Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxd.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxd!rlr From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Professor Wagstaff) Newsgroups: net.religion,net.religion.christian Subject: Re: what does it mean to talk to God [a brief attempt at an answer] Message-ID: <660@pyuxd.UUCP> Date: Mon, 11-Mar-85 19:43:08 EST Article-I.D.: pyuxd.660 Posted: Mon Mar 11 19:43:08 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 12-Mar-85 10:18:13 EST References: <893@topaz.ARPA> <2635@mcnc.UUCP> Organization: Huxley College Lines: 104 Xref: watmath net.religion:5963 net.religion.christian:409 Well, it finally happened. No, really. God actually spoke to me. I now really and truly believe in God. What's more, I see the correctness of the Christian perspective!!! God has explained it all to me. It happened in a dream last night. Now you may remember that someone (I think it was Alan Algustyniak) reminded us that when someone says "God appeared to me in a dream", we should ask if God actually appeared to that person or if that person just dreamed that God appeared to him/her. So, being a very objective and rational guy, I performed some scientific analysis: I asked God if He was just something I dreamed up or if He was really talking to me. He told me to shut up, and stated (rather loudly) that He was indeed God and not my own imagination. Who was I to argue with God? Moreover, He was really pissed off. He told me, first of all, to stop using the name Ubizmo as the name of a deity, because it was quite simply wrong, and He didn't like it. Secondly, He told me not to post to net.religion.christian anymore, because He said so. And thirdly, He told me to print this retraction of everything I've ever said about belief in God being based on wishful thinking or presumption or assuming the conclusion of God first and analyzing the universe from there, and about the nature of subjective personal experience not being a viable guage of reality. Now I know what you're thinking. All you atheists and agnostics with your pessimistic dry and dead ideas and your hostile attitudes are just waiting to ask me questions about my experience in order to debunk my story as a fraud. Well, I'll answer some of your hostile offensive questions in advance. What does God look like? What a stupid question. God is an incorporeal being!!! Jeez! What was He wearing? / A very garish purple lame suit. When I told Him it was tacky, He turned my face into jello (not a very pleasant experience). How did you know it was God and not just your own dream/imagination? I ALREADY ANSWERED THAT! He told me it was Him and not just a manifestation of my own dreams. Do you doubt the word of God? How can God be both omnipotent and omniscient? I asked Him that. In response, He punched me in the face. He then said unto me: "And I thought about it, and I knew it was going to happen, and I did it. And I saw that it was good." Luckily for me, my face had already been turned into jello at this point, so I didn't feel the infinitely massive blow of God's punch, because everyone knows there are no nerves in jello. Who will win the third race at Pimlico tomorrow? I asked Him that, too, during my dream last night. Why do you think I became a believer? What's that? You don't believe me? You say that wasn't God I conversed with last night? How would YOU know? This was MY personal experience, and only I know for sure whether or not it was God or not. Who are YOU to judge MY personal experience, and claim it to be fraudulent and flawed and erroneous? You hostile arrogant vindictive humanist atheists are all alike. Oh, wait, it's not the atheists and agnostics and humanists who are telling me that my vision of God is wrong. It's my fellow Christians!!!!! I'm wrong, they say, because I don't believe in their "god". My vision of God is different from theirs, and they claim that thus mine must be wrong. Well, I hate to tell you this, but I really did speak to God last night, and He told me that you were going to say this, and He told me that you're all wrong, and that I (now) have it quite exactly right. So, Karen (alias whomever), and Ken Nichols, and Jeff, and anyone else out there, God told me this directly: you're going straight to hell and never coming back. I hope you are satisfied. What's that? You're saying that I'm NOT a Christian? That my beliefs are FALSE and INCORRECT? How can you say that? How can you judge my personal experience? You claim I'm just making it all up? HOW DARE YOU!!!! You claim that my vision of god doesn't show the true nature of god, whereas yours does? I say POPPYCOCK! Oh, God *may* deign to listen to your feeble incorrect modes of prayer, but I know that the only correct way to worship is the one I use myself, because I *have* spoken to God. [WARNING: Satire follows.] [Uhh, excuse me, but shouldn't that have gone at the BEGINNING of the article?] [Whoops, sorry...] I know I'm going to net.hell for posting this, but I really am not concerned. The point of this article is to show the "burning issue" of one's personal subjective experience of god for what it is. A person who had the same experience I describe above offers nothing more and nothing less than any other equivalent subjective experience. If you are offended by what I've said, perhaps some personal reflection is in order. Of a more objective sort. If you feel I've attacked your personal beliefs, so be it. It is not any individual's personal beliefs being "attacked", but rather the nature of all such systems based on such beliefs. If you take that personally, that's your problem, I'm not going to apologize for it. I wrote this a few weeks ago and thought a lot about whether or not to post it. I decided to do so, because I thought it offered something worth saying. AND I'm letting it go to n.r.c because it is in followup to numerous other articles on the topic that have gone there. If this offends you, realize that this is an example of satire. It is an attempt to show the erroneousness of a certain thing by offering it in a completely different context so that it may be seen in a different light. If you fail to see this in such a different light, if you feel there is a real quantifiable difference between your experience and my "experience", please explain what that is. If you can't, please say so. At the very least this article will give you a chance to show how your experience is different from that which I experienced... -- "So, it was all a dream!" --Mr. Pither "No, dear, this is the dream; you're still in the cell." --his mother Rich Rosen pyuxd!rlr