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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
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Organization: Huxley College
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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