Visions, Dreams, personal experiences, etc

Greetings, I have multiple questions that have been in my mind. I am new to this and I have many questions about God. One of them is about visions, personal experiences, dreams, and feeling a beautiful presence. I have read and heard of other religions having all these experiences with their gods that they believe in. In India more people have visions of Krishna than Jesus and in the US more people have visions of Jesus than Krishna. People who follow Hinduism have multiple visions about seeing their gods. I think it happens in which religion you believe in and what you tend to think about a lot. The mind and brain is very creative, powerful, and full of imagination. This brings me uncertainty because shouldn’t it be only one God appearing if it is the true one. I hope to hear what you all think (-:

2 Likes

Could be religious mania. Search it up i cant explain it fully here.Lest see what the others have to say

1 Like

There is only one God but each culture has their own way of trying to visualize and understand God. Thus the Hindus are going to have visions of Krishna while Christians have visions of Jesus.

Yeah maybe but thats a wrong way to do it

Yes, I agree. Enlightenment is the only way, but that comes about by Grace. It is not a “can do”.
However people always try to visualize and understand God and they don’t realize that God is beyond understanding.

1 Like

I would say that too, but aren’t you Muslim? I though Muslims and Christians believed that God/Allah was a being apart from everything else in the cosmos capable of exercising intentionality here. Do I have that wrong?

I would say instead that what has given rise to God belief is distributive throughout the cosmos. Given our nature, this shows up in our consciousness as a being much like ourselves, but that has mostly to do with us. How the unknowable is known will be influenced by the knower. For me to say anything more would be at least speculative and more than a little fanciful or creative.

Yes, intentionality, but intentionality does not, imply agency, though some philosophers do try to imply agency.

In Islam we do not believe that God/ Allah is a person.

I don’t know what differences there are in the various denominations of Christianity, but in Greek Orthodoxy, which I grew up with, the understanding I had was that God was One, but also thought of as in three persons. So a bit confusing to me or maybe I don’t understand the concept.

In Islam, God is never considered a person. For example,

Quran (112:4): And there is none comparable unto Him.

Quran (42:11): … There is nothing like unto Him …

Quran (6:103): Vision perceives Him not , but He perceives all vision

In my understanding God made us in his image, but that is as conscious beings. Also in reading the Greek it sounds more like God had an image in the Mind, information in the Mind, which was the basis of making the human kind. The only way that we could say made “in God’s likeness” is as a soul, not as the physical form.

None of us are truly “knowers”, no matter what we think we know or don’t know. The unknowable can never be known. Even in an enlightenment experience, where there is union with God, there is still no knowing God.

What has given rise to God belief is the very fact that we, at some point in our spiritual development, begin to realize that we are not the body and not some personal mind/ personal self, but something spiritual. So I would say, what religion a person may adhere to has more to do with being part of a religious community, forms of worship and ritual practice.

It certainly means that our apprehension of God is subjective. In fact I believe the spiritual is fundamentally subjective – and that is precisely why I believe in it in the first place. Because life and human existence is fundamentally subjective and I refuse to believe and treat that as merely illusory or unreal. What is wrong is when religions try to make the stuff or religion out to be objective like science and thus something they can push on other people. To be sure the subjective nature of the spiritual means you are complete free to believe it doesn’t exist. It does indeed require faith… but many very important things (if not most things) in life do also, and making a pretense that you can live your life as an objective observer like with science is downright delusional. And I say this even though I am very much a scientist first before I am or ever was a Christian.

2 Likes

It’s just normal psychology, a couple or three standard deviations up from the mean. Nothing supernatural about it. APES

1 Like

That’s the same way I look at it. Though we may come to that conclusion for different reasons. But I no longer believe that anyone has visions of God. A least not supernatural ones. I do believe that God can use dreams to inspire someone, but he does not guide the body in that way.

Great questions, which I have struggled with and continue to do so as a Christian who believes that God is able to communicate to us. I think many religious visions are manifestations of our psychology, and some may really be inspired by God. Distinguishing between the two seems to require insight and wisdom. I think the scriptures are very enlightening on this matter. Here’s a few you might want to look at:

Peter claims that the transfiguration (Mt 17:1-8) was not a vision: 2 Pet 2:16-18

Peter’s vision of eating animals reveals that he has a ministry to the gentiles: Act 10:9-

Pauls speech in the Greek Areopogus convincing them that his God is the real one Acts 17:16-28

Actually, look at the role of visions and dreams in the entire book of Acts.

The whole Old Testament, especially the story of Moses and the Egyptians is about God (first known by the Hebrews, I believe) being supreme over false ones.

So, our subjective experiences alone are not a basis for what is true and real, but it can include them.

I feel exactly the same way. What is subjective has a phenomenological reality which is not merely illusory or unreal. It is a real aspect of our subjective experience.

The cup portion of consciousness we hold consciously is mediated by an enormous reservoir of consciousness we can never hope to hold consciously. Because the totality of consciousness contains more than can fit in our conscious cup, it can make connections we cannot. I think of Crick dreaming about the double helix arrangement of DNA as an example, though in our ordinary lives the insights would probably tend to be of more personal interest only.

I know you posit QM as a backdoor God might use to influence the cosmos. Perhaps the unconscious can play the same role for influencing individuals.

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 6 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.