Tribute Thread For the Recently Raptured Faith

For a believer, explaining the possibility of demons is not treason. For an unbeliever, it is expected.What bugs me is when someone explains to me why my conclusions are fictional and goes on to correct me based on their understanding of reality vs fantasy. I would tell them that they are free to think as they like but not to act as if their intelligence is superior to mine. They may suggest that I am willfully deluded, which I'll take as an opinion but not a fact....for now.

For everybody, it's a contradiction of the word "unexplained". There is only one reality.

. Agreed. And none of us is an expert on it.

I don't doubt that you are being honest, but I really do think that your position is enough opposed to the traditional Christian doctrines that if your church is strong on those doctrines they have to oppose you and even by excommunication if you continue as you are. The traditional church subscribes to a set of doctrines and you dispute some of them, you persist in refusing to take a position one way or the other. Again, I don't know how strong your church's position is on the traditional doctrines, but if they do hold to a strong position then you don't belong there.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Collectively, we are as expert as anybody can be. You don't get to challenge objective reality just because you don't like it.

Bloody hell Phat... words fail me. There aren't enough facepalm memes on the internet to adequately respond to that. Yes, of course there are. But to imagine that you can do so flawlessly is asinine. Likely is not certainly. You can still be fooled. If you believe otherwise, then you are an even bigger fool.People who have been married for decades are commonly astonished to discover that their spouse has been cheating on them. People have been known to hide entire secret lives from those closest to them. The cuckolded husband is fooled, the wife whose husband is secretly gay is fooled, the victims of confidence tricks are fooled, but you... you are somehow immune. You are infallible. You cannot be tricked.What a crock. I call that breathtaking naivety and implicit arrogance.I know that this is not coming across as friendly and I am sorry for that, but seriously, there is no nice way to say this. Stop being a fool. You can be tricked just as anyone else can, including by those close to you. Again, crazy people do not need motives.Anyway, you're wrong. Just being centre of attention is plenty of motive. It's a foolish motive sure, but who said that all human motives are sensible? You are wrong. Everyone lies. Who was doing the voice? Mikee? The other person present? How do you know? A waste of time. Polygraphs are easy to fool and they cannot work on someone who is disturbed enough to believe in what he is saying. In particular, after thirteen years it would be doubly a waste; the testee would only verify what they could remember and that might be quite different from what actually happened. Unpack that for a second; if they had successfully fooled me, how would I know?But yes, I have had people lie to me, including people close to me. And so have you. Everyone has. This ought not be surprising to a grown-up.Mutate and Survive

The point is that they wouldn't have wanted to lie, they'd have been gloating over fooling him.

How could you possibly know what they would have wanted? You've never met them.Perhaps "they" were too embarrassed at having put on such a ridiculous spectacle. Perhaps only one of them was indulging in trickery and to gloat would have been to admit the deception. Perhaps they felt guilty about lying about something as personal and heartfelt as religious faith. Perhaps mental illness was involved and there never was any fully conscious deception. Perhaps their memories were tainted. Perhaps, perhaps... I could go on, but no, obviously none of that could possibly be as plausible as literal magic demon monsters from hell. I mean, it just stands to reason.Mutate and Survive

There is another scenario that could be proposed. Though dealing with impetuous youth we must remember these youth were imbedded in a strong religious cult. We already know how twisted in logic religious minds can get.The one perpetrator of this hoax, seeing his friends’ acceptance and deepening faith, is convinced, well after his show, that his subterfuge was a theater put on by god. He might reason god wanted, indeed, induced him into the hoax using his youthful impulses, and that to admit to such might undermine the fabric of faith in his friends and, thus, the will of god. All these years later, though he knows he was never possessed by any demon, he may be ever convinced that he had been possessed by a rather mischievous musing of the holy spirit and feels compelled to hold his secret.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

All of these "perhaps'es" are arguably valid. I dont think they happened but I could be wrong. The supernatural realm remains unevidenced. One thing I might note, however...and that is your description of this particular church as a strong religious cult. If that is your criteria, likely 30% of protestant churches fall under your cult definition.There are many nuttier groups than the one I was in....but they did go through a particularly exclusivist and "nutty" phase. I've got stories...

Totally out of character for any Christian to want to keep a friend believing in a lie. If it had been a hoax my own scenario makes most sense, that the perps would gleefully tease their victim who had believed it. But of course I don't believe any of that anyway. It was a demon-possessed young man Phat saw.

Lol. Whatever.

Phat, com'on. You know that's 100%.It's cults all the way down.

Yes. Of course it was, M'Love. How foolish of me. What was I thinking!Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

If by "cult" we mean "mind-control cult", then fundamentalist Christian churches fit the description very well. Encouraging you to accept church dogma without evidence (or despite evidence) is attempted mind-control. Blaming things on demons is attempted mind-control.