Still Struggling With A Few Things.

[Hunter93]

Yes, I am a de-convert. I actually de-coverted today. But there's a few things still bothering me. I am not trying to re-convert anyone but I thought this would be the best place to post it.

 

http://choicesforliving.com/spirit/part3/angels.htm

 

You could probably find more similar to this if you do a Google search. I found another one as well. Now, as a recent de-convert, I still have my fears. As for the link, I actually came across this while I was a Christian sometime back. I guess now that I de-converted, the fear that I made a mistake is causing me to worry. Obviously, you guys are ex-Christians like me. But, what's your thoughts on this?

 

This is indeed something that in my still somewhat Christian mind, has me worried. Heck, I'm scared in even posting this thread.

[mymistake]

It will get better with time.  I had a very hard time with emotions for my first five months or so after leaving Christianity.  However I am happier now then I have ever been in my life.  I'm not impressed with the angel article.  Back when I was a believer I had my own encounter with what I thought was an angel.  It was very meaningful to me at the time.  Today I am certain it wasn't an angel.  In my opinion angels don't exist.

 

You will find Christians pass around many of these stories about modern miracles and angel sightings.  They all follow the same pattern of being fantastic but also unverifiable.  Give yourself time to de-program.

[Guest r3alchild]

Its all subjective based experience and testimony that has not one shred of proof. Christians who claim god and his angels have to remain hidden in order for us to have true faith do not know their scriptures. The bible is full of stories of god and his angels interacting with subjects regardless of the "if we saw god and his angels we wouldnt need faith" argument.

 

Now we can take this line of questioning further, if in fact god and his angels can be seen and proven as the bible claims, then why is there no proof in our modern day. It is either because god and his angels have a diffrent agenda than the "faith" excuse christians use. Or because those ot stories about god and his angels interacting with man are made up.

[Guest r3alchild]

Note: Learn to cut yourself as much slack as you possibly can, deconversion will take more to understand than your christianity ever did.

[LifeCycle]

Someone elses personal experience should never be considered as proof of anything - whether it be angel visitations, UFO sightings or even the sun revolving around the earth... 

 

Live your life based on what you experience.  It's only reasonable and fair.

[LivingLife]

I looked at the link and the opener is that the angels appear and say jeebus is coming soon. How quaint? That has been happening for 2000 years and these stories in circulation as long as that. Let me assure you it is all BS. These bogeyman stories are told to keep you scared, they know once you have taken the red pill, you are a lost cause. Reality is more real and no need to force belief in imaginary beings.

[centauri]

From the article:

 

It is important to stress that any mystical experience, even messages from angels, must be carefully judged against God's Holy Word, the Bible.

 

The bias of the author is evident right from the start.

They're going to filter everything through their skewed perception that the Bible is the "holy word" of an entity that hasn't been established as existing in the first place.

Their conclusion is already held hostage to subjective nonsense.

 

[Joshpantera]

Well here's the problem right at the beginning of the article, in the very title:

 

Angels appear as humans

-- then vanish -- 
after making startling announcement 
that Jesus is coming "very, very soon"!!! 
And other supernatural confirmations of Christ's soon return! 
by Jim Bramlett

 

Supernatural "confirmations?" 

 

The supernatural is not and has never been "confirmed." The bullshit starts right away and picks up speed as the article continues. Like the others have said, give yourself time you'll eventually see right through that sort of thing. 

 

One afternoon after working on tiling a patio I decided to jump in my boat and go snorkeling out at the lighthouse. It was late afternoon and I only saw one other boat out at the reef. I had my brother and some co-workers with me. There were a boat load of what appeared to be Miami Cubans trolling for big barracuda's around the lighthouse in the protected area. I remember thinking to myself what a bunch of assholes. It's not a fishing zone, it's a wild life sanctuary protected by law.

 

We jumped in the water and snorkeled for a while. The boat kept trolling around the lighthouse even as we were snorkeling. Sundown was soon approaching so we got out and started getting ready to pull anchor and ditch these yahoo's. I saw a set of three waves come over the reef line and break one at a time right into the stern of this boat. It was like a 1,2,3 knockout. They started taking on water then when the next wave hit the stern was going down and then everyone ran towards the back of the boat and the third wave rolled it over. I saw everyone go into the water. Cellphone, wallets, keys, were a complete loss. I went into calm and collected mode and told my brother to pull anchor and then started trying to think clearly and navigate the situation to the best of my ability. We started pulling people out of the water while I kept the bow into the wind and waves making sure that I never let the side haul face the breakers. They were idiots, but we couldn't very well leave them out there to die.

 

The last guy in the water was scared shitless clinging on to an upside down cooler with a death grip. I guess he couldn't swim at all. No one spoke clear English either so communication was pretty much a loss. The boat was a loss too because I wasn't going to tie on to it and jeopardize sinking my boat and everyone in it. So I started taking them back to shore which was about 4 miles away. They all started pointing at the sky and making catholic cross gestures and thanking me over and over again. I dropped them off near a marina and they continued to bow and make gestures as they walked away down the dock. I took off pretty quickly and commented to my brother that they were lucky that we decided to go out that late for a swim. They probably would have been swept out to the gulf stream and never seen again. 

 

These guys probably thought that we were angels sent from God or something, looking like regular men. You know, the usual routine. But I'm not an angel, nor my brother, or any of my friends. We're not supernatural. We're just people who happened to be at some particular place at some particular time which worked out favorably for some one else's survival. But how often do people find themselves in situations with no such luck, no God sent "angels?" Think of all the people that haven't had any one around and have therefore died at sea in similar situations. No angels for those poor souls. 

 

The problem is that Christians love to jump on the 'angels in disguise' bandwagon. I'm sure that by the time the story was told a few times to their friends and families I had vanished into thin air after appearing out of nowhere and saving them from certain death. When nothing of the sort happened. It's just funny to see the 'angels in disguise' bandwagon from the perspective of a so-called angel. Then you can really see the fallacy of it all.

[Guest r3alchild]

Well here's the problem right at the beginning of the article, in the very title:

 

 

 

 

 

Angels appear as humans

-- then vanish --

after making startling announcement

that Jesus is coming "very, very soon"!!!

And other supernatural confirmations of Christ's soon return!

by Jim Bramlett

Supernatural "confirmations?"

 

The supernatural is not and has never been "confirmed." The bullshit starts right away and picks up speed as the article continues. Like the others have said, give yourself time you'll eventually see right through that sort of thing.

 

One afternoon after working on tiling a patio I decided to jump in my boat and go snorkeling out at the lighthouse. It was late afternoon and I only saw one other boat out at the reef. I had my brother and some co-workers with me. There were a boat load of what appeared to be Miami Cubans trolling for big barracuda's around the lighthouse in the protected area. I remember thinking to myself what a bunch of assholes. It's not a fishing zone, it's a wild life sanctuary protected by law.

 

We jumped in the water and snorkeled for a while. The boat kept trolling around the lighthouse even as we were snorkeling. Sundown was soon approaching so we got out and started getting ready to pull anchor and ditch these yahoo's. I saw a set of three waves come over the reef line and break one at a time right into the stern of this boat. It was like a 1,2,3 knockout. They started taking on water then when the next wave hit the stern was going down and then everyone ran towards the back of the boat and the third wave rolled it over. I saw everyone go into the water. Cellphone, wallets, keys, were a complete loss. I went into calm and collected mode and told my brother to pull anchor and then started trying to think clearly and navigate the situation to the best of my ability. We started pulling people out of the water while I kept the bow into the wind and waves making sure that I never let the side haul face the breakers. They were idiots, but we couldn't very well leave them out there to die.

 

The last guy in the water was scared shitless clinging on to an upside down cooler with a death grip. I guess he couldn't swim at all. No one spoke clear English either so communication was pretty much a loss. The boat was a loss too because I wasn't going to tie on to it and jeopardize sinking my boat and everyone in it. So I started taking them back to shore which was about 4 miles away. They all started pointing at the sky and making catholic cross gestures and thanking me over and over again. I dropped them off near a marina and they continued to bow and make gestures as they walked away down the dock. I took off pretty quickly and commented to my brother that they were lucky that we decided to go out that late for a swim. They probably would have been swept out to the gulf stream and never seen again.

 

These guys probably thought that we were angels sent from God or something, looking like regular men. You know, the usual routine. But I'm not an angel, nor my brother, or any of my friends. We're not supernatural. We're just people who happened to be at some particular place at some particular time which worked out favorably for some one else's survival. But how often do people find themselves in situations with no such luck, no God sent "angels?" Think of all the people that haven't had any one around and have therefore died at sea in similar situations. No angels for those poor souls.

 

The problem is that Christians love to jump on the 'angels in disguise' bandwagon. I'm sure that by the time the story was told a few times to their friends and families I had vanished into thin air after appearing out of nowhere and saving them from certain death. When nothing of the sort happened. It's just funny to see the 'angels in disguise' bandwagon from the perspective of a so-called angel. Then you can really see the fallacy of it all.

I remember light fm (a christian radio station) opened their lines for people to call in about angel experiences. Well pretty much every one of their testimonies was based around some serious disaster that happened to them. I felt like calling in and saying to them, "how can anyone be sure of something like a angel appearing, when in disasters peoples minds are in survival mode, how do you know that an overload of adrenaline is not the cause of these angel experiences."

 

I was shocked how people would just believe anything as they were trying to make it sound so plausible without any evidence. Even the radio announcer was claiming that angels are there one minute and gone the next and this is how they operate. It was all subjective BS but like do they care?

 

Nup.

[Hunter93]

Well here's the problem right at the beginning of the article, in the very title:

 

 

 

Angels appear as humans

-- then vanish --

after making startling announcement

that Jesus is coming "very, very soon"!!!

And other supernatural confirmations of Christ's soon return!

by Jim Bramlett

Supernatural "confirmations?"

 

The supernatural is not and has never been "confirmed." The bullshit starts right away and picks up speed as the article continues. Like the others have said, give yourself time you'll eventually see right through that sort of thing.

 

One afternoon after working on tiling a patio I decided to jump in my boat and go snorkeling out at the lighthouse. It was late afternoon and I only saw one other boat out at the reef. I had my brother and some co-workers with me. There were a boat load of what appeared to be Miami Cubans trolling for big barracuda's around the lighthouse in the protected area. I remember thinking to myself what a bunch of assholes. It's not a fishing zone, it's a wild life sanctuary protected by law.

 

We jumped in the water and snorkeled for a while. The boat kept trolling around the lighthouse even as we were snorkeling. Sundown was soon approaching so we got out and started getting ready to pull anchor and ditch these yahoo's. I saw a set of three waves come over the reef line and break one at a time right into the stern of this boat. It was like a 1,2,3 knockout. They started taking on water then when the next wave hit the stern was going down and then everyone ran towards the back of the boat and the third wave rolled it over. I saw everyone go into the water. Cellphone, wallets, keys, were a complete loss. I went into calm and collected mode and told my brother to pull anchor and then started trying to think clearly and navigate the situation to the best of my ability. We started pulling people out of the water while I kept the bow into the wind and waves making sure that I never let the side haul face the breakers. They were idiots, but we couldn't very well leave them out there to die.

 

The last guy in the water was scared shitless clinging on to an upside down cooler with a death grip. I guess he couldn't swim at all. No one spoke clear English either so communication was pretty much a loss. The boat was a loss too because I wasn't going to tie on to it and jeopardize sinking my boat and everyone in it. So I started taking them back to shore which was about 4 miles away. They all started pointing at the sky and making catholic cross gestures and thanking me over and over again. I dropped them off near a marina and they continued to bow and make gestures as they walked away down the dock. I took off pretty quickly and commented to my brother that they were lucky that we decided to go out that late for a swim. They probably would have been swept out to the gulf stream and never seen again.

 

These guys probably thought that we were angels sent from God or something, looking like regular men. You know, the usual routine. But I'm not an angel, nor my brother, or any of my friends. We're not supernatural. We're just people who happened to be at some particular place at some particular time which worked out favorably for some one else's survival. But how often do people find themselves in situations with no such luck, no God sent "angels?" Think of all the people that haven't had any one around and have therefore died at sea in similar situations. No angels for those poor souls.

 

The problem is that Christians love to jump on the 'angels in disguise' bandwagon. I'm sure that by the time the story was told a few times to their friends and families I had vanished into thin air after appearing out of nowhere and saving them from certain death. When nothing of the sort happened. It's just funny to see the 'angels in disguise' bandwagon from the perspective of a so-called angel. Then you can really see the fallacy of it all.

That's a very commendable thing you did.

 

While I no longer believe in the Christian God or the Bible, I do feel there could be a God. Even if I didn't, I couldn't really call myself an Atheist anyway.

[Joshpantera]

It depends on what you think of as God. That's another direction that ex-Christian life will tend to unravel. If the Christian Bible God concept is out, then what about other concepts? Ex-Christians tend to explore everything. If not supernaturalism, then what of the naturalist world view? Over time you may find yourself piecing together - bit by bit, and year by year - an entirely new world view and outlook on life and even death. You may find yourself coming to terms with uncertainties. And at some point feeling a type of peace of mind that may begin to set in where you're ok with not knowing the mysteries of life with any concrete certanity. And perhaps begin to understand that there's no good reason to ever get off thinking that you do. Religious belief can offer you a false sense of certainty which in the end is very delusional.

 

You may never become atheist, a lot of ex-Christians don't and yet they remain ex-Christian. They may go as unlabeled, pantheist or panentheist, there's polytheists around here and deists mixed in with those who have gone atheist. So the dichotomy between you're either theist or atheist is not so black and white and mostly a tool used by Christian apologists to broadstroke non-believers in the Bible God. They'd like to have you thinking that the only theistic way of thinking is their particular version of theism, when that's not correct at all.