Christian conversion experience: descriptions/analysis/links: input invited

I wonder what treatment plan would work best to cure me of my sanity and reality and return me to my old delusions? Shock treatment? Ice wraps? Lobotomy? An afternoon with Dr. Phil?This message has been edited by Faith, 06-08-2005 05:22 AM

While I'm sure there is something to this observation, I'm also sure that the anti-supernatural bias can only come up with equally subjective and invalid explanations and treat them as fact in exactly the same way. A genuine study of these things with truly reliable results can't come out of that perspective either.This message has been edited by Faith, 06-08-2005 01:56 PMThis message has been edited by Faith, 06-08-2005 01:58 PM

I'm sorry, I have to disagree. The reliability of physics and medicine and other physical ("hard") sciences cannot fairly be extended to the study of mental and psychological and spiritual events where the subject matter is invisible and its connection with behavior subject to interpretation.I'd have to see your criteria for judging answer to prayer, for instance, if you have any idea of the lawfulness of the prayer in the first place for instance (yes, there are biblical standards), the fact that God may say No or answer a prayer in an unexpected way, and the likelihood that He has no interest in being the object of your scientific testing.This message has been edited by Faith, 06-08-2005 09:29 PM

I'd be happy to answer your post but it's off topic here I believe.

I simply can't grasp any connection between anything you said in that post and what I said about the efficacy of scientific studies of mental/spiritual phenomena, sorry.

You know perfectly well that you cannot replicate such things in a laboratory setting. What nonsense. The best you can do is stimulate some kind of mental phenomena, but the scenarios in question, no. Really what you are doing is concluding without evidence that both ideas are mythological. If you decide in advance it's all mythological end of discussion and certainly end to all pretense that anything truly scientific is going on. What the..? You aren't making any sense. Where's the opportunity for a mass delusion to have been developed in the case of individuals bringing charges against priests long after the fact? Who is "they?" And if the physical is fake then the apparition of Mary is real? What are you trying to say here? OK If we die after Adam's sin that implies we wouldn't have before it. Death then becomes our nature, but it's hard to deny that its occurrence as a result of sin was punishment for it. According to the Bible there is only one man without sin, Jesus Christ. Paul is scripture. Jesus appointed him personally. Jesus is God. Paul is no less scripture than the prophets of the OT. They fit fine for the rest of us. Just because you can't solve the puzzle doesn't mean others can't. I don't intend to be insulting here, just illustrating the problem. You find a wrong fit where others have no problem whatever. There is such a thing as not being able to solve a puzzle others can solve. I have discussions very frequently with an orthodox Jew about this sort of thing. They interpret the Bible to deny the Christian interpretation. If you trust their views then you give up on the Christian view. That's your choice, but what they have to say is only of use when it agrees with Christian interpretations from my point of view. This whole post is very puzzling to me. Maybe I lost track of the context since at first I thought it was off topic and wasn't going to answer it, but now I don't know what it's about any more.Uh yeah God wanted Jesus' sacrifice to happen. That's only THE major belief of Christianity.

OK, I've got to see this evidence. Reference please? 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. =====
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.What makes demons more acceptable? I reason from the Biblical revelation myself of course, and I find demons to be the more plausible explanation. 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, point you to some books by Christians about experiences with such phenomena, 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.Roughly the idea is that demons would have a stake in leading people to believe in UFOs (or the "gods" and other beings the human race has believed in over the millennia) rather than in demons. The rational explanation isn't better. You just like it better. Nobody has disproved the supernatural. My impression is that parents didn't even know about it, and that the victims themselves decided to come forward. They also acknowledge various apparitions, which the Mary apparitions fit. 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. 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. Why do you believe the serpent? They DID die. Did they become as gods? You haven't accounted for "you shall surely die" and Paul's acknowledgment that death came through one man which shows that Adam was immortal before his disobedience. YOu have little faith in God to think he'd make a threat and not follow through on it. Not necessarily. He may have had a vague idea but it wasn't until he saw actual death he really understood it. No, not even the righteous Enoch and Job. Job died, which is the proof he wasn't sinless as the "wages of sin is death." If you sin you die, if you die it's proof you're a sinner. Even Elijah is said to be a man like all of us though he and Enoch didn't die but were translated. I'm not going to get into this. YOu deny all Christian theology here. Jesus is FULL GOD AND FULL MAN according to all the creeds of the Church back to the beginning. Yes. He was both God and Man and he suffered in our place. You need to study up on the Trinity. You have a false view of it. Three persons in one God. 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. Whatever. This argument isn't going to go anywhere. It helps me to know what I think and to understand Christian theology better to debate 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. Jesus teaches that the Pharisees got it all wrong. You seem to believe the Pharisees instead of Jesus. 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.This message has been edited by Faith, 06-10-2005 01:04 AM

I really need to see the evidence of this. I simply do not believe you have anything like the evidence you claim you have for the complicated scenarios people report. You have to understand that I STARTED out where you are. I now understand that what you think it is and I used to think it is is very possibly NOT what you think it is. I can still misinterpret experiences, of course, and once you start experiencing this stuff you are likely to have all kinds of wild interpretations that need to settle down, but no way will I ever go back to the blinkered materialistic tunnel vision. That's fine, but I'd have a wary eye on that "compelling evidence" myself. Dogma is simply the codification of established knowledge, and when the knowledge is revelation by God it is simply not open to discussion. Scientists have their dogmas too. Everyone does.However, EXPERIENCE is something else. This is not about dogma, this is about possibilities. The materialistic science mentality will not countenance the supernatural for half an instant. If you have read many of my posts you may have run across the one where I say I used to subscribe to Skeptical Inquirer which focuses on the paranormal. As I recall, every article claimed to disprove this or that phenomenon under investigation and give a naturalistic interpretation. While I was quite willing to accept their conclusions, I wanted to be able to follow the reasoning and be really convinced. Unfortunately there were many times when I found the logic of a particular study to be hard to follow, confused and inconclusive even though they claimed they'd proved their point, and my overall feeling was frustration that many of these questions remained unanswered. There are always frauds and there are of course misinterpretations, but there are ALSO phenomena that remain unexplained even though it is believed they have been explained. I never said "assailed" by demons. And again, SHOW ME THE EVIDENCE. You do NOT understand "exactly" what causes these experiences. My critical thinking skills have always been superior, and I'm as prone to dismissing such experiences on naturalistic terms as you are, only now I know better. The easiest thing to do is to rationalize strange experiences as "coincidences" or the result of too little sleep or overwork or stress or whatever. Sorry, I know things you do not know. And again, instead of merely asserting that you have the evidence, I need to see it. Your loss. That's because you dismiss the testimony of millions of witnesses of all cultures over the millennia. You reinterpret it by "modern" standards and so blind yourself to what it really is. Science is out of bounds when it leaves its proper place of understanding the physical world. When it gets into society and personality and spirituality and history it is just an arrogant fool. Not that it doesn't give some useful information about some things, but overall the "goat herders" got it right. The mere characterization of these people as superstitious and primitive shows you are no judge of character, but in thrall to the god of modernity. Because the demons change their tactics with the times. Sure there are misinterpretations, maybe most of them, I don't know. I looked up the book on UFOs I half remembered. UFOs never interested me in the slightest, but Jacques Vallee's Messengers of Deception raises new possibilities. After years of study and believing in the reality of aliens he concludes that they aren't really aliens but some kind of deceptive phenomenon. He suggests a similarity to fairies and ghouls and that sort of thing as I recall, and offered the idea that they change their tactics with the times. I googled him and there's info out there but I'm not patient enough to read it right now. New Age religions, channeling are big. Oracles. Near-death experiences. Out-of-body experiences. Wait and see I'd say. I guess we're going to get into an "is too - is not" thing here if we don't watch it. I've had many many prayers answered. Here's a test for you. Take the Chinese oracle the I Ching and ask it thousands of questions -- you think the question and throw coins to get the answer -- philosophical questions, who it is, what it thinks about such and such, or anything you like. Write down the question before you throw the coins and note the number combination and the answer and any impression you have about the seeming "coincidence" of the answers. I had the impression that the numbers fall within probability but the answers were about 90% uncannily appropriate as to MEANING. But I'm sure it's possible to explain away anything too. AND if there ARE demons controlling these things they may not see fit to play along with you anyway Here's another test. Get half a dozen astrologers with lots of experience and good reputation (there are frauds among these too, and some who rely on "psychic power" -- try to screen those out and go for the ones who simply read the chart). Prepare the birth horoscopes (there are websites that will draw them for you -- don't bother with the "readings" offered there) of a dozen or so people who have their birth certificates so the exact time and place of birth is known. They have to be roughly the same age -- within a few years would be ideal -- because the position of the "heavy" or slow-moving planets (Pluto, Uranus, Neptune) will give away who's in what generation. Give the charts to the astrologers and let them study them. Then let the people be interviewed one at a time in some depth by the astrologers all gathered together for the purpose, taking care to avoid anything that might give away age or birthday. If the astrologers are good they should be able to match the person with his/her horoscope with much greater than probability.{EDIT: Of course the charts are "blind" - with no names or identifying information on them, just the charts themselves with the positions of the planets drawn on the zodiac circle with the angles between them marked in. Nothing else. You'll need your own system for identifying which chart belongs to which subject.{EDIT: A Christian may not have anything to do with either of the above. This is from my pre-Christian occultic experience. It is forbidden by God to consult oracles and they are associated with demonic activity in the Bible, so even recommending such a study to you is possibly very wrong of me. I hope I don't regret it.This message has been edited by Faith, 06-10-2005 06:26 AM

Wow you certainly feel free to make outrageously rude intrusive statements about my personal motives that are hardly warranted by anything I've said. Where do you get the right to psychoanalyze me? If I were running this place I would disallow that kind of personal remark. It's far nastier than namecalling.Second observation is that you are awfully certain about your judgments of everything, militant even. Kind of a crusader perhaps. Unbelievably arrogant I would add. I wonder if you are willing to tolerate any disagreement with your conclusions whatever, or are you just out to denigrate your opponents and trash their character?You also respond rather snappily and out of context to some other statements. What's the point if you are going to take things out of context. Don't bother answering please.About the tests I proposed, the one about the I Ching involves too much subjective interpretation of its messages to lend itself to a test, especially by those of a militant debunking mindset. As for your link about astrology tests I see they've become a bit more sophisticated than they used to be, but 95% of them couldn't possibly tell you anything. You can't use personality inventories as they add their own interpretive problems to the mix. It would have to be astrologers directly interviewing people as they have their own ways of correlating charts with personality. There are a couple of tests at your link that seem to have attempted something along those lines. You can throw out all the rest. Perhaps I will read more later about the ones that seem relevant.I think I've had enough conversation with you for quite some time to come however.

Since we have been describing such phenomena on this thread I wonder if you would describe this in more detail -- or refer to the message where you did describe it? Thanks.

Thanks for the thoughts, Randman. I don't mind if you want to write on at great length, it's interesting. But I can assure you that there was no lack of fluency in my "tongues-speaking" and I'm not sure what gave you that idea. The first few days I DID sing as a matter of fact, but oddly the tunes were familiar American folk tunes though the "words" were the "tongue." I went around the house singing like that for days and thought it was interesting and a bit amusing but not at all spiritual. Later I found it becoming a burden as I didn't like its feeling so unrelated to my spiritual life, and after I saw through the unbiblical elements in the circles I was in I just didn't want anything to do with any of it any more.I just can't see those "revivals" such as Toronto as true revivals at all. Certainly many odd phenomena attend true revivals too, however. Jonathan Edwards wrote about those things in the First Great Awakening. And I think there was much that was genuine in the Second Great Awakening too, but the theology of its main catalyst Charles Finney was different from the theology of the First Awakening, and that may be why it went off in many false directions and spawned the weird cults of the day.I'd love to see a revival now, but I want a REAL revival, not this stuff of mere spectacle. The revival that has most intrigued me to read about is Wales in the early 20th Century. It went on for years and it was the genuine power of God though if I recall correctly the spectacular phenomena were not as much in evidence as in some others. In Toronto the spectacle appears to be THE thing itself.I can't doubt YOUR experiences of course but I really can't see the POINT of tongues any more at all. At Pentecost it had a point. It demonstrated the moving out of the Church of God to all peoples through His Spirit. But in our day it has long since moved out to all peoples.Anyway, thanks again for your thoughts.This message has been edited by Faith, 06-25-2005 09:58 AM

I started to include this as an edit to the previous post and then thought it might be better posted separately.Have you read any of the critics of the recent revivals in Toronto and Brownsville? I know many who have been involved in those things won't read the critics at all. When I left the charismatic movement I needed to understand all that from the other side. One website that has been very helpful is Tricia Tillin's Cross+Word site in the UK, where she collects many articles investigating these phenomena. She herself remains charismatic and believes in the gift of tongues.http://www.intotruth.org/index.htmlThis is an article I found there this morning that seems pretty careful and thorough, addressed to the Assembly of God churches (actually it's a complete book):http://www.intotruth.org/brn/overheads.htmlAnd here is information on the Welsh revival of 1904 including newspaper accounts and some sermons of its best preachers. Martyn Lloyd-Jones is included because of his sympathy with the revival though he was too young to be a preacher at the time. He has always been one of my favorites. There are tapes available of his preaching in his wonderful Welsh accent though he died in 1981.http://www.christian-bookshop.co.uk/free/rowland.htmHere's John Piper ("Desiring God") on Martyn Lloyd-Jones, mainly considering his view of revivals. "Calvinistic Methodism" is used to describe Lloyd-Jones and in some ways describes Piper too. This article illuminates the fundamental problem of how to discern the work of the Spirit from the work of the flesh and the devil without quenching the Spirit. 404 Error - Page Not Found | Desiring God This message has been edited by Faith, 06-25-2005 10:54 AM

I have to say that what you describe to lfen here does sound genuine. The spontaneity is impressive.BUT there is no hint that the woman who was knocked down at the convenience store UNDERSTOOD anything. Why is that? This is what always bothers me about the charismatic experiences, the emphasis on experience and the theological emptiness of so much of it, as well as the outright doctrinal deviance of a lot of it. Often charismatics will pooh-pooh doctrine and theology, but one has to ask how on earth they can know the source of the experiences for sure without having the doctrine to judge them by? Where is the Berean spirit? The book I link in the previous post at Cross+Word explains the importance of right doctrine very well and the danger of deceit from counterfeit phenomena if the word of God is not the constant standard.This message has been edited by Faith, 06-25-2005 11:00 AM

Yes you are arguing much along the lines of Martyn Lloyd Jones and I already agree though I'm a lot more cautious than I used to be. The idea is to avoid quenching the Spirit, but at the same time some things that are considered to be of the Spirit are of a counterfeit spirit, because of false doctrine, and that's not a minor thing.

Well, sometime take a look at the links I posted, especially the second one.