Steven Carr

'I am going to the Father where you can see me no longer' John 16:10


Acts 7: 55-56 But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. "Look," he said, "I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God."

What did Stephen see? Did he see something physical? Did he see something that could be photographed? Could the image on Stephan's retina have been alos captured by a camera?

Did he die for a hallucination?

How did Stephen see Jesus, when Jesus said he would not be able to be seen?

John A. Broussard

It does involve complications, not the least that he has one person of the trinity inside of him and two others in front of him.

Very confusing.

neilgodfrey

Poor Stephen of the elect. He got led astray by a false Christ just as Jesus also warned in Mark 13:21-22:

"And then if any man shall say to you, Lo, here is Christ; or, lo, he is there; believe him not: for false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall shew signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect."

Looks like even the elect author of Acts missed noticing the deception and was also led astray.

Quite sad really,
Neil Godfrey

Thomas II

John,
Hmm...very good point...It seems like the one having the vision is the Holy Spirit within Stephen...

orac

In the same way that assorted memebers of various other religions have seen their deities, when all True Christians(TM) know that only their god is actually real.

The answer, of course, is that we have no reason to believe the claims of a christian than the christians have to beleive the claims of a hindu or muslim. The reality could be that it was all a deliberate lie, deception from a devil, a hallucination or delusion, space aliens having a laugh, or any number of other possibilities. That said, I know which of those options has been observed in the laboratory and which ones have been claimed by tinfoil hat wearing nuts after a few weeks off their medication.

As a result, before assuming that it's an accurate quote from a person who genuinely observed the messiah I would want a little more evidence that the messiah mentioned in that particular holy book even exists.


Doctors have verified that people can experience sensory stimulation (e.g. be absolutely convinced that they can see something) even when noone else can see anything in the room, and evidence suggests that it's a product of the brain - in otehr words, a hallucination. It's also been well established that optical illusions can make people believe they see things that aren't "real" even though another person may, under the right circumstances, also experience the same illusion. Again, this has been shown to be a result of the way the brain processes vision.


That would really suck.

Try asking a christian if all the assorted hindus and muslims who have died for their god actually died for a lie. Then, if they say "no" be very surprised, but if they say "yes" ask them how they can be sure that christians aren't dying for a lie as well. (The answers tend to devolve into circular logic and unsupported assumptions very quickly, but such is life.)