So me, of all people, had a religious experience

by sabastious 363 Replies latest jw friends

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  journey-on

  Sabastious, those that argue from the perspective that it is silly for "God" to commune through some personal experience because he didn't do anything about some natural disaster, imo, is what is silly. They still have that God-is-sky-daddy mentality and they can't get beyond it or more accurately...won't go beyond it.

  You were/are an individual seeker and sought an individual answer to an individual question. You were brought to a state of spiritual awareness by means of a highly personal thing, profoundly simple yet bizarre. Trust your intuition and KNOW what was given you. Explore your soul. I imagine a new window has been opened for you, so enjoy your quest.
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  FlyingHighNow

  I think of something like this as a mystical thing. One of my favorite quotes is from Ozzy Osborne: "You got to believe in foolish miracles." And I do.
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  Robdar

  Why cant the skeptics just leave Sab alone and let him enjoy himself instead of pissing all over his Post Toasties?
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  mindmelda

  I can't figure out why this story sparked a debate of the atheist vs theist sort.

  People have inexplicable things happen to them all the time and until they can figure out why it happened, (and sometimes that's not possible or they never do) it certainly feels like a supernatural occurance to them.

  No one said it wasn't purely subjective, but why does that make it invalid to the person experiencing it? We're not talking science here, we're talking about what someone felt. That might not be important to anyone but them, but so be it.
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  Violia

  Ditto to what journey on said and agree with Robdar.
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  just n from bethel

  I know - silly to think an all-powerful guy would just work sentimental mind games that you have to decide are coincidence or not. No real help for all those kids just born in that island he made just so he could cover it in a big 10 day long tidal wave. Silly humans.
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  just n from bethel

  Oh I'm sorry, I thought Sab and others liked to be challenged. Mindmeld and Steve Perry are right. Here you go Sab - I'm singing KumByYah right now for you bro. Really we should all be saying - wow, that's incredible, you should call "coast to coast AM" and we'll all call in to say how awesome that story is.
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  journey-on

  What's REALLY bothering you, jifb?
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  mindmelda

  Why should God (if there is one) be providing hungry people with food and water when that's well within the capabilities of people if the would just cooperate and do it?

  Demanding that gods do what humans can do themselves is childish, and doesn't really prove OR disprove God. It merely proves that humans are sometimes selfish and uncooperative, although there are notable exceptions once in a while.

  A cynic is not a skeptic. A skeptic examines all sides of something fairly in an investigative fashion, and a cynic, to quote Oscar Wilde is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

  I am pretty skeptical myself, but have had all sorts of inexplicable things happen to me. I try to find explanations for them, of course, but I don't dismiss the supernatural out of hand just because it's much less probable.

  I simply can't find enough evidence to do so. I don't know enough about the universe to know if it's impossible or not.
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  bohm

  sab, my take on it:

  I have never played poker and i really cant comment on how likely or unlikely this was at all.

  From a sceptic POW, you should count yourself very lucky. whenever you hear about these experiences, you allways have to consider that the experience is made up or exagerated, not so here. you are even more fortunate since the experience is quite concrete, not just some vague "i saw jesus in a toast" type of thing.

  In other words, if i was in your shoes i would think it was lazy if i just said: "It must have been chance". you can try to experiment and figure out if it was, indeed, chance -- make a list of the hands that came up, and try to approximate how many of those hands came up out of how many played.

  Then (if the rules of poker allow it easily) you can try to calculate the odds, or you can just try to see in your coming games if something slightly similar happends. if you play online it should be quite easy to do so by simply counting "special" hands.