What would your doctor say?

Q: Is it a Christian doctor or a non-Christian one?

I don't have a doctor. I've never been sick enough to need one yet. Guess I'll have to give this thread a miss so.

Yeah. As the years go by the oft heard expression "your health is your wealth" strikes ever nearer the bone...he said lighting up..Smoking: what a crock...

Maybe He knew you'd be a late developer and one whose lifestyle would need a vehicle robust enough to ensure that would happen?

Soon after becoming a Christian I took a trip from work direct to my mothers about 40 miles away. Being a hot day and a fairly safe route, I slipped my motorcycle gloves under my seat strap and set off. That evening, I headed for home and it being still very warm, I set off without considering wearing them. At home, 20 miles away, I went to retrieve... gone! "Shoot! $100 is bad enough - but they fit like old shoes. Grrr". On the spur of the moment, I decided to head back in my mothers direction to find them. It was dark by now.I kept an eye on the other side of the road but soon found that the combination of sections of unlit country road, poor bike headlights and oncoming traffic - as well as the need to keep an eye on where I was going - meant I was missing out on large tranches of road. My hopes faded with the miles.Then the doubt: "The verge on the other side is completely in darkness, they could well have slid off the road into it and I'll never see them from here. I'll have to drive down to mams and have a better look on the way back...". 10 miles in, the thought struck me: "I'm not even sure they were there when I left mams - for all I know they fell off in the 40 miles down to her place! Craaaap.Ping!"Actually its more likely they fell off sooner rather than later"The emptying vessel of hope ran dry: "Sure, you can pick up a new set on the way into work tomorrow. So what on earth are you doing out here in the pitch black at this time of night, looking for a black pair of gloves on 60 miles of black tarmac road. You really are an impetuous plonker at times Ian!!" (wait for it..)The thoughts transferred unconciously to my throttle hand and I found myself rolling to a halt just before a country village. Defeated.Just as I began to crank over to head back, a voice in my head said "Don't stop. Go on" Now my own voice in my head doesn't speak with an accent. And neither did this voice - so there was nothing to discern it from my own thoughts in that way. But it made me sit up and take notice. I was mildy startled. The best I can say is that it was just very definitive. Not a command like you might get in the army. But it was quietly authoritative. Like a stop sign.I rode on. The village had some street lighting and as I rode out through the other side of it, there, 100 metres further up lay my gloves. 2 little black lumps in the middle of my side of the road. Had I not seen them I would have run over them. But I couldn't miss them: 2 meters apart from each other and sat right under a streetlight. Just to be certain, from 100 metres out, my headlights picked up on a patch of relective material which turned out to be sewn into the cuff - making the recognition immediate."Thank you Lord" I said as I stooped over to retrieve them."That's alright son - my pleasure" he replied(A true story - bar for the last sentence)
Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Look at my post count Randman I was wondering whether anything in what happened to me would strike a chord with "Doubtful Deerbrah". Like, I don't remember word-for-word thoughts from 5 minutes ago - let alone 5 years ago. Lots of striking thoughts strike us but how many can you remember word for word.(..watch the skeptics rise to that last sentence)On re-reading Deerbrahs account I notice that he used the word "startled" - as did I. Maybe I unconciously picked up that word from my first reading (watch the skeptics seeth in frustration at being headed off at the pass) - but it is the word I would have picked had he not used it - for that is what I was. Not shocked, nor surprised, nor uneasy, nor fearful. Just startled.And perhaps "quietly authoritative - like a stop sign" will hit home if that phrase (which he didn't use) is a perfect fit for him as it was for me. He would likely remember the experience as if it happened yesterday if it was from God. Anytime I have been touched by God in whatever way (pre/post conversion) I remember it as if it were yesterday.That, however is it in terms of "voices in my head". Other communing but not of that kind.Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

I haven't investigated it much myself but what I have seen smells not very nice. People falling over in a faint. Gaggles of people babbling away (whilst peeking out of the corner of their eyes to have a look at what everyone else is doing). My mam is a little down the "Name it and Claim it" path and is convinced in healing as something to be claimed. She points to a 'proof' text in 1 Peter 2:

quote:

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24He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.

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Now I love my mother. It was her who led my to our Lord. But if this is the flimsy, out of context scriptural basis for such notions then I stand flabbergasted.

Compared to what I've seen of it, we are mild and understated by comparison. There was one US show I saw which had the 'minister' step down from the podium and sweep arm across the front row standing there. It was if he had traversed the crowd with an MG-42 machine gun. They fell like skittles - at least 5 rows of them.The people he actually touched juddered and shook and as if hooked up to a high tension powerline - before falling down in a faint. Even one of his helpers who held is arm to steer him "felt the power", jinked around like a rag doll on acid and fell heavily to the floorI don't know much about the charismatic aspect of things - the bulk of it seems to have passed through here a good few years ago - but this was charismaniaThe overriding sense I have about God is that what he does has class. What I have seen and heard of the Charismatic movement just appears crude. The door isn't shut on limiting what God does and how. But I just cannot reconcile this kind of thing with him. Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Thats one cute cat. Is it yours Brian?

A beautiful cat all the same.Time for a pint and a ruby. Later

95% of Ireland decribes itself as Christian. Ask the average person what the gospel is and they will tell you "Matthew, Mark, Luke and John". Is that what you mean? Agnostics, who say they know not either way and claim to sit on the fence do precisely the same thing. "Having your cake and eating it" we call it this side of the pond

That was the point I was making. The sitting-on-the-fence stance is an illusion. An agnostic is an athiest for all practical purposes

Exactly. And one can sit on the fence and throw rocks down at whoever one choses (although given it is really athiesm by another name, it is usually the believers who get the bumps on their head).Agnosticism: the philosophical equivilent of bisexuality: you can have it any which way you like

Its not quite as complex as you make it seem. It is fairly black and white. For God/against God. In Adam/In Christ. Saved/Not (yet and possibly not ever) saved. Christian/non-Christian. Etc.Now if that is the case then it there isn't as much diversity as you might think. Islam, Atheism, Hinduism, Roman Catholicism, Agnosticism. All the same side of the very same coin. All sharing the same features in essence: denial of God as is revealedArrogant, exclusive and extreme? That is one logical possibility. The other is that it is true. And if it is true, it will sound very arrogant, exclusive and extreme. Sounding arrogant, exclusive and extreme is patently not a measure to be trusted in any objective sense.

"And whilst I occupy that postion"- my morals are relative
- I eat, drink and be merry for die I know I shall"
- my arguments will tend to oppose those of the "God exists" side. I will find I am, by and large, in agreement with mainline atheistic thinking.
- I will (if secretly - for only an agnostic can answer this for themselves) suppose that if there is a God then "I'm not such a bad chap, God will understand"
- from the above: reason is the way to truth. I will rely on myself (very atheistic-think)
- everytime I come to mystery I will tend to suspend my question until a naturalistic solution comes along. Goddidit is athema to meAnd so forth...