So me, of all people, had a religious experience

by sabastious 363 Replies latest jw friends

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  DanaBug

  Sab,

  I really hate to tell you this, but only demons communicate through cards and board games. j/k!

  Can I say this is a perfect example of why I loove this forum? I find a lot of people aren't willing to share their religious experiences with just anyone. But here comes Sab, who just had one but wants to explore the possibilites before coming to any conclusions and invites everyone's input. I love it!

  But is it really new data? I mean, how do you test that to prove or disprove an intelligient life or supernatural occurence? And if you can, what does that mean? Does it change your life?
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  sabastious

  At that point the part of the brain that processes emotion takes over and the part that processes rational thought is pushed aside.

  Your describing a talent more than a process. Just because one gets emotional, as I am right now, doesn't mean he doesn't have access to the logical parts of the brain. Typically it's more difficult to separate emotion from reason when emotions are suddenly triggered (such as brotherdan in this thread). When one can self induce synergy between reason and emotion.... it will produce powerful results.

  -Sab
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  sabastious

  DanaBug, the answer to your question will eventually end up on this thread, but it's going to take me some time. I'm going to post all my thoughts about this because I think something happened to me that is rare and possibly a miracle.

  -Sab
• 

  cofty

  Sab, during my evangelical decade I was constantly around people who saw special significance in everyday events.

  As a JW we had a delusional certainty that we were OK with god due to our membership of the special group. Evangelicals focus on their individual salvation and personal relationship with god. The down side of this is a never ending angst about reassurance. Now every christian on here will protest that they disagree and they "know" they are saved yadda yadda. That's why they meet up 2 or 3 times a week to listen to the old story about the blood over and over again.

  As a result everybody is endlessly engaged in a very gentle and ever so polite pissing contest about what god told them this week or what sign they received or how thier prayer was answered or how they were healed of their verruca.

  I had many interesting things happen all which of which seemed like significant evidence of god's presence but in retrospect were just the everyday coincidences of life. Some fascinating, mostly mundane.

  Sab does the world look like a place where there is an omnipotent god who has enough time on his hands to fix your poker hands? Wasn't there a kid with cancer that needed his attention? Did nobody die from a simple accident at roughly the same time he was doing card tricks?

  Does the world not look exactly as we would expect to to look if there is no cosmic dealer in the sky?
• 

  sabastious

  I really hate to tell you this, but only demons communicate through cards and board games. j/k!

  Way ahead of you. This was the one of the first things that came to mind as I witnessed the event. Here's my official take on that:

  I have had some weird experiences in my life in the past especially when I was young. For some reason my memory of my childhood is fading every day it seems. So I feel grateful that something like this has happened to me because I am not fearful. Maybe I should be, but I am not and it gives me a clear head to analyze the experience while it's still fresh.

  Calling it foul play by "demons" is one explanation, but I'm not willing to accept it unless it makes sense. A this point I cannot link it to foul play at all. If the cards were changed by some sort of intelligent force I don't see how this event could be harmful to me or anyone else. It's not like I have a video of a message in the stars; I had a personal experience of which I expect serious skepticism from everyone around me and myself.

  I will admit I feel a little special. "Why me?" comes to mind. That's would be one of my first questions. You ever seen that movie Contact with Jodie Foster? It's one of my favorite movies. She picked up radio sequence of prime numbers and that's how she proved to everyone that it was from an intelligent source. I feel kind of the same way; before my brother and I restarted the game I was begging for him and I to write down what ALL the cards were, but he got a phone call from his band mate and by the time he got him off the phone my mind was elsewhere and we ended up forgetting to write it all down. I feel like that was a mistake.

  -Sab
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  sabastious

  Sab, during my wilderness evangelical decade I was constantly around people who saw special significance in everyday events.

  I don't want to see special significance in everyday events. I think that they should be reserved for special junctions in your life.

  -Sab
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  Nickolas

  I think something happened to me that is rare and possibly a miracle.

  A miracle cannot be explained, but this experience can be, sab. However improbable it might seem, it is clearly within the realm of the mathematically and statistically possible. And for that reason it must be dismissed from the possibility. When you see someone you love raised from the dead, now *that* would be a miracle nobody's going to snicker at.
• 

  sabastious

  Sab does the world look like a place where there is an omnipotent god who has enough time on his hands to fix your poker hands? Wasn't there a kid with cancer that needed his attention? Did nobody die from a simple accident at roughly the same time he was doing card tricks?

  I'm not sure why you think I am married to the idea of it being "God." There is absolutely nothing that has happened to make me think it was my creator. But it was something, I'm almost sure of it.

  My title containing "religious experience" is merely a figure of speech for "epiphany" or "revelation".

  -Sab
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  sabastious

  A miracle cannot be explained, but this experience can be, seb. However improbable it might seem, it is clearly within the realm of the mathematically and statistically possible. And for that reason it must be dismissed from the possibility. When you see someone you love raised from the dead, now *that* would be a miracle nobody's going to snicker at.

  It is an acceptable explanation for sure; but it doesn't explain it for me. If you came on this forum and wrote out a similar experience I might be giving you the same advice.

  -Sab
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  Nickolas

  It is an acceptable explanation for sure; but it doesn't explain it for me. If you came on this forum and wrote out a similar experience I might be giving you the same advice.

  If I had a similar experience I would have posted about it as a remarkable coincidence and your advice might be that it could be construed as a religious experience.