[Cubeoid]

did they?

[Apple Pro Underwear]

in their mind yes


i seriously believe i banged britney spears in 2001 in the back of a blue van on top of a speaker

[brapper]

Originally posted by Apple Pro Underwear:
in their mind yes


i seriously believe i banged britney spears in 2001 in the back of a blue van on top of a speaker

you too?

[willed]

To see God in a dream is simply to dream that you saw God. To see God in real life... means that you're mad.

With the caveat, of course, that I'll believe it when I see it

[TheBadgerHunter]

I don't know. You should probably ask them.

[The Windozer]

Better yet, ask God the next time you think you see him.

[Shaddim]

Originally posted by Cubeoid:
did they?

Ummm... likely not. Especially not is they still have the use of their eyes.

Now, if their pupils have melted, hair is white, and their face is blistered... maybe.

[Matt OS X]

Better yet, who created God?

[Albert Pujols]

Originally posted by Matt OS X:
Better yet, who created God?

He created himself, thats why hes God.

[Matt OS X]

Originally posted by Albert Pujols:
He created himself, thats why hes God.

Yeah, I'm aware of it but who gave him the powers?

[dcmacdaddy]

Originally posted by Cubeoid:
did they?

Saw him physically, in some sort of anthropomorphic manifestation?

Or

Saw him spiritually, in a symbol-laden fashion (i.e.: a burning bush)?

Either way, good for them. But the thing is, with spirituality any interaction is always between an individual and their deity. If they are alone or in a church/temple/mosque full of people the interaction still occurs between the person and the deity.

So yes, if they believe the saw God then they did see it.

[Shaddim]

Originally posted by Matt OS X:
Yeah, I'm aware of it but who gave him the powers?

that gets into the whole "I AM" thing, an extra-temporal existance, no entropy, etc..

[Shaddim]

Originally posted by Cubeoid:
did they?

Sorry for making a joke earlier. I'll try a more serious answer.

Most likely, no, they didn't. Though there are myriads of different types of servants and messengers that are likely to be seen by us. In that "the finger is a part of the whole", one could say that to see the messenger is to see "Him", but that's a case of semantics.

[waxcrash]

�Each jump gets us closer to God!�

[Superchicken]

Seeing God... all depends on what you call seeing someone. I see someone in a painting they've done, so in that regard I see God every time I look at at sunset. On the other hand. Seeing God as a physical manifestation... very very few people can say this... that said... you know, drowning when you're very young, and getting a very lovely vision of heaven where you're face to face with God... is not something that I should really say can't happen... especially since it happened to me

[Shaddim]

Originally posted by Superchicken:
Seeing God... all depends on what you call seeing someone. I see someone in a painting they've done, so in that regard I see God every time I look at at sunset. On the other hand. Seeing God as a physical manifestation... very very few people can say this... that said... you know, drowning when you're very young, and getting a very lovely vision of heaven where you're face to face with God... is not something that I should really say can't happen... especially since it happened to me

chicken, how old were you when you drowned? Just curious, I had a very similar experience.

[Jaey]

Originally posted by Superchicken:
Seeing God... all depends on what you call seeing someone. I see someone in a painting they've done, so in that regard I see God every time I look at at sunset. On the other hand. Seeing God as a physical manifestation... very very few people can say this... that said... you know, drowning when you're very young, and getting a very lovely vision of heaven where you're face to face with God... is not something that I should really say can't happen... especially since it happened to me

Funny. I remember drowning when I was about 2 years old and I saw some black-robed, hooded figure.

I guess I was a bad boy.

[nredman]

Originally posted by Apple Pro Underwear:
in their mind yes


i seriously believe i banged britney spears in 2001 in the back of a blue van on top of a speaker

as apposed to the other teenage blonds you bang in your van?

[Superchicken]

Originally posted by MacNStein:
chicken, how old were you when you drowned? Just curious, I had a very similar experience.

It was a couple of days before my third birthday. In retrospect it ended up influencing me a lot. It's somewhere in the back now and doesn't directly influence anything that I think or believe or whatever, but it did set me on the path that though most other things in my life made me cynical and doubtful, I did end up never having a reason to doubt God's existence, after that my mind was always open to the possibility and I got to see Him pop up fairly regularly after that It's actually my earliest memory... it's cool to have your earliest memory be God
Keep in mind I had never even been to a church at this point, then my mom was a Christian but it meant very little to her at that time, and my dad was not. I'd never been to a Church as I can remember. Years later I was in the basement of what is actually now my new church, and they had one of those tacky Jesus paintings on the wall, and I thought, "Hey that's the guy I saw when I drown" haha

[Cubeoid]

Originally posted by waxcrash:
�Each leap brings us closer to God!�

Fixenated

[Cubeoid]

God transends the boundry between physical and spiritual, this makes God be God. Not a he, she, nor it, exisiting within and without every single fibre on earth. I could go into this further, but there is a plethora of fine books written about this amazing subject, my own ideas may find their way among those books one day. Cubeoid says: Theology is neat!

[olePigeon]

Originally posted by Superchicken:
Seeing God... all depends on what you call seeing someone. I see someone in a painting they've done, so in that regard I see God every time I look at at sunset. On the other hand. Seeing God as a physical manifestation... very very few people can say this... that said... you know, drowning when you're very young, and getting a very lovely vision of heaven where you're face to face with God... is not something that I should really say can't happen... especially since it happened to me

So you're not Catholic.

[TheBadgerHunter]

Originally posted by Superchicken:
It was a couple of days before my third birthday. In retrospect it ended up influencing me a lot. It's somewhere in the back now and doesn't directly influence anything that I think or believe or whatever, but it did set me on the path that though most other things in my life made me cynical and doubtful, I did end up never having a reason to doubt God's existence, after that my mind was always open to the possibility and I got to see Him pop up fairly regularly after that It's actually my earliest memory... it's cool to have your earliest memory be God
Keep in mind I had never even been to a church at this point, then my mom was a Christian but it meant very little to her at that time, and my dad was not. I'd never been to a Church as I can remember. Years later I was in the basement of what is actually now my new church, and they had one of those tacky Jesus paintings on the wall, and I thought, "Hey that's the guy I saw when I drown" haha

You seriously think you had a vision? Ya know people hallucinate all sorts of crap when they're in drowning/near-death situations? Especially at an age barely old enough to have a memory of anything. So I'm calling bull.

Take this with a grain of salt coming from a quasi-former-christian with respect for christianity but little belief.

[itistoday]

Ask a silly question... get a silly answer...

why do i have a feeling this is going to turn into another 6 page pointless flamewar...

[ThinkInsane]

Originally posted by Matt OS X:
Yeah, I'm aware of it but who gave him the powers?

I did. And I can just as easily take them away.... *ducks lightning bolts and what not*

[KeriVit]

If you feel you saw Him, you saw Him. Bottom line- it's what you believe. Why question someone's faith? If I felt everything existed and I saw what I felt was proof of that- that'd be it.

Politics, religion. No one can PROVE you wrong, so you're right.

starting something? No, I just like the poking guy.

[Superchicken]

Originally posted by TheBadgerHunter:
You seriously think you had a vision? Ya know people hallucinate all sorts of crap when they're in drowning/near-death situations? Especially at an age barely old enough to have a memory of anything. So I'm calling bull.

Take this with a grain of salt coming from a quasi-former-christian with respect for christianity but little belief.

Well how many visions show you a man who is instantly recognized as God to you for some reason despite you really having little to no concept of God previously, saying, "you need to go back, you still have work to do." I call bull on your scepticism. I really don't care if you believe me or not, I'm not suggesting you should become a Christian based on my vision, I don't think I should be a Christian based on it. I have never had another since and may never have another in my life. But I refuse to try and rationalize away something that in retrospect was the obvious hand of God in my life to draw me towards him. Normally children learn to think of God as a bigger version of their parents. If their parents were loving but stern God will be, if they were push overs, then they see God as a push over. My parents were inattentive, my father was not really there for a lot of my child hood, and for especially the first years of my life, through an awful delivery (I was delivered with only enough pain killers to keep her from fighting the doctors, but none to actually relieve the pain so she felt every incision in a C section), and even afterwards she had very strong anger control problems.
By all rights I should see God as some distant angry being. But I don't, and that's because before anyone else reached out to me, He did. So forgive me if I don't so easily turn my back on someone Who has never turned His on me.

[itistoday]

If you saw, and felt, and heard, and even smelt something, doesn't mean its true. That's a simple fact. There is nothing to argue here. If someone thinks they saw God, either they saw him, or they saw him in their head. The former being highly unlikely, chances are, that person was simply experiencing the effects of certain chemicals in his head going off. Nothing more to it.

Look down at your keyboard. You see that? The only reason you see that is because chemicals are firing off in your brain. Touch yourself... down there... nice huh? Well with a few simple adjustments, we can make it so that you don't even have to touch yourself down there to feel excited! It's called extacy! Have someone touch you anywhere while you're on it and you'll feel incredible!

Now, while staring at the keyboard go take several hits of LSD. Sit for about 2 hours, and tell me if anything has changed. You will see, what seems real to you, something that is not really there.

Or how about visiting your local mental institution? Ask the people there some of the things they've "seen" and see if you're gullible enough to believe them.

The fact is, nothing is really that reliable. Everything inside your head can be ****ed with, sometimes without your own knowledge of it. And so that mushroom that you found stashed in the back of the refrigerator that you ate for breakfast (not giving it a second thought) actually caused those distortions in your vision throughout the day�not some divine being.

The answer to your question, "If somebody thinks they saw God, did they?" is: No way to tell, but probably not!

[waxcrash]

God is better living through chemistry.

[awcopus]

Originally posted by itistoday:
The answer to your question, "If somebody thinks they saw God, did they?" is: No way to tell, but probably not!

Our sensory experience of the world, integrated logically by our minds' faculty of reason, is what enables our survival. Interacting with this world in a way that makes sense is about learning to identify things, one thing at a time, in unequivocal terms. Water is water. Coke has water in it, but other stuff too, that makes it Coke. Both are liquids, but one is more likely to come in an aluminum can. So on, so forth, our understandings become more complex and intricate, but nonetheless based on a world that each of us can verify to one another.

A supernatural deity is a placeholder concept for an extraordinarily subjective notion and its varying subsets of culturally informed epsitemological and moral convictions. Travel the world or travel from town to town in North America or look up any discussions of this topic on any forum on the internet, you will encounter a variety of interpretations of "God", NONE of which has any more credibility than any other because there is NO way of assessing the credibility of irrational claims. Dozens or hundred or millions of people making a similar claim is not proof of anything other than that such and such a number of people agree about something existing for which there is, by definition, no evidence.

Is it possible to "see" something that no scientific instrument can detect? No, it is not. Sorry. To say that this is possible, is to say that there is some kind of flaw in optical technology that cannot be addressed by improvements in optical technology, which is absurd.

By definition, it is not possible to see that which does not exist. Since it's the 21st century, not the dark ages, I thought maybe somebody should point this out.

That said, you are entitled (as are we all) to believe in whatever you choose to believe about what you experience. You're just not entitled to be right about what you believe.

[TheBadgerHunter]

Originally posted by Superchicken:
Well how many visions show you a man who is instantly recognized as God to you for some reason despite you really having little to no concept of God previously, saying, "you need to go back, you still have work to do." I call bull on your scepticism. I really don't care if you believe me or not, I'm not suggesting you should become a Christian based on my vision, I don't think I should be a Christian based on it. I have never had another since and may never have another in my life. But I refuse to try and rationalize away something that in retrospect was the obvious hand of God in my life to draw me towards him. Normally children learn to think of God as a bigger version of their parents. If their parents were loving but stern God will be, if they were push overs, then they see God as a push over. My parents were inattentive, my father was not really there for a lot of my child hood, and for especially the first years of my life, through an awful delivery (I was delivered with only enough pain killers to keep her from fighting the doctors, but none to actually relieve the pain so she felt every incision in a C section), and even afterwards she had very strong anger control problems.
By all rights I should see God as some distant angry being. But I don't, and that's because before anyone else reached out to me, He did. So forgive me if I don't so easily turn my back on someone Who has never turned His on me.

I'm not saying you didn't see him. I'm saying I don't believe you saw him. Big difference.

[amsalpemkcus]

Originally posted by waxcrash:
God is better dying through chemistry.

Fixiated.

[TheBadgerHunter]

Originally posted by awcopus:
Our sensory experience of the world, integrated logically by our minds' faculty of reason, is what enables our survival. Interacting with this world in a way that makes sense is about learning to identify things, one thing at a time, in unequivocal terms. Water is water. Coke has water in it, but other stuff too, that makes it Coke. Both are liquids, but one is more likely to come in an aluminum can. So on, so forth, our understandings become more complex and intricate, but nonetheless based on a world that each of us can verify to one another.

A supernatural deity is a placeholder concept for an extraordinarily subjective notion and its varying subsets of culturally informed epsitemological and moral convictions. Travel the world or travel from town to town in North America or look up any discussions of this topic on any forum on the internet, you will encounter a variety of interpretations of "God", NONE of which has any more credibility than any other because there is NO way of assessing the credibility of irrational claims. Dozens or hundred or millions of people making a similar claim is not proof of anything other than that such and such a number of people agree about something existing for which there is, by definition, no evidence.

Is it possible to "see" something that no scientific instrument can detect? No, it is not. Sorry. To say that this is possible, is to say that there is some kind of flaw in optical technology that cannot be addressed by improvements in optical technology, which is absurd.

By definition, it is not possible to see that which does not exist. Since it's the 21st century, not the dark ages, I thought maybe somebody should point this out.

That said, you are entitled (as are we all) to believe in whatever you choose to believe about what you experience. You're just not entitled to be right about what you believe.

Most people see God in visions or other such spiritual experiences not on the back of a bus. A things existence is actually not dependent on whether or not we can see or measure it. Such things are spiritual and outside our physical realm.

Some people believe they have a solid foundation for their faith in the form of an experience.

You might call them delusional, I call them lucky.

[itistoday]

Originally posted by awcopus:
By definition, it is not possible to see that which does not exist. Since it's the 21st century, not the dark ages, I thought maybe somebody should point this out.

This is obvious, however, several MacNNers are still stuck in the dark ages, and therefore we must avoid making that argument�or they'll break out the Inquisition.

[TheBadgerHunter]

Originally posted by itistoday:
If you saw, and felt, and heard, and even smelt something, doesn't mean its true. That's a simple fact. There is nothing to argue here. If someone thinks they saw God, either they saw him, or they saw him in their head. The former being highly unlikely, chances are, that person was simply experiencing the effects of certain chemicals in his head going off. Nothing more to it.

Look down at your keyboard. You see that? The only reason you see that is because chemicals are firing off in your brain. Touch yourself... down there... nice huh? Well with a few simple adjustments, we can make it so that you don't even have to touch yourself down there to feel excited! It's called extacy! Have someone touch you anywhere while you're on it and you'll feel incredible!

Now, while staring at the keyboard go take several hits of LSD. Sit for about 2 hours, and tell me if anything has changed. You will see, what seems real to you, something that is not really there.

Or how about visiting your local mental institution? Ask the people there some of the things they've "seen" and see if you're gullible enough to believe them.

The fact is, nothing is really that reliable. Everything inside your head can be ****ed with, sometimes without your own knowledge of it. And so that mushroom that you found stashed in the back of the refrigerator that you ate for breakfast (not giving it a second thought) actually caused those distortions in your vision throughout the day�not some divine being.

The answer to your question, "If somebody thinks they saw God, did they?" is: No way to tell, but probably not!

Which is all well and good unless the person wasn't under the influence of drugs.

[Rev-O]

Originally posted by TheBadgerHunter:
I'm not saying you didn't see him. I'm saying I don't believe you saw him. Big difference.

Well I'm saying that I didn't see you say that he didn't believe he saw him, instead I saw you say that you didn't believe that he saw him when he said he saw him. Or something like that. See?

[Superchicken]

Originally posted by TheBadgerHunter:
I'm not saying you didn't see him. I'm saying I don't believe you saw him. Big difference.

So, to you "I'm calling bull" means, that you're saying you don't believe someone perceives something properly? Either you need to gain honesty or a better vocabulary.

Treating other people as if they are less wise or understanding than you simply because you have an anti-supernatural anti-faith world view is ignorant at best, arrogant at a worse level.

[Xeo]

Originally posted by TheBadgerHunter:
Which is all well and good unless the person wasn't under the influence of drugs.

Ah but even Superchicken was "under the influence" of lack of oxygen. It doesn't always need to be an actual drug. I don't doubt Chicken actually believes what he is telling us, but I see it as nothing more than a small child who suffered a tragic accident that almost killed him, and his later, grown-up self remembering all kinds of things related to that in order to make sense of it, and quite conveniently supports the religion he grew up with. If the same thing happened to a 3 year old in the middle east, he would maybe think of Allah rather than Jesus. If the same thing happened to someone in Asia, there could be many different religious notions applied to it. Basically, every where you go in the world, there are different notions of religion and they all are "right" and they all can be applied to the various life experiences we otherwise can't explain.

This is why I agree with awcopus' post. And also why I am not religious.

Also, I moved this to the Pol Lounge because that's where religious discussions go.

[bubblewrap]

To see God, look at creation. There is no seperation. The atomic attraction that holds matter together, the collective matter that makes up atomic particles, the infinitely divisible particle that makes atomic particles. The spark of life itself. The infinite void that envelopes our universe. We are all part of God. Or what ever you want to call it.

[dcmacdaddy]

Originally posted by TheBadgerHunter:
I'm not saying you didn't see him. I'm saying I don't believe you saw him. Big difference.

Originally posted by Superchicken:
So, to you "I'm calling bull" means, that you're saying you don't believe someone perceives something properly? Either you need to gain honesty or a better vocabulary.

Treating other people as if they are less wise or understanding than you simply because you have an anti-supernatural anti-faith world view is ignorant at best, arrogant at a worse level.

I'm with Superchicken on this one. Between you and awcopus the arrogance and condescension in these replies is astounding.

Religious faith is a completely SUBJECTIVE experience. It can NEVER be accounted for using
rational, scientific enquiry. You can't measure nor can you quantify a person's *conception*
of their deity. Attempts to do so only point out that those making the attempt are not fully
versed in how scientific enquiry works.

Superchicken says he saw God, so as far as he is concerned it was God. And as this is a matter
of faith, all the logical arguments in the world won't make a bit of difference to him.

And this is coming from an atheist. I don't believe in God but it doesn't mean I feel entitled,
or (worse yet) feel obligated, to criticize others for their belief in God. Just leave it be.

[zigzag]

Originally posted by dcmacdaddy:


I'm with Superchicken on this one. Between you and awcopus the arrogance and condescension in these replies is astounding.

Religious faith is a completely SUBJECTIVE experience. It can NEVER be accounted for using
rational, scientific enquiry. You can't measure nor can you quantify a person's *conception*
of their deity. Attempts to do so only point out that those making the attempt are not fully
versed in how scientific enquiry works.

Superchicken says he saw God, so as far as he is concerned it was God. And as this is a matter
of faith, all the logical arguments in the world won't make a bit of difference to him.

And this is coming from an atheist. I don't believe in God but it doesn't mean I feel entitled,
or (worse yet) feel obligated, to criticize others for their belief in God. Just leave it be.

I don't think it's arrogance; I think it's ordinary intellectual inquiry. Just because an experience is classified as religious doesn't mean we can't explore it and inquire as to whether there might be other explanations - the power of suggestion, an abnormal mental state, etc. People who claim to "see" things are commonly diagnosed as insane; should characterizing such visions as religious end all debate? If someone says they were faith-healed by Benny Hinn, is the matter closed?

I've always been baffled by the fact that even the devoutly religious would snicker and have me committed if I claimed to have seen the Easter Bunny, but for some reason their visions of gods and angels and unicorns and resurrections and similar apparitions are beyond scrutiny because they're "religious" or "spiritual."

I have no problem with someone saying, "I believe I saw God" or "I've had an experience that I believe is evidence of God/Dog/whatever." I'll be skeptical - and I have the right to be skeptical - but if it gives them satisfaction to think so, fine. Maybe it really was God/Dog/whatever. The problem I have is when such people start claiming that their internal experience has some external or universal validity - that they did, in fact, see God, that you have no right to question them, that God says this or that, that you're going to hell, that innocent children aren't entitled to medical treatment, etc. That, to me, is far more arrogant and vain than any skepticism I might express.

In other words, I agree with you that certain experiences tend to defy rational, scientific inquiry, and there's a vaguely defined point at which it doesn't serve to question a person's subjective beliefs and feelings. It's like telling them that they should prefer the color green over orange, or should be heterosexual instead of homosexual. But I don't think it ends all inquiry when there might, in fact, be other explanations for certain experiences.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by Cubeoid:
did they?

I suppose it depends of the God-concept they subscribe to. If someone thinks they saw a God who is unknowable or who doesn't appear to mortals, then it doesn't seem likely that they actually did. On the other hand, a universalist (who sees God in all things) by definition sees God every day.

[itistoday]

Originally posted by Millennium:
I suppose it depends of the God-concept they subscribe to. If someone thinks they saw a God who is unknowable or who doesn't appear to mortals, then it doesn't seem likely that they actually did. On the other hand, a universalist (who sees God in all things) by definition sees God every day.

But millennium, you don't understand, we're not talking about those "religions," we're talking about christianity, you know, the one true religion?

[Mithras]

Nice post, Millenium.
Indeed if I am a theist at all it would be in a universalist, deist kind of way. And in that sense I do think I see God every day.

And I also agree with those in the thread who assert that mystical and religious visions are most likely "mere" brain percepts. But I think these can be powerful, and morally instructive, so it's all good by me.

[Xeo]

Originally posted by dcmacdaddy:
And this is coming from an atheist. I don't believe in God but it doesn't mean I feel entitled,
or (worse yet) feel obligated, to criticize others for their belief in God. Just leave it be.

Keep in mind that there is a difference between criticizing someone's beliefs in a god and criticizing whether or not a real life experience took place. He himself says his faith is not based on this experience.

[torsoboy]

Originally posted by Cubeoid:
did they?

I believe that they most deffinatly could have. In fact, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (the mormons) was founded by a man claiming just that; and I believe him to have been telling the truth. God can appear to anyone that he desires to appear to; visions happened in the past, they happen in the present, and they will happen in the future.

Originally posted by Xeo:
Keep in mind that there is a difference between criticizing someone's beliefs in a god and criticizing whether or not a real life experience took place. He himself says his faith is not based on this experience.

In the example in the bible with Saul (who later became the apostle Paul), he was not converted based on his experience with seeing a vision, he was converted based on his much fasting and prayer after that. Also, there are instances in the Book of Mormon where people see angles and visions and later write them off as being just their imagination. So it is not the experience itself that causes the change in a person, it is what the person who saw the vision does with their life after the vision that actually causes the change.