mrmoderate

What does it feel like?

Like knowing your best friend is within speaking distance,
Like a hot shower after a cold day in the rain,
Like that first minute after a snort of coke, without the egotistical side effects,
Like the person you most offended telling you it's ok, everybody makes mistakes,
Like when your loved one says they love you and you really believe them.

It's not so much how you feel when you are with God, but more how you feel when you are without God. With God, you have support. You are never alone unless you want to be alone, in which case you are no longer with God.

I think this is why people feel "bad" when they are doing things they know to be wrong. I think when we do things that are wrong we hide from God by blocking God out. God is spiritual and so communicates with us on a spiritual level. Communication with God is not like our physical communications. When God "answers" us, He fills us with information in a way that we cannot directly relate to. We just suddenly "know" what to do. We have the tendency to think this is our "figuring it out". We fail to recognize God's communications with us often because we are looking for lightning bolts and God uses gentle breezes.

Anyway, that's the way it occurs to me.

BadBadBad

Very good! :notworthy

Only you've wasted most of this on RBAC. Here's just a few things to tailor it to RBAC:

1. Demons don't exist in nature. Therefore, demons don't exist in people. Therefore, Jesus didn't cast out demons from people and send them into suicidal pigs. Just in case you're still wondering about that one RBAC, go ahead and add it to the trash can with 99% of the rest of your Bible.

2. You don't get 72 virgins when you die. You don't get all the beer you want. You don't get whatever you want when you die. You're part of nature. You'll die and be re-absorbed. Nature has nothing to offer you not now, not ever. It could care less about your life, your death, and the external existence of your atoms.

BadBadBad

So in other words, a personal relationship with God is just plain old life.

sharon45

Yes, nature is very impressive, and yet also still very much flawed as I see it and with many many natural 'strip malls' within. Also humans are a part of nature, thinking otherwise nods more towards religions like christianity where humans are so separate from nature. Instead, humans are about the best creation from nature even with all of our many faults.

Scary Mary

As you, yourself, quoted in your previous post, the definition of nature that we're using in this discussion does not include man or anything remotely related.

You're dreaming.

Can you elaborate? What exactly is a natural strip mall?

Berachah

Being born again means been born to the will of God. That does not mean we cannot choose to ignore the conviction of right doing and to rather choose what is to the contrary. (such as your cousin) Also I believe there needs to be some understanding regarding giving your life to Christ. The Bible says one needs to be born (baptised) of the Father, Son and the Spirit. (Believing- what you did was the first step, water baptism - becoming part of the Body, and Spirit baptism- empowerment for faithful living) I've lived on both sides - to the max, and that "pretty good feeling" you have will never satisfy you. I hope you can get back on that path and complete the journey - its worth it. And I know you are convinced by God of his existance - your disappointment is evidence of a greater expectation of Him.

BadBadBad

I feel so much better now. Nothing like a good sermon that says nothing. Did that feel good for you? Give me a break. You're wasting your breath. I'm not convinced of God's existence, quite the contrary. I wasn't disappointed in the least as a child when I realized God was bunk. I'm perfectly happy to live my life free from this nonsense you call Christianity.

I told you what it's like to have God in my life even as an innocent child believer. It feels like nothing ... nothing at all. It was the insistence of people like you that I should feel a personal relationship with God that was something other than nothing that convinced me God, as you describe, doesn't exist. Now tell me about all these blah blah blah God feelings you have and how they are different than nothing. If God surrounds me, tell me how I can discern him from nothing?

Gawdawful

My definition of nature, if anyone cares, is that which is formed by natural forces and not man's bulldozers, a place where man is an intruder or just a visitor.

My own Christian experience in my teen years had me feeling all the things that have been described so far, a sense of rightness (not necessarily the same thing as righteousness), a feeling of well-being, the feeling of being in love, the goosebumps, a flush feeling, maybe even chills, sometimes the feeling was even be near orgasmic, even though at the time I didn't know what orgasmic felt like.

But, as I discovered later, after giving up my religious beliefs, those feelings all came from within me, not from external divine source. Not always, but I can duplicate most, if not all, of those feelings by either helping someone who is truly grateful for the unasked for help, or even me receiving help from someone when I hadn't asked. Hell, sometimes I get the same sort of feeling when the janitorial staff is dusting my computer monitors at work, something unexpected out of them, but helpful. Yes, even something that minor can instill that feeling of "grace" in me.

I guess what I was looking for as a teenage Christian was something a bit more than that, maybe a voice, maybe something concrete, maybe a prayer to be answered.


Warren in Oklahoma

sharon45

As I also pointed out, to put humans as really being separate from within the definition of nature is bordering on what religions have already tried to do. Humans are animals, just because we can reason, to a certain extent, so can other animals. If we can believe science, humans have spent far far longer being exactly as animals, than the more reasoning, creative, inventive, and yes, the destructive forms we are at present. As religion could conclude, "god zapped us and we became as present day humans", but instead, the real evolution took many thousands of years. To try to define nature and not include humans, that would require a lot more of a definition than what was already offered.

Unlike other animals, since humans have such a strong ability to reason, that turns into a "double-edge sword", but we at any time, could actually start to be the real curators of the earth making 'deserts into gardens' instead of too much the other way around.

Also humans have that great ability to adapt to about any environment, some examples of 'the naturlal strip malls' I mentioned would be those setup by animals that can't anywhere as easily adapt, so their 'extravagance' leads in time to their own extinction. This could very well be the way of humans, but we can change this course literally and in a very small amount of time by simple acceptance without needing evolvement.

Berachah

I mentioned nothing of feelings.....if you're looking for something that moves the flesh, stay where you are mate. Or try American Christianity.....its very much the same thing. I'm talking about something a bit more heavenly and it contrasts directly with feelings. Those are normally the side effects that new Christians have (trying somehow to equate a spiritual happening to a natural experience) There's a couple of steps further down the line..but you have to at least acknowledge a few basic truths before one can progress there......