Aug 6, 2012 -- 2:33PM, Thetanager wrote:

Aug 6, 2012 -- 9:15AM, allthegoodnamesweretaken wrote:

The answer is almost always some feeling they get during/after prayer/reading the bible and a difference in thinking that they feel is different from their usual mode.

Yes, it's the feeling of a different presence (which is different than the feeling of different thoughts or kinds of thought. You're experiences seem to be (seemingly) of a material nature. You seem to be saying that any kind of valid relationship has to at least appear to be between two (or more) material beings...beings you can look at, beings you can hear, beings you can eat with, etc.

You said the usual Christian description is pretty indistinguishable from our thought processes. Honestly, I think your description would be more indistinguishable from our mind playing tricks on us than the usual Christian description. Because everything from your altered state fits into our usual interactions with beings. (Please, please, here me in that I am not saying your experiences are not real or that you even believe your gods are immaterial). But if God is immaterial, as Christians claim, we should expect the interaction to be different than our usual material interactions. We should not expect such a God to only (or maybe even primarily) talk with us through sight/hearing/etc., even if in a dream state that is not really material.

And I am open to any further responses here (so don't think I am cutting you off here), but I do think we understand each other better than at our start and I don't know that I would have anything else to add in this discussion. I want to thank you for helping me to think through this and challenging me. And if we've reached the end of this discussion, I hope to have others with you on here.

I'll get back to ya in a while. 

I just found out that in the small town that I practice in, and have for the last 6 months, a community that only has 1 bar, but boasts an impressive 8 churches, the retirement and assisted living community which has been around for almost 40 years only has a single podiatrist that comes out every 90 days to trim toenails!

I'm pissed, and I'm gonna do something about it.  I don't feel that I could offer you a reasoned response at this time. 

Aug 6, 2012 -- 4:09PM, LeahOne wrote:

If you're not a little old person who's too stiff to bend that far, too arthritic to hold the clippers, too weak to clamp them shut, and/or too blind to see where you're clipping - you probably don't fully appreciate the situation ALL has described.........

 

 

And who's it come down to do something in this town of Christians that wear their religion on their sleeve? 

The pagan, that's who.