The Paranormal

[Tinkerbell725]

That's why I am here, to expand your understanding.

Let me expand your understanding. Whatever you do and you might become insane doing it, you will never be able to comprehend the depth of God's wisdom. You have a very limited mind compared to God. You might as well submit to Him before its too late. He is apha and omega and you are just a mere human being...a dust in the wind, an earthling (unless you are an alien) with a lifespan of a blade of grass. Would you waste your short life trying to fight the sovereign God? I dont think its a good idea.

 

[Cycel]

You state you believe in spirits.....

Yes???

No!!! YOU seem to be ignoring what I wrote. I have stated clearly that I have not believed in the existence of the paranormal since I was twenty-five. I am now 62, do the math.[/quote]

So if you are an atheist, that would mean you do not believe in life after death.

You're confused perhaps?

No, you are misunderstanding. Again, I do not believe in life after death. Let's get that out of the way first. Second, look again at the definition for atheism. The Oxford Dictionary of English reads: Atheism "the theory or belief that God does not exist." The word is derived from two Greek words 'a' meaning without, and 'theos' meaning god. Thus to be an atheist is to be without belief in a god, or God. The definition does not include without belief in gremlins, aliens, the Loch Ness Monster, or ghosts. Atheists believe all sorts of things, and disagree about all sorts of things, but the one things they all agree on is that there is no God. If you try to include anything else that atheists as a group shouldn't believe in then you are altering the meaning of what it is to be an atheist.

 

[tourist]

No!!! YOU seem to be ignoring what I wrote. I have stated clearly that I have not believed in the existence of the paranormal since I was twenty-five. I am now 62, do the math.

I don't think that there is much meaning to being an atheist. If you are right in your belief you will never know it but if you are wrong you definitely will. This logic seems backward. Mathematics has nothing to do with it.

 

[FireHeart]

I haven't bothered with or believed in the functionality of the Ouija board in some forty or more years. I considered it a very lame toy. A few Christmas's past my kids, and nieces and nephew, and my sister, played with the board my sister bought for her girls when they were little. The planchette began moving (but not on its own). There was a lot of squealing from the girls and laughing from the boys. Once home my oldest son told me he was making move. "Dad. It's no fun if you don't," he confided.

What personal experience have you had with the Ouija board?

the Ouija board is a very dangerous thing and in no way is a toy. There are many fake ones but if you get a real one at the right place at the right time can go beyond horrible. A few years back before i was a christian me and my friends did it there was me dave and kaylee. three ppl are prefered as a mockery of the trinity and it works best in a place where bad things happened and close to midnight. It was just a game to us kaylee used to study witchcraft but didnt believe in it but ignorance is not bliss.
We did the usual thing we asked if it was here it moved and said yes we all kept thinking we moved it. then we asked for proof to know its real thats when things went bad kaylee started laughing like crazy cut her arm and bleed on the board and something happened we all smelled what smelled like dead corpse and kaylee was speaking in some strange language then in english delclaired her love for satan and jumped out the four story window.
So ya i know a thing or two about this

 

[oldthennew]

thank you for the 'witness', FireHeart,

how many times we willingly open the wrong door
and our gracious Lord steps-in to rescue us!
and how many times He steps-out and
allows us to reap what we've sown.

 

[Cycel]

Let me expand your understanding.

By all means. I am a firm believer that we should never stop learning.

Whatever you do and you might become insane doing it...

??? I don't know what you are referencing. Are you using insanity as a metaphor? Please explain.

... you will never be able to comprehend the depth of God's wisdom.

That's what believers tell each other every time they encounter something in their belief system that seems contrary to good sense. That's how all believers get around the difficult parts.

You have a very limited mind compared to God.

If God is real then that is true, however, I have never seen any evidence to support belief that wasn't resting on very shaky ground, in my opinion.

You might as well submit to Him before its too late.

The problem is people can't make themselves believe in something that for them is not plausible. Could you make yourself believe in the monkey-headed Hindu god?

He is apha and omega and you are just a mere human being...

I understand that alpha and omega is a metaphor for an all-knowing god. Alpha being the first letter and omega being the last letter in the classical Greek alphabet. It’s a bit like saying something is the ‘a’ and the ‘z’. The suggestion is then that He is also everything between those two letters. This is not the only time Greek thinking became entwined with early Christianity.

 

[crossnote]

I grew up in that era as well but my dad believed in Adam and Eve and Noah's flood. I came to atheism kicking and screaming (in a metaphorical sense). We didn't have a lot of money so it was not a materialistic culture for me, and I didn't grow up knowing anyone doing drugs. My father didn't believe in ghosts or the paranormal. He told me it was more likely they were demons. I have no desire now to return to the world of religious belief that I grew up surrounded by.

Crossnote, your dad was an atheist, but was your mother? Were your relatives all atheists? Mine were all religious. I didn't know till I was 12 years old that anyone else in the world didn't believe in God. Did you have any religious role models in your life before you came to Christianity?

Cycel, my mom never spoke much at all and never on 'religion' . The only relatives I saw was my step dads parents once a year from Canada and my mom's mom every other year from Belgium...again, no religion spoken or adhered to. Two of my best friends growing up were Jewish, the Conservative one invited me to his Bar Mitzvah (the only time I set foot into a religious institution, church, synagogue or otherwise) and the other Jewish friend and his family were more secular. ..his dad taught me chess . The only 'religious conversation I recall with my conservative friend was when in the 4th grade he asked me if I believed in miracles. I just stammered, I had no concept of what a miracle was.
My conversion was not through people witnessing to me per se (I didn't have a clue what they meant by 'sin' for example) but more along the lines of a Damascus road type experience...a long story.

 

[Tinkerbell725]

By all means. I am a firm believer that we should never stop learning.


??? I don't know what you are referencing. Are you using insanity as a metaphor? Please explain.


That's what believers tell each other every time they encounter something in their belief system that seems contrary to good sense. That's how all believers get around the difficult parts.


If God is real then that is true, however, I have never seen any evidence to support belief that wasn't resting on very shaky ground, in my opinion.


The problem is people can't make themselves believe in something that for them is not plausible. Could you make yourself believe in the monkey-headed Hindu god?


I understand that alpha and omega is a metaphor for an all-knowing god. Alpha being the first letter and omega being the last letter in the classical Greek alphabet. It’s a bit like saying something is the ‘a’ and the ‘z’. The suggestion is then that He is also everything between those two letters. This is not the only time Greek thinking became entwined with early Christianity.

This is absurd. Lets see if you are still the same if you happen to be in a life and death situation. Lets see if you can't feel your spirit longing to be reunited with your creator. Maybe we can talk some more by then when you have come to your senses.

 

[Simona25]

Atheism has become more vocal. Christians have always been vocal while atheists once kept their silence for fear of the consequences. I talk openly on-line about these issues, but not so much in public. Many atheists are still afraid to voice their views in public or to their Christian families. There are many Christian families who are unaware that their husbands, wives, sons or daughters, colleagues or friends, or even pastors, no longer believe in God. Many atheists do still keep silent. Oh, and of all the atheists I know, and that is a dozen or so, I am the only one who visits Christian forum. So, despite appearances most atheists don’t bother chatting up Christians on-line.

Atheists who were raised within Christian families grew up believing in life after death. Just because they dispense with belief in God does not mean that all the religious baggage disappears. When I became an atheist I retained two things for a period of time. One was a belief in life after death, the other was fear that I might be wrong about God. I have talked with a few atheists on-line who've expressed having this fear and who’ve told me that if ever they return to belief in God it will be this latent fear that takes them there. Note that Peter Hitchens (brother of the more infamous Christopher Hitchens) returned to his original Catholic faith after a stint of atheism, rebellion and flirtation with Marxism, precisely because of this latent fear (see his book, The Rage Against God). Yes, I read books by former atheists who’ve come back to God.

Those good ol’ times were not so good for blacks, homosexuals, or atheists.

Indeed, when the catholic plague spread across all over the western Europe and persecuted ALL those who dared to think outside of the catholic ideology, the old times were not that good.

When I speak about the "good ol' times of atheism" (I said it more like a joke, btw, but if you want to go on a serious line, I' ll follow) I think more about those people who revolted against the catholic empire and not against God. Atheism is a philosophy that was born in west as a response to the catholic understanding of God.

Also, atheists 'back then' (not all of them, of course) were men who used their heads a lot and their lack of belief was 'alive', by alive I mean that the question of God never left them alone. Those atheists still exists today and are not the ones that make an ideology or religion out of their lack of belief, but some of them are true seekers. There is no difference between a christian with a dead faith and an atheist who starts threads on CC and says "I'm an atheist. Ask me anything." As if atheism was not the deprivation of something, but a religion of the absence of God. The atheism of these persons doesn't come from an interior struggle, but from a laziness of the soul (which can be sometimes translated with stupidity).

 

[FireHeart]

Hey guys lets stop arguing with an athiest, you cannot force someone to believe what you believe it has to be in their own time. besides some things were said that were not Christian like at all and since it came from Christians thats just more evidence for a nonbeliever to think Christianity is bogus. i mean seriously calling him insane? thats beyond to far, we are called to love ppl

 

[Cycel]

My conversion was not through people witnessing to me per se (I didn't have a clue what they meant by 'sin' for example) but more along the lines of a Damascus road type experience...a long story.

My final conversion to atheism was along those lines as well and had quite the impact on me. I thought of it as my born-again moment. It was definitely what I would call an epiphany.

 

[Cycel]

Hey guys lets stop arguing with an athiest, you cannot force someone to believe what you believe it has to be in their own time. besides some things were said that were not Christian like at all and since it came from Christians thats just more evidence for a nonbeliever to think Christianity is bogus. i mean seriously calling him insane? thats beyond to far, we are called to love ppl

There was a time it might have bothered me, but no longer. My skin has thickened considerably. That comment was mild compared to some directed at me. I have chatted up so many mild mannered Christians that I am not going to let myself be swayed by the few who lose their cool. I know how emotional this can make some people.

 

[Cycel]

This is absurd.

Perhaps you wouldn't mind going back and explaining what you mean with specifics?

Lets see if you are still the same if you happen to be in a life and death situation. Lets see if you can't feel your spirit longing to be reunited with your creator.

When I was 25 I suffered from a ruptured appendix. It is quite painful, as you can imagine. Unfortunately my symptoms following that were a-typical and so I spent 24 hours in hospital without a diagnosis. In the late afternoon the surgeon came around and explained they wanted to do exploratory surgery. Unless they found the problem at that time I would be dead by morning, I was told. Naturally I signed the release form. During the operation they found the ruptured appendix. As peritonitis had set in I remained in hospital another week before the infection allowed them to close the incision. I was at home two weeks before it suddenly occurred to me that I hadn't thought about God once the entire time.

So there you have it. I was in a life and death situation but thoughts of God never once crossed my mind. I know that many believers imagine the unbelieving will turn to God in times of trouble, but in truth no one turns to a deity they do not believe in.

Maybe we can talk some more by then when you have come to your senses.

You mean we can talk more once I agree with you?

 

[FireHeart]

Perhaps you wouldn't mind going back and explaining what you mean with specifics?


When I was 25 I suffered from a ruptured appendix. It is quite painful, as you can imagine. Unfortunately my symptoms following that were a-typical and so I spent 24 hours in hospital without a diagnosis. In the late afternoon the surgeon came around and explained they wanted to do exploratory surgery. Unless they found the problem at that time I would be dead by morning, I was told. Naturally I signed the release form. During the operation they found the ruptured appendix. As peritonitis had set in I remained in hospital another week before the infection allowed them to close the incision. I was at home two weeks before it suddenly occurred to me that I hadn't thought about God once the entire time.

So there you have it. I was in a life and death situation but thoughts of God never once crossed my mind. I know that many believers imagine the unbelieving will turn to God in times of trouble, but in truth no one turns to a deity they do not believe in.

You mean we can talk more once I agree with you?

this last part saying you mean we can talk more more once u agree with her... that made me laugh. U my friend are funny

 

[crossnote]

My final conversion to atheism was along those lines as well and had quite the impact on me. I thought of it as my born-again moment. It was definitely what I would call an epiphany.

Hey, that's nice. Mine pointed me to Christ and Scripture. What did yours point you to?

 

[Jackson123]

Paranormal offer help to helpless, but God offer love and salvation. Devil behind paranormal. And Devil hate us. God love us.

Paranormal help but it cost our soul.

Let say one help a thousand dollar and rob ten thousand, we lose nine thousand.

 

[pickles]

The one that saddens me the most lately, is a neaghbor who says they beloieve in God, and in Jesus.
yet this same person also believes that all the different gods of the world are the same, and embraces their many docturines.
The question I have and hoep to ask if that oppertunity arises?
If you claim to believe in the same God as all christians?
Why do you reject His very word, scriptures, yet embrace the teachings of other gods and their docturines?
Saddly, this belief is becomeing very acceptible, my heart aches for those who refuse the truth.
More so as to why they reject the truth?
I also ask, why, for so much spoken to enlightenment and knowladge in refusing the truth in Jesus, why such refuse to at the very least, to know and learn about what they are refusing?

For God so loved the world, that while we were still sinners, He gave His only begotten son, as a sacrifice for our sins that we would have eternal life..
No other god or religion, has set before man, so great and act of love and gift.

God bless
pickles

 

[Patnubay]

Perhaps you wouldn't mind going back and explaining what you mean with specifics?


When I was 25 I suffered from a ruptured appendix. It is quite painful, as you can imagine. Unfortunately my symptoms following that were a-typical and so I spent 24 hours in hospital without a diagnosis. In the late afternoon the surgeon came around and explained they wanted to do exploratory surgery. Unless they found the problem at that time I would be dead by morning, I was told. Naturally I signed the release form. During the operation they found the ruptured appendix. As peritonitis had set in I remained in hospital another week before the infection allowed them to close the incision. I was at home two weeks before it suddenly occurred to me that I hadn't thought about God once the entire time.

So there you have it. I was in a life and death situation but thoughts of God never once crossed my mind. I know that many believers imagine the unbelieving will turn to God in times of trouble, but in truth no one turns to a deity they do not believe in.

You mean we can talk more once I agree with you?

Cycel,

Continue what you're doing. Keep inquiring, keep searching, keep asking. Soon, you will find the Way, the Truth, and the Life. God speed..

 

[Cycel]

My final conversion to atheism was along those lines as well and had quite the impact on me. I thought of it as my born-again moment. It was definitely what I would call an epiphany.

Hey, that's nice. Mine pointed me to Christ and Scripture. What did yours point you to?

At the moment of the epiphany, at age 16, I became what can best be described as a born-again atheist. I was already an atheist, but I had on a number of occasions in the past slipped back into belief. The epiphany assured there would be no more back-sliding. Essentially, I had become aware of a change in the way I perceived God. It doesn’t mean the change occurred at that moment, but I became aware of it at that moment and the new found awareness was the revelation I experienced.

I’ve always found it difficult to describe this event, I just don’t have the words for what happened, but from my perspective it felt physical. I suppose it was the sudden awareness washing over me that something very important had changed. Perhaps one way to explain it is to say I’d always had one compartment in my mind for all the other gods of history that I knew did not exist, and a separate compartment for God. I had been raised to believe in the existence of the Christian God, so even as an atheist his existence felt more plausible than the host of other gods I learned of later from my studies of history and comparative religion.

I was with my parents watching a television program entitled Seven League Boots when the host of the show spoke of the importance of God in the context of European architecture. I startled with the sudden realization that in visualizing God I’d unconsciously placed him in that same compartment I had previously reserved for the nonexistent gods of antiquity. That is the moment when I recognized that Yahweh had lost his special status and had become like all the other deities of history. I have not slipped back into belief since that event transpired nearly 50 years ago.

Some will be familiar with this account as I've told it more than once before. I can only hope that I get better at explaining myself with the retelling.

 

[dcontroversal]

Good ghost....no.... God would not let GOOD spirits roam the earth.....

they are with Him in heaven, so what you hear of here on earth is not from God./QUOTE Ella85




Two birds with one stone and with what you believe: Heb 13:2 and the phrases: Angel of the Lord, and, Spirit of the Lord.

What two birds would that be as your Hebrews quote has nothing at all to do with what Ella wrote and or what I replied unto Ella's statement......???????