If I say: "GOD is talking to me" would you ...

I would like to know, if I go in the streets and say:

"GOD is talking to me"

how would you react?
and
are you are religious
or an atheist
or a deist

Just an eye opening experiment

Thank you for participating

Hi Lela

I am a theist, a catholic in fact, and I would suspect your were missing a word or two that God might be speaking. I think he 'spoke' very clearly in showing that God is about a love that transcends all of our categories, loving those who kill him.

Catholics are very skeptical of personal 'revelations' and do not even pronounce on miracles , events which I think occur regularly and are well documented as beyond scientific explanation and oddly conincident with religious events, specific events.

So , I would likely dismiss you as a quack, but hopefully, kindly, but would also assert that I don't think , like Joan of Arc that God speaks to me directly, but I would certainly attest to my moral certainty that I have indeed experienced God in the sacraments of the church. I am certain of this at an interior level. Of course, I don't ask you to accept this but can assure you that it was unlike and truly transcendent of any other feeling or emotional state. It was being filled with love, a personal love. Beyond intimate.

So there. That's my experience. One broader question I offer as one who thinks that there are ample 'proofs' or sound arguments showing the existence God, such as metaphysical arguments for an unconditioned cause, anthropic conditions in the only uninverse for which there is any evidence or good science, the fact of Christ, the argument from reason and the existence of moral principles that transcend mere subjectivism and other facts like free will which cannot be reduced to physical stuff or obvious reasons. So too, mathematical objects and logic are not physical things.

So .. my laborious point here, .. is that the universe is not well described as physical stuff only. It shouts mind and intellience and person... especially in mindful , intelligent persons.

This is not anthropocentrism as some seem to jump to, but rather an analysis of the simple causal relationship. This universe designs designers , it thinks thinkers, it wills freedom.

None of this is sufficiently addressed by any discipline. Evolution is an effect, not a cause ultimately.

So.. what I am getting at.. Mind... Why not?

And if why not Mind, then how could it be that Mind would not effectively communicate with His creation. (God is of course spiritual and not male, but Christ advises us to try to consider God as Father while of course immanent in everything.

So .. of course God would and should communicate for to be personal is ultimately necessarily to be interpersonal. Cars and diamonds dazzle and sparkle for a while, but then we want a coffee or a smile.

Persons can only be made for relationship to other persons. It is even how we come into existence of course.

The trinity; the Godhead is pure relationship. The fullness of Personal Being.

Nothing else makes the least bit of sense.

Good question.

Cheers

As a perhaps amusing and ironic but also true adendum, if, as I believe in the apostolic authority of Christ's church and bishops, if I have in fact given you a true and accurate summary of revealed truths, or doctrines .. all of which of course assumes that Christ was who his followers said and say he was, then you have just had a communication from God.

:-)

Cheers

I would hope someone with training would take you somewhere safe and prescribe something for your mental illness.

CA SMall, and you belong to which group? the religious or atheists? Because this is also important to know for "this exercise". Thank you

Atheist and anti-theist.

I'd be sceptical in the first instance but this is a very easily tested claim. If "GOD" is a god as traditionally proposed, and was talking to you then you'd have access to a wealth of information all the collected scientists don't have and every psychic dreams of having. You should have access to people's personal histories and unrealised desires, as well as an insight into nature's mysteries that could all be checked up on, so those are the sort of questions you should expect.

If the god you are talking to (or is talking to you) has no interest in passing you on this information (whether he is unable or he could but he just doesn't want to) then your claim is useless to anyone else, he might as well not be talking to you for all it's worth and if you ignored him there'd be no difference or consequence to either your or our collective body of knowledge. Naturally the authority in which you could speak would be effected if you were to ignore the messages which I'm sure you are only passing on but I'm equally sure you're not interested in gaining that sort of personal validity through such a claim so this really isn't an issue.

[Deleted by the author on 30 May 2012 11:17:58 BDT]

Hi Lela,

i would first have to determine whether you were being serious. if i was convinced you were serious then i would think you were probably delusional in some way. i once had a internet chat with a woman who said god spoke to her. i asked her what the voice sounded like, did it have an accent did it sound human etc. it turned out that she didn't hear the voice of god but rather felt that god was speaking to her, felt the words in her head rather than hearing them. i have wondered since then if this is what most people mean when they say that god has spoken to them! i believe there is a known medical condition where a person actually hears voices.

of course a good question might be 'how do you know it's the voice of god'? if you are hearing a voice does the voice say 'i am the voice of god'. if i heard a voice that said it was god i would want him (it) to prove it. tell me things that would convince me that it must be god. of course if i believe god exists and might talk to me then i guess i might also believe that the devil exists in which case it might be him telling me that he's god! i think that once you accept that you are really hearing voices in your head coming from supernatural beings it all gets a bit confusing knowing who or what to believe.

i am an Atheist (although i accept that god might exist).

[Deleted by the author on 30 May 2012 11:18:08 BDT]

"If I say: "GOD is talking to me" would you ..."

Laugh. Yes.

PP,

i lack faith or belief in god(s) or deities but i think the existence or non existence of such beings is impossible to prove.

[Deleted by the author on 30 May 2012 11:18:15 BDT]

You're wrong. Atheist just means non-theist, there are far too many gods to make it an easily catorgorised position that has decided upon every possibility and combination of what is possible when it comes to gods (note the lower case). Atheist and agnostic are useless terms if used independently and distinct from each other, to separate people that way assumes there are people who don't know and fundementalsist who can not be convinced at all.

No. Richard is a atheist.

It's very easy to tell, ask the question "do you believe in god?" if the answer is anything other than yes you are an atheist.

[Deleted by the author on 30 May 2012 11:18:23 BDT]

Yep, it works. You can be an agnostic theist too.

A lack of absolute certainty is a given when you're human but never stops us holding an opinion on a great deal of other things so I don't know why* making your innate fallibility in relation to gods is something more important than anything else.

*well I do, it's because theists who claim certainty can either make you look as stupid as them withe the 'atheism is a faith' argument or think they have somehow bettered you by getting you to admit you could be wrong without being willing to make the same concession for themselves. It's why non-theists find this necessacery and pander to it I find odd.

pp,

i think you are wrong. this has been argued to death on this forum and i see no point in bringing it up again as it's not relevant to this thread. but you might want to think on how a person could dismiss the concept of god (assuming we can agree on what the definition of god is) as impossible! what are the criteria for determining the impossibility? how is it possible to prove god does not exist? stating that one does not 'know' whether god exists or not might be more a case of the person not having decided rather than the person thinking it's not subject to proof.

some people have faith/belief that god exists, i lack that faith/belief. i am an atheist (some might say a weak atheist but i tend to think that just muddles things) but god might exist!

an atheist might be bothered to argue a case against the god of a particular religion but that's different to arguing against a creator god that we might know nothing about. god might have created the universe and buggered off. we don't yet have the knowledge of how the universe was created to argue that concept.

[Deleted by the author on 30 May 2012 11:18:29 BDT]

sorry i was trying to help.

[Deleted by the author on 30 May 2012 11:18:36 BDT]

PP,

this was how i used to describe myself but it just seemed to lead to more problems lol. i think Atheist (as lacking faith/belief) is enough to simply state my views although as you have seen i sometimes qualify it by saying that god might exist. saying 'atheist agnostic' does add a qualifier to atheist as does' weak' or 'strong' but feels like it's just compounding terms so i tend not to do it! at least with simply Atheist i only have to explain one definition and then state my qualifier which feels easier to me. i think i might have at one time gone as far as atheist, agnostic non deist.

Hi Lela. I am a christian. If you said "God is talking to me" I wouldn't dismiss it but I would also weigh up what you had to to say. If it contradicted the Bible or you claimed that I had to belong to "your" church then I would be sceptical but polite!

If I say "God is talking to me"...

...I'd say, "Which one?", because humans have made up thousands of gods throughout history.

[Deleted by the author on 30 May 2012 11:20:35 BDT]

Sat down at my workbench, poised to go home.