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Author Topic:   Introduction
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 15 of 31 (790082)
08-25-2016 5:36 AM
Reply to: Message 14 by Riggamortis
08-24-2016 9:55 PM


Re: Childbirth
...my wife and I just sat watching him take his first breaths and gaze around, taking everything in. You could hardly tell my wife had been in so much pain just minutes earlier. All her pain, my sense of helplessness, washed away in an instant. Hands down the most amazing moment of my life thus far. Fundies be damned!
I remember the birth of my daughter in very similar terms, particularly her looking right into my face and then turning her head to look up at her father who was standing beside us. A magical moment.
But why compare it to any other magical moment? Discovering God was for me a very big moment indeed after years of not believing. Staggering, breath-taking.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 14 by Riggamortis, posted 08-24-2016 9:55 PM Riggamortis has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 16 by Riggamortis, posted 08-25-2016 5:45 AM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 17 of 31 (790084)
08-25-2016 5:51 AM
Reply to: Message 16 by Riggamortis
08-25-2016 5:45 AM


Re: Childbirth
I was sent to church as a child but learned just about nothing. I had the familiar experience of becoming an atheist as a teenager, from which most people never return to belief. But thirty years later I did become a believer, a real believer, amazed and awed as I saw God as real for the first time.
I wouldn't call such a magical moment "just" a magical moment. You can call your experience of the birth of your son spiritual if you like.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 16 by Riggamortis, posted 08-25-2016 5:45 AM Riggamortis has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 18 by Riggamortis, posted 08-25-2016 6:47 AM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 19 of 31 (790087)
08-25-2016 8:03 AM
Reply to: Message 18 by Riggamortis
08-25-2016 6:47 AM


Re: Childbirth
I'm not interested in justifying my experience to you. I told it truthfully, you've distorted what I said.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 18 by Riggamortis, posted 08-25-2016 6:47 AM Riggamortis has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 20 by Phat, posted 08-25-2016 9:22 AM Faith has not replied
 Message 24 by Riggamortis, posted 08-25-2016 10:51 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 25 of 31 (790125)
08-25-2016 11:31 PM
Reply to: Message 24 by Riggamortis
08-25-2016 10:51 PM


Re: Childbirth
You need to ask why, in a thread I made to introduce myself, summarise my worldview and how I formed it, I'm comparing religious HSE to non-religious HSE?
Comparing regular HSE to religious HSE is what made me realise it's not God causing the experiences but same things that cause atheists to have HSE's.
The thing is, you aren't in a position to make the comparison since you would of course admit you've never had a "religious HSE."
I'm not going to deny that atheists have spiritual experiences, but I would deny that they are the same as an experience of the reality of God. The apprehension that God is in fact real is, well, it's a real experience, it's not something a person would say who'd had perhaps an amazing experience revealing some kind of great truth but that couldn't be described as knowing God is real. You can say it's not really God, although you have no way of knowing that, but you can't claim it's the same kind of experience atheists have who would never describe ANY experience as knowing that God is real. (There's a video at You Tube of a pastor talking about a big revival he was part of in Saskatchewan, Canada in the 70s, and I remember one incident he described -- I'm not sure how far into the video -- [I found it -- about 25:35] of a young man suddenly carrying on about how "God is real" which he had just experienced. The discovery bowled him over you could say. It's not an experience an atheist would describe, unless it ended his atheism. I guess you can persist in assuming it had nothing to do with God, but you can't very well deny that whatever it is, the person experiencing it strongly believed he'd just discovered God's reality, and that no atheist would carry on in that way.).
The distortion I had in mind was your suggestion that I somehow engineered my own experience of belief, perhaps by having learned in church about eternal life and the eternal punishment of Hell. You sarcastically mocked the experience as "miraculous" given your assumption that having had some experience of religion as a child I merely went back to it as an adult. But as I remember it there was very little effect from my early church experience. And as a matter of fact I did not deny your wonderful experience of the birth of your son. That's why I described my own experience of childbirth.
I suppose I must have "known" about eternal life and Hell, but very possibly not from my experience of church as a child since it was a liberal church and they don't like to talk about Hell; and I don't recall thinking much about either during the period when I was becoming a Christian; it took a while even to get the message about salvation, what it is and how it happens to a person.
What interested me was God Himself, thinking about Him in Himself, I was fascinated with the idea and reality of God, and I'd say that's still true. It's also odd that you would seem not to know about all the people who convert to a religion without the slightest knowledge of that religion in advance.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 24 by Riggamortis, posted 08-25-2016 10:51 PM Riggamortis has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 26 by Riggamortis, posted 08-26-2016 5:31 AM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 27 of 31 (790132)
08-26-2016 5:39 AM
Reply to: Message 26 by Riggamortis
08-26-2016 5:31 AM


Re: Childbirth
The Quran and the Bible contradict each other so both can't be true. There is such a thing as false spiritual experiences. But I don't have any desire to argue with you about them.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 26 by Riggamortis, posted 08-26-2016 5:31 AM Riggamortis has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 28 by Riggamortis, posted 08-26-2016 7:57 AM Faith has not replied
 Message 29 by frako, posted 08-26-2016 8:49 AM Faith has not replied
 Message 30 by jar, posted 08-26-2016 9:01 AM Faith has not replied

  
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