My Testimony on my Salvation Experience!

[Saint_of_Me]

Hello All. And God Bless. Good to be here. I am a new member and wanted to share my testimony. I am a Born Again Christian after a lifetime of ardent atheism and sinning.

This is what happened to me a little over 18 months ago.......

Well I won't go too deep into it since from my experience I know full well that most people's "testimonies" on their God Experience, or their Getting Saved tends to bore others. Especially non-believers. But suffice to say I was in a miserable state; suicidal; gun in hand, ready to end it all. In a crummy motel room in downtown San Jose, CA.

I had left my wife about a week before. I had lost a business I had--a CrossFit Box i co-owned--from my own recklessness and sinful behavior. (hookers, drugs, all that cliche stuff! Ha!) For some reason out of desperation I picked up a bible. Part of my story here is it was given to me about an hour earier by a guy I never saw before or after downstairs outside my motel. I wont go into how he looked because it too is too clicjhe on how a human angel (I know!) would look. (but he did!)

He goes..."Take this...and do it fast. You look like you need it!) (I really did not look too bad. I am well-groomed and fit and was dressed in pressed jeans and a sports coat).

So I am upstairs, I had a couple shots of chilled vodka (only two! I was not drunk!) and I loaded up the Taurus .38. I opened the bible at random and came to the part where, when Jesus finally expires on the cross the "temple curtain tore in two." (I know this is a metaphor, btw--more on that later.)
So i re-read it over and over. Weird, how it struck me. Obsessed me. I had read it before and considered it just another fabrication by a gospel writer. (I think it was Mark).
My heart-rate speeded-up. I get a ringing in my ears. The room gets bright like a dimmer switch is rotated ion but the light is orange.
Now the good part..the curtain to my window, well, splits. like a laser was cutting it from top to bottom. I actually held it in my hand to try and figure out where the light-laser was coming from but it would just pass through my hand with no pain. I even smelled smoke. And the curtain DID smoke. My smoke alarm in the room went off!

I look outside and that bible guy waves at me ans walks away. I sit in my bed. The curtain is now pure bright orange light, but in two pieces. And the bible is open to that page on the bed and there is a trace--a path of light form the curtain to the page and it lit it up. So I go to the bathroom to splash water on my face and to throw some on the curtain! Ha! but when I come to, t everything is normal, except that curtain is torn int two, still. Wit the edges burnt!

I was overcome with a feeling of total elation and calm. Everything made sense. My state of being and how to get out of my misery. Well, it was gone. it was a narcotic feeling. A state of arousal. Peace with the world. Again, yeah, this all sounds cliche but I'm explaining to the best I can.

I sudden became very tired. Went to sleep and slept for a good 10 hours. When I got up the same feeling of elation was there.Total rejuvenation. I had an insatiable yearning to know God better and read the Word as often as I could. Which I still do. I got back on my feet within a week. Got my business back, everything. (but I did get divorced).

The motel manager accused my of burning the curtain and I had to par for it!

Thank you for the opportunity to tell you my Story. I will be more than happy to expand on any parts of it or answer any questions or critiques.

[Divine Insight]

So why? Did God use that sort of Imagery on me? Straight out of the Bible?

Well, please keep in mind that you asked for critique in your original post. So you can hardly blame me for offering my critique.

What makes me extremely suspicious here is why God would need to prove anything to you by performing miracles for you? That makes it sound like the only reason you cleaned up your act is because you're now convinced that this judgmental God exists because he proved himself to you by magically burning these curtains in half.

A far more convincing testimony would be if someone claimed they just broke down in a totally state of remorse and begged God to forgive them, and then claim to feel the invisible force of the "Holy Spirit" enter their body and change them internally to where they no longer crave the things they used to do.

So bottom line for me is the following:

Do I believe that you had some sort of experience where you think the Biblical God proved himself to you?

Sure, I'm not going to doubt that for a moment. To do so would be to call you an outright fabricator of fibs. I see no need to go that far. You most likely did experience some sort of profound psychological nervous breakdown.

After all, let's face it, you had just loaded up a gun and were preparing to blow your brains out. That's hardly the psychology of a calm collected person. So being in as state of extreme psychological distress is a key part of your story.

So I'll grant that you had some sort of profound psychological experience.

But do I buy that this experience included an actual God magically burning your curtains in half to prove to you his existence?

Nope. Extreme psychological nervous breakdown seems like a far more rational explanation for your experience.

And keep in mind, I'm just telling you what I think. Remember you asked for critique. Also, you need to realize that when it comes to the Biblical God I have decades of serious experience studying the Biblical scriptures. Your testimony is hardly going to make up all the absurdities and self-contradictions in the Bible.

It also doesn't explain even remotely why this God would prove himself to you, but remain completely silent and hidden when it came to someone like Mother Teresa.

To be quite honest about, a God who would behave the way the Biblical God would need to behave would not be impressive to me in any case.

And he just STOOD BY for over 300 years whilst innocent women were being tortured and burned alive as "witches" in the name of Jesus the Christ his only begotten Son?

He wouldn't do anything to help any of those innocent women, but he has no problem burning your curtains in half to keep you from committing suicide on yourself?

I wouldn't be impressed with this God in any case. If he does exist he's a jerk. That's all I know to say.

[Saint_of_Me]

[Replying to post 31 by Divine Insight]

Thanks for your comments, Divine. I appreciate you taking the time to respond.

And no worries, mate: I do not begrudge you at all for doubting the veracity of my Salvation Experience. That is, doubting that God physically intervened in my life so as to make me a Believer. And enable me to devote my life to His Works. You are not the first to think I was simply in a distraught and fragile state of mind and suffered some sort of psychotic break. Nor will you be the last, I am sure.

But no, I do not think I "cleaned up my act" only because God proved Himself to me. I don't know if I related this in my OP, but along with my Salvation Experience very clearly. But when I went to bed that night and woke up the next morning, I was filled with a deep longing to serve god. To devote my life to Him. Everything that had happened in my life made sense to me: I saw it all through a New Lens. Like I stepped outside of myself and looked back on the old me, and smiled and shook my head, and wondered why I was blind and angry for so long.

I had self-medicated and been violent and angry to fill the Hole in My Soul. Booze; women; drugs; violence; sin; lying; all born of self-centered fear. The True Prodigal Son.

So when I woke-up the next day I knew as soon as I was standing there in that motel room that I was going to work for God. I returned to school. After getting my MS in Biology I have decided to alter my doctoral emphasis slightly and go into Virology. I want to help people as much as I can, save a many lives as possible. I owe God a LOT. I should have been dead several times over in my past, form stupid and reckless antics.

Anybody who know me is amazed by me. Most will agree I am NOT the same person. I have been accused only half jokingly of being a twin brother impersonating the old me. LOL. My sister is a Psychologist up in Seattle and was so taken aback (in a good way!) by my Born Again self that she insisted I go through a battery of tests. She paid to fly me up to her place. She did. I passed with flying colors. Her and a colleague of hers are including me in a book they are doing on the Psychological aspects of Religious Experiences. Much like the old and famous William James work.

So rest assured I didn't just decide out of fear I better clean up my act. Like a sort of fear: "Oh shit! God is real! I better stop mocking him and denying him and say I believe!"

Noting like that. My change was on the inside. As deep in my heart and belief system as possible. I now love God as much as my family. More than I do myself. Before I was saved I laughed at the idea of a god. I verbally abused Believers. I went on many forums like this as the site's Angry Atheist and was so rabid and vocal and abusive in my atheist posts I was usually banned from the Forum. LOL.

Now when I recall some of the stuff I used to do, I physically wince. I actually will groan out load. It is like looking at an old video of somebody else. For the life of me when I try I cannot recall my old mindset at the time I did some of the stuff I did. No clue. A "hardening of the heart" in a sort of reverse way! The old me is dead to me. A stranger.

So of course I know this is all purely anecdotal to you. Pure hearsay. And so I will cut it short because I am all too aware that the majority of people's Testimonies or Salvation Experiences are boring to non-believers. They sure used to be for me.

As far as God having a lot to answer for, I also used to think like that. I would post lists of human atrocities from history. Of suffering. Of evil deeds. And demand that Believers defend this type of God. I know where you're coming from.

Thing is, all those deeds are of our own hand. We DO have that thing called Free Will. TO not have it would make us less than human. Thus unable to someday attain our true perfection for which God created us to do. And which we are most able to do. One day, maybe. If we were bereft of free will, that makes us simply organic automatons. What good is that? For us or for God? Where is the Learning in such a world? Where is the Love? How can we learn to detect and accept God's Grace. Which IS real, by the way.

Lastly, why God chose to spend a couple hours one night to Convert me, while He seemingly ignores saving others in this world, I have no idea. The closest I can come to figuring it out is that maybe I will, through my work and research, one day be able to at least be a part of developing some sort of momentous life-saving science. A new vaccine? The eradication of some fatal pathology or disease? Who knows. Not me. I will only try my best and I ask every morning when I do my "10 and 10" (10 minutes of Scripture reading followed by 10 minutes of Prayer) how I can best serve the Lord for that day.

If somebody wold have told me two years ago that I would one day be beginning each day ding that I would have laughed at their face. Or asked them what they were smoking. And told them to get away from me. I might have even bitch slapped them. (I have done this to Christians in the past; that's what an angry little nothing of a man I was.)

God Bless.

[Divine Insight]

Noting like that. My change was on the inside. As deep in my heart and belief system as possible. I now love God as much as my family. More than I do myself. Before I was saved I laughed at the idea of a god. I verbally abused Believers. I went on many forums like this as the site's Angry Atheist and was so rabid and vocal and abusive in my atheist posts I was usually banned from the Forum. LOL.

Well, that's not impressive either. An Angry Atheist is not a rational atheist. In fact, if I may ask, just exactly what was it that you were angry about?

God Bless.

There you go, bossing God around again telling him who to bless.

My disbelief of your "Salvation Experience" has nothing to do with you. I believe that you have indeed had a life-altering psychological experience. And that type of thing can indeed change how a person feels to their core.

So your entire experience can be explained entirely in secular psychological terms. After all, you confess that you were just about to end your life, you had loaded the gun and everything with the intent of blowing your brains out. So it's reasonable to expect that you scared the bejeezus out of your own brain causing it to radically change its persona.

So, yes, the fact that you have undergone a major psychological transformation is not at all surprising.

The reason I don't believe your story has anything to do with the Biblical God is because that God itself would need to be extremely inept in so many ways.

Consider this:

The God of the Bible failed entirely to convince me that he is real the entire way though the whole Old Testament.

Jesus failed to convince me that he is real the entire way through the New Testament.

And now I'm supposed to be convinced by someone who had a major psychological breakdown one night when they were so distraught that they planning on committing suicide?

For one thing, if your story were to convince me that this God must then be real, this would mean that you had SUCCEEDED at something that both God and Jesus had failed at miserly. Neither one of them could convince me that they are real.

That doesn't make a lot of sense does it?

And again, where was this God when all the innocent women were being tortured and burned alive IN HIS NAME?

So I hope you can see that this has absolutely nothing to do you or your story. This is a God that I couldn't respect even if your story were true (and by true, I mean that it actually had something to do with a God).

I'm sure that you believe your experience had something to do with a God. So in that sense it's "true" for you. But there's no way this story is going to impress me to be sure.

If this God wanted to impress me he could have done so the whole way through the Old Testament. Jesus could have done so through the New Testament. And both of them could have appeared before the authors of the Malelius Maleficarum and prevented that book from having ever been written. Instead of standing by for hundreds of years whist Christian Churches supported the torturing and burning alive of innocent midwives accused of being "witches".

So this God has a whole lot of explaining to do to me. And your night of extreme psychological trauma isn't about to make up for it. You keep wanting to dismiss the fact that you were in an extreme psychological state of mind. But people don't load up guns with bullets in preparation to blow their brains out if they are thinking clearly and calmly.

So your extreme psychological distress on the night in question cannot be so easily dismissed. It's a large part of your whole story. But now you want to play it down proclaiming that you were just fine that night.

Sorry, people who are "just fine" don't load up a gun in preparation to blow their own brains out.

So for me, pure secular psychological breakdown makes far more sense than the idea that the Biblical God actually exists and is going around in crummy motel rooms burning curtains in half to prove his existence to people.

It's just not an impressive story.

I would have been far more impressed with this God had he simply kept the promises he had made to answer the prayers of those who believed in him like Mother Teressa.

That was Jesus' best chance to "Glorify the Father", which is what Jesus claimed he wanted to do. But apparently he wasn't being very truthful when he made those promises and that claim.

I don't recall where Jesus promised anything about burning any curtains in half to prove himself to people.

So anyway, this God hasn't impressed me through your testimony if that was part of his plan. He fails once again.

[Saint_of_Me]

[Replying to post 33 by Divine Insight]

Hey Divine!

But again I ask you to consider the idea that the God of the Old Testament, of the Torah, of the Hebrew Bible, the Abrahamic God, is NOT ac accurate portrait or description of the True God. Our Creator God.

I think I have posed this idea before here on DC. That Yahweh character--and indeed that is what he was, a "character"--whom could not convince you that He was indeed the real God? Well, there is a reason for that. And that is that He was man-made. Given so many human frailties and emotions as to make him more of a Malevolent Divine Bully God than a True Creator.

The reason you did not believe in THAT God were the same reasons I never did: and that's because we were both rational and logical. I mean, come on: a God who irrationally "hardens" a Pharaoh's heart" so he will not heed plagues so as to let the Hebrews go free? Just so he can visit even more gruesome and deadly plagues? What sense does THAT make? And then, oh, this is a rich one: the Jews have to smear blood on their front door jambs so this All Knowing God will know which houses are theirs? And thus will not kill their first born?

Or a God who kills a couple dozen kids for calling his boy Elijah "baldy?"

Or visits death and destruction and curses on the generations AFTER the man who wronged Him? (Sins of the Father passage). Or who demands that Moses and Aaron kill a few thousand Jews during the Exodus just because they back-slid a little while they got tired of waiting for Moses to come down off of Mt. Sinai with those Ten Commandments? And so they began to worship a Golden Calf?

I don't believe in that God either. Never will. I believe most of those stories are allegorical. Meant to convey larger and more profound truths, and are not meant to be taken literally.

My God is actually more of a Deist type of a God. Bereft of silly human emotions like jealousy and spit and malevolence.

So....this begs the question: why did the REAL GOD use a Biblical passage Imagery like the Torn Temple Curtain to Convert Me?

Well I thought I explained all that before. Maybe not. But it was because He used what He thought would work for me. A passage I was familiar with and conveyed the Lrger Truth, as, again, Allegory and mythos sometimes do. Recall what I said earlier was the real meaning of the Temple Veil Tearing, in Matthew. It was sort of a Welcome Sign for the Gentiles. The former pagans. Like the Roman soldier who witnessed it.

Sure, God could have probably convinced me in another way with another sign. WHy He did not, I do not know. Except to say that it seems His chosen Imagery worked just fine. As I am a Born Again Christian.

So can you give any notion to the Existence of a Deist God, a God who is really more Science than Myth? More of a Universal Intelligence that is not anthropomorphized as in the Bible, but who can maybe utilize some of its known imagery in order to further His (Its?) Cause? Because this is how I believe.

It may interest you to know I also do not believe that JC was God. Nor was he Divine. He was a human, I think. Albeit one who was so full of God, so "tapped in" to the True Godhead as to posses Divine-like qualities. The likes of which we here on earth have never seen before nor since.

It is this type of God whom I think drives my caliber of Evolution, which is called Theistic Evolution.

I have some other facts that buttress my feelings that I was truly physically intervened with. But I hesitate to go into them. After all they would still at the end of the day be only anecdotal to you. I could tell you for example that I did not even posses that night in the motel the means to burn the curtain! No lighter, no matches. Or that the curtain was burned in such a clean and concise way that it was like the edges were soldered. Just a thin, maybe 1/8th" thick melted black line on the edges.

How would I do this myself? How would I burn the edges of the Bible pages in the same neat manner? And why would I?

I moved into an apartment a few weeks after all this happened. Having left my wife the house. The apartment was new, all cleaned up and spit shined for me to move into. Painted; carpets shampooed; mini blinds.

Except in the bedroom.

Curtains.

When I did my move-in checklist to note any flaws in the apartment, for the sake of retrieving my security deposit when I left, I noticed only one flaw. (But really it was not a flaw!)

Yep.

The edges of the curtains in the bedroom were burnt in the same manner.

When I told the manager this he came over to look. Couldn't figure it out. Did not even remember that there WERE curtains in that room. Literally scratched his head.
He had mini blinds installed.

I kept the curtains and have them still.

This is the first time I have ever mentioned this. For obvious reasons. Except I DID tell my sister.

I have no explanation for this. Except that for me it was further proof. Icing on the proverbial cake.

Remember that the True God in all likelihood finds the Yahweh of the OT as absurd as do you or I.

DO this: pray to God to give you a Sign as He did me. I will pray for this to happen as well. But you must be sincere. Confess to Him the reason you need this sign is not because you demand Him to prove, but because your Faith is Weak. And you need his help. DO this nightly and earnestly for a week or so. Give it a few weeks.

See what happens.

You might be surprised.

May God Bless you.

As He did me.

[Divine Insight]

My God is actually more of a Deist type of a God. Bereft of silly human emotions like jealousy and spit and malevolence.

Well typically Deism holds that God does not intervene in human affairs by doing things like magically burning curtains in half.

So....this begs the question: why did the REAL GOD use a Biblical passage Imagery like the Torn Temple Curtain to Convert Me?

Yes it most certainly does.

Well I thought I explained all that before. Maybe not. But it was because He used what He thought would work for me. A passage I was familiar with and conveyed the Lrger Truth, as, again, Allegory and mythos sometimes do. Recall what I said earlier was the real meaning of the Temple Veil Tearing, in Matthew. It was sort of a Welcome Sign for the Gentiles. The former pagans. Like the Roman soldier who witnessed it.

Sure, God could have probably convinced me in another way with another sign. WHy He did not, I do not know. Except to say that it seems His chosen Imagery worked just fine. As I am a Born Again Christian.

So why call yourself a "Born Again Christian" if for all intents and purposes you don't support the Christian Biblical Picture of God?

My suggested solution to your experience actually reinforces the psychological nervous breakdown that I had suggested previously. By your own testimony here you point out that you were familiar with that particular passage of the Bible and that you had already had a previous interpretation of it yourself that this imagery implies that God is giving you a "Welcome Sign".

This whole scenario suggests very strongly that had you previously been familiar with the mythology of Allah, and someone had handed you the Qur'an you would have imagined that Allah gave you a sign.

So can you give any notion to the Existence of a Deist God, a God who is really more Science than Myth? More of a Universal Intelligence that is not anthropomorphized as in the Bible, but who can maybe utilize some of its known imagery in order to further His (Its?) Cause? Because this is how I believe.

I can't imagine any omnipotent God having a "cause" that he intends to carry out via individual humans. In fact, that very notion of an intervening God like that suggests nothing more than a puppeteer playing with his human marionette dolls.

Also you keep ignoring my questions of why this same sort of magical God would have permitted the authors of the Malelius Maleficarum to write their book that caused so many Christians to support so much horror in the name of "God".

Even if I allow for any kind of intervening God at all, it would appear to me that he intervenes in the most trivial cases and refrains from intervening in the important cases.

It may interest you to know I also do not believe that JC was God. Nor was he Divine. He was a human, I think. Albeit one who was so full of God, so "tapped in" to the True Godhead as to posses Divine-like qualities. The likes of which we here on earth have never seen before nor since.

It is this type of God whom I think drives my caliber of Evolution, which is called Theistic Evolution.

To be honest, after hearing of your religious testimony I don't have a lot of incentive to care much about your beliefs in general.

I have some other facts that buttress my feelings that I was truly physically intervened with. But I hesitate to go into them. After all they would still at the end of the day be only anecdotal to you. I could tell you for example that I did not even posses that night in the motel the means to burn the curtain! No lighter, no matches. Or that the curtain was burned in such a clean and concise way that it was like the edges were soldered. Just a thin, maybe 1/8th" thick melted black line on the edges.

I wasn't there. I'm not convinced that any curtain was even burnt that night at all. For all I know someone else could have burnt the curtain prior you renting the room, and due to the extreme psychological stress you were under your brain imagined the rest taking a cue from what evidence was already in the room to back up the delusion it was creating.

After all, you need to understand that from my point of view I see a brain that is inside a body that is preparing to blow it away with a gun. So it wouldn't surprise me if that brain started frantically thinking up excuses to not be blown to smithereens. To start creating supernatural delusions would be an natural thing to do in that situation.

How would I do this myself? How would I burn the edges of the Bible pages in the same neat manner? And why would I?

You'll have to excuse me for not having seen this evidence with my own eyes. Also, you'll need to excuse me for thinking that a brain that is being threatened to be blown to smithereens could easily deceive itself into creating evidence for the very delusion that it is also creating.

This wouldn't be the first case of similar types of human psychological behavior.

I moved into an apartment a few weeks after all this happened. Having left my wife the house. The apartment was new, all cleaned up and spit shined for me to move into. Painted; carpets shampooed; mini blinds.

Except in the bedroom.

Curtains.

When I did my move-in checklist to note any flaws in the apartment, for the sake of retrieving my security deposit when I left, I noticed only one flaw. (But really it was not a flaw!)

Yep.

The edges of the curtains in the bedroom were burnt in the same manner.

When I told the manager this he came over to look. Couldn't figure it out. Did not even remember that there WERE curtains in that room. Literally scratched his head.
He had mini blinds installed.

I kept the curtains and have them still.

This is the first time I have ever mentioned this. For obvious reasons. Except I DID tell my sister.

I have no explanation for this. Except that for me it was further proof. Icing on the proverbial cake.

And the plot thickens.

Remember that the True God in all likelihood finds the Yahweh of the OT as absurd as do you or I.

Trust me. A God who would need to remind you of his original intervention in your life by following you around and magically placing more burnt curtains in your new apartment is already at least as absurd as the Yahweh of the OT.

He must be afraid that you're going to forget about the original experience?

DO this: pray to God to give you a Sign as He did me. I will pray for this to happen as well. But you must be sincere. Confess to Him the reason you need this sign is not because you demand Him to prove, but because your Faith is Weak. And you need his help. DO this nightly and earnestly for a week or so. Give it a few weeks.

See what happens.

You might be surprised.

Sorry bud. You're talking to a man who spent several years of his life praying to God in the most deepest sincerity. And I wasn't even asking for proof of anything. All I was asking for is for some understanding of how the Bible could make any sense? A simple request that I feel any real God should have been able to easily fulfill with no problems. Especially when the religion preaches that all we need to do is ask God for answers and he will provide them. Jesus himself preached that any thing we pray for in his name he will do. Apparently there is absolutely no truth in those words.

And I didn't even stop when that didn't work. After I realized that my "Protestant Christian" view of God might be in error, I looked into Catholicism and asked God to give me a wisdom and understanding of that religion. Still nothing but absolute absurdities and contradictions.

And I didn't even stop there. After that didn't provide any answers, I considered that maybe the original Judaism might have some merit, and that it was Christianity that was actually confused. But no, the same nonsense, absurdities, and self-contradictions remained. And I even looked into Islam (admittedly very briefly), but it became apparent very quickly that it was just more of the same absurdities and self-contradictions. That's also when I fully realize that all of these are based on the same original superstitious folklore.

And I didn't stop there! After that I looked into all manner of Eastern Mysticism and I confess that I found far more intelligent concept of God there. But still nothing that is compelling in terms of any personified God who is concerned about treating humans as his own pet marionette dolls. In fact, the "God" of Eastern Mysticism is radically different entirely.

I confess that in the Eastern Mystical arena at least I got ANSWERS that made sense. So maybe that was some sort of prayer being answered. The only question I would have is that if this is the truth of God, then why didn't God point me to Eastern Mysticism far earlier when I had first asked for clarity? It seems far more rational to realize that I just stumbled onto this better explanation of a God by pure perseverance on my part. Not because any God was answering prayers.

And I didn't even stop there! Even though I had already found a rational picture of what a REAL GOD might potentially be like, I was still open to hearing about other "serious" religions. And I confess, that during the bulk of my life I never took "Wicca" seriously. It wasn't until I met a "witch" when I was about 50 years old. She was also a highly educated particle physicist. I actually met her through physics, not through a religious venue. The topic of religions came up and she told me that she is a "Wiccan". I said, "WHAT? You've got to be joking me!"

But no, she was very serious, and she explained to me her philosophical views on "Wicca". By the way she was an Eclectic Solitary Wiccan, which means that she views the entire religion quite abstractly and doesn't follow "Dogmatic Wicca" like following the beliefs of Gerald Gardner.

In any case, she had a really intelligent picture of her Eclectic Solitary Wicca, and also explained to me how it actually makes sense as a basis for rituals is a person accepts the Eastern Mystical philosophies that I had already explained I saw value in. I'm really glad I met her, and I have become an Eclectic Solitary Wiccan too (although there are many arguments even in the Wicca community of exactly how much merit these labels might actually have).

In any case, telling me to pray to God is the silliest thing you could possibly do. I can't imagine anyone "praying to God" and more than I have over the course of my life. Only I don't pray for "salvation" because quite frankly I don't need salvation. I'm quite happy with who I am and what I stand for. Any God worth his or her salt would not have any bones to pick with me I'm quite sure about that.

May God Bless you.

That's much better. That sounds more like wishful thinking that bossing God around.

As He did me.

Well, I'm certainly glad that you have turned your life around. To bad God has to keep following you around placing newly burnt curtains in your new apartments. That seems really weird to me. He must not be fully convinced that you believed him the first time?

Strange that you would think I should believe your testimony second-hand when God himself has to keep reminding you of it by following you around creating newly burnt curtains everywhere you go.

But yes, if there is a God, I definitely consider myself to be "blessed". Apparently I've been blessed since birth. I never had a problem with drugs, alcohol, sex addictions, infidelity, or anything like that. I was never even tempted by those things. Well, I did smoke grass at one point in my life, but it was never a problem. For one thing I only did it at home, or at a friends house, and never in public. I was never addicted to it in any way where I was actually craving it to the exclusion of more important things. It was never a financial burden. In short, I never had a "problem" with grass. Same with alcohol. I won't say that I never drank it, but I can say that it was never a serious problem in my life.

So apparently I've been blessed from birth. The very last thing I would ever need to ask from any God is to "Bless me". In fact, to even do so would imply that I don't think I already have been "blessed".

In fact, as I say, if you actually knew me you would realize that saying things like "May God Bless You" would actually be an insult to God, because you seem to be implying that God hasn't already done so on her own volition.

If God could talk to you he/she/it/them would tell you that they have already blessed me and so you can stop worrying about it.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 1 by Saint_of_Me]

I don't know if you got my PM or not, but I'm going to do what I promised there and reply now.

First, I'll start off by saying I echo most of what Divine Insight said. The difference between him and I is that I'm only somewhat familiar with Eastern Mysticism, and I've never looked into Wicca. Like DI, I've never had any vices. I've drunk alcohol about 3 or 4 times total in my life and never to inebriation. I've only ever taken medicinal drugs (so paracetamol, asthma inhalers, things like that. Never marijuana or anything like that). I've never smoked and I am to this day a virgin.

Like yourself S_o_M, I am an atheist and was raised Catholic. I also attempted suicide once before (Xmas night 2009, I had the knife ready to slash my wrists. My best mate called me over Skype at the last second, which stopped me from doing so. No god experience for me) However, I have to take umbrage with this part

DO this: pray to God to give you a Sign as He did me. I will pray for this to happen as well. But you must be sincere. Confess to Him the reason you need this sign is not because you demand Him to prove, but because your Faith is Weak. And you need his help. DO this nightly and earnestly for a week or so. Give it a few weeks.

There's three things wrong with that.
1) Back when I was a believer, and for many years afterward, I did pray. I prayed for a sign. Nothing happened.
2) Given that I prayed a number of times after I had stopped believing, that would certainly count as my faith being weak (how weaker can you get than no faith at all?)
3) There's a chicken and egg scenario there. You say to admit that I need his help. However, as I am now, as an atheist, I don't believe that I do. Unlike yourself, right now, my life is all right. I have a job, I've been reunited with my sisters (that was mainly the reason I attempted suicide, I had been disowned six months beforehand and was completely alone), and as I explained up above, I have no real vices to speak of. If I were to pray right now and say "I need your help God", that would be a lie. I would need to believe there is a God and that I am a lowly human sinner first that needs God's help to do anything good...but I don't.


Like DI, I don't believe your curtains were cut in half by a god. I believe that you believe you experienced something god-like, but that's not the same thing as me believing you actually experienced something god-like.

I also have to repeat DI's points from earlier - you mention the Bible quite a few times yet strangely insist that the God you believe is real has little to nothing to do with the god mentioned in the Bible.

[Divine Insight]

DO this: pray to God to give you a Sign as He did me. I will pray for this to happen as well. But you must be sincere. Confess to Him the reason you need this sign is not because you demand Him to prove, but because your Faith is Weak. And you need his help. DO this nightly and earnestly for a week or so. Give it a few weeks.

There's three things wrong with that.

There's far more than three things wrong with it.

To begin with why would Saint_of_Me suggest that anyone do this?

This isn't even remotely close to the experience he related in his testimony. He wasn't praying sincerely to God for weeks before this happened. On the contrary he was an "Angry Atheist" <- his own description of himself. God apparently revealed himself to Saint_of_Me entirely out of the blue. It wasn't even Saint_of_Me's bible being used in his Testimony. Supposedly a mysterious man who was an "angel of God" had handed him the Bible.

So where does Saint_of_Me come up with the idea that if people pray to God sincerely for a week or so God will reveal himself to them? That has absolutely nothing to do with the experience he just testified to have. Moreover, we have the testimony of Mother Teressa that praying to God to do anything at all for years on end is futile.

According to his experience what we need to do is become extreme sinners to the point where we are so depressed and hopeless that we are seriously contemplating suicide, then, and only then, will God send an angel to hand us a Bible that doesn't correctly describe him, and then set our furniture on fire. It's probably best to keep a fire extinguish on hand in case God does show up.

[Saint_of_Me]

[Replying to post 35 by Divine Insight]

I call myself a Born Again Christian becasue I fully believe in and try to follow as best I can the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Keep in mind that the present day remnants of the Old Teastament, the Torah, authors do not accept Jesus of Nazareth as their Savior. Or their Messiah. The Pharisees did not. The Sadducees did not.

The modern day Jews do not.

So it is a common misconception today among many people, including Atheists and religious fubndamentalsists alike, that if somebody calls himself a Christain that that person must believe the the entire Bible is the inerrant word of God.

And they must agree with all of it.

And believe it to be as factual as a science book.

I believe NONE of those things.

I DO believe in ALL of Christ's teachings, however. ANd I DO believe he was Divine in Nature and set and example for us all to try and apsire to. ANd that thorugh Him we can come to His Father, whom was God. ANd thus attain Perfection in the Afterlife.

Remember I call myself a Christian.

NOT a Bible-ian. LOL.

Certainly not a Hebrew.

Nor a Torahn.

"ian" = "aherer to....or "follow of."

Christ + "ian" = Follower of Christ.

Please don't create Paper Tigers to fight, or make things more difficult than then need be. This is a simple paradigm here.

Thanks.

God Bless.

[Saint_of_Me]

[Replying to post 37 by Divine Insight]

I am going to ask you politely not to put words in my mouth again.

You won't like me when I'm angry.

I NEVER said that the only way for all you guys to come to God was to get in as bad a way as I was when He came to me. I NEVER claimed that one had to reach their ultimate bottom in life and suffer to the fullest to have God come to him.

Or perhaps you can easily correct me here? Show me to be a liar? By simply showing us all a quote form one of my past posts where I DID say that?

I will wait. ANd if you do not produce that, since you will not, since, well, I never said it--I will politely request an apology from you.

For you not to provide one or the other is for you to lose several nothces of credibility with me, and probably with others here. As it is common courtesy in a debate forum to admit when wrong and stand corrected.

Anyway...NO. I never said the only way to God was through suffering and reaching your own emotional and spiritual Bottom.

I only related my own personal Salvation. MY OWN EXPERIENCE WITH GOD. I never claimed it was the only way. Nor even the common way. As it most certainly is not.

It is just how it worked for me. Period.

The reason I asked you to Pray for God to come into your life is becasue it has been mty experience that MOST people come to find God that way.

Depsite what you htink you know.

And as Being in God's Grace, I was offering to assist you in this very crucial step, by offering to Pray to my Father on your behalf. Which may or may not work. I do not profess to know. But I HAVE seen it work in the past.

So take it or leave it. My offer on Prayer. Don't say I did not try.

I DO ask that you don't say things I SAID that I did not.

Got it?

Cool.

Thanks.

God Bless.

[Saint_of_Me]

[Replying to post 1 by Saint_of_Me]

I don't know if you got my PM or not, but I'm going to do what I promised there and reply now.

First, I'll start off by saying I echo most of what Divine Insight said. The difference between him and I is that I'm only somewhat familiar with Eastern Mysticism, and I've never looked into Wicca. Like DI, I've never had any vices. I've drunk alcohol about 3 or 4 times total in my life and never to inebriation. I've only ever taken medicinal drugs (so paracetamol, asthma inhalers, things like that. Never marijuana or anything like that). I've never smoked and I am to this day a virgin.

Like yourself S_o_M, I am an atheist and was raised Catholic. I also attempted suicide once before (Xmas night 2009, I had the knife ready to slash my wrists. My best mate called me over Skype at the last second, which stopped me from doing so. No god experience for me) However, I have to take umbrage with this part

DO this: pray to God to give you a Sign as He did me. I will pray for this to happen as well. But you must be sincere. Confess to Him the reason you need this sign is not because you demand Him to prove, but because your Faith is Weak. And you need his help. DO this nightly and earnestly for a week or so. Give it a few weeks.

There's three things wrong with that.
1) Back when I was a believer, and for many years afterward, I did pray. I prayed for a sign. Nothing happened.
2) Given that I prayed a number of times after I had stopped believing, that would certainly count as my faith being weak (how weaker can you get than no faith at all?)
3) There's a chicken and egg scenario there. You say to admit that I need his help. However, as I am now, as an atheist, I don't believe that I do. Unlike yourself, right now, my life is all right. I have a job, I've been reunited with my sisters (that was mainly the reason I attempted suicide, I had been disowned six months beforehand and was completely alone), and as I explained up above, I have no real vices to speak of. If I were to pray right now and say "I need your help God", that would be a lie. I would need to believe there is a God and that I am a lowly human sinner first that needs God's help to do anything good...but I don't.


Like DI, I don't believe your curtains were cut in half by a god. I believe that you believe you experienced something god-like, but that's not the same thing as me believing you actually experienced something god-like.

I also have to repeat DI's points from earlier - you mention the Bible quite a few times yet strangely insist that the God you believe is real has little to nothing to do with the god mentioned in the Bible.

Hey Rik...good to see ya.

Thanks for your post.

No..I did not recieve your PM. But I will look for it again, later.

No hard feelings that you do not believe my Salvation Experience. I was prepared for this sort of reaction on an Internet Forum when I first posted it. I may not have believed it either before I was Saved.

I still find it hard to understand how you and DI can NOT understand how I can believe in God but still think that the God of the Christian Bible is NOT an accurate portrayal of Him. This is a simple ideology guys......

There IS a God.

He Exists and always has.

Many different peoples through History have claimed to known Him.

Some have. Some have not.

Many have written their own ideas on Him.

Some were correct. And some were not.

Most made the fatal and very common mistake of making God in their own image. Instead of the other way around which is how it was really done! LOL.

That is, they antrhopomorphized their God into being little more than a Divine Superhero who kicks ass on their behalf and demands allegience. Or Else!!

Like Yahweh.

I do not believe that Yahweh was an accurate depiction of God.

But I DO believe in a God.

The True Creator God.

To have trouble with me believing in God but NOT in the Yahweh God, is, to me at least, like you saying, "Oh....Saint of Me confuses me becasue he believes the the Planet Mars exists but does not believe that it is like it is in "The Martian Chronicles" sci-fi story."

Thanks.

God Bless.