The salvation experience has always puzzled me

uNdkbbs.jpg
 
T. A. Gardner said:
I remember James "The Amazing" Randi. I actually got to see him perform "psychic surgery" live. He was in Arizona as an expert witness in a case involving a Mexican man who was doing that in Phoenix. The state charged him with the deaths of several of his "patients" and for practicing medicine without a license. His defense was he was performing religious miracles.

Sitting say ten feet from Randi who was doing his thing on a member of the small audience, it sure looked real, but it was all a magic trick. I thought it was funny when he tried to spray those closest with 'blood.' It didn't quite reach them, however.
Click to expand...

For good reason: it would taste like corn syrup and red dye #2. LOL
 
Frank Apisa said:
Your blind guess that there is a god...may be correct. Which means it also may not be correct.

Your "faith" is merely you insisting that the blind guess is correct.

Ya gotta think about it for a bit.
Click to expand...

I was just narcissist enough to not give a flying fuck if there was a God or not!
Till I had a Epiphany and was chosen,I had no say in it,I was chosen and there's no way out.
 
AProudLefty said:
...Blah, blah, blah. Then all of sudden I was struck with the experience of being drugged up. I looked around and those people were giddy as hell. They would believe anything and would laugh at everything. I looked at my friend and she looked at me and laughed. The most happiest crowd ever!

I was like whoa! What the hell was that?

So it got me thinking. Hmm maybe they use some kind of chemicals. Not unheard of in the covert projects, especially the CIA and their mind control projects.

It might sound far fetched, but is it?

That's really brilliant way to control the masses and make billions out of it. Keep them in power.
Click to expand...

Filled the room with a touch of nitrous oxide? Maybe just extra O2?

While drugs could be put in the sacramental wine or wafers, controlling the dosage would be problematic since killing a parishioner would trigger an investigation.

IMO, it wouldn't take much. Just a little boost since most are there in good spirits and to share. Get a few going and the giddiness could become socially infectious.

BTW: https://www.britannica.com/topic/religious-experience
religious experience, specific experience such as wonder at the infinity of the cosmos, the sense of awe and mystery in the presence of the sacred or holy, feeling of dependence on a divine power or an unseen order, the sense of guilt and anxiety accompanying belief in a divine judgment, or the feeling of peace that follows faith in divine forgiveness. Some thinkers also point to a religious aspect to the purpose of life and the destiny of the individual....

...All religious experience can be described in terms of three basic elements: first, the personal concerns, attitudes, feelings, and ideas of the individual who has the experience; second, the religious object disclosed in the experience or the reality to which it is said to refer; third, the social forms that arise from the fact that the experience in question can be shared. Although the first two elements can be distinguished for purposes of analysis, they are not separated within the integral experience itself. Religious experience is always found in connection with a personal concern and quest for the real self, oriented toward the power that makes life holy or a ground and a goal of all existence. A wide variety of individual experiences are thus involved, among which are attitudes of seriousness and solemnity in the face of the mystery of human destiny; feelings of awe and of being unclean evoked by the encounter with the holy; the sense of a power or a person who both loves and judges humanity; the experience of being converted or of having the course of life directed toward the divine; the feeling of relief stemming from the sense of divine forgiveness; the sense that there is an unseen order or power upon which the value of all life depends; the sense of being at one with the divine and of abandoning the egocentric self.
Click to expand...
 
Doc Dutch said:
Filled the room with a touch of nitrous oxide? Maybe just extra O2?

While drugs could be put in the sacramental wine or wafers, controlling the dosage would be problematic since killing a parishioner would trigger an investigation.

IMO, it wouldn't take much. Just a little boost since most are there in good spirits and to share. Get a few going and the giddiness could become socially infectious.
Click to expand...

Well it has established that the effect of N20 doesn't last long.

And it wasn't a Catholic service.
 
Mason Michaels said:
I was just narcissist enough to not give a flying fuck if there was a God or not!
Till I had a Epiphany and was chosen,I had no say in it,I was chosen and there's no way out.
Click to expand...

What? Was that like a UFO abduction where they probed you in places you did not want to be probed, or something? :laugh:
 
AProudLefty said:
When I was "saved" at 9 years old, I experienced a total rapture. Total joy. Ecstasy.. The feeling of floating and you think you could fly away. You feel cleared and clean in your body. And so on.

So the question is: what was that? What was that that happened to me?

Is it psychological? Mass hysteria and delusion can be eliminated because it was pretty much one to one prayer, despite other deaf kids being involved in groups with other counselors.

Is it the music? That can be eliminated because it was a deaf camp. But it is unmistakable that music does have a range of influence on people, especially the easily swayed.

So that leaves at least two possibilities: it was a genuine experience or I was sprayed with some kind of chemicals.

Now on to the megachurches. James Randi have exposed the megachurches and the televangelists for the frauds they are.

He has discovered and exposed their multiple techniques for swaying the audience.

A few examples: Have attendants fill up a card explaining their situations, heavy music that can easily influence them, possibly combined with low frequency harmonics (see MKUltra), have few "helpers" who pretend to be a part of the audience and so on. That's a few off of the top of my head.

Now to the nexus of my question/point about the experience. As I have stated, a lot of them can be eliminated with me.

The reason why I thought about this is because I had a dream one night where I went with a friend to her favorite new church. We were sitting there like they normally would. Listening, singing, pastor hollering and so on.

Blah, blah, blah. Then all of sudden I was struck with the experience of being drugged up. I looked around and those people were giddy as hell. They would believe anything and would laugh at everything. I looked at my friend and she looked at me and laughed. The most happiest crowd ever!

I was like whoa! What the hell was that?

So it got me thinking. Hmm maybe they use some kind of chemicals. Not unheard of in the covert projects, especially the CIA and their mind control projects.

It might sound far fetched, but is it?

That's really brilliant way to control the masses and make billions out of it. Keep them in power.
Click to expand...

You're out of your fucking mind.

Hate has consumed you to the point you fantasize insane conspiracy theories.
 
Mason Michaels said:
I was just narcissist enough to not give a flying fuck if there was a God or not!
Till I had a Epiphany and was chosen,I had no say in it,I was chosen and there's no way out.
Click to expand...

And how do you know you are not deluding yourself that this supposed maker of the entire universe "chose" you?
 
Mason Michaels said:
Because I tried to quit,endlessly for a year or so.
Click to expand...

That does not answer my question, Mason.

How do you know you are not deluding yourself?

ASIDE #1: By the way, one does not try to "quit endlessly for a year or so." One either tries to quit endlessly...or tries to quit for a year or so.

ASIDE #2: Earlier you asserted that I have no faith. Well, perhaps I was more successful than you in "quitting." I had enough faith at one time so that I served Mass in St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. I also served as an Acolyte in a High Mass for a Cardinal...the Catholic Primate of England.
 
Frank Apisa said:
That does not answer my question, Mason.

How do you know you are not deluding yourself?

ASIDE #1: By the way, one does not try to "quit endlessly for a year or so." One either tries to quit endlessly...or tries to quit for a year or so.

ASIDE #2: Earlier you asserted that I have no faith. Well, perhaps I was more successful than you in "quitting." I had enough faith at one time so that I served Mass in St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. I also served as an Acolyte in a High Mass for a Cardinal...the Catholic Primate of England.
Click to expand...

I can't make you understand ,because your mind is just to the possibility!
Because to follow your logic a 26 year old narcissist who didn't care or think about God.One night at midnight Nov 1 1975 out of nowhere decided to start believing .
And claimed the Holy Spirit came on him.
I could see your point if I was searching but I wasn't.
Quite the opposite my reaction was leave me alone you have millions of willing followers why are you bother me!
 
Mason Michaels said:
I can't make you understand ,because your mind is just to the possibility!
Because to follow your logic a 26 year old narcissist who didn't care or think about God.One night at midnight Nov 1 1975 out of nowhere decided to start believing .
And claimed the Holy Spirit came on him.
I could see your point if I was searching but I wasn't.
Quite the opposite my reaction was leave me alone you have millions of willing followers why are you bother me!
Click to expand...

All very interesting. But one thing that I am wondering about...and perhaps you can help me with it.

How do you know you are not deluding yourself?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top