Gemma Therese

I suggest John of the Cross if this what you think it means to be Christian.

Part of mature belief is getting beyond the "emotional" stage.

Gemma Therese

Oxymoron

Funny, I thought mature belief was getting past the "External Authority with power vested elsewhere" regime of childhood to the "No easy answers and it's all up to me" domain of adulthood.

HelenM

You're talking about 'conservative Bible-believing Christians' and so will I in responding to the above.

Actually, no subjective 'experience' is required. What's required is that someone consciously decides to turn over their life to God and receive forgiveness through Jesus Christ.

If you put together the following two analogies, that will better describe the event of 'becoming a Christian' than 'having a subjective experience of God's reality'. One is receiving a gift - it can be offered to you but it's not yours until you accept it. The other is getting married. You're not married unless you say "I do".

A lot of Christians can pinpoint when they made that decision. Some can't but as of now, they know they've made it, so being able to identify 'when' is not essential. And - back to your comments - a lot of Christians 'felt nothing' when they did make the decision. What's kept them Christian is that since they made that decision, their life has changed in ways they attribute to God being real and present and involved in it.

Helen

GeoTheo

I agree with Helen. I didn't have any wierd vision or anything when I got saved. I have experienced what I believe to be guidence from the Holy Spirit though. That is experiential. But I think it is hard to distinguish that from my unconcious mind somtimes. For example think intuitively alot. I don't know if my Brain just picks out paterns in things or if God is leading me to see them. I suspect a lot of Christians take to be God, what may be their unconscious mind working. For example Christians will often say they prayed about somthing and then made a decision because "God gave them peace about it." Then I hear other people not aligned with Christianity say similar things. They were apprehensive about a coming decision, then they took a risk and found they were at peace about it. For example I heard Johny Depp say somthing similar. He said that whenever he "let's go" creatively, he feels guided by an unseen hand and it works out.
He does films that don't make commercial sense at first but really work out creatively.
I am also a creative person and the creative proccess is kind of mysterious to me as well as other creative people. The Brain is not well understood yet.
One thing I will say is that Baptists for the most part are highly skeptical of experiential things that are accepted in the Pentacostal Church such as visions and speaking in tongues. I also think that Pentacostals are more vulnerable to con artists because of this.

Oxymoron

Well I dunno about other folk here, but GeoTheo and HelenM sound as mad as a box of bunnies to me

Seriously guys, you sounds like bright people. And I can't help wondering why clever folk would (to quote Helen) "turn to" and believe the pile of laughable hocus-pocus that the Bible and Xian theology is. Unless there was really something wrong with them, that is...

Bree

I think that your particular outlook on the "creative" process is highly skewed by your particular religious outlook in general. For example, when I was a Christian and working in theatre, I used to pray to God to give me the talent to get X part or whatever. I honestly thought I could not do anything without God's guidance in the matter. Now that I have deconverted I have transfered the "power" God had over my life to myself, and I realise that back then, I kicked ass because I kicked ass. Not because God was kicking ass for me.

GeoTheo

Yeah, that's called pride. It is considered a sin. That is why people don't become Christians IMO. They would rather hang on to their pride. Not that Christians don't suffer from it, but to get right with God you have to get rid of it. To live for Christ you have to die to your self. That is one of the paradoxes of Christianity. I give myself credit for all the bad things I do though.
If Christians are truthful on these boards about what Christianity is all about they will get mocked. There is nothing glamorous about Christianity.

Bree

Could you please provide me some Bible verses (preferably New Testament ones - after all, it is the New Covenant that Christ came to affirm) where it explicity states that pride is a sin which needs to be scourged from the body?

It's very difficult to realise one's full potential without a certainty about what you can and can't do. That's not pride - that's realism. You can't glorify God with your talents if you're not allowed to realise what those talents are.

yguy

Or confidence. There's nothing unChristian about that, since Christ had it Himself.

The pride which is a sin is the kind you feel when, for instance, you tear someone else down to gain self-esteem relative to them; or when you are overconfident through having let praise go to your head.

Bree

Where in the Bible does it say that?