Mythra Posted August 1, 2005 Share Posted August 1, 2005 How many times have you heard the story: "God told me that my kids were evil, and He directed me to destroy them." "The voices of the demons took over my mind just before I kidnapped that little girl." What a revelation to find out there are no voices coming from external sources. Only thoughts. Generated from within the mind. Sometimes the voices are mental illness. But they're not voices. No one guiding us around like little puppets on strings. No one condemning us. The "still, small voice" is your own mind. Absolutely liberating epiphany. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazy-tiger Posted August 1, 2005 Share Posted August 1, 2005 How many times have you heard the story: "God told me that my kids were evil, and He directed me to destroy them." "The voices of the demons took over my mind just before I kidnapped that little girl." What a revelation to find out there are no voices coming from external sources. Only thoughts. Generated from within the mind. Sometimes the voices are mental illness. But they're not voices. No one guiding us around like little puppets on strings. No one condemning us. The "still, small voice" is your own mind. Absolutely liberating epiphany. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> To quote Lee Evans... "Why doesn't God tell them to do something useful, like decorate the house?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeccasStillSeeking Posted August 1, 2005 Share Posted August 1, 2005 How many times have you heard the story: "God told me that my kids were evil, and He directed me to destroy them." "The voices of the demons took over my mind just before I kidnapped that little girl." What a revelation to find out there are no voices coming from external sources. Only thoughts. Generated from within the mind. Sometimes the voices are mental illness. But they're not voices. No one guiding us around like little puppets on strings. No one condemning us. The "still, small voice" is your own mind. Absolutely liberating epiphany. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> True enough. Thing is--I kept waiting for the "still, small voice" and never felt anything but the fruits of my own imagination. I was never able to successfully delude myself into believing that God spoke to me. Had I been stupider or more thoroughly indoctrinated, less skeptical or more into blind faith, I might have just trusted that anything random that popped into my head was "the voice of God". But even then, I never even IMAGINED that he was offering me comfort, which is what he was supposed to be doing right then. So I guess that trick wouldn't have worked on me anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vixentrox Posted August 1, 2005 Share Posted August 1, 2005 Funny how it's only truely god talking when it's in a True Xtian's head. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mythra Posted August 1, 2005 Author Share Posted August 1, 2005 Sometimes I think it's just the power of suggestion. How come, as a christian, we never heard the pastor say this: "Now, if God is telling you to reduce the amount you are giving to this church, then by all means you should do so." HMM? I'm pretty sure I would have heard God speak right then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeccasStillSeeking Posted August 1, 2005 Share Posted August 1, 2005 Sometimes I think it's just the power of suggestion. How come, as a christian, we never heard the pastor say this: "Now, if God is telling you to reduce the amount you are giving to this church, then by all means you should do so." HMM? I'm pretty sure I would have heard God speak right then. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> If I can profess to have "heard" any clear message from God, it was "Get the hell away from all these Christians, they've got me all wrong and they've spent centuries killing people and destroying cultures in an attempt to disprove that." That was set out in NO uncertain terms as The Path I Had To Take If I Didn't Want To Lose My Widdle Mind. Hey! Maybe God DID talk to me after all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quicksand Posted August 1, 2005 Share Posted August 1, 2005 I think people hear what they expect god to say. These expectations are built on what they believe about god, what they have been taught about god, their own personality and their view of how god has been in their life (generous, stingy, angry, joyful, punishing, lenient..etc). Which means they can come up with an answer from "god" that goes against what they want to do. Goes back to your "ego" argument some posts back. Right on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest gnosis.sophia Posted August 3, 2005 Share Posted August 3, 2005 The "still, small voice" is your own mind. Absolutely liberating epiphany. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> that seems to be about right. does anyone in this forum meditate, or concentrate on trying to reduce the number of "still small voices" in your minds? seems to be a pretty useful way of calming the monkey-mind syndrome. (the zen exercise, thinking about nothing... which is pretty impossible, at least for me, now). too bad christians don't practice this techinique.. they would probably actually notice that it was themselves all along deluding themselves into wishful / non-wishful thinking. so, an exercise i've picked up in a book somewhere: in your mind, you are counting arbitrarily in ascending order (starting on 1, for example). on each exhalation, you visualize, or mentally-vocalize N. If you ever think anything, other than the thing you are focusing on, in this example, N, you go back to 1. You should be breathing slowly, and in a relaxed manner, to help your body relax.. the point was, or is, that sometimes during this exercise, you experience a seemingly detached state of mind, where your thoughts, and your counting state seem to be independent, and it seems as if the voice is externally planted into your mind. maybe it's god.. ! he's telling me to itch my foot, and don't forget to take the dog out before going to work, and did I make the bed? an i'm like damn it, one.............two.......... though, most of the time, it's not disassociated at all, but just my mind refusing to cooperate with the seemingly easy, if not a bit boring, exercise. ymmv, gnosis loves sophia Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spamandham Posted August 3, 2005 Share Posted August 3, 2005 Welcome to ex-c gnosis.sophia! A question about gnosticism (assuming you know based on your user name), waht role, if any, did sun worship play in ancient gnosticism? It's not a test, just a timely question. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Godless Dave Posted August 3, 2005 Share Posted August 3, 2005 How many times have you heard the story: "God told me that my kids were evil, and He directed me to destroy them." "The voices of the demons took over my mind just before I kidnapped that little girl." <{POST_SNAPBACK}> "God told me to sacrifice my son Isaac." That one's in the Old Testament! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest gnosis.sophia Posted August 3, 2005 Share Posted August 3, 2005 Welcome to ex-c gnosis.sophia! A question about gnosticism (assuming you know based on your user name), waht role, if any, did sun worship play in ancient gnosticism? It's not a test, just a timely question. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> ah yes, my username. =) well, I have only a surface interest in gnosticism, and don't know a whole lot about the ancient form of it. i've read most of the standard "gnostic" texts.. but i can't really answer yoru question. some of the ideas in gnosticism seem fanciful, but it is an "ism", or "anity", etc... =) one that claims to be self-verifiable by technique at least, or at least some of the forms do.. [ which is part of the aim of my single-minded meditation.. to see what, if any, results I get... they, unlike christianity, do not claim that skepticism or doubt is a hinderance necessarily... ] (so that's a long non-answer to a short question) ---- gnosis loves sophia Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Son of Belial Posted August 4, 2005 Share Posted August 4, 2005 I had a great aunt who faithfully went to church every Sunday and gave money every Sunday. She got very sick and couldn't go to church anymore. The pastor would come by every month to pick up the money, but neither he nor any of the other people that ran the church ever stopped by just to visit or see how she was doing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark Helmet Posted August 4, 2005 Share Posted August 4, 2005 I never heard any voices when I was christian... Sometimes when I think I hear my thoughts in the voice of other people but they're still my own. I'd be freaked out if I heard someone else in my head, lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spamandham Posted August 7, 2005 Share Posted August 7, 2005 This isn't exactly hearing voices, but ... My grandmother (mom'm mom) died last Monday, and my dad, who's a devout Catholic went to bed, turned off the lights (with a remote control), and prayed that since she had led a hard life, for god just to take her into heaven immediately without purgatory (a Catholic thing), and just as he finished, the lights turned on. I asked him if he was lying on the remote, and he claims it was on the table at the time, and that the lights have never before spontaneously turned on. Thoughts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reach Posted August 8, 2005 Share Posted August 8, 2005 Actually, I did have a pastor like that. When we were going through a tough financial time, he told us to stop tithing and make sure we were putting enough food on the table. I'm speechless! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vixentrox Posted August 8, 2005 Share Posted August 8, 2005 I'm speechless! <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Did he ask for double later? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark Helmet Posted August 20, 2005 Share Posted August 20, 2005 I'm speechless! <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Wha-wha-wha-what? Wow, finally one pastor with a head on his shoulder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Joseph Posted August 21, 2005 Share Posted August 21, 2005 How many times have you heard the story: "God told me that my kids were evil, and He directed me to destroy them." "The voices of the demons took over my mind just before I kidnapped that little girl." What a revelation to find out there are no voices coming from external sources. Only thoughts. Generated from within the mind. Sometimes the voices are mental illness. But they're not voices. No one guiding us around like little puppets on strings. No one condemning us. The "still, small voice" is your own mind. Absolutely liberating epiphany. Would be an "absolutely liberating epiphany" if it were true for my life. The thing about voices that may or may not be the subject of one's own mind is when or if they provide the thinker with information he/she has no privy to prior to the thought/voice. At such a point the skeptic must then think of another way to cancel out such things..."a good guess." This has happened to me from time to time. One simple example was that my very large orange cat had been missing for a couple days. We had searched all over the yard which connects to the farm. In the back is a small run-down hut/house on the left, a field in the middle, and an old un-used duck lot on the right which is next to the barn. It is all grown up around the duck lot to the point that you really can not see in it from the backyard. What can I say I hate yard work. I was outside next to the house and something went, "would you like help?" Now, the skeptic in me always thinks that these are merely my mind, but again I play on the idea that perhaps my unconcious mind knows something I do not, and by such I normally listen (even if not act upon what is offered). So I respond with "of course." "Turn around and walk behind the barn." I wasn't going to the barn at all. "Browner" hated the barn and wouldn't be there. Yes I know the irony of having a large orange cat named "Browner" so you can stop there with the jokes. We continued to search the side lot, around the small hut/house and into the front yard, "why not check where we suggest?" First, who the fuck is "we?" Second, why would I listen? Anyways, mental disorder or not, I humor the thought. I walk all the way around the house, to the opposite side of the yard and stand next to the barn. NOTHING. Yep, I'm going insane...maybe I should ask my grandparents about histories of insanity... "you aren't behind the barn." Shit. So I walk further, through "spider-web alley" (trees next to the barn make a great attachment point for all types of spiders) and get to the back. It is a fenced off area which has old mowers and a broken tractor and some very sparsely mechanized motorcycles which have been gutted over the years for parts. I look around and see nothing all the while thinking that the damn cat is out on the side of the road dead (it wouldn't be the first time we lost an animal that way). Despite having a very large front yard, and even more farmland between our yard and the road, the animals we love the most tend to end up there. Ugh. So I stand there, frustrated, tired, hot, wondering what is crawling on my hair/arm/back/shirt and quite upset. "Turn around." I do so and through a small clearing, I see that big fat old cat sitting on top of the "rabbit boards" in the duck lot. It seems that it was time for the baby rabbits to come out to see the new world and he was hanging around waiting for some "fresh" supper (well, more fresh than dry kitty food)...as much as we feed that cat, heh. So I walk back through spider-alley, around to the entrance of the duck lot. I can't see a thing past the overgrowth, the only vantage point was behind the barn, had I not been told to go there I wouldn't have seen the cat. I can't see the rabbit boards nor the cat from the front. I do not remember having a single thought about looking in the duck lot (and near the barn would be the last place to look). Thus...as a skeptic, this is quite disheartening. Outside data that I didn't have was provided to me in a moment of need by something I can't explain. My personal take on this experience is genetically altered psychic baby rabbits (GAPBR) have escaped from a lab and inhabited our duck yard and in seeing the large orange cat named "Browner" sitting on top of their house used their exceptionally altered mental states to call the nearest human for assistance. Either that or perhaps we as mankind do not know all that exists from our finite viewpoints. All hail the G. A. P. B. R.'s or other, whatever it/he/she might be, heh. As an agnostic I leave it open to interpretation...but I have an even more interesting and strange story if anyone is interested...heh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanakila Posted August 21, 2005 Share Posted August 21, 2005 Actually, I did have a pastor like that. When we were going through a tough financial time, he told us to stop tithing and make sure we were putting enough food on the table. He's the only pastor that ever said that. Of course, he was messianic jewish, and had a more jewish perspective on the bible, which was actually much more balanced than what gentile christianity cooks up. All the rest said to give until it hurt, and if you are having a financial problem to give in faith through your trial or they would threaten that if you stopped giving, god would make your financial problem worse. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The pastor of the church that my husband was an associate pastor at would tell the congregation when taking up the offering that if you were in need feel free to take some out of the plate. It might have been for show but it still affected me and my opinion of giving. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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