Does God speak to you?

[High_Deity]

i’m going to hold myself back from making any references to the matrix.

but a few philosophy things to chew on…

1. how do you know anyone is talking to you, even in person? we all talk to ourselves at times, and who hasn’t had an imaginary friend?
2. how much of “god’s grace” can be attribuated to a positive attitude, luck, and determination.
3. if someone thinks (or even knows) that they are talking to a higher power, who are you to disagree?

my short answer to the original question… does god speak to me? yes.

[serenitynow]

God has spoken to me in different ways over the years. Most typically it is a fleeting, quiet thought. If you aren’t paying attention, you miss it, and it just goes away. Then something happens and you realize where the thought came from. Those of us who talk to God regularly are used to such things, and in time you learn not to dismiss those thoughts. In my personal experience, God rarely shouts.

Sometimes, instead of a fleeting thought, it is something quite different. Imagine a thought. Now imagine a thought tied to an elephant. Now imagine the thought and elephant crashing into your brain at the same time. Sometimes the thought is so strong and so clear, you look around to make sure it wasn’t someone speaking. This is the easiest message to hear and to know the source.

Sometimes, people will say something, and it will stick with you. It will dominate your thinking, even if you try to get it out of your head. I have learned that sometimes, this is God’s way of speaking to me. Sometimes it is not. It can take a lot of prayer to discern which is the case.

God has never spoken to me audibly, but could do so if He chose. My experience leads me to believe that as a general rule, the manner is which God speaks to me does not necessarily indicate the importance of the thing communicated. A distant, fleeting thought may be as important as an elephant thought.

1 Corinthians 2:14 (NIV) says that “the man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.” I could regale you with prayer war stories, some mundane, some dramatic, but it would not prove anything. One could always say that it was coincidence, luck or just me talking to myself. Suffice it to say that I have at times made decisions that defied reason, logic, and my personal desires because God told me what to do. When I act knowing that God has given me a specific direction, it has proven to be right 100% of the time, even though it usually is not the way I would have chosen or that logic would have dictated. I can count even more times where God gave me direction, I didn’t do it and I suffered for it. In both situations, I have no doubt it was God who spoke to me. I can’t prove it any more than I could prove I have a headache, but objectivity does not determine reality.

[blowero]

tdn:

Keep in mind that when I call myself an agnostic, I really mean I’m an atheist, but I haven’t shut all the doors yet. I am, in the true sense of the word, a non-believer.

You say that, but things like this:

Interesting. This suggests that “it’s all in your mind, and not God at all”, but who says that your mind isn’t the conduit though which God speaks? It’s a fun paradox.

In the OP I stated that God has never spoken to me, but when I think about it, perhaps that’s not entirely true.

Sometimes when I’m composing, I completely lose a sense of self. I’m not aware of the passage of time, and I’m barely aware of what I’m doing. I zone out, while my hands keep working. And what comes out is often brilliant, far better than anything I’m capable doing myself. This is a fairly common phenomenon. It has been well documented, and my girlfriend even taught a class on it.

It’s commonly called dissociation. I suppose one could call it hypnosis. But I swear, when I’m in that state, it’s like someone else is writing, and just using my hands to record the work. There’s clearly another presence there.

lead me to believe otherwise…

[Jadoku]

Yes. He tells me to brun things.

-Jadoku himself

[Jadoku]

Yes. He tells me to burn things.

-Jadoku himself

[tdn]

*Originally posted by blowero *
**tdn:

You say that, but things like this:

(snip)

lead me to believe otherwise… **

Why? In both cases, I pointed out situations where divine intervention could explain what happened, but also where psychology could do the same. For the record, I’m going with the psychological explanation.

[DocCathode]

*Originally posted by tdn *
**
I’m involved in a RPG (of the paper variety). In my world, religion plays a huge part. It is extrordinarily detailed not only for the 10 gods, but in church organization, liturgy, mass schedules, church corruption, etc. Divine intervention is part of the rules system.

What I want to achieve is a sense of agnosticism in the game. Much like real life, I want the players to never quite know if the gods actually exist, or if they are merely a construct of society. I always want there to be a sense of doubt either way. If divine intervention takes the form of the clouds opening up and a giant hand pointing the way, that sense of agnosticism is destroyed. I want subtle and plausibly deniable. And grounded in real life experience.
. **

I do sometimes feel the Presence. I don’t hear or see anything. But the emotions are intense. I remember going to a United Synagogue youth group and finding out that almost all the other kids could read and speak Hebrew fluently. I can read the Hebrew aphabet(the Aleph Beth). But, I know only a few words. I went into the bathroom and started crying. What kind of Jew was I?
Eventually, I did feel G-d’s presence.

• I pay a lot of attention to what my emotional state is and what causes it. I can feel the difference between sadness caused by bad neurochemistry and sadness caused actual events. Some meds have had the side effect of extreme irritability. Even as I yelled at somebody, I knew that I was over reacting. I knew that the anger I felt was a result of the pills(I got off those quick.).-
  I don’t know how to describe it. It’s not the same as the ‘is-somebody-there?’ feeling you get when you think you may not be alone. It’s the certainty that you are not alone. I have never heard an actual voice. The message is purely emotional. Not ‘Yea, go to the store and buy 2 of every Pokemon’ but Mom giving you a hug and wiping your cheeks dry. As the sadness and guilt went away, I realized what kind of Jew I was-the kind who cried when he thought he’d failed G-d. [sub]NOTE-This is not me saying look how pious I am. Judasim is important to me. I have accepted G-d into my daily life and try to do his work. However, I an not any kind of role model or paragon. I have not investigated why some items whose listed ingredients are seemingly kosher are not marked kosher. I’m worried that if I investigate, the foods will turn out to 100% tref and I’ll have to give them up. I sometimes burn cd’s. I spend saturday doing most of the stuff that you’re not supposed to do on the Sabbath.[/sub]

The Voice In Other People-
Some people seem to carry the presence with them. My Bubby had it. I never saw her express a negative emotion. She was never vain, angry, or greedy. When she found out that the family that had been vandalizing her store and telling her ‘get out of our neighborhood, kike’ was having financial problems, she started leaving anonymous bags of groceries(Bubby ran the corner store) on their doorstep.
The Rabbi who performed my circumcision had it. His name was Isaac. It suited him. He was a joyful man who loved jokes. Yitzhak is the Hebrew word for laughter.

      There have been other times. A friend's aunt gave her free passes to an Eckankar conference. The friend wanted to see if Eckancar was a money making scheme, a cult, or a genuine faith. One of the leaders of the conference did have the Presence. Whatever else was going, that man was genuinely doing his best to serve his fellow man and G-D as he understood him.

      At a december flea market, I met a post-operative male-to-female transsexual(sadly, I don't remember how that came up). Before she started the transition process, she had been the cantor (kind of choir leader, chief singer) of her temple. When she told them, they threw her out. So she prayed on her own. From saying the moh d'anni before getting out of bed in the morning to shema before laying down at night. She continued to serve G-d as strongly as she had before. I would have talked to her all day. But it was about 0 that day.

 I feel the Presence in many of Polycarp's post. In those, he speaks with a voice greater than his own. 

Again IMHO, some the Bible is neither literal nor inerant. I can feel the Presence in some parts. Other parts seem to be just words.

Re-RPG
What system? In most systems, an agnostic world would be difficult or impossible. If there is no god(s) why do holy symbols provide protection from vampires? If there are no deities how do the priests do their magics? It could be argued that there are no gods and the priests do some form of subconscious magic. But wouldn’t research by the great mages uncover this?

Some of The World Of Darkness games work well as agnostic. Since holy ground and objects are not inherently harmful to vampires and don’t keep them at bay, it may well be that G-d isn’t protecting the priest from the hungry vamp. Perhaps the priest’s faith has given him a psychic power. If you keep out certain suppliments, it’s easy to keep the players guessing.

[Mars_Horizon]

You can call it the voice of God. I call it a “well developed conscience”, but I won’t quibble as long as I am not required to subscribe to a given theist’s views.

I do find it interesting that in the times that the Bible was compiled, people found it ordinary and expected that a diety would speak out loud. Yet today if you went around claiming to hear voices, they’d lock you up! Anyway…

Originally posted by Edlyn ***
I only do the devil’s bidding when I act without love.*

Edlyn - that’s a nice way of putting it. Tell your husband that his presence is missed, would you?

[bittersweet]

*Originally posted by tdn *
**Over a number of years various people have told me that God has spoken to them. Being an agnostic, I’ve always been somewhat skeptical of this. But a question keeps bugging me, and now I’m literally dying (figuratively speaking) for an answer.

If God talks to you, in what way do you perceive Him? Warm fuzzy feeling? An outward sign (like a flock of crows)? Intuition? E-mail?

Yes, I am serious about this question. **

I too am agostic. God may try to talk to me, but I probably don’t listen. If He wanted me to pay attention, He’d have to do something that was of an obviously divine nature to get me to listen up.

[tdn]

*Originally posted by DocCathode *
Re-RPG
What system? In most systems, an agnostic world would be difficult or impossible. If there is no god(s) why do holy symbols provide protection from vampires? If there are no deities how do the priests do their magics? It could be argued that there are no gods and the priests do some form of subconscious magic. But wouldn’t research by the great mages uncover this?

Harn. It’s a subtle world where vampires do not normally run rampant, and priests don’t usually have immense powers. Are the powers they do have of a divine nature or magical? It’s a source of contention, and mages and priests often look at each other with suspicion. Mages might look into it further, but the churches are strong. To question religion often finds you on the wrong end of a bonfire. Not to mention that the mages are not eager to question the world, as they themselves don’t want to maintain a high profile.

[fessie]

The dream I had last month is a nice, distinct story of God speaking to me in specific response to my prayers on a particular evening. I’m not Christian, I don’t study the Bible - I prefer Eastern religious writings - so when I say God I’m just using that as shorthand for all descriptions of the Infinite Is.

First you have to know two things about me; one, that I’ve been wrestling with a huge dilemma concerning my life’s work, a problem I’ve had for 20 years, through 37 jobs. And it’s only getting worse over time - when I had the dream I was deeply depressed about the responsibility and uncertainty of my choices. I knew what I wanted to do with my life, but didn’t have the courage to do it because I couldn’t see where it would lead, my desires seemed too selfish, uncertain, the results aren’t guaranteed. I want to find a sure thing, a legitimate thing, but my soul wants to accomplish something else. So I’ve been torn between the two, and that’s why I was praying for guidance.

The second thing to know is that I love to drive. I love my car, I’ve put 40,000 miles on it in the last 18 months.

My dream began in my husband’s car, with him at the wheel. We’re driving quickly in heavy traffic and the road is twisting, turning, going up and down hills. So that it’s impossible to see far ahead, the road disappears behind a curve or down an embankment. There’s a lot of cars and noise. And I’m telling Hubby to slow down, grabbing his arm, I can’t see. But he’s calm, confident about the road ahead. And he’s right, the road does continue past where I can see it. He’s showing me his route, and it keeps unfolding as he keeps driving.

Next I’m by myself, in my car. I’m driving on the most amazing road, right between two bodies of water. I can’t see the horizon or any landmarks, just water all around and huge sky. It’s a misty blue day, the water is clean like mirrors, the air is wet and fresh. I’m following a car, for some reason there’s two of us on this narrow road. And the water starts lapping up onto the road. I want to run, flee. Now it’s covering the road completely, and the other car has vanished. I’m by myself, and I’m driving on water…and then I realize it’s okay, the road is still there. First I was so afraid, then I felt such joy.

That’s what it’s like for me.