a 'sign' or pure 'coincidence'
 

a visting preacher was in a church in ohio USA and was asking for a 'sign' from god to communicate with him

he got more then he bargained for :D

when a lightning bolt hit the steeple hit the preacher when it traveled through the wires of the microphone

though he was uninjured !

it took church goers 20 mins after the incident to realise the chruch was on fire and evacuted

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3044178.stm

pure luck ? coincidence ? or a sign ?

Well, since the church was set on fire it seems god was saying: stop bothering me, I'm busy.
:D

:D

Way too tired for this, remind me in the morning

g'night

:sleep:

ADMINS - Can we have the smiley with the z's please, it's much better than that one!

Well Kronas what do you expect.

You were saying that you don't see signs and this must have been the case here too.

If you keep missing the subtle ones sooner or later you will see the hugs ones coz God makes sure of it.

i would have thought setting to fire to one little church wouldve been a fairly minor sign.. if "god" really wanted our attention he'd do something much bigger like blow up antarctica or something?

or appear as a giant head in the sky and start talking :D

/visions of a giant head talking in the sky... :erm:also how stupid do the churchies have to be to not notice their church was on fire?! :rolleyes:

i waited years and erm im not a beliver anymore so :shrug:

Setting fire to your own house? I smell an insurance scam...

Or maybe spend 30 years on earth healing people of all kinds of diseases and even raising one or two of them from the dead? And then pulling the same stunt off himself? :)

Didn't he get someone else to do that for him? (allegedly)

lazy God taking 30 years to do something he could do in one second ;)

im way too cynical...

:erm::erm:

being cynical can be a good thing :)

...or gracious god bringing himself down to our feeble level of understanding...

if he existed he would have improved our lives by making changes that are positive or has he just dropped us off and expecting us to 'go it alone' ;)

God works in mysterious ways.;) Ours is not to question why.

Why not? We learn, and (hopefully) improve ourselves by questioning what we are told..

I like the way they say in the article that the lightning electrified to congregation...

go to your local comic shop and buy all the back copies of Preacher, that'll teach you what you need to know :D

(pretty sure it starts with a burnt down church too!)

Hmmm we can question each other on what we think and how we interpret something, BUT unless the big man answers we won't know. Even if he sends us a sign like a bolt of lightening does it mean he is happy or mad?

Towny - didn't God give limited power of weather to Satan? This could be one of his many attempts to mimick God and it influence us in to thinking/believing alternative theories.

What, like God doesn't exist? :D

Right... I'm off to do me rain dance chaps :devsmoke:

Yes! But also ideas of "Well if God exists, why would he cause hurricanes etc"....

ah the old "how can a power for good exist if there is so much bad in the world" thing

well i cant be bothered arguing/discussing ;) il leave that to the more philosophical people of the world :p

i dont try to understand the workings of the world and the mind and frankly i dont want to really. i like the air of mystery surrounding everything :D

Would that be the BBQ raindance, or the Wimbledon rain dance? :D

Brilliant comic. :) Had some low points, but on the whole one of the best comic book series I've ever read. Garth Ennis is a genius.

Talking of lightening strikes, this is why Prince Alberts are never a good idea!

Blimey, lucky;) I must direct someone else to look at this thread re: Prince Alberts.:eek:

Ouch...

The Bible calls Satan (amongst other things) 'Prince of the Powers of the Air'. While that's a reference predominantly to him being the head demon over all demons, it also points to the fact that the devil and his minions have been cast out of heaven and live invisibly on Earth, 'in the air'. They do have a degree of control over the elements, the same as they can gain control over people. The Bible (which is of course my source text for making all these statements!) contains examples of the devil or one of his minions both interfering with people ('demonic posession') and, arguably, interfering with the weather (the storm calmed by Jesus that threatened to sink the boat he and his disciples were in).

However, God himself is still ultimate ruler of the universe with the final word and the ultimate power to control. He is accredited both with bringing rain and holding back rain, causing whirlwinds and even once making the sun reverse in the sky, lengthening one particular day by several minutes.

The upshot - both God and the devil have power (although God has infinitely more). Either could have acted in this situation (although if it was the devil it could only be because God allowed it). Without being there, knowing the full facts and prayerfully considering them before God, it's not possible to conclude what happened.

Here endeth the sermon ... ;)

Re the giant head talking in the sky. They had one in Ardoz; Sean Connery was the lead actor, was he not?

It has suddenly struck me that Current Affairs is just the place for a thread on lightning bolts. :)

All right, I'll get me coat!

He was, think it was Zardoz tho.
Didn't he wear a red nappy through most of it?

You're almost certainly right. IIRC; the name derived from the Wizard of Oz.

yes....most fetching....:rolleyes:
...a role to remember him for:D

hahaha :D The Wimbledon rain dance for sure! I've been far too busy this year to bother with rain at Wimbledon, 'bout time it got sorted!! :devsmoke:

Pah... what a load of old nonsene! I suppose God invented Meteorology as well did he? :rolleyes: :blah: :devsmoke:



So, if this has been proved to be a science, then wtf is God doing messing around with such things :confused:

Only Michael Fish can really control the weather... :disturbd:

Care to prove that he didn't invent meteorology? :rolleyes:

care to prove he exists !

Go out on top of a hill during a thunderstorm wearing full plate armour and shout out "all gods are *******s" and see if you get smitted.
Isn't that the tried and tested experiment?

lol thats metal conduction for you :p :D :D :D

well apart from any heat/metal twisting caused by the bolt, you should actually be ok, tucked up inside your very own faraday cage :)

yes the good old faraday cage :p

It works on Discworld, anyway :D

Proof of his existence or non-existence is not possible, ultimately it is a matter of faith, except for someone who has taken that step of faith, who would then tell you the spiritual revelation of god for them is so real that no 'proof' is necessary. I've never tried to prove he exists in this forum and I never will!

exactly its about faith thusly it does NOT mean he exists or indeed everything written in the bible or various religions is indeed correct

Neither does it mean he didn't, nor does it mean the Bible/religion is incorrect.

Just because I can't prove my position, and you can't prove yours, does not mean that you must therefore be right.

i would rather believe something that has actual FACT rather then just belief...........

thats a sensible approach in my view

Ah! But!:D If I tried to say that I have an invisible/intangible friend thats a 6ft pink rabbit you would (quite reasonably) assume me to be mistaken (or indeed certifiable), and say that I am wrong, even though you cannot disprove me.
I will let you fill in the rest of my argument:D

whats a Faraday cage? I've got a feeling I should have learned this in physics and I was too busy messing about...

But we would (should) agree on your right to believe in said rabbit should you decide to do so.

The difference for people such as Towny and myself is that we have experienced things which to us is 'evidence', even though we don't require it.

A big (or small) metal cage around something that supplies that something, or whats outside the cage, with insulation from an electrical charge or electromagnetic interference....I think

I think i'll get me one of them

getoutta town.....what you would/should agree is that I am a loony tune for believing such a thing....and need locking up.

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The difference for people such as Towny and myself is that we have experienced things which to us is 'evidence', even though we don't require it.

The brain is capable of making you feel such things....and of making you think that they are real.
An example: When someone has an angiogram (dye is pumped into the coronary arteries and then observed on x-ray) they can feel that they are in the presence of an invisible being/angel/devil, they might feel an incredible feeling of peace come over them. Or they might simply feel heat or that they have wet themselves. All of which is simply an effect of the dye entering the coronary arteries.
There are other explanations for religious experiences....

i think some studios use it broadcasting studios that is :D

EDIT ramrod your right about the dye thing i have heard that is true

No, I might think it would be an odd concept but that's up to you.


Ahh that old chestnut. Well it looks like you've got thousands of years of religious belief all wrapped up there.....

Actually no. I have felt personal experiences which can only have come from my God. They are too personal for me to go in to here but your theory does not allow for the times when I've been faced with extreme danger only to be given a 'get out of jail' card which got me out of the situation. This has happened many times.

My own father felt that there was a peaceful friendly invisible presence in the room when he had his angiogram.

Is the dye just acting as a weak drug? I suppose anything could have some kind of effect when lots of it is in your bloodstream. But what do I know eh??

but you would know that I had a screw loose

Quote:

Ahh that old chestnut. Well it looks like you've got thousands of years of religious belief all wrapped up there..... Actually no. I have felt personal experiences which can only have come from my God. They are too personal for me to go in to here

Of course they were personal, they were (probably) created by your brain for you.

Quote:

but your theory does not allow for the times when I've been faced with extreme danger only to be given a 'get out of jail' card.

I have had occurrences, close shaves, near misses that, if I was religious I would have attributed to a higher power. Before you say....how do you know that they weren't down to divine intervention?.......of course I don't but I think that on balance, they probably weren't.
We could go round and round for days......years even:D

lol, good one

eh, I do a lot of reading on .co.uk and .com, and very little posting, but i couldn't resist this one as much as i tried.

I don't mean this in a nasty way or anything, but is it possible that some people just need something to believe in because they aren't or can't be happy otherwise?

No, it's when the dye enters the coronary arteries, but even if it is a drug effect then it doesn't disprove my argument.

What, like 'hydrogen atoms, if left long enough, turn into people' ?

That's the biggest pile of nonsense in the universe, and very far indeed from proven, observable fact.


EDIT - You mean all these years, all I had to do to stop seeing the big man with the beard was to stop sniffing dye? I knew Epson printers were bad news. Well I'm kicking that habit right now then. ;)

Andrew Newberg and Eugene D'Aquili of the Nuclear Medicine Division at the University of Pennsylvania have been conducting brain-imaging experiments on highly proficient mediators in order to identify those other brain areas where activity is linked to religious experience. One of their most interesting findings was decreased activity in the posterior superior parietal lobule. Our sense of distinction between self and world may well lie in this brain area.

It is certainly described in the mystical literature of all the world's great religions as a state of ultimate unity. And when a person is in this state he or she loses all sense of discrete being, and even the difference between self and others is obliterated.

Such experiences are often described as a perfect union with God, and would appear to be mediated by the posterior superior temporal lobule, which is what helps us diffentiate between self and non-self. So altered activity in this area might be linked with a sense of unity with the world.

A decreased sense of awareness of the boundaries between the self and the external world could lead to a sense of oneness with others, thereby generating a sense of community and cohesiveness. This could explain why religious sentiment could be of positive benefit for the survival of tribes. This could also explain why natural selection favoured the evolution of a religious centre in the brain.

But Newberg and D'Aquili have an even more parsimonious neurological explanation for God. They point out that one natural function of our brains is constantly to infer the causes of events we witness. But what happens when no cause is discernible?

Newberg and D'Aquili postulate that the brain invokes gods, powers, spirits or some similar causal agent. When we find no discernible rules we can use to our advantage, we construct myths to help orientate ourselves within that disquieting universe.

But even if the final location of God is in the temporal and parietal lobes of the brain, this might not be a final victory for atheists. Finding the existence of a neural structure which sustains religious experience could simply be evidence that a higher power so contructed humans as to possess the capacity to experience the divine.

Describes some eastern religions quite well but is weak as a general description

Well that saves me saying it ... :D

I thought that you and Russ would like it....like I said we could go on for years here:D (and not get anywhere)

Would I really? I wasn't aware that you knew me so well....


Actually no they weren't, they were created by my God for me.

Wow, sounds like someone is trying to impose their beliefs on me....and we can't be having that now can we? :D

nice one ramrod :p

/me saves this for future refrence ;) :D :p

My mum spent 12yrs imposing christianity upon me.

Believed at first, then about 2 weeks after I had been confirmed, I had a long chat with "Father Roy" and decided to 'opt-out'.

Religion is fine for some people, to have belief is a good thing. However, for me it's a no-go. I fail to see the point in devotig so much of my time worshiping a being which is far supirior to my feeble being. I also fail to see what "God" gets out of it.

I studied the bible for many years and have come to the conclusion that Jesus was a teacher. We just didn't learn the correct lessons. At no point in the bible does Jesus get everyone to start erecting buildings to go for worship, nor did he ask anyone to collect monies on his behalf.

Ahh, it's late & I'm ranting. (sorry).

In a nutshell, God himself is proof he doesn't exist.

[Edit] God is all forgiving, so long as you truly repent.
Picture this.....
Spend my whole life 'sinning' (smoking, drinking, swearing, womanising etc.) no real bad ones, no murder etc. Now, when I die, I find myself in front of St Peter being judged for my life.... Believe me, with St Peter standing at the gates to God's pad, I would truly repent.

From you saying 'confirmed' this would appear to be Catholicism, I'm a little confused as to how you had Christianity 'pushed' on you if you had Catholic teaching.

Again this sounds like a Catholic (or EX catholic) point of view. In the early days, a 'church' was just a collective of people, as oposed to a building. Money was to be collected for those who need it, not for Jesus. I've certainly never heard of anyone collecting for Him.

Too late! The requirement is that you repent before you get off'd. That you would need proof (ie standing before the pearly gates) to repent kind of defeats the objective.

You are a reasonable person. Any reasonable person would think I was mad for holding such a belief. Thus I feel that my statement is correct.

Quote:

Actually no they weren't, they were created by my God for me.

I'm not going to argue.

Quote:

Wow, sounds like someone is trying to impose their beliefs on me

How?:confused:

You did read the last paragraph?

Huh? I was confirmed but I'm not Catholic. I am/was Lutheran.

yep i know what it says

Most of the above but I think the last line says enough...

I was talking about this quote that you highlited: as for this one:It is merely a statement of fact.

But your last line is an opinion, not a fact.

'twas a high anglican Church of England (as I remember) nowt to do with catholics.

I went to confirmation classes for 3 yrs, then got a "little black book" and was alowed to take communion.

OK, the collection of monies on JC's beehalf was a bit strong, but....
Take a good hard look at the sheer capital the C of E has... not just real estate (it's not all churches & graveyards!) but the valuables within the establishment.....
Would God realy be pleased with this collection of wealth?
I would have thought he'd be happier if there were no / few churches and they all ran with no profit by voulanteers.

Don't want to argue over this, everyone is entitled to an opinion and I fully respect anyones beliefs in any religion ;)

yes but russ you dont believe fact really do you you seem to pick and choose when you want to believe a fact but dont you follow your religion based on belief

I need to explain that not all faiths are the same. You refer to C of E. I certainly disagree with the way they appear to collect such wealth, this is something that Catholics appear to do also. We may all follow the same God but I disagree with the ways that some faiths go about it, C of E being one, although I respect the good work they do.

You#re missing the point - he was presenting an opinion AS a fact.

Hmmmm...no, I think it is a statement of fact. If a non religious person can (in a laboratory) be made to have a 'religous experience' and it is shown that the experience was due to dye in the coronary arteries or by having a current (remotely) induced in a part of the brain(with an induction coil), then either we are getting God to perform on cue for our whim or we are demonstrating that there is more than one reason for a 'religious experience'.

But seeing as this has never been done, you cannot call it 'fact'.

But it has. It happened to my father.

Did he have what was considered a 'religious experience'? How could you be sure that is what it was? If that's all you are using to form your opinion then good on you but for the benefit of all of us who have experienced the very real power of God, we'll stick with what we know.

Also, I have been experimented on with an induction coil. The coil induced a current in various parts of my brain. Time was limited but we did manage to get my leg to move on it's own accord. I am sure that given enough time and patience we could have 'hit' the 'religious centre' of my brain and stimulated it. That would have been interesting.....

Scientifically, I would have to call that contentious

(haven't read whole thread though)

He felt a benign, loving presence in the room. When the dye was fully in, the feeling dissapated.

OK well as it's getting late and I'm in work early I'll leave you with your 'coil' et al.

I have experienced Godly things (and continue to 'see' things) which I have not asked for, and was not set out to look for, thus eliminating the worn-out argument of "well that's the way your brain works, if you want it to be from God then your brain will tell you it is".

You don't have to believe, everyone knows I'm not looking for convertees, merely respect for what I believe in.

With respect, unless he had studied experiences from God then just based on that I'd say he wouldn't be in a good position to say it was 'Godly'.

I know, but Russ said that it had never been done.
It has happened to thousands of people. Either God is manifesting his presence on que, or there is more than one explanation for the phenomenon.

I am sure you have, and I am not using that arguament.

Quote:

You don't have to believe, everyone knows I'm not looking for convertees, merely respect for what I believe in.

I do respect it, it is too prevalent to ignore/disrespect

Quote:

With respect, unless he had studied experiences from God then just based on that I'd say he wouldn't be in a good position to say it was 'Godly'.

Why would you have to study other experiences? It is common knowledge that religious experiences can vary from person to person and time to time.
His 'religious experience' feeling is just as valid as the next persons.

Moving legs are easy. Stimulate the motor cortex in the left hemisphere, and something will move on the right part of your body. This is also quite easy to establish objectively. Plus we understand the motor system fairly well, so behaviour is as predicted.

When it comes to religious experiences, how do you objectively establish that someone has a 'religious experience'.

Then there is the issue of cause and effect, which is quite thorny.

I don't think enough is known about emotion (let alone religion) with respect to the brain's workings, to draw any meaningful conclusions from these experiments.

you could use that as an arguament to question the validity of any 'religious experience'

Quote:

Then there is the issue of cause and effect, which is quite thorny.

It is a thorny one if you are prepared to accept that we can ask God to manifest his presence on the whim of a medic/scientist, at a given time and place. If you feel that the above is either ludicrous or beneath God, then you must accept that the phenomenon is (at least sometimes) man made and not divinely inspired.

Quote:

I don't think enough is known about emotion (let alone religion) with respect to the brain's workings, to draw any meaningful conclusions from these experiments.

Why? If you have stimulated in a subject a feeling/sensation that is also commonly associated with reported 'religious experiences', we can draw some sort of conclusions at least.


and now I'm off to bed as well, goodnight all:)

I'd say that's a fair point, though 'validity' is an odd word in this context.

The same would apply if personal memories could be triggered through 'induction'. I.e. is there a 'religious centre', or is someone reminded of religious experiences, or are you messing about with a poorly understood 'emotional centre'.

Let's just say that you'd have difficulty publishing these results in peer reviewed journals whith 'religious experiences' in the title of the paper.


Pleasant dreams ;)

...And we can't be having that now, can we?!! :devsmoke:

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Russ D
From you saying 'confirmed' this would appear to be Catholicism, I'm a little confused as to how you had Christianity 'pushed' on you if you had Catholic teaching.

JESUS!
:rolleyes: You're joking right? :shocked: Errr.... but isn't Catholicism a part of Christianity then? So where's the border? Next to the Protestants.... Blatant disregard to any Chritian faith is to assume the upper hand... May you burn for ever.... :devsmoke:

If you'd ever been to a Catholic school, you'd surely understand how Christianity gets 'pushed' upon you.... :******:

Somehow I feel that I've read enough already :drunk: :sick: :D

I'm certainly hoping you don't make it to my posts :eek:

I suppose that it could be true (not saying it is). You can alter a person's perception of their world through drugs. If you could control the drugs, and what areas of the brain are affected, you could implant a "suggestion" of a religious experience.

I am speculating here though. I don't know if the above is actually possible with today's medical technology..

Of course you would not be able to publish this stuff in anything other than Fortean Times :D . However the same can be said of 'authentic' experiences.

Interestingly:

SPECT neuroimaging in schizophrenia with religious delusions.

Puri BK, Lekh SK, Nijran KS, Bagary MS, Richardson AJ.

MRI Unit, MRC Clinical Sciences Centre, Imperial College School of Medicine, Hammersmith Hospital, Du Cane Road, W12 0HS, London, UK.

Functional neuroimaging techniques such as single-positron emission computed tomography (SPECT) and positron emission tomography (PET) offer considerable scope for investigating disturbances of brain activity in psychiatric disorders. However, the heterogeneous nature of disorders such as schizophrenia limits the value of studies that group patients under this global label. Some have addressed this problem by considering schizophrenia at a syndromal level, but so far, few have focussed at the level of individual symptoms. We describe the first neuroimaging study of the specific symptom of religious delusions in schizophrenia. 99mTc HMPAO high-resolution SPECT neuroimaging showed an association of religious delusions with left temporal overactivation and reduced occipital uptake, particularly on the left.


and:


The serotonergic system and mysticism: could LSD and the nondrug-induced mystical experience share common neural mechanisms?

Goodman N.

Bioelectrostatics Research Centre, Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, United Kingdom.

This article aims to explore, through established scientific research and documented accounts of personal experience, the similarities between religious mystical experiences and some effects of D-lysergic diethylamide or LSD. LSD predominantly works upon the serotonergic (serotonin-using neurons) diffuse neuromodulatory system, which projects its axons to virtually all areas of the brain including the neocortex. By its normal action it modulates awareness of the environmental surroundings and filters a high proportion of this information before it can be processed, thereby only allowing the amount of information that is necessary for survival. LSD works to open this filter, and so an increased amount of somatosensory data is processed with a corresponding increase in what is deemed important. This article describes the effects and actions of LSD, and due to the similarities with the nondrug-induced mystical experience the author proposes that the two could have common modes of action upon the brain. This could lead to avenues of research into mysticism and a wealth of knowledge on consciousness and how we perceive the universe.

and:

Mystical experience and schizophrenia.

Buckley P.

Autobiographical accounts of acute mystical experience and schizophrenia are compared in order to examine the similarities between the two states. The appearance of a powerful sense of noesis, heightening of perception, feelings of communion with the "divine," and exultation may be common to both. The disruption of thought seen in the acute psychoses is not a component of the accounts of mystical experience reviewed by the author, and auditory hallucinations are less common than visual hallucinations in the mystical state. The ease with which elements of the acute mystical experience can be induced in possession cults or in an experimental situation suggests that the capacity for such an altered state experience may be latently present in many people. It is postulated that there is a limited repertoire of response within the nervous system for altered state experiences such as acute psychosis and mystical experience, even though the precipitants and etiology may be quite different.

Aren't we forgetting that demonstrating it's possible to simulate a religious experience in a laboratory is light years away from proving that 'god' is all in the mind?

For a start, the average man in the street doesn't come into contact with induction coils every day. And he doesn't regularly shoot up with ink either.

I think the final paragraph you quoted yesterday is very, very telling. All these scientists might have discovered is the mechanism created by God to allow him to interact with us in the physical universe.

I'm not trying to prove that 'god is all in the mind'. I am merely trying to demonstrate that there appears to be sufficient evidence that there are other (non religious) mechanisms that can sometimes come into play.

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For a start, the average man in the street doesn't come into contact with induction coils every day. And he doesn't regularly shoot up with ink either.

So what?

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I think the final paragraph you quoted yesterday is very, very telling. All these scientists might have discovered is the mechanism created by God to allow him to interact with us in the physical universe.

Absolutely. However, as I keep saying: anyhoo.....I'm off to Bluewater with my youngest, cyas later:)

enjoy! :)

When you get back, can you ask one of the mods to edit your earlier post (the one with the references to the 'papers'). It's not nice to post other people's email addresses on a public forum...