Is this good for Christianity?

[Justadude]

Okay. I have told you. Your blood in the judgment is no longer on my hands.

I said earlier that you are hardly the first person to preach Christianity at me. Had you been polite enough to pay attention to what I post, you'd know that I was raised in a very Christian environment, went to church since I was a baby, and currently have lots of Christian friends and family.

But since you're in the habit of not listening to people you miss important things like that.

So I will leave you alone now. But I won't be answering your questions. I will leave that to others. My foundation is the literal Bible, and if you don't share my foundation, which you don't, none of my answers will be of any benefit to you.

So earlier when you said "Thanks for your lengthy and stimulating answer. You have given me plenty to chew on here, and I appreciate your friendly and respectful manner in your answers", you weren't being truthful. You were just waiting for an opening to preach at me.

I wonder if you appreciate how that plays right into negative stereotypes of Christians.

You can put me on ignore if you wish, then you won't have to be concerned with me any longer.

I don't join discussion groups to put people on ignore. I was trying to help you, by trying to help you understand how some of the things you'd been saying about science were very, very wrong, and in some cases kind of dumb. But unfortunately it looks like despite pleas from your fellow Christians to stop embarrassing them with those silly arguments, and me trying to get you to understand the same thing, you'll just keep plodding on, and in the process will continue to further many negative stereotypes about Christians.

It doesn't really matter to me. It's not my faith that's being harmed.

 

[Enoch111]

Why do you equate seeming orderliness with a need for a deity?

Not a "need for deity" but a need to explain the orderliness of creation. Once you seek to explore the orderliness of creation, and that the whole universe operates on the basis of immutable laws, you will have no choice but to accept THE FACT that there is a Lawgiver and an Architect who has designed every detail of the universe. From the sub-atomic level to the telescopic level.

And then you will have to face your own foolishness in denying reality. Which will be very embarrassing.

 

[Giuliano]

So the vision also has to be while asleep?

It frequently does occur the first time when someone was asleep, but it's not always the case. Everyone has the ability to see and hear spiritually. As a rule, it's turned off when we're awake. We call it dreaming and think it's not real. Things in dreams are not real in the same way things in the physical world are; but we are seeing something. The person who hallucinates is seeing something even if he is projecting the images himself and then mistaking them as independent. They are "real" to him, but not "real" to other people. One definition of reality could be "agreement." Have you ever had any telepathic experiences? The telepathic communication is "real" to the two people who experienced it but "not real" to other people. Spiritual communications are telepathic, not physical. Heaven can make that initial contact when the person is awake -- the say the angel appeared to Hagar -- but my guess is it's done in emergency cases. It's preferable to make that initial contact when the person is asleep and not shocked by seeing things which aren't there physically.

It takes some mental control to be able to be in two realms at the same time. I was in a church once and saw a demon in the air. Of course, no one else saw it. I knew what other people could see -- I could see those things too, but I was also seeing this demon and knew they weren't seeing it. If that had been my first vision, I think I could have freaked out. I might have tried to talk to other people. I might have been put in a mental hospital. I think I can call myself "sane" as long as I know how other people are seeing things and can relate to them on that level. What I see on a spiritual level is something else -- I don't expect people to see them and I don't often mention them.

Do we really see with our physical eyes? Or do we train ourselves to see with them? We apparently train ourselves. Think about it. Light interacts with the rods and cones in our retinas, triggering activity in neurons. Somehow all those signals get organized by the brain. We are picking up the signals from the brain as it's organized the data from the eyes. That's how it's done in the world we're in.

This has to do with why things are the way they are in the physical world -- why we are in bodies, why we think what they experience is real and why we think our ideas are not as real, why most humans can't communicate telepathically. The short answer is that when people weren't in bodies and could use all their spiritual abilities, they wanted to abuse them. Our consciences said, "What you're doing isn't very good. It might be better if you couldn't read minds or send thoughts to others." We chose to limit our abilities; and here we are in a universe that is like a game board with "rules" of its own -- rules, by the way, we should want to obey. Life in this universe can be thought of as a game on a board with a set of rules. One rule is that the "piece" you can move on the board is your body. If you want to close the curtains, the rules of the game say you use your body to do it. You have to get your body up, go over to the curtains and use your hand to do it. Doing it by an act of will alone without using your "piece on the board" is breaking the rules. Some would call it a miracle of God, others an act of magic. I may shock you now -- I know many Christians would find it shocking -- but what we call miracles are violations of the rules of the universe we're in. They are cheating.

People who crave miracles like the idea of cheating.

Matthew 12:39 But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas:

Mark 13:22 For false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall shew signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect.

This goes back to why we're in bodies. People want to use their abilities to their own advantage. Their good side, their consciences, deny them access to the abilities they want to abuse; but a dark side wants to break through and get those abilities. You see this craving for the "supernatural" in most religions. You see it in people who go into the occult. I don't approve.

Mind now, even when Jesus was performing miracles, it was a form of breaking the rules -- call it cheating if you want. There is a penalty that has to be paid. It is safe to "cheat" only if (1) you are willing to pay the price and can afford it, and (2) if your breaking the rules is not to benefit yourself. When Jesus talked about "virtue" passing out of him, he was talking about the price he paid for miracles. This seems very odd to many people, I know; but remember the Bible says dominion over the earth was given to man. If men and women want a world where each player in the game uses their bodies as the only pieces they can move legally by the rules, using other methods is opposing their free will. There were times when it looks to me as if Jesus wanted to avoid opposing the free will of too many people. He took one man aside to heal him for example. Then it's also said he did no miracles in one place because of the unbelief of the people. He "could not" do them. If he had, it could be called black magic.

So it is preferable, I think, for the first vision to occur when the person is asleep. There is less of a shock to the psyche and less of a chance for mental confusion. When it does happen that way, some extra steps may be needed to reassure the prophet he's seeing and hearing correctly. (The first chapter of Jeremiah is an example.)

There is an amusing story about Jesus healing a blind mind. Things went wrong on the first go. The man could see something -- he said it was if he could see men like trees walking. It makes me chuckle since what he was seeing was valid but not in the physical world. Jesus meant to get him to seeing using the signals from his physical eyes -- and the man misunderstood and started seeing with spiritual eyes so Jesus had to do it again.

There is something else that needs to be noted. Jesus more than once asked permission from people before healing them. I think in some cases, he knew they wanted to be; but in other cases, some of them had two minds about it, part wanted to be sick and part wanted to be healed. In order not to violate the law of free will, he got them to agree that they wanted to be healed.

I don't know the Wiccan personally; but a friend of mine met him. He was a trucker and he discovered he could heal people. So he went on a spree more or less, healing several people he met. Then one day he healed a woman with a severe case of diabetes. He wound up getting diabetes himself and could never do a thing about it. My best guess is she didn't want to be healed. He had "stolen" her diabetes from her; and the penalty he imposed on himself was keeping it and suffering from it himself. I've known a few Wiccans. One could do things and did for a while too. Eventually however she overstepped the limits by interfering with the free will of other people. She was interested in magic for the wrong reasons. She used it to gain an advantage over others.

Wiccans say, "Do what thou wilt is all of the law, but harm ye none." Do they understand that? They often do not. Some are like Christians, believing they have the right to determine for everyone else what is good and what is bad. I read where some Wiccans said they were going to curse President Trump. What a misguided thing to do. I can almost guarantee that will not end well. While I do not particularly like Trump, I don't have the right to determine what ought to happen for all Americans. Americans voted him into office. For me to oppose that, trying to use prayer or magic, would be opposing their free will. If someone has magical abilities, that's the way to lose them.

I think that's a good trait to have. With me it's always a fine line when I hear stories like yours. On one hand I immediately go to skepticism due to what I think are obvious issues with the stories, but on the other I figure if it's meaningful for you and helped you through life, it'd be terribly inconsiderate of me to try and take that away. Live and let live, and all that.

I think the best kind of "miracles" are those which look completely ordinary.

From the Tao Te Ching:

Therefore, the sage acts without taking credit.
He accomplishes without dwelling on it.

Why do I think that? People are already craving the miraculous too much. If they had evidence of it, they'd crave it even more and for the wrong reasons. It is better as a rule then to get things done with everything looking like business as usual. It also does not create opposition.

 

[Giuliano]

A Rene Descarte disciple huh?

No. He was not completely logical when he said, "I think, therefor I am." He was trying to be logical, but the first half of that sentence is assuming there is an "I" there that can think. The statement is simply really, "I am."

If my awareness is all that's real, maybe I'm the "God." But working from the position that reality may not in fact be real and resorting to view mired in solipsism gets us nowhere. The given we should all agree to start with is that reality is in fact real. From this baseline, we can examine reality and how it works (to the best of our collective abilities) to determine what

So motives should guide us in our quest for the truth? Should we reject solipsism because it will get us nowhere? Is that how we ought to determine what is true?

I think after the first "fact" is accepted that awareness is real, the next question is if there is "awareness" out there too?

What you call reality could be also be called agreement. If I am aware of a black cat and I hear you say you see a black cat, that is some evidence you are aware the way I am. It's not proof, but it's a good reason to believe "other awareness" exists out there. I get a little "faith" in your existence. The more we communicate, the more I may become convinced that you are indeed there and aware. My "faith" in you increases.

 

[ScottA]

And I'm "going wrong" by not blindly accepting your vision as truth and waving away all the others as counterfeit, right?

I didn't say that, and you would do well to not jump to such conclusions. Besides, I explained that you should be looking for the one exception that is actually true, and that to categorically dismiss all, makes your query pointless.

 

[Justadude]

Sorry to trim your post down, but I had to in order to get down to the minimum number of characters.

It frequently does occur the first time when someone was asleep, but it's not always the case. Everyone has the ability to see and hear spiritually. As a rule, it's turned off when we're awake. We call it dreaming and think it's not real. Things in dreams are not real in the same way things in the physical world are; but we are seeing something.

Several times I've had extremely vivid dreams that seemed real. When I woke up it didn't seem like I really even transitioned from "sleep" to "awake", and for (sometimes) hours I would go about my day thinking that what happened in the dream happened in real life.

Except......the dream was nonsense. Sometimes the dream would involve my wife being horrible to me and I would get out of bed, shower, eat breakfast, and even go to work thinking that when I saw her (she works odd hours) I was really going to let her have it. It wasn't until I really thought about it that I realized it was a dream. Other times the dream would be about different family members, sometimes good things would happen and other times bad, but almost always it was something that would never happen in real life. Yet they seemed as real as real can be.

I bring that up because that's the first thing that comes to my mind when I hear stories about alleged divine revelations given while the person is either asleep, or in transition between sleep and awake. Like I said earlier, I don't want to diminish someone else's experiences especially if it's helped them, but the skeptic in me immediately thinks "It's just a dream. We all have vivid and strange dreams, so there's no reason to think the ones about gods are any more 'real' than the ones people have about dragons or being able to fly."

Do we really see with our physical eyes? Or do we train ourselves to see with them? We apparently train ourselves. Think about it. Light interacts with the rods and cones in our retinas, triggering activity in neurons. Somehow all those signals get organized by the brain. We are picking up the signals from the brain as it's organized the data from the eyes. That's how it's done in the world we're in.

This has to do with why things are the way they are in the physical world -- why we are in bodies, why we think what they experience is real and why we think our ideas are not as real, why most humans can't communicate telepathically. The short answer is that when people weren't in bodies and could use all their spiritual abilities, they wanted to abuse them. Our consciences said, "What you're doing isn't very good. It might be better if you couldn't read minds or send thoughts to others." We chose to limit our abilities; and here we are in a universe that is like a game board with "rules" of its own -- rules, by the way, we should want to obey. Life in this universe can be thought of as a game on a board with a set of rules. One rule is that the "piece" you can move on the board is your body. If you want to close the curtains, the rules of the game say you use your body to do it. You have to get your body up, go over to the curtains and use your hand to do it. Doing it by an act of will alone without using your "piece on the board" is breaking the rules. Some would call it a miracle of God, others an act of magic. I may shock you now -- I know many Christians would find it shocking -- but what we call miracles are violations of the rules of the universe we're in. They are cheating.

I'm not really sure what to say to all that, except that I appreciate how much thought you've put into it. It's obviously something very important to you.

So it is preferable, I think, for the first vision to occur when the person is asleep. There is less of a shock to the psyche and less of a chance for mental confusion. When it does happen that way, some extra steps may be needed to reassure the prophet he's seeing and hearing correctly. (The first chapter of Jeremiah is an example.)

I remember reading a long time ago about the progression of experiences humans have had while just asleep/barely awake, and how they reflect popular culture. For example, once we started studying and exploring space, and books started being written about extraterrestrial life and spacecraft, people started having dreams about alien visitation. And as UFO's became a common topic, the dreams about alien abduction started.

Similarly, I wonder if dreams about spiritual things are more common among spiritually-minded people, because when they start to drift off to sleep that's what lurking in their subconscious.

There is an amusing story about Jesus healing a blind mind. Things went wrong on the first go. The man could see something -- he said it was if he could see men like trees walking. It makes me chuckle since what he was seeing was valid but not in the physical world. Jesus meant to get him to seeing using the signals from his physical eyes -- and the man misunderstood and started seeing with spiritual eyes so Jesus had to do it again.

There is something else that needs to be noted. Jesus more than once asked permission from people before healing them. I think in some cases, he knew they wanted to be; but in other cases, some of them had two minds about it, part wanted to be sick and part wanted to be healed. In order not to violate the law of free will, he got them to agree that they wanted to be healed.

I remember reading something from a middle-east historian and him pointing out that while healers were a dime a dozen in Jesus' time, what made him different was that he didn't ask for payment and it didn't always work the first time.

I don't know the Wiccan personally; but a friend of mine met him. He was a trucker and he discovered he could heal people. So he went on a spree more or less, healing several people he met. Then one day he healed a woman with a severe case of diabetes. He wound up getting diabetes himself and could never do a thing about it. My best guess is she didn't want to be healed. He had "stolen" her diabetes from her; and the penalty he imposed on himself was keeping it and suffering from it himself. I've known a few Wiccans. One could do things and did for a while too. Eventually however she overstepped the limits by interfering with the free will of other people. She was interested in magic for the wrong reasons. She used it to gain an advantage over others.

That's where the scientist in me says "Let's test that". I'm not aware of any faith healer who's claims have stood up to scientific scrutiny and testing, so I'm extremely skeptical of stories like that.

Wiccans say, "Do what thou wilt is all of the law, but harm ye none." Do they understand that? They often do not. Some are like Christians, believing they have the right to determine for everyone else what is good and what is bad. I read where some Wiccans said they were going to curse President Trump. What a misguided thing to do. I can almost guarantee that will not end well. While I do not particularly like Trump, I don't have the right to determine what ought to happen for all Americans. Americans voted him into office. For me to oppose that, trying to use prayer or magic, would be opposing their free will. If someone has magical abilities, that's the way to lose them.
I think the best kind of "miracles" are those which look completely ordinary.

IMO, wiccan magic isn't any more real than that of tribal shamans, faith healers, psychics, or palm readers. To me they're all the result of the intersection of clever con men and the gullible.

When I was in college I had some friends who were really into things like ghosts, Ouija boards, spells, etc. They ended up hating me because I would come up with ways to objectively test what they were doing, and they'd fail every single time. That really showed me a lot about how when some people really, really want to believe something, there's almost nothing that will get them to even ask the hard questions about it.

From the Tao Te Ching:

Therefore, the sage acts without taking credit.
He accomplishes without dwelling on it.

Why do I think that? People are already craving the miraculous too much. If they had evidence of it, they'd crave it even more and for the wrong reasons. It is better as a rule then to get things done with everything looking like business as usual. It also does not create opposition.

I've always liked that saying. The humble approach it teaches has served me well in many ways.

 

[Justadude]

I didn't say that, and you would do well to not jump to such conclusions.

Then we're in agreement that I shouldn't just blindly accept your dream/vision as true.

Besides, I explained that you should be looking for the one exception that is actually true, and that to categorically dismiss all, makes your query pointless.

How would one go about separating the true dreams/visions from the counterfeit ones?

 

[ScottA]

Then we're in agreement that I shouldn't just blindly accept your dream/vision as true.


How would one go about separating the true dreams/visions from the counterfeit ones?

Well...not to offend, but that is a question that requires a blunt answer: Use your head. As I have already explained, there is only one thread of witness testimonies down through the ages that is complete. All others popped up somewhere after the fact as a response to the human condition. Incidentally, that is also the failure of the authority of science.

But don't be confused by the variable of human difference. In other words, there is no contradiction in conveying the truth by different words. On the contrary, stating the same things differently, is a way of confirming the truth. It is a form of cross examination. The only real problem with conveying truth in ones own words, is that each may not be interpreted the same. But there is a reason for that.

Anyway, take away all the religious claims that do not date back to the beginning of time, and there is only one remaining.

 

[Justadude]

Well...not to offend, but that is a question that requires a blunt answer: Use your head. As I have already explained, there is only one thread of witness testimonies down through the ages that is complete.

What do you mean by "complete"?

All others popped up somewhere after the fact as a response to the human condition.

What do you mean by "after the fact"?

Incidentally, that is also the failure of the authority of science.

That's strange for you to say, since it's only because of science that you and I are even able to have this conversation.

But don't be confused by the variable of human difference. In other words, there is no contradiction in conveying the truth by different words. On the contrary, stating the same things differently, is a way of confirming the truth. It is a form of cross examination. The only real problem with conveying truth in ones own words, is that each may not be interpreted the same. But there is a reason for that.

That makes sense.

Anyway, take away all the religious claims that do not date back to the beginning of time, and there is only one remaining.

Um, the beginning of time was over 13 billion years ago, whereas humans have only been around for 300,000 years or so.

 

[Justadude]

In looking through several threads over the last couple of weeks, I gotta say the level of anti-science sentiment and scorn for scientists among the Christians here is way more than I expected. If a person were to glean their impression of Christianity from posts by Christians in this forum, they'd come away thinking that most Christians are very much against science and have a deep hatred for scientists, and the Christians who think otherwise are but a tiny, insignificant minority.

Putting that in the context of this thread, does anyone here think that's good for Christianity?

 

[ScottA]

What do you mean by "complete"?

What do you mean by "after the fact"?

That's strange for you to say, since it's only because of science that you and I are even able to have this conversation.

Um, the beginning of time was over 13 billion years ago, whereas humans have only been around for 300,000 years or so.

1. From the beginning of time until the present.

2. Somewhere after the beginning of time, and after having the chance to come up with their own ideas based on conjecture.

3. No, there's no logic in that at all. That would be like saying whoever invented the wheel must certainly know the meaning of life.

4. Then it should be all the more convincing that man-made religions are limited to their time. And yet, there is one exception. That was my point.

 

[Justadude]

1. From the beginning of time until the present.

Except that humans haven't been around for 99% of time. Plus, even according to written records alleged "divine revelations" have only occurred in the last 5,000 years (at best). Is your narrative contingent on the universe only being less than 10,000 years old and all that goes with it?

2. Somewhere after the beginning of time, and after having the chance to come up with their own ideas based on conjecture.

That makes no sense, since everything every human has ever done has taken place tens of billions of years after the beginning of time.

3. No, there's no logic in that at all. That would be like saying whoever invented the wheel must certainly know the meaning of life.

Ah, so you meant that science has no authority when it comes to the meaning of life. That I agree with.

4. Then it should be all the more convincing that man-made religions are limited to their time. And yet, there is one exception. That was my point.

Well yeah, every religion thinks all the others are man-made and theirs is the exception (except maybe universalists).

Remember, I had earlier described how when I was younger I would ask questions of Christian leaders, and they would invariably fall back on magical thinking, which seemed like a cop out to me. You seem to be doing the same thing, with your talk of divine revelations to humans starting at the beginning of time (or before). If you want me to consider what you're saying, you'll have to first explain in more detail how these divine revelations were being conveyed to humans at, or before, the beginning of time.

 

[Giuliano]

Sorry to trim your post down, but I had to in order to get down to the minimum number of characters.

No problem. Most of a quote gets hidden when it gets posted anyway.

Several times I've had extremely vivid dreams that seemed real. When I woke up it didn't seem like I really even transitioned from "sleep" to "awake", and for (sometimes) hours I would go about my day thinking that what happened in the dream happened in real life.

Except......the dream was nonsense. Sometimes the dream would involve my wife being horrible to me and I would get out of bed, shower, eat breakfast, and even go to work thinking that when I saw her (she works odd hours) I was really going to let her have it. It wasn't until I really thought about it that I realized it was a dream. Other times the dream would be about different family members, sometimes good things would happen and other times bad, but almost always it was something that would never happen in real life. Yet they seemed as real as real can be.

You have spotted some problems with dreams. First when you were having the vivid dreams, you were not aware of them being dreams. The tangling of dreams and waking reality can cause problems. Have you heard of lucid dreaming where you know you are dreaming -- and can control things in the dream? For example, you can make objects things appear and disappear. In many dreams, the person seems out of control, often even of his own actions. In lucid dreams, he's fully in control of his own actions and can control other things too such as making things appear and disappear.

I had a lucid dream once of being in France at a party. By the way, I could change my own appearance in that dream and did as a prank to fool a friend. Later she transformed herself into a tiger and jumped out at me, but I knew who it was. She didn't fool me, and that irritated her. She couldn't figure out how I could fool her but she couldn't fool me -- and I didn't explain it to her. I was told the party had to end since it would be sunrise soon and people would need to wake up. The dream ended about ten minutes later, so I came back to my body and woke up. I wondered then if it was really true that the sun was about to rise in France. I glanced at my clock, wrote the time down and then went back to sleep -- a regular type of sleep. When I woke up again, I checked what time it would have been in France and what time the sun rose that day. I was right. That wasn't proof to me I had traveled to France in my dream; but it would have been proof I hadn't been if I had been wrong.

For some reason, I did not have the confusion you had. I would not trust dreams that got me confused. The human mind or spirit -- or call it whatever you want -- has more than one part. One part isn't very trustworthy. It's apt to imagine the bad things and get confused too. If that part of you goes off to dream without taking the "rational" part of you along, you can get into trouble.

I would not say all waking people have their rational minds with them. Some are living lives as if they are in a dream, confused about what is real and what isn't.

Another problem with dreams that showed up in your vivid dreams is how antisocial elements often show up. I would not presume to know why they showed up in yours; but there is probably something there that, if corrected, would benefit you in waking life. I would be uncomfortable discussing this here -- in public -- since such topics should probably not be discussed in public. What may be more problematical is not completely aware of them being dreams.

That brings me to my views about "hell." I think it possible when people "die," that a part of them enters a dreamlike state but they aren't aware of what's really going on. In this state, the "dead" do not know anything -- as Solomon wrote. The part of them that can discriminate between the various types of realities or experiences is missing. Some people who look alive to us can be missing that part of awareness. Call them the "walking dead" if you like. Jesus referred to some people as "dead" when he said let the dead bury the dead. The problem seems to be in part that the person cannot discriminate between what he's projecting with his own mind (unconsciously in this instance) and what is coming at him from other sources.

I bring that up because that's the first thing that comes to my mind when I hear stories about alleged divine revelations given while the person is either asleep, or in transition between sleep and awake. Like I said earlier, I don't want to diminish someone else's experiences especially if it's helped them, but the skeptic in me immediately thinks "It's just a dream. We all have vivid and strange dreams, so there's no reason to think the ones about gods are any more 'real' than the ones people have about dragons or being able to fly."

I tend to look at all dreams as being real -- but not real in the same way the physical world is. Something can be true or real in my private universe but not true or real for other people. The problems start when we confuse the two. I think the mark of sanity if I can tell what is true and real for other people. Can I understand the reality we all share -- and can I come to understand bits and pieces of their private universes?

I remember reading a long time ago about the progression of experiences humans have had while just asleep/barely awake, and how they reflect popular culture. For example, once we started studying and exploring space, and books started being written about extraterrestrial life and spacecraft, people started having dreams about alien visitation. And as UFO's became a common topic, the dreams about alien abduction started.

Similarly, I wonder if dreams about spiritual things are more common among spiritually-minded people, because when they start to drift off to sleep that's what lurking in their subconscious.

The powers of suggestion. . . . Suggestion also seems to play a role when it comes to "demonic possession" and the like. The number of reported cases of possession rose dramatically after the movie The Exorcist came out. There has been a campaign of sorts lately too in the Catholic Church -- and the number of "possessed" people has risen again.

IMO, wiccan magic isn't any more real than that of tribal shamans, faith healers, psychics, or palm readers. To me they're all the result of the intersection of clever con men and the gullible.

When I was in college I had some friends who were really into things like ghosts, Ouija boards, spells, etc. They ended up hating me because I would come up with ways to objectively test what they were doing, and they'd fail every single time. That really showed me a lot about how when some people really, really want to believe something, there's almost nothing that will get them to even ask the hard questions about it.

I think it's good when people fail at such things. Let them believe what they want; at least they aren't affecting "my" reality unless I agree to be affected by it.

Perhaps I should tell you about my experiments with hurricanes and the north magnetic pole. Certainly I admit the results could be written off as coincidence; but they might amuse you. The hurricane experiments started when I had a vision of a hurricane hitting New Orleans. I had a friend who lived there; and I asked him to move. He said he couldn't or wouldn't move that year -- he was planning to move the year after that. So the question for me was what if anything could I do about it.

Perhaps we should also discuss what lies behind magical thinking. What makes it attractive to people?

 

[Justadude]

You have spotted some problems with dreams. First when you were having the vivid dreams, you were not aware of them being dreams. The tangling of dreams and waking reality can cause problems. Have you heard of lucid dreaming where you know you are dreaming -- and can control things in the dream? For example, you can make objects things appear and disappear. In many dreams, the person seems out of control, often even of his own actions. In lucid dreams, he's fully in control of his own actions and can control other things too such as making things appear and disappear.

Yes, that is a very interesting topic. Your story about your lucid dream is fascinating!

For some reason, I did not have the confusion you had. I would not trust dreams that got me confused. The human mind or spirit -- or call it whatever you want -- has more than one part. One part isn't very trustworthy. It's apt to imagine the bad things and get confused too. If that part of you goes off to dream without taking the "rational" part of you along, you can get into trouble.

I guess I take a different view. To me they're just dreams and nothing more, and certainly not something to take too seriously or base major life decisions on.

Another problem with dreams that showed up in your vivid dreams is how antisocial elements often show up. I would not presume to know why they showed up in yours; but there is probably something there that, if corrected, would benefit you in waking life. I would be uncomfortable discussing this here -- in public -- since such topics should probably not be discussed in public. What may be more problematical is not completely aware of them being dreams.

It's not concerning to me. My dreams, probably like most everyone else's, run the gamut from really fun, to boring and forgettable, to completely random and bizarre, to bad. That's just how dreams are. They seem to be little more than the brain being in a sort of rest mode during sleep, where even though you're asleep the program is still running in the background, just at a minimal level. That's why random things pop into our dreams, mostly in completely nonsensical ways. The motor's running but the driver is asleep, if you know what I mean.

That brings me to my views about "hell." I think it possible when people "die," that a part of them enters a dreamlike state but they aren't aware of what's really going on. In this state, the "dead" do not know anything -- as Solomon wrote. The part of them that can discriminate between the various types of realities or experiences is missing. Some people who look alive to us can be missing that part of awareness. Call them the "walking dead" if you like. Jesus referred to some people as "dead" when he said let the dead bury the dead. The problem seems to be in part that the person cannot discriminate between what he's projecting with his own mind (unconsciously in this instance) and what is coming at him from other sources.

That's an interesting notion. I never thought of it that way.

I tend to look at all dreams as being real -- but not real in the same way the physical world is. Something can be true or real in my private universe but not true or real for other people. The problems start when we confuse the two. I think the mark of sanity if I can tell what is true and real for other people. Can I understand the reality we all share -- and can I come to understand bits and pieces of their private universes?

The powers of suggestion. . . . Suggestion also seems to play a role when it comes to "demonic possession" and the like. The number of reported cases of possession rose dramatically after the movie The Exorcist came out. There has been a campaign of sorts lately too in the Catholic Church -- and the number of "possessed" people has risen again.

That's exactly my take (power of suggestion influencing the contents of dreams). Like I said earlier, to me they're just dreams and nothing more. They're no more real than me imagining things while I'm awake. In both cases they're just thoughts in my brain.

But as this thread testifies, some people not only believe dreams are real and deeply meaningful, they apparently believe other people (people like me) should accept their dreams as real and important, and base our whole lives on them! It's hard for me to overstate just how ridiculous that is to me. Base my life on someone else's dream? Not a chance. I don't even use my own dreams as a basis for my life, so why would I do so with another person's?

I think it's good when people fail at such things. Let them believe what they want; at least they aren't affecting "my" reality unless I agree to be affected by it.

It was enough to convince me that it's all bunk.

Perhaps I should tell you about my experiments with hurricanes and the north magnetic pole. Certainly I admit the results could be written off as coincidence; but they might amuse you. The hurricane experiments started when I had a vision of a hurricane hitting New Orleans. I had a friend who lived there; and I asked him to move. He said he couldn't or wouldn't move that year -- he was planning to move the year after that. So the question for me was what if anything could I do about it.

That'd be interesting. The first thing that comes to my mind when I hear such stories is the notion of confirmation bias. Are you familiar with it?

Perhaps we should also discuss what lies behind magical thinking. What makes it attractive to people?

IMO it's attractive to people who are uncomfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty, and instead have a psychological need for clarity and certainty. When it comes to questions like the meaning of life and what happens after death, some people are not at all satisfied with subjective or uncertain answers, or even no answer at all. The problem is, with questions like that there is no objective way to answer them, and that's where magical thinking comes in. Religion provides answers to those questions and does so in very certain terms, even absolute certainty in many cases, which satisfies their psychological needs. But the trade off is they have to also accept things on faith and believe in what basically amounts to magic. With some folks that's a deal they're more than happy to make. The benefits far outweigh the downside. It's like "I get the absolute certainty about life and death that I need to feel fulfilled and all I have to do is believe these stories/this book? Done!"

Imagine how attractive that is for people who have both the need for such certainty and are also predispositioned to believe in magical things! It fits right in their sweet spot!

OTOH with people like me who are (I think) pre-wired to not take things on faith and are just fine with subjectivity and uncertainty, it all seems very weird and a lot of times, silly. I can remember even as a very young kid sitting in church, listening and watching everything, and thinking to myself how strange it was that all these grown adults believed things that were, to me, ridiculous. I still feel that way when I go to church services.

 

[ScottA]

Except that humans haven't been around for 99% of time. Plus, even according to written records alleged "divine revelations" have only occurred in the last 5,000 years (at best). Is your narrative contingent on the universe only being less than 10,000 years old and all that goes with it?

That makes no sense, since everything every human has ever done has taken place tens of billions of years after the beginning of time.

Time is not the issue. If you say it is this and I say it is that, it doesn't matter. What matters is that only one truth precedes time, and the rest are man made.

Ah, so you meant that science has no authority when it comes to the meaning of life. That I agree with.

Good.

Well yeah, every religion thinks all the others are man-made and theirs is the exception (except maybe universalists).

Remember, I had earlier described how when I was younger I would ask questions of Christian leaders, and they would invariably fall back on magical thinking, which seemed like a cop out to me. You seem to be doing the same thing, with your talk of divine revelations to humans starting at the beginning of time (or before). If you want me to consider what you're saying, you'll have to first explain in more detail how these divine revelations were being conveyed to humans at, or before, the beginning of time.

First...all religion is man made, and not to be confused with reality. I am talking about reality, not religion.

As for the details, there are many, and they are very much recorded and available for study. But better than the details is first a concise explanation, which I have done. But you have categorically stereotyped it and dismissed it as "magical" nonsense.

Nonetheless, it is simply that the truth has been made known to mankind since the beginning by revelations, which are life. By "life" I mean that it is reasonable for a categorizing person to consider that everything that eventually dies, to be categorically dead. That is why I explain that revelations from God are very much life given to the walking dead. You don't have to believe it, but the alternative to connecting the dots of revelations given to mankind, is to pass on the information and die. Thus far, that is your current trajectory.

I am not here to convince you. On the contrary, why would I give life to one who chooses death? That is not the plan, the plan is to put an end to death, but to give life to those who choose it.

You have a choice.

 

[Jane_Doe22]

Yes, that is a very interesting topic. Your story about your lucid dream is fascinating!


I guess I take a different view. To me they're just dreams and nothing more, and certainly not something to take too seriously or base major life decisions on.


It's not concerning to me. My dreams, probably like most everyone else's, run the gamut from really fun, to boring and forgettable, to completely random and bizarre, to bad. That's just how dreams are. They seem to be little more than the brain being in a sort of rest mode during sleep, where even though you're asleep the program is still running in the background, just at a minimal level. That's why random things pop into our dreams, mostly in completely nonsensical ways. The motor's running but the driver is asleep, if you know what I mean.


That's an interesting notion. I never thought of it that way.


That's exactly my take (power of suggestion influencing the contents of dreams). Like I said earlier, to me they're just dreams and nothing more. They're no more real than me imagining things while I'm awake. In both cases they're just thoughts in my brain.

But as this thread testifies, some people not only believe dreams are real and deeply meaningful, they apparently believe other people (people like me) should accept their dreams as real and important, and base our whole lives on them! It's hard for me to overstate just how ridiculous that is to me. Base my life on someone else's dream? Not a chance. I don't even use my own dreams as a basis for my life, so why would I do so with another person's?


It was enough to convince me that it's all bunk.


That'd be interesting. The first thing that comes to my mind when I hear such stories is the notion of confirmation bias. Are you familiar with it?


IMO it's attractive to people who are uncomfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty, and instead have a psychological need for clarity and certainty. When it comes to questions like the meaning of life and what happens after death, some people are not at all satisfied with subjective or uncertain answers, or even no answer at all. The problem is, with questions like that there is no objective way to answer them, and that's where magical thinking comes in. Religion provides answers to those questions and does so in very certain terms, even absolute certainty in many cases, which satisfies their psychological needs. But the trade off is they have to also accept things on faith and believe in what basically amounts to magic. With some folks that's a deal they're more than happy to make. The benefits far outweigh the downside. It's like "I get the absolute certainty about life and death that I need to feel fulfilled and all I have to do is believe these stories/this book? Done!"

Imagine how attractive that is for people who have both the need for such certainty and are also predispositioned to believe in magical things! It fits right in their sweet spot!

OTOH with people like me who are (I think) pre-wired to not take things on faith and are just fine with subjectivity and uncertainty, it all seems very weird and a lot of times, silly. I can remember even as a very young kid sitting in church, listening and watching everything, and thinking to myself how strange it was that all these grown adults believed things that were, to me, ridiculous. I still feel that way when I go to church services.

I do hear what you're saying about there being a bunch of different options out there, and they all think they are right.
I also hear what @ScottA is saying that "just because there's a bunch of bad eggs, doesn't mean there isn't also a one that is Truth, and that shouldn't be dismissed."

Rather than stereotyping or indirectly mocking other people's beliefs (whatever they may be), I think time would be much better spent:
-Understanding individuals
-Searching for Truth individually, so that each person can know for themselves.

 

[Justadude]

Time is not the issue. If you say it is this and I say it is that, it doesn't matter. What matters is that only one truth precedes time, and the rest are man made.

You're the one who brought up time and alleged revelations occurring before time, and now you say time is not an issue? Do you understand how that can be confusing?

First...all religion is man made, and not to be confused with reality. I am talking about reality, not religion.

What specific reality are you talking about?

As for the details, there are many, and they are very much recorded and available for study.

Can you provide an example?

But better than the details is first a concise explanation, which I have done. But you have categorically stereotyped it and dismissed it as "magical" nonsense.

So far you've told me about a dream/vision you had. I've tried to coax additional details and specifics out of you but you seem to be reluctant to provide any. I hope you understand why that sort of thing raises red flags for me. I would think if what you're talking about really was reality you'd have no trouble at all answering my questions.

Nonetheless, it is simply that the truth has been made known to mankind since the beginning by revelations, which are life. By "life" I mean that it is reasonable for a categorizing person to consider that everything that eventually dies, to be categorically dead. That is why I explain that revelations from God are very much life given to the walking dead. You don't have to believe it, but the alternative to connecting the dots of revelations given to mankind, is to pass on the information and die. Thus far, that is your current trajectory.

It looks to me like you have no trouble explaining the consequences of not believing you or dismissing these revelations, but providing specific details about them is much more problematic. Again that raises red flags.

I am not here to convince you. On the contrary, why would I give life to one who chooses death? That is not the plan, the plan is to put an end to death, but to give life to those who choose it.

You have a choice.

Same thing. You're quite adept at telling me that I should believe this alleged truth and what the consequences will be if I don't, but when it comes to actual details and specifics about the "truth" itself, you come across as deliberately evasive.

Perhaps you can start by explaining what this "reality" is and provide examples of it being revealed before time began.

 

[Justadude]

I do hear what you're saying about there being a bunch of different options out there, and they all think they are right.

Thanks!

I also hear what @ScottA is saying that "just because there's a bunch of bad eggs, doesn't mean there isn't also a one that is Truth, and that shouldn't be dismissed."

I agree. I also think it's important to not just go with whatever random people tell you is "truth", and instead utilize critical thinking and be as objective as possible. In my experiences, that really rubs a lot of religious people the wrong way.

Rather than stereotyping or indirectly mocking other people's beliefs (whatever they may be), I think time would be much better spent:
-Understanding individuals
-Searching for Truth individually, so that each person can know for themselves.

I fully agree, which is why I've been asking questions and trying to explain my POV. But as I discussed with @Giuliano earlier in this thread, the conundrum for non-religious people like me is how to critically and objectively evaluate someone's religious claims without coming across as mocking them.

 

[Jane_Doe22]

I fully agree, which is why I've been asking questions and trying to explain my POV. But as I discussed with @Giuliano earlier in this thread, the conundrum for non-religious people like me is how to critically and objectively evaluate someone's religious claims without coming across as mocking them.

That is indeed a challenge.
One thing I've found is to really try to show earnesty in your search, going out of your way to use a respectful tone/words, and treat their beliefs like they are precious-- because they are precious to that person (even if you totally disagree with them).

 

[Heart2Soul]

Good question. I have my own thoughts on that, but for now I'll keep them to myself.

IMHO non-believers who mock Christian's because their lives do not reflect all Biblical teaching perfectly are showing how ignorant of the Truth they truly are. And those who disagree with the beliefs of others are not wrong for disagreeing...they are wrong for how they speak to the one they disagree with.
A Christian never stops growing in their walk with Christ and they will stumble and even cause others to stumble but it is the Holy Spirit who convicts their heart to repentance.
What creed do non-believers live by? Do they have any moral standard to uphold?
Do they have any accountability to one another that is demanded of that group to live by?
Just asking....kind of gets old with non-believers always pointing the finger at Christians and say things like "this is why people hate Christianity ".
More evil is done in this world by non-believers than by Christians.