I meant what I wrote
Apparently not
Dream on
Well now I’m terrified! Terrified, I tell you.
Agree. Evil can make folks oppose healthcare for the poor.
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@SkovandOfMitaze
Do ya still believe that there are no such things as demons?
I dare you to try and prove that to Pastor Greg Locke. My guess is that Pastor Locke would be more than happy to show you some. LOL!
Please excuse the multiple edits. I accidentally submitted this twice without intending to do so.
I’m responding in a single reply to multiple posts of yours on this thread:
Lack of evidence isn’t evidence. Is your intention to invalidate people without evidence of your own? You say people never had experience A, B, or C. First, no one is claiming they did. Secondly, you have no way of knowing what someone else has experienced, though you can base what experiences you accept as plausible on your own beliefs or what has been proven possible. Of course, doing so would certainly have previously invalidated real experiences such as lucid dreaming since we couldn’t prove their existence for some time outside of anecdotal experience, but now science accepts them as legitimate.
Speaking in tongues, while believed by some Christians to be God given & those without such beliefs to have other origins, is certainly not always feigned, & is a genuine subjective experience if nothing else, as evidenced by scientific studies that show that the brains of believers speaking in tongues show measurable changes that are congruent with their claimed subjective experience. The frontal lobes are less active than when singing, & speech centers shut down, showing that they are letting go of some control, which aligns with claims that the speech is flowing through them or that they aren’t in control. Regions involved in self-consciousness are more active, while activity unexpectedly dims in the left caudate. This was unexpected, as it tends to be more active when experiencing pleasurable emotions. However, it was speculated that because it is also relevant to emotional & motor control, that the dimming of activity in this region might also reflect the loss of control people experience. So, to say no one speaks in tongues or that it’s all feigned doesn’t seem to jive with science. At best, you can argue about why or how it happens.
With that said, my grandfather experienced what he believed was a miracle healing, but there is no way to prove it to you. That doesn’t mean his experience was any less real. The cause of it could be debated, but he believed God healed him, & as with other religious beliefs, you can’t disprove it or prove it, so it makes no sense to ask for such proof. It also makes no sense to demand evidence, but to turn around & say it is indefensibly false when you have no evidence of that. Why ask for evidence if you also have none to offer?
As for the evidence, you’ll have to excuse him, but I guess my grandfather wasn’t thinking about you at the time he found out he didn’t have cancer. He developed a dark spot on his lung, & the doctors wanted to perform tests, but he asked to be allowed to go home to pray first. He had the church lay hands on him, & when he went to get his follow up scans, there was no spot on them. The attending doctor was astounded. I can’t say that there wasn’t an issue with the scans or that it was cancer, or that spontaneous remission is spiritual in nature, but the doctor seemed surprised by the change. And no one can prove that it wasn’t a miracle of God. My grandfather didn’t get copies of those scans to my knowledge, but even if he had, his house burnt down, so many documents were lost. I know that for a fact because I was living there when it happened. Hospitals only hold such scans for a certain period of time. So, you can say, scans or it didn’t happen, but not every experience is documented, let alone shared.
Yes, even today. I’ve had bizarre experiences. And yes, I live in the West. I can’t say what caused them, but I can say that I didn’t document them with photographs. Why? Well, for starters, I don’t keep a charged camera phone on me at all times with extra photo space. Not everyone does, even in first world countries where they’re common, & even relatively younger folk. Secondly, photos don’t take well in the dark- at least not with a camera phone. Third, often such experiences are unexpected & rare, so I don’t know to have a camera at the ready. Fourth, the experiences don’t always last long enough to get a camera ready to document them. Fifth, it’s possible that such things are imperceptible to cameras. The Hubble telescope & James Webb telescope capture different things. Hubble captures primarily ultra-violet wavelength. Webb focuses on infrared. Neither is designed to capture all things even within the same field of space. Cameras capture specific things, as well. These digital phone cameras can’t even capture the color purple in my experience (most of it comes out blue or pink), but I should expect them to capture what? Ectoplasm? Spiritual experience? Sixth, often when something like that is happening, “Quick, grab a camera!” is often my last thought. Seven, some of these experiences aren’t visual or capturable by cameras, recorders, etc.
For example, if someone has a potentially prophetic dream, where do you expect proof to be produced? Should they have recorded their dream? Should they have known it would come to pass, & have documented their prophecy before the event?
People in my family have experienced what they believed were prophetic dreams. You can argue that it was coincidence. They’d argue that it was God intervening. It did save & prolong my loved ones’ lives at least twice, & could have- if heeded- a third time. Regardless of whether such dreams had inherent meaning, they saved my family members’ lives. That, to me, has worth. It doesn’t need to have worth to you. People are here to discuss things, but no one needs to defend their private faith. No one is entitled to have someone else prove their experience or belief system to them.
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They might want to be careful. In the OT if a false prophet prophesizes and it doesn’t come to pass, he would be dragged out of the city and put to death.
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Yikes! Good point. In the past, it was dangerous to record such things. Today, it can result in some negative consequences, as well, depending on one’s society. This is true whether the prophecies are accurate or false.
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When was the last time you participated in stoning or watching a “false prophet” get stoned?
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So sometime soon ill read your post and respond to a bit of it since you’ve put in a lot of effort.
But in a nutshell, my response will come down to this. If there is no actual evidence of whatever experiences you’re mentioning that breaks the natural world, and out of millions of others there is also no evidence, then it’s up to me having faith if I think it’s real or not, and most likely I’m going to lean on not.
Just like all the “witches” out there that people believe in but they can’t do it. Spells are about as effective as prayers. Or all the people who see auroras of others, or ghosts, Bigfoot, aliens and so on. Shadow people from the future altering world events. Time
Travers. Ect… I simply don’t see any evidence for it.
When I couple the lack of evidence with the fact I see a better interpretation of the
Bible, it leaves me with 0 reasons to believe someone is encountering the supernatural.
Read what I wrote.
“In the OT if a false prophet prophesizes and it doesn’t come to pass, he would be dragged out of the city and put to death.”
OT here means Old Testament
I did. I just wondered what relevance an O.T. instruction to Jews that is several thousand years old has to Americans in 2022, and I just asked you if you’ve been stoning any false prophets lately or watching any get stoned…
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Maybe that we should be careful about false prophesy because God doesn’t seem to like it?
Okay…
But what if we create a loop?
I prophesy that Yahweh will be unhappy with my false prophecy xd. So if he gets upset with my lie, it becomes truth and if he’s not upset with it, then it’s a lie which he should have been unhappy with.
NT advice in letters of Paul are a bit different.
The context in OT and NT was not the same. In the OT context, people mainly did not know about the biblical scriptures or did not have access to such (Torah etc.). The word of the prophet may have been the main way to know the will of God. What the prophet said had a huge impact on whether the people would follow Yahweh or some local idols (‘gods’). False prophets were directing people away from God and this was something that could not be allowed. There were no ‘life-time in jail’ punishments. Therefore, the punishment was death.
In the NT context, the OT scriptures and the teaching of Jesus and his apostles were showing the way to God. Prophetic word was for building the church (edification, exhortation, consolation) and to guide individual persons to the right direction. As Paul told, we know in part and prophecy in part (I Corinthians 13:9). Yet, Paul urged “earnestly desire spiritual gifts but especially that you may prophesy” (1 Corinthians 14:1).
The reason why prophecy in the sense of NT is not perfect is that it involves two parties. The Spirit of God gives a message to the person giving the prophecy but the person telling it does so using her/his own words. The latter part (us humans) is not perfect and does not have perfect knowledge, therefore the prophecy becomes imperfect when it is told and only reveals part of the story. Although it is not perfect, it is enough to reveal the crucial message in that situation. It builds the church and the life of individuals, and it may save someones life. That is why it is something to desire and seek, even if it is not perfect.
There are of course all kind of mislead persons, some assuming that their words come from God even if that is not true and some fakes trying to use ‘prophetic words’ as a way to strengthen their personal position and purse. It is a fully biblical approach that we test what is said instead of believing everything that is told as a prophecy.
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True, but I only mentioned the Old Testament.
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