The Holy Spirit Helps You To Exagerate

[OnceConvinced]

I find, that Christians claims of what the Holy Spirit does, are often dishonest. Christians, when trying to convert unbelievers make grandiose claims about the HS. Like it helps them understand the bible and without it you can't possibly understand it. Or that if you are an ex-Christian then you can't possibly have ever experienced the Holy Spirit, because if you did, it would be so profound you couldn't possibly reject it.

 

But in my experiences as a Christian, the Holy Spirit was never all it was cracked up to be. There were regularly times where I felt a buzz, a high, but only listening to music, or in church during worship, or during altar-calls (after a particularly inspiring sermon). I've also felt the urge to keel over when being prayed for. I can even remember walking into a church during the worship once and feeling like something hit me and took me into a sort of light-headed slightly dazed state.

 

Over the years as a Christian, I've discussed the HS with many Christians and found that their experiences were similar to my own. In fact often mine were more profound. However, on the Internet, the claims by Christians seem to get exagerated greatly. Obviously in an attempt to convert and to convince people that their God is real. I tend to think that when it comes to talking to other believers, they don't embellish things so much, because they know other Christians know better.

 

So were/are your Holy Spirit experiences anything particularly profound?

Were/are they standard compared to other Christians?

Do you think that Christians embellish the Holy Spirit to win converts and to try to convince others their God is for real?

Are they less likely to embellish when talking to other Christians?

[Ravenwing]

Weeeeelllll ... yes I have experienced quite profound insights into myself after asking God to show me. I've discovered deeper meaning in passages of the bible through a context of experiencing grace and love, and I've felt what I could only describe as the touch of divinity which is at the same time overwhelming but coupled with a sense that I've barely taken a taste on my fingernail of what's out there.

 

Yet, what you say about Christians speaking grandiosely and making false claims about the HS's powers in their life are also true. While the sort of experience I described above happens, it is both rare and beautiful ... for some reason xians feel like they ought to pretend this happens all the time in order to win coverts. Anything to bring a soul over the line into the eternal safety of salvation. It's misleading. It's false advertising ... and all it really does is convert another generation of tryhards who keep on faking it until they 'make it'.

 

I also think it's just a different sales pitch when speaking to a non-christian or to a christian. It's quite rare to come across someone who is just honest about where they're at and what they really do believe and experience. Social norming is just as strong as convert winning.

[Ravenwing]

I don't get how some people have profound experiences and some people feel nothing. What's the going theory on that on these boards?

[hereticzero]

That is how the church grows, by deception a wonderous religion has expounded upon lying works and false miracles.

[Sky Dancer]

This is my first post on ex-christian.net. I am an evangelical Christian but suffice it to say, without going into too much detail, I am beginning to have my doubts and questions about my faith. I'm 25, in college, a biology major, and have had to come to terms with the fact that evolution is true. I was ok with that and could accept a figurative interpretation of Genesis. It's not that simple though; I soon realized other things, like the genesis flood, the tower of babel, etc, could not be true. There are also many contradictions in the bible. I'm on a search for the truth, which lead me to google and ultimately, here. I am questioning so many things after learning to think for myself, thanks to our wonderful university system. Growing up in rural Arkansas, I have never been given the opportunity to question these things I've been tought my whole life, until recently. Now, to the topic of this post. I have been in a charasmatic church and had many very powerful, intimate experiences with the holy spirit. The range from feeling the presence of God, both privately and corporately, to feeling overhwelmed with the intense love and awe of God, to being so full of the HS you can barely stand or your whole body feels on fire and you speak in tongues. Some of you can probably relate to this. These experiences are very real to me, and I cannot simply rationalize or explain them away. No matter how much I question my faith, the bible, etc, I cannot get over the fact that it seems I've had very real encoutners with God. For those of you that have experienced this, how did you overcome this? How did you explain this away? Is there any physiological/neurological basis for this? Are there other religions where people experience an equally powerful, overwhelming presence? Thanks for your help,

 

Ryan

[Mr. Majestic]

Well I've actually had some pretty amazing experiences with the holy ghost. I have at times been so overcome that I've crashed into walls somehow cut up my hands and legs, and on one occasion even slammed my head into the alter, without having any realization of what was happening to my body till my till afterwards. I have also personally experienced being healed of asthma.

 

Here is what I've realized over time. First the accounts of my healing vary from witness to witness. My mother claims that she saw my lungs fill with air and nothing else, while I swear I felt my ribs move further up. See when I was eleven (I refused to convert for three years after my "healing") I was convinced my ribs were set lower than they should be, and that was the cause of breathing problems. Even though none of the chest xrays I had provided any evidence of this.

 

Any way when the prophetess came to my mothers church and said she could heal my asthma, I wanted to believe it so bad that I convinced my self she could. So when I felt the power come over me I naturally imagined that my ribs reset themselves while my mother simply saw me take a breath.

 

As to the painless trance, I'm not sure if trance is the right word for it since I was moving all those times, that is a little harder to explain. But I guess it can be if I'm willing to admit there may be something wrong with me. One time I was forced to stare at a white cross on a computer screen for an extended period of time, psych study, and while I was staring at it the cross split, then the surrounding area became a pink throbbing tunnel, each of the crosses sprouted a mustache and a beret and started singing to me. I guess what I'm trying to say with this particular story is that the mind is an amazing thing and alot of the experiences christians attribute to the holy ghost are just like the talking crosses, all in their heads.

 

Sorry if I couldn't explain myself better. Ask me to clarify and I'll try.

[Sky Dancer]

Well I've actually had some pretty amazing experiences with the holy ghost. I have at times been so overcome that I've crashed into walls somehow cut up my hands and legs, and on one occasion even slammed my head into the alter, without having any realization of what was happening to my body till my till afterwards. I have also personally experienced being healed of asthma.

 

Here is what I've realized over time. First the accounts of my healing vary from witness to witness. My mother claims that she saw my lungs fill with air and nothing else, while I swear I felt my ribs move further up. See when I was eleven (I refused to convert for three years after my "healing") I was convinced my ribs were set lower than they should be, and that was the cause of breathing problems. Even though none of the chest xrays I had provided any evidence of this.

 

Any way when the prophetess came to my mothers church and said she could heal my asthma, I wanted to believe it so bad that I convinced my self she could. So when I felt the power come over me I naturally imagined that my ribs reset themselves while my mother simply saw me take a breath.

 

As to the painless trance, I'm not sure if trance is the right word for it since I was moving all those times, that is a little harder to explain. But I guess it can be if I'm willing to admit there may be something wrong with me. One time I was forced to stare at a white cross on a computer screen for an extended period of time, psych study, and while I was staring at it the cross split, then the surrounding area became a pink throbbing tunnel, each of the crosses sprouted a mustache and a beret and started singing to me. I guess what I'm trying to say with this particular story is that the mind is an amazing thing and alot of the experiences christians attribute to the holy ghost are just like the talking crosses, all in their heads.

 

Sorry if I couldn't explain myself better. Ask me to clarify and I'll try.

 

Yet you say you were healed from asthma. That by definition is a supernatural event.

[Antlerman]

These experiences are very real to me, and I cannot simply rationalize or explain them away. No matter how much I question my faith, the bible, etc, I cannot get over the fact that it seems I've had very real encoutners with God. For those of you that have experienced this, how did you overcome this? How did you explain this away? Is there any physiological/neurological basis for this? Are there other religions where people experience an equally powerful, overwhelming presence? Thanks for your help,

 

Ryan

Greetings and welcome Sky Dancer. I've spent a huge amount of time in consideration of your points over the years of my struggling with belief in God. I almost barely know where to begin in addressing the points you touch on.

 

First thing I try to stress with people is that religious experiences are not something to "explain away", but rather to try to understand in context - whatever its cause. That they get attributed to some religious symbol, whether Jesus or Krishna, or some other deity, is frankly almost incidental. What the problem is, is seeing the experience as confirmation of the symbol used during it. That that symbol may be effective in aiding the mind in religious experience is a valid argument, but that they are therefore confirmed as historically or scientifically "accurate" because an experience occurred using them (or "through" them) is not.

 

I'm going to share with you something I posted elsewhere where you can read about my own experiences and some of my thoughts at the time of that post surrounding this. Sorry for the length of the post, but I think it will help us as a starting point for discussion. I'll add a few thoughts after the bottom of this quoted post below:

I’ll pick this up from here. If you wish to come back to other points, by all means bring me back there. What do I feel causes these feelings? I’m going to bring in a post I made in another discussion while I was taking a short break from ours, where I responded to his recounting of an existential religious experience:

I fully believe you experienced that. I've experienced something very similar. A point in my life of great crisis; an event that took me to the edge of death; a cry of desperation for help out into the utter darkness; white light suddenly appearing everywhere, in an instant driving everything else out that tormented me; a complete cessation of time; infinite peace, infinite love, infinite knowledge, infinite awareness, infinite power, infinite grace and compassion, all in only a sliver of an inconceivable infinity that lay beyond that; and then a gentle voice of infinite compassion and awareness speaking only my name, conveying my life's story before my eyes in an instant of utter timelessness with the knowledge spoken without words to my mind that I was never alone, that was loved beyond all knowledge. Shall I continue?

 

Rising from this vision I felt all the pain of my heart come gushing out of the deepest part of my soul in a torrent of tears, being both afraid and amazed at what had just happened. Two days later, I began what began my lifelong search for understanding of this. Being raised in a Christian culture, seeking out a minister seemed the most appropriate beginning. I openly shared my experience with wonder and puzzlement in my voice, to the stolid looks of the minister who gave little response. The following day I spoke to another, this time a Catholic priest, who likewise sat with a blank stare and his offering what I learned later to be the typical Catholic response of asking if I had anything to confess.

 

I left feeling discouraged, lost, and confused, yet with this knowledge in my heart. Suddenly, without any warning or indication, the entire Universe opened to me before my eyes, as if a great curtain opened in an instant. I suddenly saw for the first time in my life - color. The world was full of color, with vibrant greens and blues everywhere! The World was full of light and love and color, and permeated everything as a sort of living joy that surrounded me, moved through me, and began flowing out of the most unimaginably deepest part of my being out into the world in a sort of song, as can only be described as utter, living love.

 

I saw people walking by me, and rather than feeling darkness and shame in my heart and averting my eyes away as in my past, instead I felt pure love and joy. No thoughts of darkness were in me anywhere at that moment, and I felt truly alive for the first time in my life.

I then responded in a subsequent post to someone’s being astounded that I would be an atheist and consider this as something other than God:

Thank you for your comments. There are reasons why I am an atheist, and it’s hard to really explain simply, but I'll try a little here which probably won't say much.

 

Essentially it has to do with the balance between the rational and the aesthetic nature of all humans. I have both pretty strongly in me, and I find that the aesthetic side (perceptions and experience of beauty) is expressed in languages that go beyond the language of commerce which we all share to deal with the mundane things of life. But the aesthetic, human's response to the world, takes on many forms. One of which is mythology; stories of super humans, gods, and mythical beings are languages of what is in the heart of humans, our ideals, hopes, aspirations, etc.

 

It goes beyond this, but to the short of it, the language of God in religion is out of place for me. Though it may have once inspired in its original cultures, it has becoming stained by the insistence of the religious on its factuality. Now my rational mind is in conflict with that particular language of myth used to express the aesthetic.

 

You see? I feel these experiences are a part of the human experience, and there’s nothing wrong with using a language system to express that. But the language system that has the symbolism connected to the physical reality of this world, does both the language and human beings a great disservice. Rather than making modern humans free to appreciate transcendent beauty as part of their humanity, the religious are requiring a violation of the rational mind in order to use that language! To me the word “spiritual” means being whole. Being whole means fully experiencing both a rational view of the world, while appreciating its beauty with the heart.

 

When I hear you see God in my life, coming from you I appreciate it. It's your language of expressing what you feel in your heart. When I hear it from other people who have an agenda to convert, then I hear someone with ulterior motives who judges me as lost and in darkness. I hardly consider myself lost. I am always seeking to embrace a higher existence, and if I need to dump a language system that is broken for me, the real question should be what is it in the end am I serving? Is it what you call God? Then we are of the same heart, and there should be no divisions, or judgments of others. This is why I am repulsed by the evangelist who judges by exterior labels rather than deeds of the heart. They serve their religion, not "God".

 

Does that help?

And finally from the other thread I am including as it pertains directly to our discussion. In response to someone calling these things we are discussing as ‘tricks of the mind’:

Where I go from this point is to the next step as I see it. I don’t care for the language of “trick of the mind” because – to me – it carries a dismissive tone to it and I feel that it’s something that, however it occurs, can and does provide great insight. “Trick of the mind”, to me sounds like it can just be dismissed and ignored. Instead what I would say is that there is a truth in the symbolism that bears consideration. These are “manifestations” from our deepest feelings taking symbolic form.

 

Think the peyote cultures of native tribes, sweat lodges, and other practices intended to bring about a hallucinatory experience (watch the movie Altered States). These are NOT

recreational

drug uses like kids on the street freaking their minds out. They are sacred experiences, because they are approached as a means to transcendent insights. They are an altered perception that casts new light on things of this world – because they come from inside the mind of man.

 

These are not nonsense, and to simply dismiss them as “just a hallucination” totally misses the point of it in these cases, and with your experience and with mine. This is not some “getting high” nonsense. These are, strictly speaking, products of the mind, but they were created from the deepest parts of our psyche at a time of great crisis in our cases to provide, in the form of mythological symbolisms, the same thing that art provides for us, as

Matthew Arnold

put it, “to interpret life for us, to console us, to sustain us.”

 

Mythology is a form of art and functions on the same level. I do not view anything in the universe or the human experience as supernatural. I am far away from a New Age follower. The best I could describe how I see things is from a more aesthetic philosophy, with atheistic existentialist thought. When I hear you speak of your experience, and when I hear Sojourner speak of her views of God, I see more a case of fellow humans in the same boat as all of us, using the structures of language and culture to talk to themselves to find their place in the world, as do I. This is not really mysticism, in the sense that it involves some “supernatural” force out there. It’s about human perception and response to the world. It’s a about the perception of beauty, and the anxiety caused when we consider the meaningless of our own existence.

 

It’s a struggle to respond to life as it presents itself through our eyes as it offers life, through the lure of the beautiful in the form, and the terror at the prospect of life being pointless. We create art to hold up this ideal as a form to represent the voice of beauty experienced in the human heart. Mythology is a form of art, it’s poetry, symbolic representations of beauty and consolation. Again, as Matthew Arnold put it, “the whole of the Christian doctrine is religious and efficacious only when it becomes poetry.”

 

Here’s a link I highly recommend you and especially Sojourner spending some time reading:

http://www.dallasinstitute.org/Programs/Pr...ext/fturner.htm

It touches into where I go in thought about the religious in the human experience. I really think it’s unfortunate when people are quickly dismissive of the religious thought, because they are overlooking the value of what drives it! It’s the same thing that drives all of us. Religion is simply a language to talk about it – if it remains symbolic, and not an institutionalized thing that fails its original function.

I apologize for the sudden dump of all that information here, but it’s far simpler for me not to have to compose those thoughts all over again to say what I hoped to bring into this discussion here. They were however being said at that time with an eye towards bringing them here into this discussion.

 

So to recap and hopefully begin to address your question, “If there is no god or supernatural entity, what do you think is the source of that feeling? Where does it come from? What causes it?” In a word it’s us. It’s our perceptions of the world; it’s a product of how we frame an understanding of the world; it’s our response to beauty and an attempt to touch it by putting a name to it; it’s as Freud would put, the Superego – the externalization of us. It’s seeing our face in the mirror and not recognizing it!

 

I’m not articulating this as well as I hope to at this moment, but I’m sure with further discussion I’ll hit my stride on this. Again, the critical thing I want to mention in this, is that understanding what something is, does not mean it has no value! That’s a mistake I feel atheists take things to when they say that religion is wrong in how it sees God. God is simply a word used to talk about these things. I just remove the word God from it, and call it what it is.

 

Just because a work of music isn’t being played by actual angels from heaven, and is instead is the work of humans, doesn’t make the music is worthless! In fact to me, it makes it even more precious.

 

The problem I see that causes the anxiety for you and many others who have these sorts of God experiences, is that modern Evangelical Christianity is "evidence" oriented. They view God as having punched a whole through space/time and entered our physical reality down here on Earth, and as such we can find verifiable evidence of him in history - such as conformation of the Bible stories as "proof" of his act of Divinely dictating the words of scripture directly, and thus validated their belief that it is authoritative in matters of doctrine and "faith". What happens, is that people go about their day looking for evidence to validate the belief, they effectively bring God down out of heaven and stick him out in the woods with Big Foot and ET where the tools of science can invalidate him (not recognizing that if they did confirm the reality of it, it's power as a mystical symbol has been reduced to natural occurrence - another topic).

 

In Cognitive Therapy, they point out to people how that an emotional response follows a thought, like a caboose on a train (the train engine being the thought itself). We can make ourselves feel badly just by thinking about a negative thing, like a child being killed; or we can make ourselves feel positively thinking about what a wonderful world it must be through that child's eyes. But what happens with people who are depressed, for instance, is all their negative emotions are taken somehow as confirmation that the world is how their thoughts are looking at it. They start with the emotion, and validate their negative thoughts. It's a wicked cycle, where the negative thought creates the negative emotion, which validates the negative thought, which drives the negative emotion, totally and utterly convincing the person that everything is as they see it - it become Truth to them, it is Reality to them. They have confirmation; confirmation that they themselves created.

 

So what I was bringing that up for is that when Evangelicals are approaching faith as some "evidence" oriented enterprise, they are taking the resulting experience of emotions that follow their contemplation of the objects of devotion (symbols), and using the emotions to validate the reality of the objects. They get too hung up on the "accuracy" of faith and take all the subsequent experiences that result from these "thoughts", and end up using them as validation of belief, rather than as a beginning of exploration into something that transcends the symbol.

 

You are right, other religions equally have the mystical experience within them. Not all religious adherants experience this, as it has mostly to do with the individual whether or not they take the road of the mystic. In fact, I would argue that religion can easily become a hindrance to them, as the argument for a religion's "evidence" that it is "True" is political - not spiritual. These are systems that act as doorways, not destinations.

 

Sorry for the huge dump of info here. "Ask and you shall receive" I look forward to a discussion with you. I'm still working this out for myself as well.

[LostOrFound]

This is my first post on ex-christian.net. I am an evangelical Christian but suffice it to say, without going into too much detail, I am beginning to have my doubts and questions about my faith. I'm 25, in college, a biology major, and have had to come to terms with the fact that evolution is true. I was ok with that and could accept a figurative interpretation of Genesis. It's not that simple though; I soon realized other things, like the genesis flood, the tower of babel, etc, could not be true. There are also many contradictions in the bible. I'm on a search for the truth, which lead me to google and ultimately, here. I am questioning so many things after learning to think for myself, thanks to our wonderful university system. Growing up in rural Arkansas, I have never been given the opportunity to question these things I've been tought my whole life, until recently. Now, to the topic of this post. I have been in a charasmatic church and had many very powerful, intimate experiences with the holy spirit. The range from feeling the presence of God, both privately and corporately, to feeling overhwelmed with the intense love and awe of God, to being so full of the HS you can barely stand or your whole body feels on fire and you speak in tongues. Some of you can probably relate to this. These experiences are very real to me, and I cannot simply rationalize or explain them away. No matter how much I question my faith, the bible, etc, I cannot get over the fact that it seems I've had very real encoutners with God. For those of you that have experienced this, how did you overcome this? How did you explain this away? Is there any physiological/neurological basis for this? Are there other religions where people experience an equally powerful, overwhelming presence? Thanks for your help,

 

Ryan

 

I've had very 'real' experiences too, Ryan. I spent over 12 months when I felt as if I were being totally and overwhelmingly CONTROLLED by the Holy Spirit... the 'feeling' came on me unexpectedly and suddenly and NOT during an emotionally charged worship time but while watching TV. During those months I honestly felt like I was under hypnosis or something (don't know for sure since I've never been hypnotized). I needed very little sleep and spent all hours of the day in prayer, Bible study and witnessing whenever I wasn't teaching or preaching. The 'control' ended just as suddenly and mysteriously as it began and within 2 years I had evolved into my current state of atheism.

 

That was about 15 years ago... Today, looking back on it, I am 100% certain that it was all psychological. At the time I just thought that God had chosen to completely take over my very being. I began to look at the doctrines of predestination and became convinced of God's total sovereign control. I read the complete works of Frances Schaeffer and much of Pink (very difficult reading, by the way... and BORING - LOL). Pink is boring... not Schaeffer.

 

At any rate, I believe that the mind is incredibly powerful and self-hypnosis is a very real possibility in explaining this time in my life. As far as 'god'... I do NOT believe any god exists.

[Vigile]

I don't get how some people have profound experiences and some people feel nothing. What's the going theory on that on these boards?

 

My experiences were like those of eejay's, I wanted it but wouldn't fake it and got bupkiss. I think some are just wired different emotionally than others. Just like some are more prone to be hypnotized than others.

[Ouroboros]

...

Now, to the topic of this post. I have been in a charasmatic church and had many very powerful, intimate experiences with the holy spirit. The range from feeling the presence of God, both privately and corporately, to feeling overhwelmed with the intense love and awe of God, to being so full of the HS you can barely stand or your whole body feels on fire and you speak in tongues. Some of you can probably relate to this. These experiences are very real to me, and I cannot simply rationalize or explain them away. No matter how much I question my faith, the bible, etc, I cannot get over the fact that it seems I've had very real encoutners with God. For those of you that have experienced this, how did you overcome this? How did you explain this away? Is there any physiological/neurological basis for this? Are there other religions where people experience an equally powerful, overwhelming presence? Thanks for your help,

Thanks for your post Sky Dancer,

 

My answer to you is that, YES, the emotions are based in psychological things. Why else would there be feelings of euphoria from things like a football game, or a concert with your favorite music? I get chills and get into a different state of mind, bliss and sublime tranquility, when I listen to certain tracks of my favorite trance music. Just a month after I realized I had lost my faith, I walked my dogs at night, and I saw the beauty of nature and the clear sky full of stars, and I was suddenly overwhelmed (in a spiritual way) and felt a connection and unity with the universe (and *no*, I was not on drugs), so these feelings can come from other inspirations than religious.

 

You'll be shocked how much religion is just playing on our natural way of being as humans. We have the capacity to be fooled by our own senses, and very often we do get fooled and we get so stuck in it that we never can admit our own mistake. We feel very silly for having ourself tricked, and by our own mind of all things. The thing that we think is the only solid and absolute foundation for our decision and awareness of the world, isn't as reliable as we want, and that scares us. So we rather rationalize it as, "it must be true," than admitting we were wrong. Here's where honesty comes in (yeah, yeah, I know I said it before). Be true to yourself first. Know thyself. Recognize and admit to your own mistakes and weaknesses, and you can weed it out and become stronger. That's when peace really kicks in. "The Truth will set you free," are words from the Bible, but unfortunately most followers of the Bible don't know Truth from peanut-butter-jelly-sandwich.

 

Anyway, welcome Sky Dancer. Keep on dancing, and you'll eventually know - by experience - what I'm talking about.

[Justin]

I remember after going up front and giving my heart to christ at the age of 9, feeling like i was floating as we walked back to our bible school rooms. But now i see it for what it was. I was a shy little kid who walked up to the front of the church, in front of many many people. That would be enough to make anyone feel like they were floating. Thats pretty much it. Sometimes if i were listening to a fiery preacher screaming at the top of his lungs at the congregation i could say i felt a tiny bit of something. But again, i think it was because i was being yelled at by a lunatic who believes in a talking snake. Suprised i didn't piss my pants.

[Ouroboros]

Well I've actually had some pretty amazing experiences with the holy ghost. I have at times been so overcome that I've crashed into walls somehow cut up my hands and legs, and on one occasion even slammed my head into the alter, without having any realization of what was happening to my body till my till afterwards. I have also personally experienced being healed of asthma.

...

I can still speak in tongues, and even interpret them if I want to. It's so easy. So since the Holy Spirit is filling the atheist with his powers... I must be on the right track!

 

I've fallen "under the power of the spirit" too. It's a mental thing. The mind wants it so bad, so it makes you act according to your hopes, and makes you believe it wasn't you who really did it. The power of suggestion. And the thing of you not feeling the bruise, it's adrenaline and endorphins. Athletes experience the same thing... without supernatural powers.

 

I had many experiences of falling under the power, but I heard about the fact that the mind could trick you to do things according to your own expectations and group pressure, so I decided one day to test it. From that day I would not let my legs just give under me, but I would make sure I would only fall because there was an external power. The way of doing that, was to try to fight back the "falling." So I was doing my best to stand and not fall, and just wait for the external and overpowering force to knock me out... it never happened. The only power I ever felt was the preacher's hand trying to force me to fall from there on. Before that, I could fell easily from a whiff of 'holy spirit', but from that day forward, they couldn't even get me down with physical force. I wanted so much for God to prove himself to me, but God were definitely weaker than anything here on Earth.

 

There's a term called "monkey see, monkey do," which is a phrase to explain a subconscious behavior in humans (and primates), which is that we copy-cat behavior. It's also proven to be a part of the behavior when you show signs of liking someone or having a good rapport with someone. When you're with people you like, you copy them. When you're with people you dislike, you act opposite to theirs. And I'm talking about simple things like body language. Try to think about it next time you're standing in a group of friends and talk. Will you fold your hands like the person you like best? Will you even put your balance of your feet the same way as the person you're talking to? Maybe you even start to copy the way you're expressing yourself, language, choice of words, eye movements, and so on. Because this is what we do. And this is in a very strong play when it comes to "spiritual experience" in church. Psychology also got something called "group think" which is the same thing. We conform to the group, and outsiders, or non-conformists, are put in place or shunned, or sometimes punished in different ways. "We against them, and we are special, and they're not."

[Sky Dancer]

Antlerman, you've certainly given me a lot to digest here, way too much to digest in one setting, but I thank you for the information. I do find it interesting where you point out that we take our experienced and attach it to the symbol (holy spirit, christ) rather than exploring the experience itself. At least I think that is what you are saying. You are certainly a much better writer than me lol. I have many, many more questions than answers, and I'm sorry if I am dragging this thread off topic. Let's just say as my intelectual side has become more active and been to objectively analyze my religious beliefs over the past 6 months or so, I have become less and less comfortable at my church. I feel awkeard in worship. I feel estranged from those in my church body, for no apparent reason. It's nothing they've done. They are the most loving, accepting people and have been very generous and supportive for me. I attend a small non-denominatinoal church of about 60 people and its a pretty close-knit group. Yet I feel very disconencted and disenchanted. I feel disappointed, let down, and I can't figure out why. I almost feel as if there is something wrong with me. I have felt this same feeling when I have visited a former church I used to attend. Many of my experiences, without going into a lot of detail, conflict with what the bible says, for example sexuality.

 

I have a lot of answers to seek out. There's so much I want to know and I am hoping y'all can point me to the right material. I want to learn about how the Bible was really put together, about all the lost books of the bible. How many times has our bible been altered/edited over the centuries? I want to learn about all of the things you guys say that is in the bible that isn't supprted by physiacl evidence, like the Israleties being enslaved by the Egyptians and then spending 40 years in the desert. I think I read on here that the Egyptians had forts on both sides of the red sea. Was Kind David real? What about the prophecies that are all supposedly filled in Christ? Is there historical evidence that Christ existed? How do you explain the radical conversion of Paul? Indeed how do you explain the radical growth of Christianity, even to the point where they faced persecution and death in the coleseum and still wouldn't renounce their faith? What of those who say that all of the epistles were written by Paul? What about thos who say that the first 5 books of the bible were written by someone else? Where is the evidence for this? I am basically wanting to critically examine the bible and my beleif system. Theres are only a small representation of the multitude of questions I have, far too many to list here. I am hoping you guys can give me some tools to do this ie point me towards the right literature. I'm sure that many of you have asked these same questions and read a lot of the same material in search for answers. I am not here to simply give up my faith but I want to find the truth, even if it is something I might not want to face. I refuse to live a lie.

[Ouroboros]

Sky Dancer,

 

I think you've passed the point of no return, especially based on your last sentence: "I refuse to live a lie." You will have a couple of years of interesting changes in your life, all when it comes to knowledge, belief and life, but also friends and family. I hope you are ready for a bumpy ride!

[Sky Dancer]

...

Now, to the topic of this post. I have been in a charasmatic church and had many very powerful, intimate experiences with the holy spirit. The range from feeling the presence of God, both privately and corporately, to feeling overhwelmed with the intense love and awe of God, to being so full of the HS you can barely stand or your whole body feels on fire and you speak in tongues. Some of you can probably relate to this. These experiences are very real to me, and I cannot simply rationalize or explain them away. No matter how much I question my faith, the bible, etc, I cannot get over the fact that it seems I've had very real encoutners with God. For those of you that have experienced this, how did you overcome this? How did you explain this away? Is there any physiological/neurological basis for this? Are there other religions where people experience an equally powerful, overwhelming presence? Thanks for your help,

Thanks for your post Sky Dancer,

 

My answer to you is that, YES, the emotions are based in psychological things. Why else would there be feelings of euphoria from things like a football game, or a concert with your favorite music? I get chills and get into a different state of mind, bliss and sublime tranquility, when I listen to certain tracks of my favorite trance music. Just a month after I realized I had lost my faith, I walked my dogs at night, and I saw the beauty of nature and the clear sky full of stars, and I was suddenly overwhelmed (in a spiritual way) and felt a connection and unity with the universe (and *no*, I was not on drugs), so these feelings can come from other inspirations than religious.

 

You'll be shocked how much religion is just playing on our natural way of being as humans. We have the capacity to be fooled by our own senses, and very often we do get fooled and we get so stuck in it that we never can admit our own mistake. We feel very silly for having ourself tricked, and by our own mind of all things. The thing that we think is the only solid and absolute foundation for our decision and awareness of the world, isn't as reliable as we want, and that scares us. So we rather rationalize it as, "it must be true," than admitting we were wrong. Here's where honesty comes in (yeah, yeah, I know I said it before). Be true to yourself first. Know thyself. Recognize and admit to your own mistakes and weaknesses, and you can weed it out and become stronger. That's when peace really kicks in. "The Truth will set you free," are words from the Bible, but unfortunately most followers of the Bible don't know Truth from peanut-butter-jelly-sandwich.

 

Anyway, welcome Sky Dancer. Keep on dancing, and you'll eventually know - by experience - what I'm talking about.

 

You are so right that we will often try to rationale something to make it fit into our beleifs even when it defies logic. Afraid of admitting the truth, we just dance around the issue and in most cases can ignore it. I managed to do that as a biology major until I took a senior level course in evolution this past semeste (required for my degree). It hit me like a ton of bricks and I couldn't simply ignore it. Interestingly, I also took an evolution seminar course called Evolution and Society, which met once a week. We just watched a movie or documentary, disccused it, and wrote a paper on it. It was really eye opening to me, as we watched a lot of videos about the various things like the Dover, PA trial, the discovery institute etc, the Kansas baord of education. It is amazing the lenghts that the "creationits" go to to decieve the public, taking bits and peices of evolution and attacking them, and of course to the uneducated person, their attacks seem perfectly reasonable. They later renamed their creatinoism to "intelligent design" in an attempt to give it sientific support so it could be taught in schools. As we know, science cannot test the supernatural, so therefore there is not a hypothesis that can be tested to prove intelligent design since its its premise is a creator of some sort. Ok I am ranting now, that is for a different topic. I tried to make evoltuion fit in and I managed to do it ok, but that was the tip of the iceberg. Other things I had accepted without question my whole life began to unravel, like there is no way the genesis flood occurred. Even if it did, how did the animals repopulated the other contients and all the islands?

[Sky Dancer]

...

I can still speak in tongues, and even interpret them if I want to. It's so easy. So since the Holy Spirit is filling the atheist with his powers... I must be on the right track!

 

I've fallen "under the power of the spirit" too. It's a mental thing. The mind wants it so bad, so it makes you act according to your hopes, and makes you believe it wasn't you who really did it. The power of suggestion. And the thing of you not feeling the bruise, it's adrenaline and endorphins. Athletes experience the same thing... without supernatural powers.

 

 

 

I've never completely fallen out, is in being slain in the spirit. It just never happened to me. Maybe I'm not open to the power of suggestion as much as others. It always made me feel that somethign was wrong with me, that others would fall out when prayed over and I never would. It made me feel fake and as if I had something missing that they had. Anywho, I did fake it once, let them catch me, laid there a minute and got up. But I've never fallen out by a supernatural power.

[Mr. Majestic]

Yet you say you were healed from asthma. That by definition is a supernatural event.

 

Sorry if I didn't explain it well enough, but when I was younger I was convinced my health was much worse than it actually was. When I think about it now my asthma was nowhere near as bad as I thought it was. I was just obsessive about it. So I was not healed of my asthma, I just felt better about it so I stopped obsessing.

[thunderbolt]

First off, I am an atheist, but I am ‘spiritual’ – not in the ‘there is an animated ghost that controls me’ sense, but I realize that my own mind is capable of producing many wonderful symbols, which I can draw from day to day. Probably why I would choose Buddhism (Zen) as a religion if I was forced to have a religion – but that’s neither here, nor there, as I don’t think God by definition is something we should be able to define. And I certainly have no evidence that there is such a being – so I am content to be godless, and relgionless.

 

So, I became interesed in meditation the last couple of months of my deconversion, and discovered some wonderful mediation tracks, layered with binaural beats, and some other technical jargon. Net effect, it guides your mind to resonate at frequencies useful for mediation. During some of these sessions, I have incredible experiences of clarity, and getting in contact with myself, and those experiences mirrors some of the things I sensed as the ‘Holy Spirit’ when I was a Christian. In other words, I have come to realize that those experiences were really just a product of my own mind, as I can now have those same experiences with technology, and without a god. I can turn it on or off at will, and it’s not a ‘mystery’ to me.

 

What I am really saying is this: whether you believe in hypnosis or not, I do think many of the things that are counted as the ‘Holy Spirit’ moving in church services, is nothing more than some form of mass hypnosis. People get on board with the ‘flow’ of things, willing participants in what is guided emotions and feelings, similair to people getting in the ‘spirit’ of the game at some big sports event. The human mind is wonderful, but fickle – it’s easy to fuck with. Just my 2c.

[Sky Dancer]

Sky Dancer,

 

I think you've passed the point of no return, especially based on your last sentence: "I refuse to live a lie." You will have a couple of years of interesting changes in your life, all when it comes to knowledge, belief and life, but also friends and family. I hope you are ready for a bumpy ride!

 

Well I guess that all depends on perspective Captain Solo. I am not convinced that my faith is unfounded, but I have a lot of questions to answer, and I think what I find will either make me stronger in my faith or well the other alternative is rather obvious. And it's a scary one. Having said that, not believing in the Christian God doens't preclude believing there is a god in the univerise. There are other alternatives to pure athiesm.

[Ouroboros]

... Other things I had accepted without question my whole life began to unravel, like there is no way the genesis flood occurred. Even if it did, how did the animals repopulated the other contients and all the islands?

You're asking the exact same questions we all did here. Take the koala bear, that only live in New Zealand and only eat the leaves from the Eucalyptus tree. Did Noah take the ark for a test ride first and gathered animals from distant islands? And did he add on a food-boat after the ark with specific plants, herbs and what not for the animals that had a specific diet? What about 9 months of manure? Or just think about how heavy the rain must have been. The water level had to increase with an incredible speed for it to be able to cover Mount Everest within 40 days. The whirlpools created from a downfall of 1/2 inch/minute would have sucked up the ark. And much more. The saline level in the oceans would have changed drastically too, since it doesn't rain salt-water. So what about the ocean conveyors? The salt-water fish? What about all the dirt, dust, rocks moved around and spread all over the world? A couple of thousand years isn't long enough to cover up the tracks from such a flood. And at the same time, there are plenty of similar flood stories, where the flood was more localized and not world wide. So does it sound like the story was built on a previous legend and then embellished? Definitely.

[Ouroboros]

Well I guess that all depends on perspective Captain Solo. I am not convinced that my faith is unfounded, but I have a lot of questions to answer, and I think what I find will either make me stronger in my faith or well the other alternative is rather obvious. And it's a scary one. Having said that, not believing in the Christian God doens't preclude believing there is a god in the univerise. There are other alternatives to pure athiesm.

And I didn't suggest that you would become a pure atheist either. There are believers on this board. Those who believe in some form of "god" or creator. We're not all atheists here. Some are more pagan, or other forms, but overall, your attitude of searching the truth will bring you to places you never thought you would go.

 

My first years I was leaning more towards agnostic, with a touch of deism or such, but over time I've become more of an atheist, or a mix of non-theist/pantheist/non-cognitivist. All of it is pretty much the same. Very small differences. The key is, if there is a God of some kind, no one can claim for sure how this God is or does. And it's really bad to believe in someone else's God. (Which is what Christian's do. They believe there is a God, then they believe that particular God is the one described by other people 2000 years ago.)

[Antlerman]

Antlerman, you've certainly given me a lot to digest here, way too much to digest in one setting, but I thank you for the information. I do find it interesting where you point out that we take our experienced and attach it to the symbol (holy spirit, christ) rather than exploring the experience itself. At least I think that is what you are saying. You are certainly a much better writer than me lol. I have many, many more questions than answers, and I'm sorry if I am dragging this thread off topic. Let's just say as my intelectual side has become more active and been to objectively analyze my religious beliefs over the past 6 months or so, I have become less and less comfortable at my church. I feel awkeard in worship. I feel estranged from those in my church body, for no apparent reason. It's nothing they've done. They are the most loving, accepting people and have been very generous and supportive for me. I attend a small non-denominatinoal church of about 60 people and its a pretty close-knit group. Yet I feel very disconencted and disenchanted. I feel disappointed, let down, and I can't figure out why. I almost feel as if there is something wrong with me. I have felt this same feeling when I have visited a former church I used to attend. Many of my experiences, without going into a lot of detail, conflict with what the bible says, for example sexuality.

 

I have a lot of answers to seek out. There's so much I want to know and I am hoping y'all can point me to the right material. I want to learn about how the Bible was really put together, about all the lost books of the bible. How many times has our bible been altered/edited over the centuries? I want to learn about all of the things you guys say that is in the bible that isn't supprted by physiacl evidence, like the Israleties being enslaved by the Egyptians and then spending 40 years in the desert. I think I read on here that the Egyptians had forts on both sides of the red sea. Was Kind David real? What about the prophecies that are all supposedly filled in Christ? Is there historical evidence that Christ existed? How do you explain the radical conversion of Paul? Indeed how do you explain the radical growth of Christianity, even to the point where they faced persecution and death in the coleseum and still wouldn't renounce their faith? What of those who say that all of the epistles were written by Paul? What about thos who say that the first 5 books of the bible were written by someone else? Where is the evidence for this? I am basically wanting to critically examine the bible and my beleif system. Theres are only a small representation of the multitude of questions I have, far too many to list here. I am hoping you guys can give me some tools to do this ie point me towards the right literature. I'm sure that many of you have asked these same questions and read a lot of the same material in search for answers. I am not here to simply give up my faith but I want to find the truth, even if it is something I might not want to face. I refuse to live a lie.

You certainly are full of questions. This is all good, wherever it may take you. You may end up rejecting everything, or you may modify it to some other path you find works for yourself better.

 

I can say in a sweeping response without getting into all the specifics, to all your questions about the Bible, the NT, and Christianity that it's sufficient to say the presentation of it in Church as some God-Delivered Word of God, is basically Romanticism. When you dig into real history with the tools of modern scholarship, the picture is much more human than anything supernatural. That it's not the Romantic ideals painted by the clergy, does not necessarily destroy any and all value, but it should take things and put them into a more relevant light in the face of the knowledge we posses today. Instead, rather than trying to make it fit some outdated ideas, it's putting into context. In fact, questions of true and false become irrelevant. Mythology isn't a matter of true or false, it's a matter of symbolic relevance. What value it has to you after doing that, is a personal thing. But suffice to say, arguments that science and scholarship are wrong simply because it disagrees with a belief, is insufficient to satisfy people like me, and apparently you as well. To be anti-intellectual is not healthy to one's "spirit".

 

Take your time, and ask away. We may want to keep the questions in focus though instead of jumping all around to King David and whatnot in this thread. I jumped in here since I see the question of religious experience one of significant importance in the light of religious thought these days, and one that can make exploration of all the other questions difficult to address if it somehow is taken as the overriding validation of things when doubts exist intellectually.

 

Please spend some time going over what I dumped on you. Plus others here have added some very relevant thoughts as well, in much fewer, more concise words than I seem capable of. Off to the lake for some fishing today Will check back later.

[Antlerman]

And I didn't suggest that you would become a pure atheist either. There are believers on this board. Those who believe in some form of "god" or creator. We're not all atheists here. Some are more pagan, or other forms, but overall, your attitude of searching the truth will bring you to places you never thought you would go.

You know Hans, I've actually been wrestling with using the title atheist anymore. What would you call someone who believes in a "literal symbol"? (It sort of has the ring of "one hand clapping" to it).

[Sky Dancer]

Antlerman, you've certainly given me a lot to digest here, way too much to digest in one setting, but I thank you for the information. I do find it interesting where you point out that we take our experienced and attach it to the symbol (holy spirit, christ) rather than exploring the experience itself. At least I think that is what you are saying. You are certainly a much better writer than me lol. I have many, many more questions than answers, and I'm sorry if I am dragging this thread off topic. Let's just say as my intelectual side has become more active and been to objectively analyze my religious beliefs over the past 6 months or so, I have become less and less comfortable at my church. I feel awkeard in worship. I feel estranged from those in my church body, for no apparent reason. It's nothing they've done. They are the most loving, accepting people and have been very generous and supportive for me. I attend a small non-denominatinoal church of about 60 people and its a pretty close-knit group. Yet I feel very disconencted and disenchanted. I feel disappointed, let down, and I can't figure out why. I almost feel as if there is something wrong with me. I have felt this same feeling when I have visited a former church I used to attend. Many of my experiences, without going into a lot of detail, conflict with what the bible says, for example sexuality.

 

I have a lot of answers to seek out. There's so much I want to know and I am hoping y'all can point me to the right material. I want to learn about how the Bible was really put together, about all the lost books of the bible. How many times has our bible been altered/edited over the centuries? I want to learn about all of the things you guys say that is in the bible that isn't supprted by physiacl evidence, like the Israleties being enslaved by the Egyptians and then spending 40 years in the desert. I think I read on here that the Egyptians had forts on both sides of the red sea. Was Kind David real? What about the prophecies that are all supposedly filled in Christ? Is there historical evidence that Christ existed? How do you explain the radical conversion of Paul? Indeed how do you explain the radical growth of Christianity, even to the point where they faced persecution and death in the coleseum and still wouldn't renounce their faith? What of those who say that all of the epistles were written by Paul? What about thos who say that the first 5 books of the bible were written by someone else? Where is the evidence for this? I am basically wanting to critically examine the bible and my beleif system. Theres are only a small representation of the multitude of questions I have, far too many to list here. I am hoping you guys can give me some tools to do this ie point me towards the right literature. I'm sure that many of you have asked these same questions and read a lot of the same material in search for answers. I am not here to simply give up my faith but I want to find the truth, even if it is something I might not want to face. I refuse to live a lie.

You certainly are full of questions. This is all good, wherever it may take you. You may end up rejecting everything, or you may modify it to some other path you find works for yourself better.

 

I can say in a sweeping response without getting into all the specifics, to all your questions about the Bible, the NT, and Christianity that it's sufficient to say the presentation of it in Church as some God-Delivered Word of God, is basically Romanticism. When you dig into real history with the tools of modern scholarship, the picture is much more human than anything supernatural. That it's not the Romantic ideals painted by the clergy, does not necessarily destroy any and all value, but it should take things and put them into a more relevant light in the face of the knowledge we posses today. Instead, rather than trying to make it fit some outdated ideas, it's putting into context. In fact, questions of true and false become irrelevant. Mythology isn't a matter of true or false, it's a matter of symbolic relevance. What value it has to you after doing that, is a personal thing. But suffice to say, arguments that science and scholarship are wrong simply because it disagrees with a belief, is insufficient to satisfy people like me, and apparently you as well. To be anti-intellectual is not healthy to one's "spirit".

 

Take your time, and ask away. We may want to keep the questions in focus though instead of jumping all around to King David and whatnot in this thread. I jumped in here since I see the question of religious experience one of significant importance in the light of religious thought these days, and one that can make exploration of all the other questions difficult to address if it somehow is taken as the overriding validation of things when doubts exist intellectually.

 

Please spend some time going over what I dumped on you. Plus others here have added some very relevant thoughts as well, in much fewer, more concise words than I seem capable of. Off to the lake for some fishing today Will check back later.

 

Have fun fishing. I was hoping you, or someone else, could suggest some books produced by modern scholarship to read that would help to being to answer my questions. Where can I start to dig into biblical history with the schools of modern scholarship? I'm a biology major, not a history or theology major, and know very little about studying history or theology. So if you could suggest some literature to start, that would be great.

 

Ryan