The Problem With Dreams, Visions And Clairvoyance - Religion (8) - Nairaland
Nairaland Forum / Nairaland / General / Religion / The Problem With Dreams, Visions And Clairvoyance (21105 Views)
SERIOUS ALERTS: Imminent Rapture Visions And Messages ( JANUARY 2015 Till Date) / A Nairalander's Prophetic Visions/Declarations For 2015 (Buhari and GEJ Warned) / My Trips To Heaven,hades And Under The Ocean,other Visions And Visitations (2) (3) (4)
(1) (2) (3) ... (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (Reply) (Go Down)
| Re: The Problem With Dreams, Visions And Clairvoyance by vescucci(m): 10:35am On Aug 31, 2010 |
Lol. I'm tempted to make a long comment but I won't. Even though I don't believe NDEs mean anything more than heightened brain activity, what constitutes proof differs from person to person and I don't see the NDE proponents here trying to convince you of its verity, Mazaje |
| Re: The Problem With Dreams, Visions And Clairvoyance by vescucci(m): 10:36am On Aug 31, 2010 |
Oops! I guess that counts as a comment. |
| Re: The Problem With Dreams, Visions And Clairvoyance by MyJoe: 1:33pm On Sep 01, 2010 |
@mazaje I find your complete dismissal a tad extreme. It appears you are being as dogmatic are the religiously inclined whose religious views you dismiss for being dogmatic. If you read thread again you will find that the concerns you express have been repeatedly addressed. These differences in experiences should be borne in mind when analysing these matters. I think too many people use these experiences to validate whatever it is they already believe. Therein lies the mistake. Does that – the fact there are differences – on its own mean that these experiences are lies? That has been addressed adequately hereabouts. Using your standards of proof, there is no way Muslims seeing malaikas and Buddhists seeing nirvana can on its own prove that NDEs and OBEs are in your head. M_Nwankwo offered his views on that generally earlier. And Mad_Max offered hers are it relates to NDEs. You may wish to scroll back and read the story of the three kids: It may prove nothing, but if you read it objectively, it addresses your concern. Heightened brain activity? Nope. Scroll back and read the experience of George Rodoniah. Read objectively. This professor was either telling an elaborate lie he cooked up while sober or he actually went into some cosmic realm. Heightened brain activity is simply impossible here. Comparing NDEs with the physical body lifting a car does not cut it. That is a case of the body exceeding its capacity to achieve an imperative goal. The brain does the same when you are in trouble. In NDEs, it appears the experiences are, for the most part, not brought about by a burning desire to achieve anything. That desire only comes after the fact. That is, it is when mazaje dies and finds himself surrounded by lights that the first thing that drops into his mind is: How about God? Could he really exist? And the question of whether they were really dead is debatable, since in many of the cases the doctors believed they were and cleared them for burial. I am not saying I take these experiences as proof of anything. I am just trying to show you that your grounds for dismissing them don’t stand on solid ground. |
| Re: The Problem With Dreams, Visions And Clairvoyance by vescucci(m): 2:23pm On Sep 01, 2010 |
Your grounds for dismissing them don't stand on solid ground. Lol. MyJoe. You might've mistakenly roped me in with Mazaje. The words 'heightened brain activity' were mine. I'm really not interested in going into details why I don't believe in NDEs. It's not so much about the experience itself but why. It is massively unnecessary. Not to mention it's sort of unfair some people get a second chance. And many many other reasons. But unlike Mazaje, I don't dismiss it with a wave of the hand. I just think it's unnecessary. It proves nothing. |
| Re: The Problem With Dreams, Visions And Clairvoyance by MyJoe: 2:54pm On Sep 01, 2010 |
That ^^^ is a way of looking at it, but I am not as sure as you are that it is unnecessary, vesc. Maybe our needs are different. Maybe these experiences are necessary for certain people but not for others. I don't know for a fact, but maybe one's inner yearnings have something to do with it. Even in the affairs of men a few are often chosen for a trip. In the Bible Jesus is reported to have picked only three of his 12 friends for the transfiguration experience. Why, I don't know. And there are people who live a godly life even though they have never heard of God and don't care whether God exists or not. There are others who spend their lives searching for God, whether they live good lives or not. Do these influence who is permitted these experiences? I don't know. I, too, have pondered the fairness angle. But since we are talking about God, I doubt there would be anything unfair about it. Didn't someone say "to whom much is given much is expected?" For vescucci who is open minded and does not follow a creed because he has had no revelations and he believes the honest way to glorify God for giving him a brain is to not follow blindly, I think it is commonsensical that he can only be held up to how well he treats his fellow human beings and his environment, rather than how much faith he had in the unknown. If a tiny proportion of those who die are permitted to come back, perhaps for exceptional reasons unknown to us, I personally don't feel threatened at all. Oh, I sure mistakenly "roped" you in with mazaje there! |
| Re: The Problem With Dreams, Visions And Clairvoyance by vescucci(m): 3:28pm On Sep 01, 2010 |
What I meant by unnecessary is as regards humanity. NDEs are experiences meant only for the people who experience them and are only to them necessary. Perhaps I should have mentioned that not all NDEs have spiritual undertones. Some people claim to have an experience not much unlike Disney's Fantasia. Pretty but useless. The disparity in these experiences also shows that it mean nothing or little. It might prove there is life after death but that is a given for any religious person. The real question anyone wants answered is will I be happy after I die. Whether there are seven Gods or pretty white encapsulating angels to cater for you really don't matter. Take a step back and ask yourself what NDEs tell you (provided you believe it) that you don't already sort of know? That really is my point. |
| Re: The Problem With Dreams, Visions And Clairvoyance by MyJoe: 4:25pm On Sep 01, 2010 |
What I would like to say in response is contained in your post: such experiences are meant for those who had them. If we are to deploy them in the service of humanity, that there is life after death is not given. Like you said, it is given, only to the religious person. Even religious people experience doubts. The question of whether I will be happy when I die can only get an answer specific to an individual, since those who believe in life after death believe there is reward for the just and punishment for the unjust, so I am quite unsure how the thought that NDEs might answer it even arises. If NDEs are authentic in relation to the ultimate reality, I doubt that is the question they are meant to answer. What I am saying is that if they only prove that there is life after death, then they would have achieved something extraordinary. Whether they do that is a different matter entirely. But, of course, there is not much difference in what we are saying. I buy your argument that they don’t mean much in terms of showing the way - they are unlikely to meet the skeptic’s standard of “proof” anyway. The point I made in that post was that these experiences may have been deemed necessary to those who were permitted to have them. I have no illusion they will lead humanity to Nirvana or something. |
| Re: The Problem With Dreams, Visions And Clairvoyance by vescucci(m): 6:41pm On Sep 01, 2010 |
Ah. In essence, we mean mostly the same thing. What I'm saying can be summarised in these two points. 1. I don't really believe in NDEs except in its proper sense. Near death presupposes no death. My not believing it is not some stubborn attitude I've put on. It's simply that I've not been convinced by any NDE account. I will not go into the physiological explanations of such torpor that NDEers find themselves. 2. If I were to believe in NDEs, it really answers no questions. It is not necessary for me to be informed of such a thing. Other than my normal curiosity about esoterica, it doesn't elevate my spirituality or help in my advancement thereof. It is as useless as believing in reincarnation of whether Jesus had a birth mark. In the end, only the NDEer and perhaps his very close relatives benefit from the experience. This does not mean I dismiss it casually for I'm not in a position to do so. I just think believer or not, one is really not better off either way. P.S. I've been talking all along assuming one is religious to begin with. An atheist who turns to God after being inspired by even a fake NDE has apparently vindicated the whole syndicate, lol. |
| Re: The Problem With Dreams, Visions And Clairvoyance by mazaje(m): 9:41pm On Sep 01, 2010 |
MyJoe: I said I wasn't disputing all the accounts but I believe that NDE's are mostly based off of the culture of the individual. . . . . . .These 'NDE's are also triggered by acceleration (i.e. centrifuge chairs). Are we to believe that the Gods who snatch up souls are fooled by spinning people around a bit? http://www.skepdic.com/nde.html http://www.google.com/search?q=NDE+centrifuge Or perhaps it's just that a hypoxic brain that's misfiring produces all kinds of effects and side-effects on an 'altered consciousness' mind, which are great fodder for hallucinations in suggestible people. Heightened brain activity? Nope. Scroll back and read the experience of George Rodoniah. I am very sure that the guy is lying because no body that has been clinically certified to have been dead for 3 days has ever come back to life. . . . .Here are just a few points I'll like to point out. . . . . . 1. Hearsay is not objective evidence. 2. Even if given the benefit of the doubt; the shear number of random occurrences guarantees it to be indistinguishable from simple abstract constructions of brain chemistry. We would no more be able to decide which NDE is the 'correct one' or that they occur with enough significant statistical probability to warrant anyone over another. 3. We already have a significant understanding of the processes in the brain during death; including those processes that would induce similar experiences as claimed in supernatural NDEs'. And the question of whether they were really dead is debatable, since in many of the cases the doctors believed they were and cleared them for burial. I am not saying I take these experiences as proof of anything. I am just trying to show you that your grounds for dismissing them don’t stand on solid ground. The Real Question: Is it possible to believe NDEs are 'supernatural' after all of these years of research, study, experimentation, etc. that shows it's all in your brain?. . . . . . . |
| Re: The Problem With Dreams, Visions And Clairvoyance by mazaje(m): 9:44pm On Sep 01, 2010 |
[flash=400,400] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvxFXkv7L24?fs=1&[/flash] |
| Re: The Problem With Dreams, Visions And Clairvoyance by nuclearboy(m): 3:35am On Sep 02, 2010 |
@Mad_Max: Sorry but I lost my concentration and stopped following this thread for awhile. Just saw your question in post 194. Do you still want an answer? |
| Re: The Problem With Dreams, Visions And Clairvoyance by MadMax1(f): 7:56am On Sep 02, 2010 |
Mazaje, There's nothing supernatural about after death experiences. Why issue yourself a headache over stuff that wasn't meant for you? Most of the after death experiences here were of atheists lol. I find it fascinating that it happens irrespective of religious belief. I find it fascinating that smarter atheists than you who actually underwent the experience found atheism impossible after what they saw. I put two experiences of atheist university professors there. Maybe you should go tell them it's their brains. It seems not to have occurred to them. How easy that must have been for you to say, though that's long been debunked. Attaboy. Sherlock Holmes has saved the day again! How do you do it, Mr Holmes? There are millions of the stuff. Everybody who dies goes through it. We have these stories only because they returned, a minority among the dead, as most do not.They were simply people who died. When you die your spirit will leave your body and see stuff, and you can tell yourself whatever it is you want to tell yourself then. 'Don't panic, Mazaje. It's the brain under duress.' See how that works for you then. If your dismissal does something for you; validates your beliefs in some way, by all means treat yourself; dismiss away. |
| Re: The Problem With Dreams, Visions And Clairvoyance by PastorAIO: 10:01am On Sep 02, 2010 |
Mad_Max: Okay, this is slightly off topic, but still a bit pertinent. I think it is important to make a distinction between Atheism and Naturalism. These two are too often conflated. You can have atheistic religions, eg Buddhism. You can be an atheist and still believe in a supernatural world, or a metaphysical reality. However Naturalism (on which a lot of peoples' atheism is based, admittedly) is a different kettle of fish. It states, quite baselessly, that there is no supernatural world, only a natural world, although it fails to provide a definition of what constitutes natural as opposed to supernatural. |
| Re: The Problem With Dreams, Visions And Clairvoyance by MadMax1(f): 8:55pm On Sep 02, 2010 |
A Buddhist is not an atheist. They aren't synonyms. The Buddhist's concept of 'God' is subtle and deep, and they know there are occult forces, spiritual realms and different states of being. They know some of what human beings are capable of. Not so with our garden variety atheist. It's up to each man to define his own atheism. We take theism as simply the certainty that there is no God, in any shape or form, the 'rational' variety that's so fashionable now, with everything else that naturally follows from that. If one has no basis for belief then atheism is fine. By 'nothing supernatural' he meant it in the atheistic sense. I meant it in the 'natural but not yet fully understood sense'. The brain-dead have after death experiences. So do the clinically dead. When you're clinically dead, not a single cell of the trillions in your brain is functioning, talkless of generating an after life experience in a realm outside the physical. After death experiences are independent of the physiognomy, be it brain, lung, liver or their left pinkie finger. One man not only died after being wounded during the Rwandan genocide, his corpse was rotting in the primary school they were hiding in, after several days of death. He returned to his body, after an ADE. When he woke, he scrapped maggots out of his mouth so he could talk. The people hiding in the classroom from Hutu mauraders forgot the danger outside and fled in terror. It took some convincing to summon them back. His name is Emmanuel something. I'll look for his surname but you've enough to google the story, I think. One of his arms had decayed so badly it had almost fallen off. Mazaje seems to have an overwhelming need to 'disprove' or ridicule things he knows nothing about. To compartmentalize spiritual things in his mental atheistic briefcase, everything neat and tidy and accounted for. And there's that enormous sense of entitlement he carries about, because he's an atheist. He comes in here and expects people to scramble furiously to 'convince' him, as if explanations are due him. He casually dismisses one man's experience as a 'lie' from his all-knowing perch on Nairaland, never mind that the man doesn't live in a vacuum, he published a book, and if he's lied he would have long been exposed for a fraud by now; at least by the hospital staff involved. It did not happen. But a careless dismissal suits our maz's fancy. After death experiences are lies? It's their brains? Yeah. Whatever makes you comfortable, baby. I'm all about comfort. nuclearboy: Yes. Please go ahead. |
| Re: The Problem With Dreams, Visions And Clairvoyance by mazaje(m): 9:15pm On Sep 02, 2010 |
Mad_Max: Mad max. . . . . .  |
| Re: The Problem With Dreams, Visions And Clairvoyance by MadMax1(f): 9:46pm On Sep 02, 2010 |
Argueholic. A day will come when the question will be settled, for you, once and for all. Enjoy that atheism of yours while it lasts. It has an expiry date. |
| Re: The Problem With Dreams, Visions And Clairvoyance by nuclearboy(m): 10:07pm On Sep 02, 2010 |
Mad_Max: After your last three posts, I wonder if I have the nerve to type the following. I'll just cross my fingers and log out instanta. Truth is, I never thought about it. That said, I personally believe there is only one reality - God and that all of us etc are minor portions of that existence. Its the only reason I can find for the (to God) seeming importance of your fellow man and he is important, as I trust you know. Returning to the biblical story of Eden and considering the idea of God coming down to be with the man in the evenings, I feel a desire for something outside of humanity to share with humanity. To achieve that, I believe we come across what Christians refer to as "1 in 3". But this is just a personal feeling and I sincerely hope it won't be held against me particularly by DS. See you all next millenia (if Mad_max doesn't take the spanner to me) |
| Re: The Problem With Dreams, Visions And Clairvoyance by mazaje(m): 10:09pm On Sep 02, 2010 |
Mad_Max: Mad max. . . . . .You dey vex ohhhh. . . . . . . |
| Re: The Problem With Dreams, Visions And Clairvoyance by MadMax1(f): 8:14am On Sep 03, 2010 |
I'm looking at my last three posts. I sounded pissed? Seriously? I know Mazaje too well for that. He's just being his usual entitled contrary, albeit interesting, self. A real discussion would have been lovely, even if we don't agree, but one gets a litle tired of argument for argument's sake. Enjoyed your submission. Wish it had been a little longer though. mazaje: [color=#000099]Argueholic. What were you orginally? Moslem? Christian? Buddhist? Animist? Everyone was originally something. |
| Re: The Problem With Dreams, Visions And Clairvoyance by MyJoe: 5:54pm On Sep 03, 2010 |
@ mazaje What I understand you to be saying is that you have considered the experience of Rodonaiah - a science professor who lived in an atheistic society, did not believe in God himself, was so fearless and incorruptible by prospects of power that he denounced the Big Brother Soviet state and for his efforts was assassinated by the KGB - and have reasonably concluded that the man sat down and made up the story the way Adichie makes up short stories and novels. How on earth does the fact blood parts can now be produced synthetically translate to the fact there is no natural blood? Did you bother to read these skeptics very well (and I am a skeptic, too) to see that even they acknowledge differences? And what you seem to miss is that while these experiences are purely subjective, the facts of the deaths and the environmental circumstances are not. These are objectively verifiable and there have been reports in secular journals of people reviving after being thought dead. In Rodonaiah’s story, the case of the baby that was correctly diagnosed and treated after his intervention was also a purely objective occurrence. That is one point that was conspicuously not addressed by that brilliant skepdic article. I hope you read the whole article – which by the way did not set out to dismiss NDEs as evidence of life after death or the dual nature of man. I thoroughly enjoyed it as well as some of the wonderful rejoinders. mazaje:I strongly assert that there is no study anywhere that has "shown" that "it's all in your brain". nuclearboy: Ehm, it's "3 in 1". |
| Re: The Problem With Dreams, Visions And Clairvoyance by vescucci(m): 6:46pm On Sep 03, 2010 |
Lol. Nuke meant 1 as 3. Jeez, I lol a lot nowadays. |
| Re: The Problem With Dreams, Visions And Clairvoyance by mazaje(m): 8:26pm On Sep 03, 2010 |
Mad_Max: I was raised both as a Christian and a Muslim. . . . .Started as a Muslim, then became a Christian later on. . . . . . |
| Re: The Problem With Dreams, Visions And Clairvoyance by mazaje(m): 8:28pm On Sep 03, 2010 |
MyJoe: Yes Boss, I'll go through them more carefully and drop my thoughts when am done. . . . |
| Re: The Problem With Dreams, Visions And Clairvoyance by nuclearboy(m): 8:48pm On Sep 03, 2010 |
Thanks Vescucci! Yes, MyJoe and Mad_Max, I meant 1 "as" 3. Scenario 1: I call you. You hear my Voice (my essence) I write you. You read my words (my soul, thoughts, whatever) I visit you. You see me physically (but that doesn't mean you know ALL of me) Scenario 2: I am a father ------- I am an employer |---- same person I am a friend ------- But again as in scenatio 1, thats not all there is to me. I could also be a stranger (if you get my point) and you may even decide that since you never had experience of me, I do not exist or if I do, do not matter. With the Bible (especially as regards today), what I see is a lot of flatulent people claiming God is a Father and that exclusively. Yet the Bible is all about relationships - children, friends, servants, enemies, whatever. That view then, remains stilted and I daresay initiated from some one(s) trying to get something out of you by offering what is not real but tickles your fancy. @MyJoe: Don't laugh at me, abeg. Mad_Max reminds me of my teacher in Nursery School. She "loved" us till we feared! I wouldn't want to write "I will be a good boy" 100 times or have to kiss the girl (urgh  ) I poked fun of to makeup. |
| Re: The Problem With Dreams, Visions And Clairvoyance by MadMax1(f): 8:52pm On Sep 03, 2010 |
This Nuclear,ehn mazaje: Wow. Extremely interesting. Were your own choices involved at any time? Sure, it must have been the dear old folks at first, but was there a time you chose either religion? Did you go along devoutly, learn a few hard facts, say evolution vs Genesis, science vs biblical literalism, or the history of the bible,etc, and grow disenchanted? Why did you leave Islam? Did you try other religions besides the two, a religionless worship of your own devising, anything at all apart from Christianity and Islam? How did you make the transition to atheism? Was it easy for you? Did your family give you grief over it? I'm sorry, I don't mean to probe. If you're not comfortable answering I'll quite understand. |
| Re: The Problem With Dreams, Visions And Clairvoyance by mazaje(m): 9:49pm On Sep 03, 2010 |
Mad_Max: Converting into atheism wasn't easy at all because I had to drop all what I was made to believe was true and real, It was quite uncomfortable at the beginning, I almost went crazy, you might not believe it but its true. . . . . .Once I converted but was not fully sure of my position, I decided to try things for myself. . . , Had to go out of my way just to test and see if the most of the stuffs I grew up hearing and was made to believe exist were real , wanted to know if the supernatural claims I hear all the time is true, did so many weird stuffs, like sleeping in the grave yard alone, walking alone in villages where there are stories of witches and wizards causing havoc, deliberately upsetting and fighting with witch doctors so that they will harm me, becoming friends with children that were labeled as witches or in one secret cult or the other etc did so many weird stuffs just because i wanted to know if the supernatural is real, but nothing. . . . .I found out from my own personal investigations that they were not real. . .As for Christianity once I studied he bible, its history, how it was written , when it was written, who wrote the books and the entire church history, I was convinced that it was entirely a man made thing. . . . . . Here is my de-conversion story. . . . . https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-316436.0.html |
| Re: The Problem With Dreams, Visions And Clairvoyance by MadMax1(f): 10:54am On Sep 04, 2010 |
Absolutely fascinating. Makes sense. You beat up a herbalist, lol. I had no idea this would be so long. Sorry about that. I just coloured it up to make it easier on the eye. The interesting thing is, other atheists weren't doing your thinking for you. You did your own research. You had your own ideas about how things ought to be if there was a God, you sought to see if things were indeed so, they were not. I'm sorry, but did you really need anyone to tell you much in the bible is the work of human beings? All you had to do was read it. I understand the cover that comes with deep indocrination. When cold facts rip it away, that conviction, based on falsehood and blind faith, will be destroyed. After that all you will see will be things that will confirm your new ideas. This world is so messed up, it passes understanding. See, I know there is a God. Only things are not exactly like we've been told. I went thru a similar phase. Indoctrination. I was reading the bible one day and many things in it made no sense. Deuteronomy and all those rules. They were so petty and intrusive, so mean, so small minded. If any kind of a God wrote these things, it's not a God I can respect. The OT books where 'God' would talk and talk, promising to deal with Israel the LovePeddler. Sometimes truth can be unpleasant. It was either there was actually a God that was saying these things, he was a petty cosmic bastid, and I'd better make my peace with it. Or it wasn't God. Further examination of the OT only deepened my disgust. So I was done with believing for its own sake. I did find out later that books like Isaiah and Jeremiah wasn't God himself talking, all those 'I the Lord will do this and that', but a compedium of the preaching of the prophets after decades of ministry. The book of Isaisah is 60 years of the prophet's preaching. Jeremiah is almost 4 decades. They would get a 'word' or a 'vision', and they would preach in the most effective, attentiongrabbing way, to the Israelites. All the 'I the Lord will do this and that' is THEM talking. Like if Adeboye dies and they put his preaching together, and some of his preaching includes places where he says 'I am the Lord that changeth not. I will do a new thing in your life', etc. When you read it you'll think it's God talking, when it's Adeboye preaching. So it was with the OT Prophet books. Though much in the books of Moses leave much to be desired, the OT prophets are actually quite intriguing and a different kettle of fish altogether. Nevertheless I wasn't accpeting a bible because I'd been told to. And nobody's secondhand faith would do either. Do you know what God is to many people? He is the sum of all their religious activities. He is Sunday school plus quiet time plus night vigils plus evangelising plus all the rest. If you take those things away, their God falls flat. That is why most churches keep their members close and engross them in activity all week, wasting their time. But they get that good religious feeling. I rejected all that, was angry and went into cynical atheist mode. Do you know when I knew for absolute certain that God existed? Early this year. But the OT is a non-issue. It's Christ I need, not the Jews. I need Christ, but no Jewish cultural or religious beliefs, doctrines, rules or systems. I have my own culture, replete with all that. There's the idea that Christianity means accepting everything in the bible, but that's pure nonsense. The bible only became 'essential' to Christianity five centuries ago. Christians had existed, the disciples had functioned with power, early Christianity had flourished, without a bible. The bible means something now only because the original message has been lost and distorted, and we take what we can get and try to sift the truth from the lies and additions. The Bible itself is part of the distortion, so it is both a problem and part of the solution. Nevertheless Christ did not bring a religion; He brought the way to God. It's the equivalent of what Buddhists call the Short Path, even if they mean different things. Who Christ is, Why he is, What he brought functions within ANY religious system, which is why he modified Judaic rules as he saw fit, but he did not replace it or introduce a new religion; 'I have not come to erase the law but to fulfil it.' Or something to that effect. And the fulfilment of the law, he says, is Love. It is why His disciples called themselves followers of the Way, but still functioned within the Judaic system, merely holding that Judaic rules did not bind gentiles. What Christ is, what God is, functions above any religion, which are all man-made systems, a way to understand and navigate spiritual terrain, nothing more. Religions reflect reality only to varying degrees, and no complete truth is to be found in any single one. Christ and God are above religion, above the works of human hands, above the thoughts of men. One thing I can't figure out. God is there. He sees these stuff. People are being led into error and mistakes. He had to know the origins of the bible. (By the way, no one knows for sure when the NT were written. When they say 50 AD or AD 70, they're counting from the approximate year of the BIRTH of Jesus, not his death. So those books were written approx 50 to 70 years from the year of his BIRTH, not his death. The current word is there are older documents and those dated are copies of copies of copies. Who cares though? My faith doesn't rest on how old the documents were. All I care about is what is true and what is false. So many things are false and man-made in religion I can't reconcile myself to it. I say I'm a Christian because I believe in Christ, but wild horses can't drag me to church. Not unless it met my needs and it isn't a silly bigoted church. It's not too much to ask that anyone who leads a church should have a PhD in Theology, and know something about the religion, instead of going to some absurd 'Bible school' and coming to tell me the Edden story is literal and all those rules in the OT were from God. They're so manmade it's almost painful to read them.) So if God knows all thse things, sees all these things, the evil people do in the name of religion, forced conversions and lies and fraud and all the rest, why does he allow it to go on? Why no interference? I'm still at that, and it seems it's not only non-interference now; it's been a policy of non-interference from the start, and so it will continue. There is no overstating the importance of the choices human beings make of their own free will. If your mother is surgically tied to your side, so you have to carry her about, and she sees everything you do; the awareness, her constant there-ness, WILL distort your will, will distort your choices. You will not be true to yourself, you will make choices based on the awareness that she is there. You will never become Mazaje, just a pale, stunted version with his mother on his back. But since you're independent of your mother, and she doesn't see all you do, you're free to be yourself. Now imagine if GOD were strapped to your side, so you carry him about everywhere you go. How in the blue ocean can you ever express your will, so that the wheels and the laws governing things, hinged on free will, continue to turn? How can you freely make the choices that are so important, that must never be coerced but come naturally from your soul; to lie or not to lie, to steal or not to steal, to murder or not to murder, to war or not to war? You cannot. If free will is not free, then all of this, our lives and existence here, makes no sense. And so you have a God that is present, but who removes every visible sign of his presence, so that humanity can be true to itself. So that there is no coersion. Whatever you do, love, hate, kill, must be truly and freely chosen, and not a fake thing you chose because you can look out your window and see written in the sky, I AM WATCHING YOU. So He seems to be completely absent, and human beings express themselves in all their unrestrained and glorious evil. Right from time. They're free to take a bible and add whatever they want. They're free to tell others what to believe. Others are free to choose to believe or not. They're free so torture and kill in the name of God. No one will interfere. But there are consequences for every single thing we do; wheels within wheels, constantly changing possibilities. Sometimes people say free will and choice is an illusion. Steven Pinker asks, 'If a man points a gun at me and tell me to do this or he will shoot and I obey, have I made that choice? Is my will free?' But others can impose their will on you. They can enslave you, conscript your sons and make them die meaningless deaths in foolish wars.Then there are the things that our genes do; they play a part in who we are and the choices we make. The influence us; the attraction we feel; they just want to perpertuate themselves and they are completely unscrupulous. A little thing and you start having 'feelings' for someone you barely know, sexual fantasies, and will sleep with them in a wink if you can. It's your genes, which have not evolved beyond the recent contraceptives we've devised, and so push you to have intimacy, and entice you with all sorts of romatic and yummy feelings to make it exciting for you, so you yield. You can't get her out of your mind. He touches you and you feel a jolt of electricity. It is not easy for people to be faithful to their mates, men especially; given the war they're fighting with their own natures. And yet men and women do it every day. By choice. Our genes play an important role in our make up. But they do not govern us. We do make the choices. In spite of his genes Steven Pinker remains voluntarily childless. In one of his books he says, If my genes don't like it, they can jump in the lake. We do have free will. We do make our own choices. In spite of everything; in spite of genes, in spite of other people, in spite of God. We're free to look for God. We're free to find Him. I have yet to meet a person who earnestly, unquenchingly sought God and did not find Him. It is simply not possible. He is God. He is a terrifying thing. He is not an abstraction. He does not have to indulge our fancies because we think we're special and it's up to Him to play according to OUR rules. He loves us. I know that means nothing now, but istis true. It is the truest thing in the universe. We are not the only works of his hands; what a joke that is. The whole universe,so large human beings cannot grasp it, teems with life. There are many universes, not just this. There are other things that aren't universes, that are beyond us. It sounds crazy, unreal, but it's true. For me, anyway. Each man must chart his own course, must find his own way. I'm so sorry for what happened to you. For your disappointment with religion and man-made doctrines. It must have been agonising for you. God is not in the works of human hands, in the rituals of religion. He comes to us in spite of those things, not because of them. And we cannot dictate the terms, that this is how things must be if we must believe. Things are simply the way they are. We can only seek to understand how it is, not impose our own wishes on things only dimly glimpsed and understood. If you have no cause for belief, then no one can hold you to task for not believing. Especially since God is not obvious, but sometimes maddeningly elusive. He's there to be found ONLY if he is sincerely sought. And God is NOT religion. They're TWO different things. Bertrand Russell, a man after my own heart, was asked what he would say if he died and suddenly found himself before God and asked why he didn't believe. He said,"Evidence, God, evidence." 1 Like |
| Re: The Problem With Dreams, Visions And Clairvoyance by vescucci(m): 11:38am On Sep 04, 2010 |
Sigh. Disillusionment brings its own joys even if it doesn't last. If only reality was as enchanting as fantasy. |
| Re: The Problem With Dreams, Visions And Clairvoyance by nuclearboy(m): 9:16pm On Sep 05, 2010 |
Mad_Max: You ask questions and I think you've answered them too whist probably not knowing so |
| Re: The Problem With Dreams, Visions And Clairvoyance by MadMax1(f): 5:13pm On Sep 06, 2010 |
If he's this angry, and he is angry, his devotion and religious zeal at the time must have been extreme. But his dad was an unusual man, sha. A moslem, and he didn't give a rat's little tail what religion his wife followed. And decades back too, not even the present. Now [i]there'[/i]s a man. Reading some interesting internet statistics. The most searched for and googled word is 'God' The second most searched for and googled word is 's.ex'. God before s,ex. Interesting. |
| Re: The Problem With Dreams, Visions And Clairvoyance by MyJoe: 3:06pm On Sep 07, 2010 |
vescucci:Lol. I highlighted "Christians" and "1 in 3" in an effort to show that "1 in 3" (or "1 as 3"  is different from what "Christianity" teaches which is "3 in 1".mazaje:You was serious o! You do pass Tudor even. @Mad_Max I think you lay it out very well. One thought long and hard about things before realising that God just does not intervene here. And nothing has ever made so much sense to me. Nothing. |
| Re: The Problem With Dreams, Visions And Clairvoyance by nuclearboy(m): 8:48pm On Sep 07, 2010 |
@MyJoe: I remember my last beating and my neck is still in traction from the library so I won't go down that road again.   But you'll agree Mad_Max asked "ME" what I believe. Sincerely too, what I see is "Hear O Israel, the Lord thy God is ONE God", not three Gods in one. You will accept that the fact that everyone is a killer does not make killing right! Christianity does not teach what you say. Many Christians teach it. [size=4pt]Now I've vented, should I go wait in the library or just go to jail without passing "GO" or getting $200?[/size] |
(1) (2) (3) ... (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (Reply)
Is it right to pray "Holy Ghost, Fire!" Against Enemies? / Science Disproves Evolution / Police Interrogates Biodun Fatoyinbo Over Rape Allegation By Busola Dakolo
(Go Up)
| Sections: politics (1) business autos (1) jobs (1) career education (1) romance computers phones travel sports fashion health religion celebs tv-movies music-radio literature webmasters programming techmarket Links: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) Nairaland - Copyright © 2005 - 2024 Oluwaseun Osewa. All rights reserved. See How To Advertise. 154 |