A question for Atheists

by Sam87 18 Replies latest jw friends

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  daystar

  Just a quick question to the Atheists on this board, i was just wondering if any of you have had any supernatural experiences? for example the same thing that we wouldve called demons as JWs? If so has this changed your views on Atheism? I know the question sort of cancels itself out, but i was just wondering what everyones view on this is.

  Ok, well, I'm sort of atheist I suppose. I have had what some people would call "supernatural" experiences, though I think nowdays that I don't really understand what that word could mean.

  Have I encountered demons? I have had an experience in which I was certain I was in communion with a number of "demons". They laughed and gibbered insanely, mocking me.

  Has it changed my views on Atheism? No, I don't see why it should.
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  jstalin

  I'm an atheist and have never had a supernatural experience. I am very skeptical when anyone tells me they've had a supernatural experience. In fact, I've offered to stay at "haunted" houses before. People always seem to be scared of ghosts. Hell, If I saw one, I would walk up to it and poke at it. The idea just doesn't scare me. I sort of wish I would see a ghost, but alas, I've seen none.
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  dedpoet

  any of you have had any supernatural experiences?

  No, I haven't.

  I did have a very unnatural experience between 1990 and 1999 though, which set me on the road to atheism. It was called being a jehovahs witness, an experience bad enough, IMO, to make anyone disbelieve in god.

  dedpoet
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  LtCmd.Lore

  I have never had any supernatural experiences.

  But if I did I would still be an atheist. I happen to think that the brain could have some abilities that are not completely evolved yet, and so some people could do some things with their minds that are not normal. That's a possibility, but as far as people who have been harrassed by demons, I think there may be something wrong with them mentaly. If something like that happened to me I would get my head examined, even then I would be more likely to attribute it to aliens than demons.

  While I was in the process of realising that the JWs are wrong, I prayed to god for evidence of his existence. (Similar to that thing with the dew on the fleece that Gideon did.) Then nothing happened.

  So I taunted Satan. (There was an artical somewhere about a guy that taunted the demons the day he was baptised and got harrassed by demons.) Once again nothing happened.

  So I got on the computer and started looking up different sites and trying out a bunch of supernatural stuff and once again nothing happened.

  I decided that even if they did exist, god and the demons would certainly have SOMETHING better to do that pick on human, or do their bidding. And if they don't do anything I don't care if they exist or not, and that's when I started looking up acctual facts.

  LtCmd.Lore
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  AlmostAtheist

  And if they don't do anything I don't care if they exist or not

  That's the biggest factor in not fearing the supernatural. Maybe something cool exists out there that we haven't learned to tap into yet. Maybe if we weren't taught to fear it, we'd've spent more time learning about it by now. But at any rate, there aren't any credible reports of people being harmed by the supernatural, so why worry about it?

  Dave
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  justsomedude

  I've got a really good one that I wish I could relate here, but unfortunately I've told the story sooo many times over the last several years that it might bring me out of the apostate closet if I relate it.

  Let's just say that I witnessed something for which there is no reasonable explanation and I was not alone when I saw it. The other witnesses have the same memory of the event that I do and are equally as puzzled.

  I'm more inclined however to assume that there must be an explanation, however odd it may be, rather than a supernatural force at work.

  JSD

  edit: Even though I never really saw it that way, most JWs that I tell the story to attribute my expierience to demons.
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  Tuesday

  I had an expirience where I saw what I thought were ghosts, it's a long story which I'm sure I've told on the board before....

  It did change my view, I would've considered myself an aetheist before but now I guess I would be agnostic, I know there's an afterlife at this point, and there's probably a God, but if there is a God I know he doesn't listen to me. Like Bartleby said in Dogma "I was still talking, but I got the distict distinction he wasn't listening".
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  Sam87

  thank you all for your answers, as for the question you asked me Ian, why i think this question sort of cancels itself out is? well i guess it doesnt really when i think about it, i meant more because beleiving in supernatural beings is similar to beleiving in a deity or supreme being, im probably wrong on this though

  Sam87
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  funkyderek

  I once had a rather obscure prophetic dream that the Rev. Lionel Fanthorpe would die, but that was years ago, and he's still alive.

  So, no.