Eldy

From Eldy: You guys are good! You got me backed up like a hog at a ham cookin' contest.

I cannot answer some of these questions. In my story, which happened as I relate, and as I remember it, the friend I loaned money to was named Ralph Smart. I believe he needed $200, and I received that amount in the mail from the friends in Nebraska, shortly after I loaned the money to Ralph. The people who sent my wife and me the money were named Archie and Joyce Warren.

They must have known that I was not doing too well with the money situation, and supposed they heard through relatices or friends of the church. They had left the church of our youth and joined another group. And I did not even know that God was working that side of the road.

I referred to that event as a supernormal event. I go easy on the supernatural, but I don't get very carried away with it. One good incarnation of Jesus as God's son, and one good ressurection, and that will pretty much do it for me.

I cannot answer why God would take care of my financial situation and let babies die in poop. I don't have any explanation, nor do I pretend to have one. We live in a natural world and it is governed by natural laws, and we often have to live with the consequences of natural laws, whether Christian or unbeliever. I am stumped on why bad things happen to good people, or why good things happen to some good people, and others seemingly get heavy load dumped on them.

I am warned by the Good Book to avoid "soothsayers," and in the Old Testament days the Jews stoned to death fortunetellers, and mystics and such like. Channelers and people who "communicate" with the dead are whistling Dixie up someone's skirt.

Here is another one to kick around that happened in my life.

A friend talked me into quiting my job and getting rich in real estate. I lost my shirt, then lost my ass, so to speak.

A "little ole lady" church friend was praying for my wife and me, she said, and she came to us, and said she had something she must give to us. It was an envelope, a personal sized envelope.

Inside the envelope were ten fresh and new $100 bills. I said I could not take that money. She said, "But you should; God told me to give it to you."

Since I at that time did not believe in such things, I asked, "How did God tell you this? Did he speak to you? Did you hear a voice, or something?"

"I heard no voice," she said. (Her name was "Sister Jeffs) But I know he told me to give this money to you. He told me to stop praying and go give you some money. He said he has no hands to help but my hands. So I brought you this money. You must take it."

We were rather surprised. Amazed, perhaps. We took the money.

Yes, it seemed cruel not to help everyone in the church. I have no explanation for the questions you guys and gals will raise. But go ahead and take a your shots. I cannot explain the differences in supposed differentiating behavior by our God. But the event happened as I relate it, and remember it. These stories happened over 20 years ago when I was younger.

"Let it be done according to thy faith," may be some explanation, but it is not really, because we cannot determine degrees and amounts or qualities of faith.

But I have one where a woman predicted her own death to me shortly before she died. She wanted to know what would happen to her children. I will relate that story shortly, and I am not making these up. That would be lies, and I don't believe the end justifies the means, by any means. Go for it.

WWSD

Hi Eldy,

How do you reconcile this statement with your belief in god inasmuch as the natural observable world doesn't mesh well with what the bible states?

Matt Arnold

Eldy,
Thank you for posting. What it is that Tim and I are looking for is an event that requires the supernatural for an explanation. All I say is that your story does not. Not only is the event you describe possible in a universe that has no supernatural, it would be miraculous for it not to happen all the time around the world by sheer volume alone. It's only unlikely, and unlikely things happen all the time. You were too hasty to credit it as a miracle. The same thing happens to those who believe in many systems of supernatural which contradict your beliefs, and they make the same mistake.
The lesson that I have learned in recent years is the lesson you need to learn. I was a Christian for years, and I was an apologist who studied cults and other religions which I believed to be false, and started asking myself what was going wrong with them to cause them to see their supernatural systems as true. It was clearly not just a character flaw. So I made a study of the particular ways in which people fool themselves. Eventually I began to apply those lessons to myself, and that destroyed my illusions. Although I still fail all the time, I am much better at interpreting my personal experiences and excercising critical thinking skills. One book I highly recommend is "How to Think About Weird Things" by Lewis Schick and Theodore Vaughn, Jr.

Mageth

We live in a natural world and it is governed by natural laws, and we often have to live with the consequences of natural laws, whether Christian or unbeliever.

I would modify that to say we always have to live with the consequences of natural laws.

I agree with WWSD. To hold this view and believe the bible, there would have to be some serious cognitive dissonance going on in your mind.

Slex

from the Gospel of Mark
16:16
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
16:17
And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues;
16:18
They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.

Just don't push Kyle and Katie to drink poison to see if their faith is real.

Also, take a look at the following. It is taken from "Good Question, Good Answer" by Ven. S. Dhammika. It is a pdf file (gqga.pdf to be more specific) from <a href="http://www.buddhanet.net." target="_blank">http://www.buddhanet.net.</a> It is a protected pdf file, so I can't just copy and paste and I only retyped that passage. For more details check the Rebirth section. But here is the passage itself:

"QUESTION: You have talked a lot about rebirth but is there any proof that we are reborn when we die?
ANSWER: Not only is there scientific evidence to support the Buddhist belief in rebirth, it is the only after-life theor that has any evidence to support it. There is not a scrap of evidence to prove the existence of heaven and of course evidenceof annihilation at death must be lacking. But during the last 30 years parapsychologists have been studying reports that some people have vivid memories of their former lives. For example in England, a 5 year-old girl said she could remember her "other mother and father" and she talked vividly about what sounded like the events in the life of another person. Parapsychologists were called in and they asked her hundreds of questions to which she gave answers. She spoke of living in a particular village in what appeared to be Spain, she gave the name of the village, the name of the street she lived in, her neighbours' names and details about her everyday life there. She also fearfully spoke of how she had been struck by a car and died of her injuries two days later. When these details were checked , they were found to be accurate. There was a village in Spain with the name the five-year-old girl had given. There was a house of the type she had described in the streets she had named. What is more, it was found that a 23-year-old woman living in the house had been killed in a car accident five years before. Now how is it possible for a five-year-old girl living in England and who had never been to Spain to know all these details? And of course, this is not the only case of type. Professor Ian Stevenson of the University of VIrgina's Department of Psychology has described dozens of cases of this type in his books. He is an accredited scientist whose 25 year study of people who remember former lives is very strong evidence for the Buddhist teaching of rebirth. (1)

footnote(1) See "Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation and Cases of Reincarnation Type", University Press of Virginia, Charlotteville USA 1975."

You can judge by yourself which is more supernatural and which sounds more plausible - this story or the one of your brother.