.

Evert
Member #794
November 2000
avatar

I'm only saying there were no errors on the level bammy and others are saying there were.

Ok.

axilmar said:

God is presented as omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, correct?

Oh oh...

23yrold3yrold
Member #1,134
March 2001
avatar

axilmar said:

There are more like the above.

"The above" doesn't say "be a Christian". And like I said, there was an old covenant and a new covenant. Take things in context; it's not a legal document and wasn't meant to be read as one, dude. :)

Quote:

Had the original text been 100% clear, there would be no chance to interpret it one way or the other.

There's actually not a whole lot there about mistranslations. There's a lot there about disagreements on what verses mean what, but that's a whole other kettle of fish.

Quote:

God is presented as omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, correct?

Utter nonsense. Where were you last thread?

Quote:

Any system that contains a 'free will' component cannot be computed, by definition.

It can still be predicted. Practical jokers do it all the time. :)

--
Software Development == Church Development
Step 1. Build it.
Step 2. Pray.

bamccaig
Member #7,536
July 2006
avatar

1) I heard a voice in my head saying someone in my family had been in a car accident. An hour or two later, my family member called saying they had been in a car accident a couple hours ago and just finished sorting it out with the police. Where did the voice come from, and how did it know what was taking place miles away? The simplest explanation is God (through the Holy Spirit), an Angel, or at the least some supernatural force.

The human brain is a funny thing. We don't fully understand it, but we do know that it can play tricks on you if you aren't careful.

So you found out that your family member had been in a car accident. Did you know who it was? Did you attempt to contact them, or to contact friends or family to see if they were OK? Did you just shrug and wait for the phone call hours later? In the end I assume he/she (I also assume she, but I digress... :P) was fine since they themselves called you to tell you they had just finished sorting things out with the police. So what do you think God was tell you about it for? "Knowing" (or having a subtle hint) about the accident hours before seemingly afforded you nothing extra. I would question why God or the angel was wasting your time with it. It seems pointless.

The only purpose this example serves is to re-enforce your own beliefs (and the beliefs of other believers). So is God just calling people up at random now? "By the way, I do exist!" Or is it more likely that your mind is just playing tricks on you?

In particular, this may result from an overlap between the neurological systems responsible for short-term memory and those responsible for long-term memory (events which are perceived as being in the past). The events would be stored into memory before the conscious part of the brain even receives the information and processes it.

Déjà vu isn't fully understood, but most people experience it, religious and atheists alike. :P There are times when I'm so sure that I'm remembering an exact scene happening before it happens, as if I had dreamed it previously or something. I think an anomaly in my brain is a far better explanation though. Remember that our conscious mind is actually enclosed inside of a skull and skin. What we know of the world around us comes from sensory organs. Think of it as piloting an aircraft without windows based only on what your instruments tell you. If the instruments or computer systems are wrong (or lagged) then your perception of what's happening and what has happened will be wrong.

The good news is that it's completely normal. The bad news is that it's completely normal.

2) I had just finished reading the book of Joshua, which details the fall of the city Jericho. Shortly after that I watched an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation and a character on the show said "Even the walls of Jericho fell". To me it seemed that God wanted to let me know that he saw me reading His Word.

I've experienced the same effect many times before. It is you that is assuming that it is a message from God, probably because you'd really really like to get one. It is pretty much the definition of a coincidence though. It just so happens that with so many things happening in the universe eventually related things cross paths and sometimes it happens in ways that seem surreal to us. That doesn't make them special or magical. Statistically speaking they are likely to happen quite often on the global scale.

4) While listening to Shepherd's Chapel on TV I have several times experienced a peace and calm that was not normal for me. I believe this is due to the Holy Spirit (the 'Comforter', which Jesus said He would send unto us).

This would be due to the program re-enforcing your beliefs and telling you exactly what you want to hear. That you're a good person, that there is a God, and that God loves you specifically. If you believe what you're being told by these programs then it's natural to feel good about yourself. You'd feel just as good if you were watching pr0n and believed what the girls were saying. ;D

5) There was a time when I was fairly cynical towards God, and let Him know how I felt, that I didn't believe what He said and that it couldn't possibly be true. I spent many a day with fear and anticipation of how he would react to me. Once I repented, the fear and anxiety went away.

This can be explained by the negative connotations associated with non-believers. You were effectively beating yourself up for being a "bad person" for questioning God. Once you convinced yourself that it was wrong to do so, you stopped and your fear and anxiety went away (because you were no longer being "bad" and "no longer" had anything to fear). It's a bit like how children usually feel bad doing something they know their parents would be angry about even before getting caught. It's called guilt. Guilty people usually feel better when they confess or right their wrongs. The thing is that you can feel guilty even when you've done nothing wrong if you're convinced that what you did is wrong anyway.

So there you have it, my experiences with God.

I'm afraid we all experience these things and they aren't God. At least, there's no good reason to believe they are directly or indirectly influenced by any deity.

Feel free to commence mocking me and calling me delusional and psychotic. Call what happened to me coincidental and purely circumstantial. Say that what happened to me is simply pyscho-sematic. I can take it. Your disbelief won't shake my faith.

You seem to imply that the atheists of this board would enjoy doing you harm. I don't think anyone here is motivated to do so. I am speaking from experience because when I was a believer I experienced the same things that you're describing now. I wholeheartedly believed too that they were signs from God. The thing is that I continued to experience them even without any belief in God, and very rarely does it cross my mind that maybe it was some kind of message from God. I can always explain it entirely in my own mind. I don't need to look for supernatural explanations.

AFAIK, none of these are symptoms of psychosis. The things you experienced are actually very common and completely normal. Your interpretation of them might be delusional, but as long as you aren't hurting anybody I see no reason to stage an intervention. :P However, I hope you didn't expect your experiences to enlighten the atheists among us. We have surely all experienced those things before and need no God to explain them.

SiegeLord said:

Yeah, about that... what success rate have people been having with convincing theists that they are wrong?

I can't say with any level of certainty, but I think I have had a positive influence on a number of people. That is, I've made them question their beliefs in ways that they were afraid to do before. I've lost touch with all of them so I can't say if they ever did change their beliefs. One did for a short while. I was very shocked too because she's from a very religious family. It happened when she moved away from their pressure though for school. Her very religious family and friends pressured her back into it when she came home one summer though. After that she just closed her mind and refused to discuss it, as if she had lost the right to make her own decisions... :(

Thomas Fjellstrom
Member #476
June 2000
avatar

I sometimes get Deja vu of Deja vu of Deja vu. Its a real brain-fsck.

--
Thomas Fjellstrom - [website] - [email] - [Allegro Wiki] - [Allegro TODO]
"If you can't think of a better solution, don't try to make a better solution." -- weapon_S
"The less evidence we have for what we believe is certain, the more violently we defend beliefs against those who don't agree" -- https://twitter.com/neiltyson/status/592870205409353730



Go to: