MarieMonteiro Posted October 14, 2018 Share Posted October 14, 2018 Hello, I am currently in the process of deconversion but there is one thing holding me back and I'd like to know if somebody ever heard of stories of this kind and still got out of Xtianity. A Christian couple told me this story that happened to them: when they got married they had no money and could not even buy a wedding bouquet, but one day, many years after, a woman came up to them in church and told them that God had told her to buy them a wedding bouquet. The couple was startled because they did not know the woman, and they were about to celebrate their wedding anniversary a few weeks later. This story seems too "big" to be a coincidence. What do you think of it? Did you ever hear similar stories of the kind in your Christian years? Thank you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted October 14, 2018 Super Moderator Share Posted October 14, 2018 52 minutes ago, MarieMonteiro said: A Christian couple told me this story that happened to them: Red flag, warning bell, bullshit meter off the scale... 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stargazer95 Posted October 14, 2018 Share Posted October 14, 2018 3 hours ago, MarieMonteiro said: but one day, many years after, I think God may have told her a little too late? I mean, if it was really from God, he could have sent her with the bouquet the day before the wedding, rather than many years later. That would have made more sense. Anyway, to answer your question, yes, I have heard many odd stories of things like that. Some I don't know how to explain. But look, even if it is supernatural, it's not necessarily the Christian God behind it. There could be any number of weird "forces" responsible for it. Or it's just a coincidence. Coincidences happen all the time. Sometimes we read too much into it. But I have a story to share that really made me doubt the truthfulness of all that stuff. Several years ago, a Christian speaker, author, and apologist I liked was diagnosed with stomach cancer. He shared a story that, at the time, I thought was mind-blowing. He had been visiting a church, and afterwards, a friend texted him and said two different women had approached him and said pretty much the same thing - "Satan has entered his stomach through his spine and he should go see a chiropractor". So he booked an appointment, and then bumped into another woman from the same church who told him that she saw a vision - a man would lie on top of him and bring healing to him. (Weird, I know). When he got to the chiropractor's, he learned that his spine was misaligned at the point where it intersected the stomach (fulfilling part 1 of the "prophecy"). And to re-align his spine, the chiropractor had to lie on top of him (fulfilling part 2). Now. Obviously my reaction to this was omg that has to be from God. Guess what? The guy died anyway. In my mind, this had been such an incredible prophecy, and yet, it obviously was false. It totally skewed my views on every miracle and prophetic story I've ever heard and made me question all of it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted October 14, 2018 Super Moderator Share Posted October 14, 2018 Obviously coincidences do happen, but that's not really the point. This tale and many like it are most likely lies they themselves believe or at least believe you should hear their "evidence" backing their beliefs. But I'm reminded of one story that is probably not a lie. People were giving their testimonies at church and one young woman told this tale. "I reached into my freezer for the ice cube tray and my finger froze to it. I prayed to be released and soon my finger was free. Praise Jesus!" True story. No shit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
midniterider Posted October 14, 2018 Share Posted October 14, 2018 4 hours ago, MarieMonteiro said: Hello, I am currently in the process of deconversion but there is one thing holding me back and I'd like to know if somebody ever heard of stories of this kind and still got out of Xtianity. A Christian couple told me this story that happened to them: when they got married they had no money and could not even buy a wedding bouquet, but one day, many years after, a woman came up to them in church and told them that God had told her to buy them a wedding bouquet. The couple was startled because they did not know the woman, and they were about to celebrate their wedding anniversary a few weeks later. This story seems too "big" to be a coincidence. What do you think of it? Did you ever hear similar stories of the kind in your Christian years? Thank you A day late and a dollar short, God. It seems to me if there was a helpful God he wouldn't wait years to do it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VerbosityCat Posted October 14, 2018 Share Posted October 14, 2018 1 hour ago, midniterider said: A day late and a dollar short, God. It seems to me if there was a helpful God he wouldn't wait years to do it. I recently sent a painting I made to my mother-in-law as a birthday present. She sent me a thank you note back telling me that the day before it arrived in the mail she was telling some of her family that she was thinking of seeing if I might paint her something to go in her newly decorated bedroom (which I didn't know about). The painting I sent her turned out to be something that matched the room perfectly. True story. So yeah, these sorts of coincidences very much DO happen. I think they are super neat. Sometimes they feel sort of like "easter eggs". I get this feeling a lot when I see crows or ravens. Sometimes when I have a spiritually significant dream or when I'm watching some show or movie where a character is coming to similar conclusions about a topic I was just thinking about. It's neat, but it doesn't prove anybody's god is more real than anybody else's god or no god at all. The universe is just funny sometimes. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VerbosityCat Posted October 14, 2018 Share Posted October 14, 2018 5 hours ago, MarieMonteiro said: Hello, I am currently in the process of deconversion but there is one thing holding me back and I'd like to know if somebody ever heard of stories of this kind and still got out of Xtianity. A Christian couple told me this story that happened to them: when they got married they had no money and could not even buy a wedding bouquet, but one day, many years after, a woman came up to them in church and told them that God had told her to buy them a wedding bouquet. The couple was startled because they did not know the woman, and they were about to celebrate their wedding anniversary a few weeks later. This story seems too "big" to be a coincidence. What do you think of it? Did you ever hear similar stories of the kind in your Christian years? Thank you Beyond my story I just shared in the thread, people can have experiences they consider "spiritually significant" but people in ALL religions and sometimes no religion have similar experiences. People tend to retroactively apply what they experience as proof of their specific belief system but when you really think it through there is just no way, EVEN IF the experience is somehow "supernatural" that it proves the specific stuff they believe. Let's assume for a second that some spiritual/supernatural entity DID tell this woman to buy someone a bouquet (though I agree with midniterider, sort of late for that shit!), this doesn't prove biblegod. It could be ANY god or dead relative or just this person's "higher self" or some cosmic connection with the grand "whatever". There is just no way, EVEN IF you could say this was a "spiritual experience" rather than just a meaningful coincidence, that it points to any specific belief system. the TLDR version is: you're not somehow obligated to interpret their "spiritual experience" within the frame of their spiritual interpretation/beliefs. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RealityCheck Posted October 15, 2018 Share Posted October 15, 2018 21 hours ago, MarieMonteiro said: Hello, I am currently in the process of deconversion but there is one thing holding me back and I'd like to know if somebody ever heard of stories of this kind and still got out of Xtianity. A Christian couple told me this story that happened to them: when they got married they had no money and could not even buy a wedding bouquet, but one day, many years after, a woman came up to them in church and told them that God had told her to buy them a wedding bouquet. The couple was startled because they did not know the woman, and they were about to celebrate their wedding anniversary a few weeks later. This story seems too "big" to be a coincidence. What do you think of it? Did you ever hear similar stories of the kind in your Christian years? Thank you Welcome to the site. During my time as a Christian I heard countless stories of these occurrences. Upon following up it always turned out that the person was lying or exaggerating the story to garner attention. There is also confirmation bias to consider, a person sees a coincidence as evidence for god's intervention. Other times key detains will be omitted from accounts, a cancer patient would be said to be "miraculously healed" but you will hear no mention of the medical attention they received. The best way to approach these claims is with skepticism, look further into these accounts and don't accept them at face value. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarieMonteiro Posted October 17, 2018 Author Share Posted October 17, 2018 Thank you all for your answers. On 10/15/2018 at 12:20 AM, VerbosityCat said: Beyond my story I just shared in the thread, people can have experiences they consider "spiritually significant" but people in ALL religions and sometimes no religion have similar experiences. People tend to retroactively apply what they experience as proof of their specific belief system but when you really think it through there is just no way, EVEN IF the experience is somehow "supernatural" that it proves the specific stuff they believe. Do you have examples of people from other religions experiencing things like that as well? I have been searching online but I always end up on Christian testimonies. If you had examples that would help me! Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Astreja Posted October 17, 2018 Share Posted October 17, 2018 It's possible that their "could not afford a bouquet" story managed to get out to various people over the years, and this particular woman capitalized on it by buying a bouquet for them many, many years later. I'm not impressed by a god that can only do a "miracle" of flowers that arrive late, delivered by mortals. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted October 17, 2018 Super Moderator Share Posted October 17, 2018 https://www.quora.com/Why-do-I-only-know-of-miracles-associated-with-Christian-worship-in-modern-times-and-none-associated-with-Islam-and-Hinduism 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VerbosityCat Posted October 17, 2018 Share Posted October 17, 2018 14 hours ago, MarieMonteiro said: Thank you all for your answers. Do you have examples of people from other religions experiencing things like that as well? I have been searching online but I always end up on Christian testimonies. If you had examples that would help me! Thanks! I have had many personal spiritually meaningful experiences as a Heathen. I also had them during my brief stint as a Buddhist and really in every worldview I've held. I know people from all faith walks of life and they've all had these experiences. These seem more "human experiences" than Christian experiences. 2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarieMonteiro Posted October 18, 2018 Author Share Posted October 18, 2018 9 hours ago, VerbosityCat said: I have had many personal spiritually meaningful experiences as a Heathen. I also had them during my brief stint as a Buddhist and really in every worldview I've held. I know people from all faith walks of life and they've all had these experiences. These seem more "human experiences" than Christian experiences. What types of experiences? Just like the one you hear in Christian churches with "God told me" and it happens in such a way that it could only be a higher spiritual power? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VerbosityCat Posted October 18, 2018 Share Posted October 18, 2018 14 hours ago, MarieMonteiro said: What types of experiences? Just like the one you hear in Christian churches with "God told me" and it happens in such a way that it could only be a higher spiritual power? It's a little personal to be honest, but there is no difference in the "types of experiences" the anybody else has but I don't ever say "god told me" anything because no gods are the boss of me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
midniterider Posted October 19, 2018 Share Posted October 19, 2018 4 hours ago, VerbosityCat said: no gods are the boss of me. Word! 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wadori Posted October 22, 2018 Share Posted October 22, 2018 Perhaps I'm missing the point, but I don't see any "coincidence" here. If the couple had been praying, "Can we please have a wedding bouquet for our anniversary?" then there would be a coincidence between the two events. Your description doesn't say this, though, so I am assuming this wasn't the case. All I'm seeing here is that there was a thoughtful lady who offered something nice to someone. Happens every day. I see nothing to do with god in here other than that the reason she knew the couple happens to be because they went to her church. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TerryZZJones Posted October 25, 2018 Share Posted October 25, 2018 The point is that the Church will do this. They play on the temporal or time ordering of things, invent or script behaviours, time it with other events, involve other people and largely act this way in order to "Support" the notion of their "God. They make it real being the fraud that it is. In other words? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator TheRedneckProfessor Posted January 4, 2019 Super Moderator Share Posted January 4, 2019 I ordered an 8-piece McNugget; and after praying over it, discovered that there were actually 10 McNuggets inside the box. The lord is truly good. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
midniterider Posted January 4, 2019 Share Posted January 4, 2019 3 hours ago, TheRedneckProfessor said: I ordered an 8-piece McNugget; and after praying over it, discovered that there were actually 10 McNuggets inside the box. The lord is truly good. Pray for a hedge of protection around your stomach lining. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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