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Author | Topic: Christian conversion experience: descriptions/analysis/links: input invited | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1473 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I've said it before... you are way too credulous. You are convinced by Sai Baba??? Is this another example of demons like astrology, which we dispelled above? You are WAY too credulous about your powers to dispel demons.
If someone claims that they can do something which appears supernatural, and another person performs the same act, demonstrating what they did most certainly wasn't supernatural, why would you ever feel inclined to continue to believe the supernatural claim? Because I have OTHER reasons for believing such things. Sai Baba has demonic power though his tricks are pretty silly. And, as I've said, your idea that the ability to mimic something disproves the authenticity of the thing mimicked is, frankly, staggeringly illogical. This CAN'T be your best argument against these things, can it? Uh oh, that one doesn't fly. You need better evidence than that.
You are buying Faith. You are buying bollocks, and lot's of it. Which is fine, except when you peddle it to others.
Have you read Tal Brooke on his experiences with Sai Baba in India (Avatar of Night, Lord of the Air)? No. Should I really? Is this a tale about Sai Baba's miraculous powers told by a credulous git? Well, it's an account of a sort of cultic brainwashing among other things, which might interest you. Tal Brooke started out entranced by this guru and spent time with him in India and tells the story of his experiences there in great detail, including some demonic happenings toward the end, and his conversion to Christ by some American missionaries in the neighborhood. He came back to Berkeley, California, where he now runs the Spiritual Counterfeits Project, which studies all kinds of spiritual phenomena from a Christian point of view. I think someone with your interests might possibly want to know something about their work. I hope you are also checking out the many other Christian discernment ministries. And if you are studying faith healing you really MUST read up on Aimee Semple McPherson. I'm very surprised you haven't heard of her. She's really the queen of faith healing. Kathryn Kuhlman was another very famous healer, and William Branham. These are the ones who inspired Benny Hinn. They are NOT considered to be authentic by most of the Christian world.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1473 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
The experience of "the presence of God" was "real" and "wonderful." ============== That's what I am trying to get you to hang onto, that faith. What concerns me about these critics of they overblow things to the point that they weaken people's confidence and faith. One of the fruit of the Spirit is faith, and I don't want to point fingers, but quoting heresy hunters like Hanegraff raises a big red flag to me. Randman, I discovered the problems with my charismatic milieu on my own. And where did I quote Hank Hanegraaf? Our faith must be in CHRIST, not in miracles or experiences or ANY phenomena. This message has been edited by Faith, 06-27-2005 04:30 AM
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randman  Suspended Member (Idle past 4927 days) Posts: 6367 Joined: |
But you will just move the goalposts. If someone proves a medical miracle happened at a meeting where the person was prayed for, you will demand a "double-blind study" just as I thought. That is the same spirit demanding Jesus, after He did miracles, to do more to convince them.
I feel the same way He does on the matter. You can read the Bible to find out what He said. Btw, McPhearson was a controversial charismatic preacher, a household word in her day and one of the most famous people in the world at that time, with mobs of reporters hounding her. She deliberately employed very sensational technigues, was divorced, remarried, founded the Four-Square denomination, etc,... The fact you never heard of her is indicative that you haven't really taken a study of such things that seriously. Btw, I am making no claims as to whether she was true or not. Frankly, I don't know. I know a lot of well-respected clergy denounced her, but sometimes when they came to her meetings, they too fell under the power, and not because they wanted to. She was controversial for a reason though. She did things like wore a bathing suit on the beach, something fairly controversial back then, was considered to have a lot of sex appeal in her voice on the radio. Hollywood at that time considered her sets for dramatic sermons to be of such quality, creativity and ingenuity that they would come out to see what she had done, and copy her. As far as whether she was true, I don't know, but she was real, as were the healings.
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randman  Suspended Member (Idle past 4927 days) Posts: 6367 Joined: |
I don't mean you quoted Hanegraff. I referred to the author of the article we were discussing.
This message has been edited by randman, 06-27-2005 04:32 AM
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randman  Suspended Member (Idle past 4927 days) Posts: 6367 Joined: |
They are NOT considered to be authentic by most of the Christian world. I don't know if they are authentic or not, but just as a point of order, your statement is probably not that accurate. The dominant form of Christianity now around the world is Pentacostal/Charismatic. Moreover, the 3rd world nations and what be termed 2nd world are growing to be the dominant centers of Christianity. A lot the debates on what is authentic, etc,...that occur in America are not even an issue around the world. But of course, probably most of these Christians around the world never heard of Branham, Aimmee Simple McPhearson, or Kathryn Kuhleman. Also, those are just some of the more controversial evangelists. There are a lot of men of God working in evangelism, even crusade evangelism, that you don't hear about that much. And there are a lot of smaller outreaches with the same miracles. Some folks from our church, which sponsors some orphanages in India, were over there last year, and some mighty miracles occurred, a man blind all his life was healed for instance. He pretty much praised God and danced in a field all night long, and the whole village and that area knew God did a miracle. There was no hype, no fakeness, just God working through His people.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1473 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Overall there is simply this major problem of putting SO much emphasis on EXPERIENCE. Nobody wants to be deceived but that's how we get deceived, because we really don't have the ability to judge such experiences. The ONLY thing we can do is hold it up to the word of God, and a great deal of it fails by that test, a lot more than you are willing to recognize. The preaching that went on in the First Great Awakening was Biblical and focused on Christ and resulted in a deepening of genuine Christianity in the population. I DON'T see that in any of this current revival, always it is the spectacle and the experience that is emphasized, that people fell over, that they laughed for hours, that it felt good and that sort of thing. If the focus on Christ and the word of God were there I'd be more inclined to dismiss the bizarre phenomena as Jonathan Edwards did, as inevitable given the weakness of the human frame etc.
{EDIT: Sorry, felt strongly afterward that I should not have told the stories of real people who could conceivably be identified, so I have deleted them. This message has been edited by Faith, 06-27-2005 03:27 PM
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1473 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I'm ready to believe in miracles in tribal or third world countries because I can see their usefulness there among the pagan religions, just as they were useful in spreading the gospel in the establishment of the early Church. And I AM aware of the small ministries and the spread of pentecostalism throughout the world, huge crowds in Africa for instance. I hope some of it is genuine.
This message has been edited by Faith, 06-27-2005 05:37 AM
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1473 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I don't know if they are authentic or not, but just as a point of order, your statement is probably not that accurate. By numbers of denominations it is certainly accurate.
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cmanteuf Member (Idle past 6794 days) Posts: 92 From: Virginia, USA Joined: |
randman writes: The dominant form of Christianity now around the world is Pentacostal/Charismatic. The dominant form of Christianity now around the world is the Roman Catholic Church. Chris
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lfen Member (Idle past 4706 days) Posts: 2189 From: Oregon Joined: |
Does anyone else recall the Swedish Chef on the Muppet show who spoke a vaguely but hilarious Swedish? Sometimes playing around I answer children with an improvised made up language. I've always thought of it as babbling and it may be related to babbling but perhaps I was speaking in tongues?
The last I read and this is decades old the analysis of recorded examples of glossalia showed the vocal productions did not have the structures of language. But I can't cite this research I've utterly forgotten where I read this. I agree with Gilgamesh that this is a non semantic phenomenon. It's related to the way humans produce sounds which is needed for language but is not language. lfen
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randman  Suspended Member (Idle past 4927 days) Posts: 6367 Joined: |
Well, I don't like holding to personal opinions on such things, but prefer to go to the Bible as a standard. It seems strange, but in the Bible, we see that sometimes when Jesus was casting a devil out of someone, it "tore" the person prior to coming out.
If that messes with your idea of Jesus' authority, I can't help that. It's the word of God so that's that. Now, at the same time, I am not saying this woman's story is true. I have no idea who she was, what happened, etc,...If all this commotion resulted in her getting delivered from demons, more power to her, as far as I am concerned. I see no biblical reason to criticize her either for sharing her testimony, from her experience. As far as overemphasizing experiences, that's true. That can be and is an error at times. So is overemphasizing peripheal doctrines, applying our own concepts of godliness and what is "dignified" in judging things. It cuts both ways. In fact, some folks can make an idol out of any good thing, doctrine, careers, heck, even their own spouses and families, but let's don't pretend these things are bad in themselves. The problem with those "discernment ministries" is they don't follow the Word enough in judging matters. God in His mercy has given us a perfect example in the Word of a super-charismatic church that got out of whack, and we can see from the Word the best way to correct such a church and noticeably absent is admonition to abandon spiritual gifts or to consider the anointing counterfeit. Quite the contrary, these things are commended. The Corinthian church is a great example for us to look for in the Word, not some dead, bogus religious tradition. Heck, they were getting drunk at church, using spiritual gifts to show off, but Paul didn't say, hey, you know your gifts and anointing are from the devil. No, he rebuked them properly according to the word of God. Unfortunately, these guys do not, imo.
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lfen Member (Idle past 4706 days) Posts: 2189 From: Oregon Joined: |
Ooops, don't know how but my reply was to wrong message. I'm redoing it after this. lfen
This message has been edited by lfen, 06-27-2005 10:08 AM
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1473 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Riiiigghht. NEUROLOGY is going to explain why a person praying in English suddenly starts speaking strange sounds, who has never done it before in her life. Riggghhht.
This message has been edited by Faith, 06-27-2005 01:07 PM {EDIT: That's kind of like thinking that an understanding of how the internal combustion engine works is going to explain how you ended up in Kansas when you started out for New York. This message has been edited by Faith, 06-27-2005 01:33 PM
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lfen Member (Idle past 4706 days) Posts: 2189 From: Oregon Joined: |
Faith,
You picked up that my reply which I copy below was intended to your post but somehow I got it attached to Randman. This is what I posted earlier that you replied to.
But it certainly is not from me either. It's not something you are consciously or deliberately doing and Gilgamesh's speaking in tongues is consciously initated. I accept that as a distinction. When you write "me" I'm taking that as your conscious deliberate ego. But the ego function is only part of the brain. There is much that the brain is doing that is not under conscious control or even in conscious awareness though you are aware of the spontaneous speaking you aren't intending it therefore it's not an ego directed function, but that doesn't mean it's not from you. I hold the explanation will be that it is brain function and will have parallels with other spontaneous activity. To attribute glossolalia to God, or spirits, or demons is a way to explain unconscious behaviours but I think neurology is developing better explanations. lfen I think neurology is certainly going to answer that question but it's going to take time. To begin with some sort of brain imaging scan of people would be helpful to see what areas of the brain are active. There are many strange and sudden phenomena. I'm beginning to think I understand yours, Phat's, and Hangdawg's use of the term supernatural. It seems you think science is only for everyday repeatable phenomena and things that are extremely unusual or rare are the result not of rare combinations or natural causes but are supernatural. Whereas I think they just aren't that common and are difficult to study for that reason among others. lfen
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1473 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
As I just added by edit to my previous answer:
{EDIT: That's kind of like thinking that an understanding of how the internal combustion engine works is going to explain how you ended up in Kansas when you started out for New York. Speaking in tongues occurs in a context. People who don't believe in God don't just start doing it in the grocery aisle. Neurology isn't going to explain WHY it happens as it does, no matter how much is understood about the neural pathways THROUGH WHICH it happens.
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