OK, I've got to see this evidence. Reference please?
that might take me a while to find. it was something i read about long ago. might be this study:
Takeuchi, T., Miyasita, A., Inugami, M., Sasaki, Y., & Fukuda, K. (1994). Laboratory-documented hallucination during sleep-onset REM period in a normal subject. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 78, 979-985.
if not, it's one very similar. they do a lot of laboratory research on sleep paralysis in japan. i'll look a little harder tomorrow.
I'm not denying the phenomenon of sleep paralysis. I've experienced it myself. I'm simply doubting that it is enough to explain these complicated scenarios people report.
well, like i said. it doesn't explain the betty/barney hill story. it sure doesn't acount for all of them. but if it starts out with you in your bed, unable to move, that's sleep paralysis. gilgamesh is right, btw. the thing you describe months ago was textbook sleep paralysis.
They are contradicted by the scientific PREJUDICES, or ASSUMPTIONS is how I would put it. It hasn't been proved that the supernatural does not exist.
or aliens for that matter. in fact, large fields of science are rather hopeful that aliens DO exist: seti for instance. this isn't a case of "let's disprove those wacky christians!" it's a case of the most logical explanation. and sleep paralysis explains MOST of these cases. if not all.
What makes demons more acceptable? I reason from the Biblical revelation myself of course, and I find demons to be the more plausible explanation.
well, that's your assumption, and your prejudice now, isn't it? what if the reports of demons from the bible are nothing more exciting than what we're talking about now? sleep paralysis, and various psychological disorders passed off as possession. imagine, for instance, how tourette's syndrome would have been accepted in biblical times.
I'd point to the Bible reports of demons and the worldwide reports of experiences of demonic type beings, add to that the Biblical hint that their main design is to deceive,
what if the biggest deception is that they exist? personally, i believe in a god that has things a little more under control than that.
point you to some books by Christians about experiences with such phenomena
i've hundreds, maybe thousands of books on near death experiences. always written by people who fervently believe, and had their life changed by it.
but strap yourself into a g-force simulating centrifuge, and you can have one too. turns out the visions produced are just what happens when your brains runs out of oxygenated blood. so when people are dying -- ie: their brains are being deprived of oxygen -- and they experience the same exact thing... why should we think it's anything else than a natural product of our own brains?
same with sleep paralysis. if we know the brain produces certain types of hallucinations/dreams under certain circumstances, and then people report the same sorts of visions, under the same circumstances, why should we think they're anything else than products of our own brains?
and also a particular book about UFOs by a UFO expert who is a nonChristian and thinks the phenomena are {EDIT: real but} not physical. Something Vallee is his name? I'd have to look it up. Read it a long time ago. Very interesting book.
i've read a lot of stuff on ufo's. 99% of it is crackpot. there is a theory going round involving slow-moving geological electrical discharges (similar to ball-lightning) to explain exterio abduction experiences, like in "fire in the sky." apparently, the brain produces certain visions, along with memory loss, when you run high amounts of electricity through it. which is not suprising, really. but uh, as for the ideas about slow-moving ball lightning... i'm not so sure.
The rational explanation isn't better. You just like it better. Nobody has disproved the supernatural.
we can reproduce the rational. in fact, having had one such experience myself recently, and rationally understanding what it was, i was able to control it and bring myself out of it. many people who suffer the disorder more commonly have reported the same exact thing.
if it's demons, well, i killed one with my mind. which makes me pretty bad-ass.
My impression is that parents didn't even know about it, and that the victims themselves decided to come forward.
yes, but to whom?
psychology is a strange field. it requires tests to be double-blind very frequently, because of something called operator bias. it means that participants' views will often be tailored to the questioner's, whether or not either party means it to. and so the people actually performing the tests usually don't know what the test IS.
they've found that leading questions and suggestible states (like hypnosis. or childhood) can lead to false memories. but, like i said. just a thought.
They also acknowledge various apparitions, which the Mary apparitions fit.
well, no, that's still backwards. they hold the physical to be the apparition. visions themselves are considered peek-throughs to the other side. in a manner of speaking.
No, the *serpent* said if they ate of the *tree of the knowledge of good and evil* they'd be like God, not the tree of life.
actually, i was refering to what god said (which backs the snake, btw)
quote:
Gen 3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
see? god says they're like god. they only thing god has that they don't is eternal life. so god doesn't condemn them to die, specifically. he just removes the opportunity to have eternal life. which implies that they didn't have it before.
God said they would die if they ate of the tree of the knoweldge of good and evil and they DIED, they immediately died in the spirit to communion with God and eventually they died physically.
but that's not what god said, is it? god said they'd die, as in literally. he even emphasizes that he really means death. there's non of this "died in the spirit" bit in genesis, is there? as for separation from god, well, that's only when they got kicked out of the garden. where was god when they were eating? right before they ate? when they were talking to the serpent?
the direct consequence is revealed by the text: they realize they're naked, and they hide. so their "separation from god" at that point is self-imposed. and then god doles out their various punishments. farming, childbirth, and no legs. then they're kicked out.
Why do you believe the serpent?
because he was right.
according to god, anyways. god says "Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil." is that not what the serpent said would happen?
They DID die. Did they become as gods?
according to god, yes. you either believe the story, or you don't. this bit where you're changing the ending doesn't really work.
You haven't accounted for "you shall surely die"
sure i did. i mentioned recently, although i think in another thread, that it was empty or exagerated thread designed as a deterent. it's like threatening to kill your kids if they something wrong. you're not REALLY going to kill them. you're just trying to scare them into not doing it. because you care about them.
and Paul's acknowledgment that death came through one man
so did life. every human being is descended for adam, right?
but to say that adam created life would be blasphemy. adam didn't create life; god did. neither did adam create death. god created that too. it's no real suprise that adam was the first to die.
which shows that Adam was immortal before his disobedience.
doesn't follow. paul stating his interpretation does not change the word of god to say what he means in genesis. genesis records god as saying that adam would not live forever without the tree of life. which means that adam was not created immortal, but there was a three there to make him immortal.
YOu have little faith in God to think he'd make a threat and not follow through on it.
no, i'm quite thankful that he didn't. and the text is plainly evident that he didn't. he says that when adam eats, he will die. the statement is causal. not die at some future time. when he eats.
you must have very little faith in god to have to move the goalposts in order for your god to score a touchdown. all i'm saying is that he deliberately missed, and the gesture of kindness and caring disappears if you make him score that last point.
Not necessarily. He may have had a vague idea but it wasn't until he saw actual death he really understood it.
would he have understood it from abel's? or only his own? now, i'm all for adam being seen as stupid. (because he is. who blames god for his own misdeeds?) but we never see the snake and eve arguing over the semantics of what god meant by death.
it's pretty clear that adam and eve thought it meant DEATH. not "spiritual" death. non of this "in a manner of speaking" stuff.
No, not even the righteous Enoch and Job. Job died, which is the proof he wasn't sinless
hate to point this out, but enoch's got a leg up here. jesus died. enoch, however, did not. (also, i can't find the bit about job dying in the bible...)
as the "wages of sin is death." If you sin you die, if you die it's proof you're a sinner.
jesus promised us we wouldn't. why do we still die if our sins have been removed by him?
paul is also wrong, btw. the wages of sin are not death. the wages of sin are repetance and atonement. only specific and grievous sins required sacrifice under the levitical standard. the price of most sins was a ritual, and feeding the levites with bread and oil. read leviticus if you don't believe me.
Jesus is FULL GOD AND FULL MAN according to all the creeds of the Church back to the beginning.
alright, but as a full man he is not allowed to be worshipped.
Yes. He was both God and Man and he suffered in our place.
how can he be separate from something he is?
You need to study up on the Trinity. You have a false view of it. Three persons in one God.
studied it alot. it doesn't make any kind of sense for those of us who've read the bible. it's another non-biblical dogmatic holdover from catholicism. like i said. if jesus is to be a sacrifice, and take our separation from god, he cannot himself be god. another god, sure. but there is only one god.
a SON of god, however....
I didn't call him a prophet. I've never heard him referred to as a prophet. I said his writings are scripture. But in a way, since he spoke directly with the risen Christ, perhaps he could be called a prophet.
well, you did equate him to one. prophets can also be false, though, mind you. god gives pretty clear instructions on how to tell the false ones. if they speak in the name of anyone other than yahweh, or their prophecies fail to come true. since paul does not speak of the future, all we can test him on is who he speaks for.
mind also the fact that when the israelites made the golden calf, the said it was the same god.
It helps me to know what I think and to understand Christian theology better to debate it.
you argue for it, not debate it. i debate it. if you weren't somewhat open to disagreement, i suspect you wouldn't be here. all i'm asking is that you examine these things a little more closely, instead of just accepting everything. some of this stuff really doesn't make sense at all when you start examining it.
God wrote it. God chose them, they didn't choose God. The Jews who recognized Jesus as the Messiah are part of the True Israel, hundreds of thousands of them in the time of Jesus. The OT is very clear that only a "remnant" are God's. Paul says "not all Israel is Israel" and "blindness has happened to them in part" for the sake of the Gentiles.
i spoke before of god failing to follow through on a thread. you're speaking of god failing to follow through on a promise. and so is paul. and that's just anti-biblical, and anti-god, isn't it? saying that god revoked his promise, like that?
Jesus teaches that the Pharisees got it all wrong. You seem to believe the Pharisees instead of Jesus.
jesus taught that the pharisees had forsaken their tradition. what jesus preached (aside from the getting to heaven bits) was STRONGLY jewish reformationist stuff.
what paal preached was something entirely different: a whole new religion. i'm arguing closer to jesus: most of my views line up pretty squarely with reform judaism.
Of course not. Sin is the reason for the sacrfice of Christ as it was the reason for ALL the sacrifices in the Bible and in human history. He was sinless, but He died BECAUSE of our sin, to save us from our sin. That's the whole point. Come on, Arach, that's what the New Testament SAYS.
ok. let's recap:
christ's sacrifice = god's will.
if sin had not entered the world, there would have been no need or reason for the sacrifice.
so.
why do you think sin entered the world?
אָרַח
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