the right religion

[1robin]

Depending on who leaves you that might be a very good thing

Well said. I think.

 

[Nakosis]

I am aware that other religions have other supernatural claims but if I am allowed to use religion I will show you the difference and relevance between them.

Thanks for sharing. Sometimes I think it is not easy for people to expose their spiritual experiences to the judgement of strangers.

You can use religion. I just wanted to compare experiences.

I was aware of Christianity through my Grandmother. My parents were non-religious. I was also in the depths of despair. Saw no future for myself at age 17. I said out load "God, I've totally screwed up my life. I don't know what to believe. You can have my life. Do with me whatever you want.

I immediately felt my burden lifted, I wasn't even aware of carrying it until it was gone. My guilt was gone. I was surrounded by a golden glow and felt at peace. I also felt a presence in the room with me that accepted me as I was.

I look into a few Christian churches after that but they didn't relate to fit with what I had experienced. I starting looking elsewhere.

I wasn't a Christian at the time of the experience. I didn't become a Christian after. The churches I look into weren't able to explain what had happened to me.

So I don't see this experience as necessarily being unique to Christianity.

 

[A Troubled Man]

The Holy Spirit has to be there available for you. It seems to happen when it happens.

Or, more precisely, it doesn't happen at all and those who pretend it does are just hallucinating or are under the illusion something that is easily explainable in terrestrial terms is happening to them and they have misinterpreted it as something they really, really, really want to happen to them.

If the Holy Spirit is available to you, then it is available to me and everyone else on the planet. No one is special.

 

[A Troubled Man]

I was aware of Christianity through my Grandmother. My parents were non-religious. I was also in the depths of despair. Saw no future for myself at age 17. I said out load "God, I've totally screwed up my life. I don't know what to believe. You can have my life. Do with me whatever you want.

I immediately felt my burden lifted, I wasn't even aware of carrying it until it was gone. My guilt was gone. I was surrounded by a golden glow and felt at peace. I also felt a presence in the room with me that accepted me as I was.

That is by far and away absolutely no reason to believe it was a Holy Spirit other than the fact that's what you really, really, really, wanted to believe.

 

[Nakosis]

That is by far and away absolutely no reason to believe it was a Holy Spirit other than the fact that's what you really, really, really, wanted to believe.

Right, however it was something.
I suspect people identify it with what they've been taught/heard about.

I don't think it is unique to a particular religion however I can't deny familiarity with Christianity regardless of how limited.

For example Native Americans had experiences with guardian spirits. They developed certain beliefs surrounding that experience.

Who's to say my experience is any more or less legitimate because of how I interpret it according to a particular religion?

Also, I didn't really, really want to believe. It was just an explanation that I happen to be aware of absent any other explanation at the time.

Something happens to you, you use what information is available to you at the time to explain it.

 

[zeuscannon]

I have wondered this myself how can someone believe so passionately in one thing and someone else another thing. My conclusion is there all wrong...

 

[A Troubled Man]

Right, however it was something.
I suspect people identify it with what they've been taught/heard about.

Who's to say my experience is any more or less legitimate because of how I interpret it according to a particular religion?

Simple, had you never heard of the Holy Spirit from some source, you would have never made any connection of the sort to it. Had you heard of Allah or Zeus instead, you would have called it that.

Something happens to you, you use what information is available to you at the time to explain it.

What information did you have to corroborate the Holy Spirit to your experience?

 

[Nakosis]

Or, more precisely, it doesn't happen at all and those who pretend it does are just hallucinating or are under the illusion something that is easily explainable in terrestrial terms is happening to them and they have misinterpreted it as something they really, really, really want to happen to them.

Ok, they hallucinate or experience some illusion. A person has to deal with the reality of what they experience. I could be hallucinating my wife, my job, my kids. I still have to deal what reality as it presents itself to me.

If the Holy Spirit is available to you, then it is available to me and everyone else on the planet. No one is special.

There's nothing special about it. Nothing special about me. However I don't see any reason to think everyone has to have the same experiences in life.

For example going to the moon in not an experience that is available to me. Do you think there was something inherently special about those who have? I think their lives was series of circumstances which lead to them experiencing what they did.

 

[Nakosis]

Simple, had you never heard of the Holy Spirit from some source, you would have never made any connection of the sort to it. Had you heard of Allah or Zeus instead, you would have called it that.

Ok, I didn't claim otherwise. In fact this is what I am arguing.

What information did you have to corroborate the Holy Spirit to your experience?

At the time nothing. However I find it is similar to what some Christian have experienced. So in dealing with Christians it is easy to relate it in terms they are familiar with.

 

[A Troubled Man]

I could be hallucinating my wife, my job, my kids.

But, are you really or just not sure?

However I don't see any reason to think everyone has to have the same experiences in life.

If any given God does in fact exist, we should all experience Him in whatever form, whether it be a Holy Spirit or a giant lizard.

For example going to the moon in not an experience that is available to me.

Strawman.

 

[A Troubled Man]

However I find it is similar to what some Christian have experienced.

Most likely, what you experienced is similar to what many people might experience, but instead you have misinterpreted it to be something completely different than what it actually was.

 

[Nakosis]

I have wondered this myself how can someone believe so passionately in one thing and someone else another thing. My conclusion is there all wrong...

I think you are right but people grasp an explanation that seems to answer the question of what happen to them. So someone/some group who seems to know what you've experienced and provide an explanation to what happen to you listen hoping they know some secret mystery they'll let you in on.

Unfortunately you end up being ask to accept a lot of other things to be accepted into the group. I've yet to find a group that owns a truth which can be packaged and provided to you.

I don't think one should accept something that is not true in accordance with their own experience for a promise of revealing the ultimate truth at some future point. After one has shown enough dedication/faith. I don't think any one person has it to offer.

 

[Nakosis]

Most likely, what you experienced is similar to what many people might experience, but instead you have misinterpreted it to be something completely different than what it actually was.

I know what it was. I was there.
Why are you so insistent in trying to interpret it into being something you are comfortable with?

You can tell me about some experience you've had. It's fine with me. You can tell me about breakfast this morning. I'm not going to try and re-interpret your experience to something I'm comfortable with. You don't need any agreement from me to accept the reality of something you've experienced for yourself.

 

[Nakosis]

But, are you really or just not sure?

It doesn't matter. Reality is there regardless of my certainty and I have to deal with it.

If any given God does in fact exist, we should all experience Him in whatever form, whether it be a Holy Spirit or a giant lizard.

Why? because you say this is the way it has to be?

Strawman.

Ok, I just don't understand this idea you seem to have that everyone must have the same experiences in life.

 

[A Troubled Man]

Reality is there regardless of my certainty and I have to deal with it.

True, but your family is right in front of you whereas the Holy Spirit is not.

Why? because you say this is the way it has to be?

No, it simply must be that way if we were all created by God and His expectation is for us to love and worship Him.

Ok, I just don't understand this idea you seem to have that everyone must have the same experiences in life.

Maybe not the same experiences in life, but in terms of a one and only God, most certainly we all would have to share those experiences and know for a fact it was God or a Holy Spirit or a giant lizard.

 

[Heathen Hammer]

Or, more precisely, it doesn't happen at all and those who pretend it does are just hallucinating or are under the illusion something that is easily explainable in terrestrial terms is happening to them and they have misinterpreted it as something they really, really, really want to happen to them.

If the Holy Spirit is available to you, then it is available to me and everyone else on the planet. No one is special.

Well said.

 

[Heathen Hammer]

I don't know about him but for me. The pervassiveness of virtually all cultures claiming a religion is an argument for the requirement of religion to be a inherent universal basic need therefore a likely reality. Most religions can be dismissed on the grounds of logical incoherence, inconsistent claims, existential incompatability, philisophical invalidation, etc..... The ones left mainly the Abrahamic religions make so many mutually exclusive claims that they can't all be right, even though they could all be wrong. The wealth of witnesses and the textual integrity of the bible when compared with any other work of ancient history, the logical coherence, the philisophical consistency, prophecy, the unparralleled historical life of Christ, and the explanitory power of Christianity makes it the most likely candidate for the truth but will never rise to the level of proof. It requires a reasoned faith which removes the possability of proof existing.

And yet you deny the inconsistencies of your own religious texts, and philosophical invalidations.. everything you claim you 'saw' in other faiths and their texts. When, in reality, it is highly likely you have absolutely no knowledge, whatsoever, of any other faith but your own, except, at best, a single cursory glance at Google. All your claims here are exaggerated or outright false in terms of historicity, claims repeated so many times they are taken as fact, though they are not. They are urban legend.

Your conversion story is very common. A person hits rock bottom, and suddenly have revelation. Yet this does not happen to everyone nor do normal successful people have it happen to them. Why is that? Why does your faith seem to have the highest percentage of converts who have addictive personalities?

There is some drive in such persons to wipe away their failings. They reach a nadir and cn go no farther; and no real help is coming. So you must create a clean slate artificially. You must become special. Somehow, God must like you personally. So to defend itself your own body pumps out endorphins and you feel an overwhelming liquid serenity flow over you; and because of your established tendencies you attribute this to personal attention by God, and fill in all the blanks yourself.

All of this is a psychological coping mechanism to save your own life. It could happen to anyone, and some people can actually induce it themselves voluntarily, through meditation and the like; there's nothing wrong with that... well, there's nothing wrong until you emerge into a public forum such as this, and begin using your failure-response as some kind of perverse, high-handed basis to decry other peoples' experiences, faiths, texts, etc. As you do.

When that happens it's time to tear your curtain asunder and let you know, you're not a special snowflake and most of the stuff you say condescendingly to others is flat-out wrong. You're not special, and God did not point his finger at you and give you a gold star. You're just like everyone else, at best. In fact, given what your faith teaches [in its later, contradictory books and musings], should you not in fact tread a lot more quietly, remembering how humbled you were by your own inadequacies, as compared to others?

Either these faiths of the world all are of equal value, or all lack it completely. Yours is not special, and is in fact, one of the more problematic ones; if you had actual practical knowledge of the myriad other faiths, you'd realize it. This forum's DIR areas are an excellent source of actual education for you, in terms of how the other faiths actually operate, and it will surprise you how many of them lack the many pitfalls that your own is riddled with. Deal with it.

 

[Nakosis]

True, but your family is right in front of you whereas the Holy Spirit is not.

Not always. Luckily we have our senses, as fallible and limited as they are, to know what is. I have to rely on my memory of these faulty percepts to know of my families existence. In the same way I have to rely on the memory my perceptions, as faulty as they maybe, of that event to know what occurred.

What I perceive is what I perceive. I can choose to rely on it or not.

No, it simply must be that way if we were all created by God and His expectation is for us to love and worship Him.

I'm not a spokeshole for God to claim to know what God's expectations are. However I don't think God is looking for love or worship. I think that is more what man hopes to be true of God. I think there is affection, as you might have for something you created yourself and maybe a desire for entertainment.

Maybe not the same experiences in life, but in terms of a one and only God, most certainly we all would have to share those experiences and know for a fact it was God or a Holy Spirit or a giant lizard.

You know what you know. For 17 years of my life I was ignorant of such experiences. Why at 17? I don't know. Why not at 6 or 10. How about 20 or 50 or maybe 60 years old? Maybe tomorrow you'll run into a giant talking lizard which tells you all the secrets of the universe. I don't expect you to accept the truth of anything which you haven't experienced for yourself. I'd no reason to believe you'd actually did run into a giant talking lizard if such actually happen to you. However you'd still have to deal with the reality that you've perceived. You are free to presume at any time your perceptions are unreliable. Once you start to question your perception of reality though, I'm not sure where you are going to end up.

I can choose to believe my perceptions of reality are an hallucination/illusion. I can do it selectively so I can pretend the perceptions that make me uncomfortable are just figments of my imagination. I choose to deal with reality as I perceive it to be. I'm not demanding or asking that you do any different.

 

[A Troubled Man]

Not always. Luckily we have our senses, as fallible and limited as they are, to know what is. I have to rely on my memory of these faulty percepts to know of my families existence. In the same way I have to rely on the memory my perceptions, as faulty as they maybe, of that event to know what occurred.

What I perceive is what I perceive. I can choose to rely on it or not.

Not always? I don't understand that at all. Your family does not disappear into thin air just because you are not currently viewing them. They still actually exist despite your perception.

I'm not a spokeshole for God to claim to know what God's expectations are. However I don't think God is looking for love or worship.

We can read any given scriptures to understand Gods expectations of love and worship.

I can choose to believe my perceptions of reality are an hallucination/illusion. I can do it selectively so I can pretend the perceptions that make me uncomfortable are just figments of my imagination. I choose to deal with reality as I perceive it to be. I'm not demanding or asking that you do any different.

What you're choosing to do is distort and redefine reality to align with your beliefs. That is obvious.

 

[Nakosis]

Not always? I don't understand that at all. Your family does not disappear into thin air just because you are not currently viewing them. They still actually exist despite your perception.

I presume the same is true of the "Holy Spirit" while I'm not perceiving it.

We can read any given scriptures to understand Gods expectations of love and worship.

It's up to you to choose how much to rely on what other people wrote. One person writes it. Others accept and repeat it. No guarantee of the accuracy of the original author. You can pick a random person and decide to rely on their experience, but not someone else's. Ok, that's up to you. I think it best that a person rely mostly on what they've experienced for themselves and take what everyone else claims with a grain of salt.

What you're choosing to do is distort and redefine reality to align with your beliefs. That is obvious.

My beliefs come from the reality I perceive. I may be in error in my conclusions about what I perceive however I don't choose what I perceive. I accept the reality of what they seem to be.

I don't think anyone else is any different.