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I hearby tell a story of an interesting dream. Just so the skeptics can "explain it away". I say it is of God.
So nine years ago we move to our present location. We wanted to move here and I accepted a job as a Social Worker and Mrs5150 left her job as an Estate Planning lawyer.
All of these types of stories that I've seen on this board are just coincidental and natural occurences that people attribute hightened meaning to because of the circumstances in which they happened in.
Does any fellow Atheist disagree with me?
Quote:
Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper 88
I agree 5150, that was sort of closed minded of him wasn't it? However, even though Ive never hreard any of your God affirming happenings, I'm sure they can be explained away as natural occurences. If they can, you can't really use them as evidence to support anything supernatural can you? Most of these types of stories that I've seen on this board are just coincidental and natural occurences that people attribute hightened meaning to because of the circumstances in which they happened in.
Im open to hearing more about them through DM if your up to it.
Fine. So to make a long story I ended up being assigned to Child Welfare Services. Very stressful, semi dangerous with dealings with really bad people who were legally, but not morally as parents. They abused their kids, we took them away. Some threatened to kill us. Not what I had in mind. But I was stuck. No turning back. Quiting was out of the question. Stress, stress, stress. The "job from hell" so to speak.
I prayed. About two months into the process I got this strong feeling of peace. Then came the dream at 3AM-I know this cuz the dream was intense and when I awoke I looked at the clock. Made note of the time. Fell back asleep.
The dream was basically this: My boss, Cori, calls me into her office and says: Kent (the director) thought that I should be transfered to a position working with adults who need in home care. (A low stress situation.) Am I intersted? I says yes!
So I go to work. At 11AM Cori calls me into here office and says....just as the dream portrayed. So I began my new assignment a week later.
Coincidence? Or God. Well what are the odds of mere coincedence? And by a dream no less???
I think it is awesome you see the dream as a message from God. I am what I consider to be a "spiritual" person . . .and I would love to receive messages from God . . .if that dream happened to me, I would just rack it up to my intuition.
Does intuition equate to God in your mind? Or do you think God gave you that dream for some reason? Was it God answering one of your prayers?
So let me get this straight. There is a woman out there praying to god to spare her child from cancer. A family crowded around a loved one hoping he comes out of a coma. A driver about to die in a horrific crash and has a few seconds asking god to spare him but God was busy getting you a new job. Ya...makes sense.
I think it is awesome you see the dream as a message from God. I am what I consider to be a "spiritual" person . . .and I would love to receive messages from God . . .if that dream happened to me, I would just rack it up to my intuition.
Does intuition equate to God in your mind? Or do you think God gave you that dream for some reason? Was it God answering one of your prayers?
What is your thinking around what happened?
I think God did a thing to show me His reality.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fallingwater
So let me get this straight. There is a woman out there praying to god to spare her child from cancer. A family crowded around a loved one hoping he comes out of a coma. A driver about to die in a horrific crash and has a few seconds asking god to spare him but God was busy getting you a new job. Ya...makes sense.
While I believe your story and that you had a dream there may have been many factors you did not take into consideration like your demeanour towards your job and your purveyed peace with it all. Maybe this was noticed. It probably bugged you as you sure prayed (thought) about it much.
I would consider it coincidence and good fortune on your part. All the what abouts have been mentioned already so no need to elaborate there.
The power of positive thinking could have a similar testimony but I believe that we as humans can have premonitions although none of it can be empirically proven.
Why would god give you a dream and why did it take two months? Why did he not simply tell you on such and such a day this will come to pass and audibly and in a manifestation in 3D? Theists often make these claims and what I see from a "clinical" observation is that their god can only show them favour within their abilities and circumstances. Now had you gotten a call from Bill Gates and he made you CEO of some charitable organisation out of the blue, something like that would be more akin to a miracle.
This testimony while it may get the accolades of believers, really is nothing more than coincidence.
When I was a theist and believed he was blessing me, he was only able to do that (tongue in cheek) within the constraints of my business, never mind the fact that I advertised, did excellent work, had business partners that also marketed my business with their clients etc. I too testified of how good god was to me and I never failed to tithe properly yet the business failed. WHY?
I stopped doing the stuff I was supposed to do and that was investing back into the business and relying on prayers being answered. In the end all the good and the bad was 100% up to me and what I did about it.
I would guess in your case, if you were honest, you could find the similar influences.
I don't know. But remember and it has been said before...disagreeable behavior on the part of God in no way disproves His existance.
And my post is about responding to what was said in the linked thread. Nothing else.
You say god helped you out of a bad situation. Why do you get help when millions of truly innocent children suffer and die? That cuts to the heart of your thread. So did god really help you or did you just get a lucky break at an opportune moment? Or, did you subconsciously trip the dominoes sometime before that increased your chances of getting exactly what you needed?
I've got an even more "miraculous" event for ya to analyze. Several years ago I tiled several hundred square feet of my old house. I was getting really sore by the end and was probably showing it, so my son (who was only about 5 years old at the time) said: "daddy, I'll say a prayer for you" and did just that. I was thinking "awe, cute... I wish my wife would stop taking him to that *&###ing church " and played along; as soon as he finished the pain in my back vanished almost instantly. I was completely shocked, and ended up tiling late into the evening to finish, even though I'd already been at it since the crack of dawn, all without the backache that plagued me earlier that afternoon.
Evidence of god? My wife is Mormon and my son too... you will have to say Joesph Smith was a true prophet then, and also accept that it's OK to "marry" and bang multiple teenage girls too, not to mention it happened to a godless heathen who didn't even take the prayer seriously in the first place in a situation that was hardly worthy of divine intervention, so probably not...
...Later I learned how the brain works, however. All we think is real is really just a model of "reality" compiled by our brain from available information. Pain is just the interpretation of an electrical signal that is shot down our nerves. Our mind controls all that and can shut off certain stimuli subconsciously...or even consciously if you are a Tibetan monk who has spent his life training himself to control it, for example. It is not impossible at all that some part of my subconscious "shut off" the pain signals because of the external stimuli (my cute little boy who I loved dearly and me being honestly touched that he cared I was hurting).
Not only that, but our consciousness itself is not one monolithic singular personality but the sum total of literally millions of different things going on in the brain at the same time. I've brought it up before, but take people in your dreams, for example. Those characters are "you" in the sense that they exist only in your brain, but you would be hard pressed to see them as anything other than true and separate individuals while actually dreaming. That whole system doesn't shut down when you are conscious, it only gets shoved to the side and continues to operate in the background.
So put it together and you find god is YOU. That is why everyone's interpretation of god is different, why god feels like an actual separate person in your head and is also why "god" knows exactly what you need...and it is also why god isn't always there when you need god. It is your subconscious guiding your along behind the scenes, manipulating your brain model and helping you do things almost unconsciously that will improve your chances of survival. It's a highly evolved psychological planning/coping mechanism and I'm glad "god" gave it to us.
I don't understand what premonition dreams have to do with God. Can't atheists and Satanists and pagans have premonitions?
I don't think a person's religion has and bearing on these types of dreams either. Then again, not all of them have supernatural origins either. The OP was obviously stressed by the position he was in. Employers tend to notice things like that so his job being changed to one that was better suited to him wasn't out of the realm of possibility.
On the other hand, having had more than one premonition come to me in the form of a dream perhaps that happened to him as well.
You just never know!
Being Pagan, I wouldn't attribute it to God, just a higher power.
You say god helped you out of a bad situation. Why do you get help when millions of truly innocent children suffer and die? That cuts to the heart of your thread. So did god really help you or did you just get a lucky break at an opportune moment? Or, did you subconsciously trip the dominoes sometime before that increased your chances of getting exactly what you needed?
I've got an even more "miraculous" event for ya to analyze. Several years ago I tiled several hundred square feet of my old house. I was getting really sore by the end and was probably showing it, so my son (who was only about 5 years old at the time) said: "daddy, I'll say a prayer for you" and did just that. I was thinking "awe, cute... I wish my wife would stop taking him to that *&###ing church " and played along; as soon as he finished the pain in my back vanished almost instantly. I was completely shocked, and ended up tiling late into the evening to finish, even though I'd already been at it since the crack of dawn, all without the backache that plagued me earlier that afternoon.
Evidence of god? My wife is Mormon and my son too... you will have to say Joesph Smith was a true prophet then, and also accept that it's OK to "marry" and bang multiple teenage girls too, not to mention it happened to a godless heathen who didn't even take the prayer seriously in the first place so probably not...
...Later I learned how the brain works, however. All we think is real is really just a model of "reality" compiled by our brain from available information. Pain is just the interpretation of an electrical signal that is shot down our nerves. Our mind controls all that and can shut off certain stimuli subconsciously...or even consciously if you are a Tibetan monk who has spent his life training himself to control it, for example. It is not impossible at all that some part of my subconscious "shut off" the pain signals because of the external stimuli (my cute little boy who I loved dearly and me being honestly touched that he cared I was hurting).
Not only that, but our consciousness itself is not one monolithic singular personality but the sum total of literally millions of different things going on in the brain at the same time. I've brought it up before, but take people in your dreams, for example. Those characters are "you" in the sense that they exist only in your brain, but you would be hard pressed to see them as anything other than true and separate individuals while actually dreaming. That whole system doesn't shut down when you are conscious, it only gets shoved to the side and continues to operate in the background.
So put it together and you find god is YOU. That is why everyone's interpretation of god is different, why god feels like an actual separate person in your head and is also why "god" knows exactly what you need...and it is also why god isn't always there when you need god. It is your subconscious guiding your along behind the scenes, manipulating your brain model and helping you do things almost unconsciously that will improve your chances of survival. It's a highly evolved psychological planning/coping mechanism and I'm glad "god" gave it to us.
Or, your son could just be a natural born healer.
We have barely begun to understand the inner workings of the human brain much less what it is capable of.
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