Ok so a true christian wouldnt believe in dinosaurs?, page 7

Originally posted by vehemes terra eternus
Are you christian? Also, could you please explain to me what form your God takes and how you came to have faith?

Although I was raised in a Protestant family, I abandoned religion and religious thinking when my father died young — I was 17 years old at the time, and his untimely and agonizing death was a cruel blow to me. For much of my life thereafter, I was atheist/agnostic. More than that, I wasn't merely atheist, I was a God-hater, just as most professed atheists are actually God-haters.

There's a difference. A "true atheist" does not acknowledge God, does not dwell on theist matters, and does not allow theist issues to influence his life. A true atheist very, very seldom even thinks about God and religion, because those concepts are not on his radar. In all the years that I called myself an atheist, I only met a handful of true atheists — they're a rare breed, as few and far between as true, faithful Christians.

On the other hand, the great majority of professed "atheists" that I encountered were actually God-haters, like myself. God-haters ponder the many contradictions of the Bible (especially of Genesis) and spend a great deal of time angrily arguing scripture with theists. God-haters use the darkest historical data to indict all believers (for example, The Crusades, The Inquisition, and Gay Priest Scandals are among the frequently-referenced black marks against the Catholic Church). Although they attempt to use "critical thinking" to pick apart the seeming illogic of theists, God-haters most often resort to ridicule and mockery of all things theistic.

In short, God-haters spend more time dwelling on theism than do most Christians (or any other theists). If Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and Hindi all magically disappeared tomorrow, true atheists probably wouldn't even notice; however, an absence of religion would drive God-haters mad, because attacking religion is all they know.

After some 20 years of hedonistic living and calling myself an atheist, I managed to get myself into serious, serious trouble. Without naming names and locations, suffice to say that I ended up on the run from those who would have gladly fed me to the fishes. I lived for two straight years off-the-grid, under the radar, with no paper trails, no past and no future — for all intents and purposes, I ceased to exist. Like Robinson Crusoe, I lived like a beach bum on an island in the Gulf of Mexico, never knowing where I'd find my next meal, and wondering when or if the hammer would ever come down.

It was during this time that I couldn't help but notice very peculiar twists of Fate that always seemed to work in my favor, allowing me to survive just another week or two, and always delivering me from the most dire circumstances.

And I mean very peculiar twists of Fate.

For instance, a stranger walked up to me on the beach one Sunday and addressed me directly, saying that he knew I was in trouble, he knew that I was starving, and that he wanted to lend me a hand. Warily, I followed him up the beach to the biggest hotel on the island, where he produced a monster keychain and unlocked the hotel diner. Inside, he fired up the kitchen and told me to drink whatever I wanted as he prepared a meal for me. Thoroughly parched, I drank iced tea, cola, beer and lemonade hand over fist for half an hour; then he served me a huge hamsteak with about two pounds of fries, followed by a number of cakes and pies. When I was done, the guy led me back outside, locked up the diner, put a fifty dollar bill in my hand and bade me adieu.

Before I waddled away, I asked the guy how I could repay him. He said, simply, "Do the same for someone else when you're able."

And that was the last time I laid eyes on the fellow, but it's not the end of the story. That guy's intervention in my predicament had saved my life, undoubtedly, but it also marked a drastic change in my luck (for the better) for weeks to come — the money alone fed me for nearly a month. Thereafter I was able to find day jobs around the island with relative ease, after going jobless for the better part of a year. When Christmas rolled around, I thought I'd stop by the hotel and thank the fellow who had taken an interest in my survival.

Guess what? They had never heard of the guy, didn't recognize my description of him. I explained that he had to be a former manager or something, because he unlocked the diner and served me, for petesake. The hotel manager eyed me suspiciously and said, "I do all the hiring and firing, and I'm telling you nobody like that ever worked here. Now GTFO."

Well. This weird development weighed on my mind only briefly. My optimism had returned, I was making a little bit of cash every day, and everything just seemed brighter, even though I was still basically destitute. Oddly enough, I often caught myself muttering, "Come on, I really need help right now," and then something surprising would happen, usually just exactly what I needed. It never occurred to me at the time that I was praying.

When I rotated back to the real world about a year later, I looked back on my island experiences as highly unusual — I mean, even at the worst of times, it was as if somebody or some thing was pulling strings to ensure my survival. I sure as hell wasn't soliciting charity or favors from anyone, but a whole succession of favors just fell in my lap.

Now, you can call all of that coincidence, but the experience of it told me it was something else, like some sort of intervention. Over the 16 years since then, the favors are still coming, unsolicited. I'm now very happily married, we own a big house, we have no legal or money problems, my prior troubles were mercifully erased, and I've changed into a different and more open person. More open to the miraculous, that is.

I do not believe in anything, because belief is cheap and can turn on a dime. Rather, I have Faith (an incontrovertible knowing) that something is out there that seems to function like a Conscious Universe.

I even joined the Lutheran Church (which is the original Reformed branch of the Catholic Church). This church is pretty much New Testament-focused, with all of the usual Christ died for our sins preaching and rituals; but the people are very laid back, many come from mixed Catholic and Protestant backgrounds, and most of them have experienced miraculous interventions very similar to mine. I get the distinct impression that each of them has a very personal perception of God that probably differs greatly from what is being preached, just as I do.

So... While I still wince a little at the hellfire and damnation of the Old Testament, I do recognize that it was compiled and edited from a whole smorgasbord of Middle Eastern folklore and myth that cannot be overlayed, page-for-page, with recorded historical events. The more important part of the Bible, in my opinion, is the New Testament, which contains several different accounts of and perspectives on miraculous intervention, as well as that overriding message: Do the same for someone else when you're able.

Hope that answered your questions.

— Doc Velocity

Originally posted by vehemes terra eternus
Those are some peculiar twists, the good samaritan part sounds too good to be true but I believe you. Did you notice anything strange about him? Did he look like a local?

Frankly, when the guy first approached me and proposed to lend me a hand, I was very suspicious — you know, that he might be a serial killer or a pervert or something. Starving as I was, I was still a pretty large and lean person, and I figured if he tried anything funny I could snap him in-two in a heartbeat. He seemed to be aware of that, and he maintained his distance — perhaps more for my peace of mind than his.

He appeared entirely like a local, or as much of a local as he could be, given that most island dwellers are transplants from up north. He was about 5'5", lean, tanned, short-cropped curly black hair, graying mustache and temples, and very dark brown eyes. He was wearing the typical island apparel: oversized white cotton short-sleeved sport shirt, kind of tan or beige ho-daddy (surfer) shorts, and Tiva sandals. No jewelry at all, which is normal (nobody wants to ruin the tan, right). I made mental notes of all this, in case I had to tell the police later.

His dialect was straight out of the Bronx. As I mentioned, most islanders that I ever met were from up north — many from Canada, in fact, but most from New Jersey or Pennsylvania or New York.

And his name was Nick. Which didn't strike me as unusual at the time, but years later it dawned on me that I may have had an encounter with Saint Nicholas — not Santa Claus the jolly old elf, but the Saint Nicholas, Nicholas of Myra, a miracle-working and time-traveling Catholic Bishop from the 4th Century, I think, who still makes such life-saving appearances from time to time. If you take such legends seriously, that is.

It also occurred to me that he might be Old Nick... another handle for the Devil himself. Except that Old Nick doesn't have a reputation for performing favors without some sort of binding contract — again, if you take such legends seriously.

After pondering the incident for many years, I'm inclined to think it was either Saint Nicholas or an angel of some sort, but not of the demonic variety.

Originally posted by vehemes terra eternus
"Come on, I really need help right now," and then something surprising would happen, usually just exactly what I needed. Any more examples??????? Also do you have any examples of the "miraculous interventions" your fellow church goers have experienced???

Well, I could write a book with all of the peculiar twists of the island odyssey — come to think of it, I've probably already written the book over the years, just need to compile the notes and find a publisher. Among many other weird things that transpired during those two years, my eyesight inexplicably improved to the extent that I was able to trash the prescription glasses that I'd worn all my life — my vision became so acute, in fact, that I could spot and identify any coinage, any jewelry, or virtually any tiny thing of value, half-buried in the sand 50 feet away. This was an extraordinary gift for beachcombing, which was one of my only steady sources of income. More than that, my night vision became cat-like — with no exaggeration, I could discern individuals or groups of people strolling along the beach at midnight a mile away, identify their gender based on their gate, and tell you whether they were advancing on or retreating from me.

My wife, who is a nutritionist among other things, tells me that starvation can have that effect on people, enhancing their senses, making them sharper and more animal-like. Maybe. In any event, my transition from extremely near-sighted to eagle-eyed occurred in one week. It was like Spider-Man, right, going to sleep wearing thick prescription glasses, then waking up the next morning with super-vision. Totally inexplicable, in my opinion, but the transition definitely enhanced my ability to survive, just when I needed it.

As for some of the folks presently at my church, there's a 60-year-old woman who was suffering kidney failure, doctors had her on the bucket list, and we were all anticipating a funeral at any moment. Then she suddenly shows up back at church, perfectly healthy — and I mean doctors-scratching-their-heads what-the-hell-happened cured. On Friday she's on her deathbed, on Sunday she walks into church, sings with the choir, and acts like nothing untoward has happened. We were just flabbergasted. My wife asked her, you know, why aren't you dead? And this quiet little lady says, very simply, "I prayed about it." That was her explanation.

We also have a fairly young Marine who was in Iraq five years ago, where he caught a nice big chunk of shrapnel in the back of his head, pulverizing a section of skull the size of a baseball. He, too, was on the bucket list, was brought back stateside in a coma. Doctors at the veterans hospital were agreed that he would be blind and vegetative, if by some miracle he lived. Well, against all odds, he survived — came out of the ordeal within months with only a steel plate in his head, but that's it. He wasn't blind, he wasn't vegetative, he wasn't even slightly disabled. Today this guy is married, has three kids, works at a construction job, is on the church council, and is strong as an ox. He doesn't often talk about his war wounds; but, one evening as we were having a cig on the corner, I rather bluntly asked him about his coma — did he have any dreams, or was it just a sustained blackout with no memories?

He told me that he knew he had died, that he left his body and did the whole near-death experience routine — flying, light at the end of a tunnel, people (or personalities) waiting for him on the other side, etc. He said he was perfectly okay with dying, he wasn't fearful in the least, he was ready to go; however, he was told it wasn't his time to die, that he had to go back, because he was expected to marry and have a family. So he did.

Anyway, those are a couple of the really wild cases of miraculous intervention in our church. There are others, but those are the real eye-poppers. I will mention one more: Several years ago, a local boy here in my town was a bad seed, if you know what I mean. He was a one-man crime wave, a major drug-head, a drunk, and a regular guest of the county jail. He hated his family, he hated authority, he hated humanity. There are no existing photos of this kid smiling. None. People around here had resigned themselves to the sad likelihood that this kid was either going to prison or was going to be murdered. Or both.

Today this kid is 26 years old. He's happily married and has a baby girl. I haven't had a chance yet, but I intend to corner him soon and ask about his transformation. See, he was just ordained as a pastor in the Lutheran Church last week. Gotta be a major intervention story in there somewhere.

Originally posted by vehemes terra eternus
Conscious Universe, I like that. Have you heard of the Global Consciousness Project?

No, I haven't heard of the Global Consciousness Project, but I'll look into it.

Based on my mid-life experiences, I've come to think of God as an effect, more than as an entity — an effect that permeates everything, like another, as-yet-undiscovered physical law of our Universe. Maybe it's the physical law underlying all others, the effects of which have been observed by humankind for thousands of generations in a thousand different cultures...and maybe gods and religions were our best primitive explanation for this effect.

— Doc Velocity