I had a demon talk to me one night...

He was trying to get me back to smoking weed again. I woke up from from what I thought was a dream, and he was still speaking to me through my speakers. He started speaking roughly, I got scared, and had to command him to leave in the name of Jesus Christ. I turned on the lights, and realized that I had not woken up, I was awake the whole time.

I had a buddy that I had witnessed to years earlier, he finally accepted Christ a few years ago. He told me that before he accepted Christ, that he had been jealous of my demon experience. He had just wanted proof for himself. I explained that if he had wanted proof, take the plunge, and he would have it. He whole heartily agreed.

Why do I have faith? I guess because when I finally accepted Christ out of curiosity and longing, I felt Him in my heart. When I had cancer, He gave me the peace that I asked for. We Christians don't think we have a secret that you do not, we just want you to feel the love that He gives us, and the embrace of His arms.

Its like having a baby, they make you want to be a better person. Having Him in your life, the feeling is even more so. I for the life of me cannot understand why someone would not want to accept His gift of salvation. Or why someone would want to reject Him. My question to you Adam, is what would you miss out on if you asked Him to come into your heart and repent of your sin? Are you doing things that you feel that you would have to give up? What is it about Christ and His teachings that are so repulsive?

 

Shines

Thanks for that. It now gives me some idea of where you are coming from.
As for me, you know I term myself Agnostic. I'm just one of those people who need proof. Why? I don't know. It;s just how I am.
No demon experiences for me so far, in fact, nothing supernatural.
I believe that a man called Jesus did walk the earth some 2000 years ago and had some damn fine ideas if the Bible story is anything to go by but I do not believe (yet, although open minded) that he was the son of God.
I've traveled the world too much and seen too many bad things to believe that there's a big benevolent man in the sky pulling the strings.
Maybe, as ghartman says, God created us like a giant version of Sim City and we are his playthings. I just don't know.
20 years ago, we lost our only son. I won't go into details but at the time people said things like "God is testing you", "God wanted him", "God moves in mysterious ways" etc.
If that's the case, his test results came in pretty quickly. Me and Him are no longer buddies. If he does exist and I end up standing in front of him, I'll punch his f*cking lights out.
But I don't believe that he does exist. There's no God with a plan for me. **** happens, as they say.
I don't think I sin. I try to be a good man. I wouldn't have to give anything up but it's just not for me.
To my current way of thinking, it's 50% mumbo jumbo and 50% wishful thinking.

 

Sorry for your loss.
I know you ended our conversation, but. Do you think your son is simply dead, and nothing more. Do you think he died and there is nothing for him in an afterlife. That is a tragic loss, I would hate for that to happen to me.
But as my faith goes, my Son and I will meet again someday
Wishfull thinking? No my faith tells me there is more and we are being prepared for it.
Proof of GOd is a trick question. We all know it is impossible to proove. That is why this thread takes the turns it does. People asking for proof, areasking the wrong people. Faith is built on a foundation more like a sencere, "Why did I lose my Son".
My post is not intended to provoke you, I feel the pain you have endured, and am begining to understand why you question Faith the way you do.
Again My sympathy

 

I know this wasn't directed at me, but I'd like to answer it anyway.

As I've mentioned, I was raised in a very Christian household. Both of my parents are ordained ministers, although once they got married, my father was one who made a career out of it. My Mother taught first grade for a while, and then ran the church nursery school. As a child growing up, I never once doubted the teachings I learned in Sunday school, or from my parents. Jesus and God were as matter of fact as water was wet, snow was cold, and hot humid New Jersey summer days sucked. I spoke with God often, not just in my prayers, but in my daily thoughts, and I tried to follow the advice he always gave me. When I didn't, I felt guilty and always apologized to God, who always understood. When I would walk home from school by myself, I always knew God was with me. I felt his warmth every time the sun shown on me and every time the rain fell all around me. He always listened to my thoughts, and understood everything about me. He encouraged me when I was unsure, protected me when I was scared, and rejoiced with me when I accomplished things.

My father was a Congregational minister, which was a more relaxed version of Christianity. Congregationalists aren't taught that they're sinners by nature, or to fear God. Our God was a loving God. We were taught to do the right thing because it was right, not out of fear of being punished. Maybe it was that simple for me because I was raised that way from day one, I dunno, it may have been different if I discovered the Congregational church as an adult. Regardless, because of this style of religion, I never felt any resentment or frustration with God, or my beliefs. I never felt pressured or punished, it was all good, all the time. I spent years reading the Bible, including cover to cover at least three times. I was never taught to take the Bible as fact, verbatim, but rather as a collection of stories to follow and lessons to live by. Much of it was based on true stories, but like any story, it's accuracy wasn't necessarily 100%, especially the Old Testament. This made the many inconsistencies virtually invisible, and of no concern to me at all. There are bound to be some differences when more than one person tries to tell the same story, and since this was a collection of stories told by many people, it made perfect sense.

There was a family that lived across the street from us in New Jersey that was Catholic. They had three boys and two daughters, and the boys and I were friends. They were the only friends I had that I didn't go to school or church with. They went to a private Catholic school, and attended the same Catholic church every week. The subject of religion very rarely came up, but when it did I felt sorry for them. They hated church, and hated school, mostly because they were taught that nothing they ever did was good enough. This was a completely foreign concept to me. I loved church and I loved school, and in both I was always encouraged to do well, but never made to feel inferior, or not good enough. You would think that with those two different styles of teaching, that the boys across the street would be excellent students, and I'd end up slacking off, but the opposite was true. They were taught that nothing they did was ever good enough, and eventually decided it wasn't worth trying. I always wanted to do better, to always be the best I could be.

My father was offered a job at a much larger church in a Los Angeles suburb, and in 1978 we moved to California. The next year I started junior high school, and was exposed to people of many other faiths and religions. I was also introduced to science, but by itself science wasn't any threat to my religious beliefs. Basically anything I learned was great, I just knew that behind the scenes, God was responsible.

cont...

 

cont...

Evolution made perfect sense, it was obviously what God had planned. I knew it wasn't what the Bible said happened, but the Bible was thousands of years old, and the men that wrote it didn't know much at all compared to what we know today. They wrote what made the most sense to them. Just because they weren't exactly right didn't take away from or lessen any of the lessons and morals they taught. To me it was just like a story that had been written in the 1800's would talk about horses, while the same story told today would have cars, but the point the story was making would be the same, and that was the important part anyway. The details would change with time, but the moral would remain the same.

When I was a teenager, a group from my fathers church organized a "Holy Land Tour", a three week trip to Israel and Egypt, and my parents and I got to go along for free. It was a fantastic trip, and it was really cool to actually see so many of the places I'd read about in the Bible. According to some religious scholars, I stood at the very spot where Jesus Christ was born, touched the water where he was baptized, visited the spot where he walked on water, and climbed inside the tomb where he rose from the dead. All were very impressive, except for the spot where he walked on water. The water level is lower now than it was then, and there are a series of stones that were visible, but which would have been just below the surface 2000 years ago.

It wasn't until I was in my 20's, when I became friends with a couple BAC's, that anyone ever really challenged my beliefs. Their number one job was to repeatedly tell me I was wrong, and how they're way was what was right. Prior to that, I never questioned anyone elses beliefs, if it worked for them, that's what mattered. I knew what worked for me, and had been perfectly happy. But those two guys couldn't accept that anyone elses beliefs were valid if they weren't the same as theirs. After a while, it became so ridiculous, I started to reexamine my own beliefs. I paid closer attention to the fallacies in the Bible, and knew that anyone that took it verbatim wasn't playing with a full deck. They were living in constant denial in order to validate their Bible. When I saw how ridiculous they were, I started to question my own religious beliefs. The more Christians I met, the more different versions of Christianity I discovered, and while they were all based on basically the same stories, their similarities often ended there.

There was such a high value being placed on who was right, I decided none of them were; God would never allow that. It quickly became clear to me that no one religion had gotten it right, and that was the day I became agnostic. I still had my daily conversations with God, and still knew he was always with me, it's just that no religious organization had correctly identified him yet. I guess you could say he was my personal God. After a while I stopped just accepting that my God was real, and gave things some thought. The more I learned about science, and the more I applied logic, the more unlikely the whole God concept became.

I always thought of atheists as sad, depressing pessimists, and felt sorry for them, which is probably why I struggled for so long before openly admitting that I had become one. I hung on to the term 'agnostic' for a long time because it was like an atheist, but not as depressing. Or at least that's how I perceived them.

But I'm not sad and depressed. I mean, hell, I've got enough valid reasons to be very sad and depressed, but I'm not, and even if I was, being an atheist would have had nothing to do with it. As strange as this may sound, I actually felt better, and happier, after coming out of the atheist closet. It's not for any of the reasons I thought it would be, either. I didn't suddenly feel like I could now get away with things I shouldn't do, or like it was no longer wrong to do immoral things. I don't do bad things because I know they're wrong, not because of God, or a fear of being punished by God, either now or in the afterlife. I am the source of my morals, not someone or something else, and I guess it took becoming an atheist for me to fully realize that. All those years I gave God the credit, and I was doing it myself.

I realized I had been mistaking my conscience as being God giving me advice, or having conversations with me, or that when I made a decision that worked well for me, it was my own intelligence that subconsciously guided me, and not some greater being that I was following blindly. It's been my own confidence and belief in myself that has kept me company all these years, and since finally realizing and accepting this fact, I've never felt better.

 

Thanks. I'm not looking for sympathy or anything. It was a long time ago and I'm not the first, nor will I be the last this happens to.
Until proven otherwise to me, once you are gone, you are gone.
I just can't get my head round an afterlife, it makes no sense to me.
Sure, it's a great concept but what happens? Will I be the age I die at?
What about my son? Will he still be a baby? What age will he be when we meet again? 7? 16? Will he be grown up?
Obviously, you can't answer this and I don't expect you to.
All I can say is that the whole concept is too fantastical for me to grasp.
I can hope and wish all I want but I don't believe it will happen.
I will never have Faith and wouldn't waste my time on it and before you ask, no, it wouldn't cost me anything to have it.
But if I did, I wouldn't be true to myself. It would be wishful thinking on my part without true belief.
Like I've said all along though, I'm willing to be proven wrong.
Lets say for a moment that (for me) God does indeed exist.
To expect him to reveal himself and tell me his master plan would be presumptuous. I'm sure he has bigger fish to fry.
But, if he is Omnipotent, it wouldn't hurt things would it?

Good job I wasn't Abraham eh? Genesis would have looked very different

 

I almost hate to interject as the dialogue is is taking a different direction, but...

My wife has been ill for several years, treatable, yet challenging. We made a trip the other day to the UCLA medical center and met with a new doctor. She was a very intersting person.

Our new doctor was a tiny Chinese woman with enough of an accent to make listening important. After nearly an hour and one half of consultation, which went well, we were ready to leave. She looked at us and said quietly, " My parents were Buddhists, but I am a Christian, and this is my mission." She gave us both big hugs, as we left.

I'm not a practicing Christian, but I was proud of her.

 

We had to take a different direction. After 40 pages of "Yes it is - No it isn't", it was getting stale.
We've done the "How" and agreed to disagree. Now we are on the "Why or Why not"

We may even get onto the "WTF" by page 100

 

My parents were never ministers but church was a requirement in the home I grew up in. Other than a few minor details...you story is my story. Very strange to read about me thru you.
I still believe.....I just don't think everyone needs a middle man to know God.

Church is like a Hospital....some go because they are sick (spiritually), some go who are not sick to help, support and encourage the sick.

 

damn when will this thread die? im tired of seeing it in the list every day, i dont care for your christianity crap lol

 

Well Klitch, we seem to enjoy it. If you are tired of seeing it...don't look in. BTW, thanks for the insightful input

 

i dont look in it normally, its just always at the top... the way i see it is theres a bible, go thump it lol

oh also, im sure they had drugs and alcohol back then too. walking on water comments? yeah where was the opium plant?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2spZ...ad.php?t=19062

 

I appreciate your position. And I understand. I was much the same. For the longest time I figured that the only Bible thumpers where the looser alcoholics or drug addicts looking for there next fix... being Jesus Christ. I didn't hold any animosity for them... After all religion was better than drugs. I figured they were weak minded and needed a crutch. One guy I knew had been a drug user. Now he knew Christ. We where in Airframe and Power plant school. He was seen coming out of a liqueur store.. wow what a hypocrite. He dropped a spark plug and hushed everyone.. A big no no with aircraft spark plugs. Again, a hypocrite. That really soured me toward religion. After all.. they are all hypocrites. But I knew in my heart there was God. After a few failed marriages.. (bi polar women suck!) being alone for a long time, it just became logical that there had to be a creator. I didn't have any experience or epiphany that told me there was God. I still am struggling with the whole "feeling God" or "hearing God" thing. I just know he is. There is no other logical explanation. Evolution and billions and billions of years is just wrong. It is just to neat. To pat. And yet it doesn't explain anything. As far as other religions... The life of Jesus Christ is different than any other "god". Buddha didn't rise from the dead. nor did any other "god". It is well documented that Jesus Christ did the miracles he did, died on the cross, and rose from the dead. There where over 500 people who saw him. The Bible of which you guys love to bash was written over 1500 years by about 40 people. From far distant places that had no way of communicating with each other.. yet there story jibes perfectly. And after finding the dead sea scrolls, the accuracy of the Bible is unchanged. Not one word is off. You all claim inaccuracies, but they are easily explained. AND the Bible is still the best selling book year after year. So maybe we Christians are not the minority. Adam, I am truly sorry for your loss.. even years ago I know it still hurts. But rest assured... your little guy is in heaven. And when you find God, you will be there too. It is not all in vein. There is a purpose.. even if we don't understand it. But that is what faith is after all... isn't it?

 

One person's faith changed the world we live in. For anyone to believe that much is not true, don't even believe in History Not just from the Bible.
There are other records of his existence. The Quran holds him in high esteem. The story is different, but it is more documentation of his life.
Surely you know the Biblical story of Jesus helped shape the Democracy we live in today.