Why does God allow people to develop 'forbidden' special powers?

by SM62 197 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Xena

  I do believe (oh no, I believe something!) that paranormal claimants ARE asking for something under any circumstance. Belief. Validation of their experience. Nothing wrong with that. The fact that if belief and/or validation is not given many people get their belief structures in a twist is proof that they ARE asking for something and reacting to not getting it, even if what they want is intangible

  Prove it Show me in this thread where someone is asking for validation of their experience. All I see is people relating experiences and saying this is what happened to me...believe it or not.

  Equally there's nothing wrong with the opposite attitude, of asking questions in response to these experiences, of conjecturing, of challanging ideas validity. To say that that is wrong is to say that one can only agree or say nothing, and we all know what a bad habit was that as it's what we used to do as Dubs.

  And no there is nothing wrong with asking questions or discussion. What I object to is the "your an incredulous idiot if you believe this stuff" method of critiquing. Read a few of drwtson's posts to see where a question can be asked while still showing respect for another person and their beliefs. I don't expect everyone to agree, how boring that would be. But a bit of respect goes a long way in keeping the discussion agreeable to both parties, don't you agree?

  Faith in of itself harms no one? I am sure that the people sacrificed to various gods, either directly on an altar (i.e. the Aztec), or indirectly through faith-motivated wars would disagree with you... if they hadn't been killed by faith.

  Extreme example? What about the UFO nuts who killed themselves? What about the countless lives being pissed against the wall in obviously futile lives predicated upon some belief? See point 9 in my original post - if someone believed, for example, in the mythos of the Lord of the Rings to an extent it interfered with their lives, I think it could be fairly said to have a damaging effect. If someone can only get the confidence they need through a reading of cards or a reading of a horoscope, if someone is scared having sex will result in death because god cares what you want to do with your genitalia, all these are damaging effects on someone's life due to faith in the paranormal.

  But, most believers in the paranormal will believe that their particular set are harmless, even if they represent part of a spectrum of affectation that undeniably causes harm.

  Did you miss my first sentence where you quoted me there???? "If the JW's policies didn't hurt anyone" I agree when there is tangible hurt due to a belief (shunning, denying children blood and allowing sexual abuse) then that belief should be exposed for what is is...BUT Do you see anyone being hurt by this thread? Anyone trying to sell snake oil to cure cancer? Anyone asking child sacrifice?? I don't.....it was an innocent thread about personal experiences with the paranormal. And quite interesting to boot....
• 

  greatteacher

  Xena:
  
  For now on I'll be polite when I discuss supernatural/paranormal shit with believers! Even though they are full of shit.
  
  gt
• 

  Xena

  baby steps, eh greatteacher?
• 

  dolphman

  Abaddon wrote:

  a/ Sufis. Ain't got nothing to do with Sanskrit, sorry.

  b/ various other religious writers, the closest of which to Sanskrit is Guru Nanak (one of the founders of the Seikh faith), but the language used for Seikh scripture is Punjabi, and

  c/ Hawaiian hakas, which have precisely naff all to do with Sanskrit.

  Your absolutely right. None of that was Sanskrit. I was trying to say that in addition to Sanskrit some other words have come out, and there meanings (I believe) can be found in Sufiism and Hawaiian hakas. I believe that the common ancestor or meaning behind all religious thought has manifest itself in many different cultures and belief structures. Sanskrit is a big one, but I'm assuming it shares some commonality with others. The Polynesians didn't have access to sanskrit, but nonetheless may have had contact with supernatural sources and found a way to articulate it differently.

  The origin of "HU" if you continue to study it will eventually take you back to it's Aramaic roots.

  There's a risk to that; "hafag leksek hewejoh wahes fahojehijes" is a random string of characters I made by hitting the keyboard, then adding vowels enough to make them proper words. Hafag, leksek and wahes all return search results. Does this mean my kundalini is breaking out

  Did they return as Sanskrit words, or words from another language that mean GOD or have some relation to spirituality? Or was it the name of a Norweigen word or person? See what I'm getting at? It be one thing if i typed in a word i was chanting and it came back meaning "Laundry" in Czech. But when it comes back meaning "the name of god" or "a meditative chant used my hindus", then something is strange is afoot. How would i know that? I've never heard these words before.

  I never bothered to do any internet research until AFTER these things began to manifest. Your right though, sometimes words like "HAM" will come back in google as a piece of meat you put on a sandwich. But when I put two and two together, that being doing spontaneous yoga, doing weird sign language with my hands AND saying something such as "HAM" "THAM" or "OM", it leads me to speculate something is at work outside the normal parameters of human life.

  In any case, I would love to donate my body to science. If anyone knows anyone interested in this stuff, i would gladly volunteer. Maybe I do have a tumor. IF i do, it's having a very interesting effect on me.

  --dolphman
• 

  rem

  Dolphman,
  
  ::Your absolutely right. None of that was Sanskrit. I was trying to say that in addition to Sanskrit some other words have come out, and there meanings (I believe) can be found in Sufiism and Hawaiian hakas. I believe that the common ancestor or meaning behind all religious thought has manifest itself in many different cultures and belief structures. Sanskrit is a big one, but I'm assuming it shares some commonality with others. Polynesians didn't have access to sanskrit, but nonetheless may have had contact with supernatural sources and found a way to articulate it differently.
  
  You have to realize at this point your theory has become completely non-falsifiable, and circular on top of it: You are now invoking the supernatural to explain away problems in your non-falsifiable theory. The problem is that your non-falsifiable theory is an attempt to explain a phenomenon in supernatural terms. That's two levels of supernatural speculation. Ockham must be spinning in his grave! :)
  
  rem
• 

  dolphman

  rem, I don't get what your saying. All I can say is this, and then I'm letting skeptics remain skeptics and people who are open to this sort of thing believe whatever they want.

  A few years ago I began meditation. Sometime recently i began performing yoga like movements spontaneously, along with chanting words that turn up in google's search engine as well as metaphysical books as Sanskrit bija mantras, sufi words for the name of god and sometimes polynesian martial arts chants.

  I believe that regardless of whether or not something is Sanskrit, or Sufi, Aramaic, or of Polynesian decent, it could be all traced to one common source. Think about this, the word "EL" is Hebrew, another name for God. "EL" is known to be a root of the word "ALLAH". Two different words, but a same common ancestor.

  A lot of these things i'm saying also turn up during internet searches as people's names or pieces of cheese or whatever, but the one common thing threading them all together is their references to GOD or high spiritual experiences. And the fact that they happen during meditation, in addition to spontaneous yoga, leaves me to believe they are all related together. If you were performing a meditation, and began to do weird yoga with no previous experience, and also chanted words like "OHM HAM THAM KRIM KLIM" and later did some research on the matter and discovered that these words were Sanskrit for sounds used during meditations, don't you think that would be an interesting coincidence?

  Do you get what I'm saying? I could just be babbling incoherently for all i know, but the commonality amongst everything happening (meditation, yoga, mudras, chanting) seems to lead to me to believe I've accessed something outside our normal human conciousness.

  If you know anyone who's into this kind of research, I'd be happy to lend myself and my experiences to them. I'm not just mouthing off here, neither am I trying to coherse people into believing me just posting to a forum. But I bet you I could offer up some interesting data in the name of science regarding these experiences. Something tells me I'm not suffereing from a brain tumour.

  --Rich
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  Nathan Natas

  In any case, I would love to donate my body to science. If anyone knows anyone interested in this stuff, i would gladly volunteer. Maybe I do have a tumor. IF i do, it's having a very interesting effect on me.

  NOT SO FAST, RICH!

  You seem to be a young intelligent articulate guy.

  I suggest that you should wait until your death - hopefully many many years from now before giving your body to science - they don't give it back, you know!

  It is quite likely that in the fullness of time, as you wander down your life's path, you will gain some insight into what is happening, maybe with the non-invasive assistance of men of science, maybe not.
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  dolphman

  Oh crap, i didn't mean that! Thanks Nathan...

  I just meant that I'm up to the challenge of figuring out EXACTLY what is happening, and by that i mean using scientific methods as one means an the end.

  If the experiences are just physiological, then cool, I have some interesting physiological things happening. If it's something else, why not document it from a scientific point of view?
  
  I respect skeptics. Believe me when this first started happening i freaked more because of the fact i was afraid of having to listen to these new age freaks tell me what they thought was happening. That's why I went and saw some real, clynical psychologist to get an accurate first assesment. I'm not crazy, i'm not on any medication. I hold a day job at Microsoft. So i'm surrounded by rational minds all day long who would scoff at what I'm saying. Which is why i don't tell many people about this.

  To be honest, i'm sick of talking about myself. I don't want to sound like a new age idiot. If anyone knows anybody who's into this type of research, let me know.

  --dolphman.
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  wednesday

  Dolphman,

  I believe u, i have to. If my hubby and i can see a black cloud of smoke go through our bedroom wall, I also accept there are many other things that happen that don't have a pat explanation. I also have had other things that happened, ie i dreamed something happened to my son. I called him a week later and the situation i dreamed about did happen, only my son was not killed, as in the dream. I have seen a spirit, more than once. On occassion they have spoke to me. I was so fearful of them i did not speak back.(thinking it was the demons.). This does not happen on a regualr basis to me, but over the past 35 years i have had an encounter or two. I know a lot of people think some of us are nuts, but there are too many people who have encounters to claim everyone is nuts.
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  rem

  :: I know a lot of people think some of us are nuts, but there are too many people who have encounters to claim everyone is nuts.
  
  This is the classic false delema. You don't have to be nuts to experience weird things that either have no current explanation or are not explainable due to limited information.
  
  rem