Hearing gods Voice

[Babdah]

I read this article and started think that if Rick Perry prayed for three days for rain and none came, so I ask the people at my family’s church that they shouldn’t go to the doctors and pray that god would heal them. I also told my parents the same thing, my dad laughed, and said that he wasn’t taking the chance because maybe god didn’t want him around where as he wanted to stick around for a little longer.  In this article it also talks about mental illness, do you agree that if people that attend churches and supposedly hear the voice of god have a mental illness?

Here is the article ---> http://www.politicususa.com/en/michele-bachmann-god-voice

Wasn't to sure were to put this post.

[velkyn]

I don't know if it's a full blown mental illness, though for some I'm sure it is.   I often see it as the mindset of a child.  Religion seems to infantilize people to a stunning degree.   They want a big powerful thing to agree with them and support their decisions since they don't have the moral chops to do it for themselves.

[Nick]

Of course not...what, I don't know. What did he say? If you shut up long enough I will tell you.

[Samuelxcs]

I read this article and started think that if Rick Perry prayed for three days for rain and none came, so I ask the people at my family’s church that they shouldn’t go to the doctors and pray that god would heal them. I also told my parents the same thing, my dad laughed, and said that he wasn’t taking the chance because maybe god didn’t want him around where as he wanted to stick around for a little longer.  In this article it also talks about mental illness, do you agree that if people that attend churches and supposedly hear the voice of god have a mental illness?

Here is the article ---> http://www.politicususa.com/en/michele-bachmann-god-voice

Wasn't to sure were to put this post.

I did this a few times; I thought about it raining and it did rain. I even claimed to people it would rain and it did so heavily. I didn't pray either. Maybe that was luck or something but it happened, but I am glad it did, I like rain.

[gonegolfing]

I read this article and started think that if Rick Perry prayed for three days for rain and none came, so I ask the people at my family’s church that they shouldn’t go to the doctors and pray that god would heal them. I also told my parents the same thing, my dad laughed, and said that he wasn’t taking the chance because maybe god didn’t want him around where as he wanted to stick around for a little longer.  In this article it also talks about mental illness, do you agree that if people that attend churches and supposedly hear the voice of god have a mental illness?
Here is the article ---> http://www.politicususa.com/en/michele-bachmann-god-voice

Wasn't to sure were to put this post.

Yes. Without question. And if that label seems a tad too harsh then they are at the very least suffering from severe mental abnormalities  

[velkyn]

I should add that we always hear about people hearing god and god telling them to do awful things like kill their children which they promptly do.   

Many Christians will of course say that it couldnt' have been their god since their god is just a bowl of sunshine and kitten farts.  However, from the bible we have this god saying kill your son, kill children of other tribes, personally killing the first born in Egypt, letting children be killed in the "massacre of the innocents", etc quite often.   So, we have a god with an MO that has murder as a common thing and seems to be continuing this.

And again we have competing claims of whatt God "really" said unprovable by any stripe of Christian. 

[kardula]

I read this article and started think that if Rick Perry prayed for three days for rain and none came, so I ask the people at my family’s church that they shouldn’t go to the doctors and pray that god would heal them. I also told my parents the same thing, my dad laughed, and said that he wasn’t taking the chance because maybe god didn’t want him around where as he wanted to stick around for a little longer.  In this article it also talks about mental illness, do you agree that if people that attend churches and supposedly hear the voice of god have a mental illness?

Here is the article ---> http://www.politicususa.com/en/michele-bachmann-god-voice

Wasn't to sure were to put this post.

If I look at it objectively, then my talking with god can only be summed up by saying I'm delusional or hallucinating. As with most people who hallucinate, it's really really hard to convince us what we're seeing/hearing isn't real, you know the whole "my perception is my reality" thing. I don't think that a belief in communicating with god can be objectively determined to be a mental illness, but if you're hearing voices it can. IME god doesn't always communicate in and auditory voice.

[velkyn]

If I look at it objectively, then my talking with god can only be summed up by saying I'm delusional or hallucinating. As with most people who hallucinate, it's really really hard to convince us what we're seeing/hearing isn't real, you know the whole "my perception is my reality" thing. I don't think that a belief in communicating with god can be objectively determined to be a mental illness, but if you're hearing voices it can. IME god doesn't always communicate in and auditory voice.

this seems to be splitting hairs for your benefit, kardula.  Hearing voices, any kind of "communicating" with something that is not there seems to be equivalent. 

[Nam]

Indoctrination, which I feel most people are when concerned with religion, is not an illness.  Those who are not indoctrinated into various religions with a deity of sorts, I feel, those people may believe that they can't live without the strength of something else to help them along.  I have no problem with people like that; if they need such fallacies in their life to get them by, by all means: go for it -- just don't assume since it may work for you that you should convert others to your way of thinking.  That's my only real problem with religion. 

-Nam

[ungod]

I should add that we always hear about people hearing god and god telling them to do awful things like kill their children which they promptly do.   

The Government encourages us to go to church, pray to God, worship God, indeed, even tells us this is "One Nation under God", and, "In God We Trust", yet, when God tells us to do something the Government doesn't like, why, the Courts don't allow following God's orders as a defense!
What's wrong with this picture?

[12 Monkeys]

 I hear voices in my head all the time ....funny enough they always tell me what I want to hear.

 Do these theist ever have a time when God maybe told them the Sabbath is no longer taken as holy,now go down to the mall and kill all who work it(the Sabbath) Well I guess God does tell certian people their children are possesed by the Devil,and to save them they need to kill them so they can be beside God.

 What is even funnier is Christians think these people are NUTS!

[ungod]

IME god doesn't always communicate in and auditory voice.

But when He does, we'd like to know how a spiritual (non-material) being interacts with the material world to generate sound waves. Tell us the scientific details....

[ungod]

[pingnak]

Rick Perry prayed for rain, and half of the state burned down.

Just hope he doesn't pray for the economy....

[Historicity]

I read this article and started think that if Rick Perry prayed for three days for rain and none came,

Badbah, you only got part of it.

The following is not from an article.  It's from the State of Texas' official web pages, emphasis as in the original:

http://governor.state.tx.us/news/proclamation/16038/

Gov. Perry Issues Proclamation for Days of Prayer for Rain in Texas
Thursday, April 21, 2011  •  Austin, Texas  •  Proclamation

TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME:

WHEREAS, the state of Texas is in the midst of an exceptional drought, with some parts of the state receiving no significant rainfall for almost three months, matching rainfall deficit records dating back to the 1930s; and

WHEREAS, a combination of higher than normal temperatures, low precipitation and low relative humidity has caused an extreme fire danger over most of the State, sparking more than 8,000 wildfires which have cost several lives, engulfed more than 1.8 million acres of land and destroyed almost 400 homes, causing me to issue an ongoing disaster declaration since December of last year; and

WHEREAS, these dire conditions have caused agricultural crops to fail, lake and reservoir levels to fall and cattle and livestock to struggle under intense stress, imposing a tremendous financial and emotional toll on our land and our people; and

WHEREAS, throughout our history, both as a state and as individuals, Texans have been strengthened, assured and lifted up through prayer; it seems right and fitting that the people of Texas should join together in prayer to humbly seek an end to this devastating drought and these dangerous wildfires;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, RICK PERRY, Governor of Texas, under the authority vested in me by the Constitution and Statutes of the State of Texas, do hereby proclaim the three-day period from Friday, April 22, 2011, to Sunday, April 24, 2011, as Days of Prayer for Rain in the State of Texas. I urge Texans of all faiths and traditions to offer prayers on those days for the healing of our land, the rebuilding of our communities and the restoration of our normal way of life.

IN TESTIMONY WHEREOF, I have hereunto signed my name and have officially caused the Seal of State to be affixed at my Office in the City of Austin, Texas, this the 21st day of April, 2011.

RICK PERRY
Governor of Texas

Read it and weep.

[Historicity]

Here's another take on the Rick Perry prayer session -- before and after drought maps:



This is from the Firedoglake article: God's Answer to Rick Perry's Prayers for Rain: Go to Hell

[RaymondKHessel]

Hearing voices is interesting.

I can channel just about anybody. Call it a gift. When I'm writing fiction, my characters speak through me with their own voices - this includes ticks and slang. And they'll talk forever if I let them.

I can have entire conversations with friends or family members when they're nowhere nearby, and what I imagine they'd say is usually extremely close to what they DO say if I engage in actual conversation with them.

Even other people's fictional characters, I can just imagine them in my head, and they start up a dialogue all on their own.

Now I'm an unusually creative kinda guy, with a surplus of imagination, but shit. If I can carry on imaginary conversations with virtually anybody, fictional or otherwise, I see no reason why your average square wouldn't be able to have a conversation with an idealized version of themselves (SPAG).

I mean, you'd have to have utterly NO imagination to not be able to talk to yourself. After all, you know yourself better than anybody else, so it's not like you should have to strain to guess at what you'd say in any given circumstance.

I think most people just half ass it altogether, though, and simply call any internal dialogue "Communication with God".  They just let their SPAG get mixed up with all the supernatural/biblical gobbledeegook they've absorbed over the years and just let it go. The more creative types give their god character a certain method of speech (old english "thee"s and "thou"s for example) not realizing that they're just playing the same "let my imagination run wild" game that I use when I'm writing dialogue for a Haitian gun runner or an effeminate Puerto Rican cannibal.

[ungod]

Hearing voices is interesting.

I can channel just about anybody. Call it a gift.

There are probably a lot of skeptics here who doubt your claim, but I believe you and would like to be your friend. Would it be too much to ask you to channel God, or anyone knowledgeable in the Stock Market, and ask for some hot tips, and pass them along to your friends here?
In addition, if you could get us next week's winning lottery numbers, that would be much appreciated, and we wold, of course, share any winnings with you.

Blessings.

[pingnak]

Does god have his own ringtone?

Is it this one?

[ungod]

I did this a few times; I thought about it raining and it did rain. I even claimed to people it would rain and it did so heavily. I didn't pray either. Maybe that was luck or something but it happened, but I am glad it did, I like rain.

Are you a descendant of Noah?

 

[jaimehlers]

I wonder how many people think God speaks to them because their conscience uses a different voice than them in internal dialogue?

[pingnak]

I wonder how many just SAY god spoke to them?

Because they usually say so, after the fact.  "God told me I would win!", "God told me to kill them..."

Or in relation to some demand "A 900 foot Jesus said we need enough cash to fill his super-sized pockets!"

How many people have gone so far down the religious psychotic rabbit hole that they can no longer tell their own wishes from their god's?

But mostly, I think it's just self-serving liars who claim their gods talked to them.

[RaymondKHessel]

Hearing voices is interesting.

I can channel just about anybody. Call it a gift.

There are probably a lot of skeptics here who doubt your claim, but I believe you and would like to be your friend. Would it be too much to ask you to channel God, or anyone knowledgeable in the Stock Market, and ask for some hot tips, and pass them along to your friends here?
In addition, if you could get us next week's winning lottery numbers, that would be much appreciated, and we wold, of course, share any winnings with you.

Blessings.

lol... I think you misunderstood. I don't *really* channel anything. My imagination is active enough that, if I've stored enough info about a character/person's personality, character traits, mannerisms, etc., I can just turn it on, let my imagination get into character, and let the character/person start "talking" to me.

None of it's actually real lol.

[kaziglu bey]

I have always wondered why only some members of society who claim to hear god's voice (or otherwise communicate with him) are considered delusional. I mean, I could go walk downtown and probably meet a homeless guy who thinks that God speaks to him. I would likely think that this man was mentally ill. I think that most people would. Yet, a lot of people go to Church on Sunday to essentially hear someone tell them the same thing, and they are willing to even give that person money. Those people then leave church and continue to talk about God and their relationship with him. Yet they think the homeless man rambling about god is delusional, even while they themselves are not.

I personally think that there is some level of delusion involved for the non-homeless believers. Not necessarily on a mental illness, complete break from reality level, but I simply cannot in good conscience think that someone who believes they are having a conversation with someone when that someone isn't even there is a rational person.

[velkyn]

indeed, what is the real difference between a homeless man who says he talks to god and the Pope?  Other than the thousand dollar red slippers 

[kaboose]

I think that God does speak to people. and people who talk to Him aren't delusional. like honestly i think that's very cruel to think about people. if you had a best friend who was a christian and you knew he wasn't delusional, then what would you say when he talks about prayer? anyway, God enjoys talking to people. Now the difference between the fakes and the reals souly depends on the truths of the heart from where the prayer came from. Like a murderer who says God said to kill someone clearly has issues they need to get checked, but as it says in the bible "All good things come from God." so if i heard a voice in my head (usually in my own voice.) saying like go help so and so picking up the things they dropped or why don't i sit with the kid who is all alone and be his friend... things like that, then i would know they are from God. I mean I personally believe that God plants the general idea and allows us to go about it however we want. I don't see how kind and unselfish thoughts make me delusional. and especially if it's not even always when i'm talking to God. there are a lot of aspects that you are missing from your points btw. And you know, God doesn't always tell me to do things that i would want to do. nothing bad obviously, but something other than doing something i enjoy and rather doing something for someone else. Also just saying 1 more thing, God doesn't always answer prayers in the ways we want Him to. Sometimes He will like straight up, but sometimes He takes a different route. But i mean you have all been discussing something you don't believe in. i think that's interesting. Well just figured a christian figure needed to be placed into this subject since this was about God basically.

[Fiji]

lol... I think you misunderstood. I don't *really* channel anything. My imagination is active enough that, if I've stored enough info about a character/person's personality, character traits, mannerisms, etc., I can just turn it on, let my imagination get into character, and let the character/person start "talking" to me.

None of it's actually real lol.

Hey, I do that too. When I'm really, really stuck on a scene, I zone out (some monotonous task helps, mowing the lawn is perfect), and pretend I'm in the room with my characters. Something new always pops up eventually, making me go "hmm, I didn't think of that" ... while of course, I did.
We need a term for that ... like the opposite of lucid dreaming ... Delirious Waking maybe?
There's a downside though ... I find it very hard to kill my darlings.
(maybe I should imagine the FSM TELLING me to kill my darlings)

[C]

Wow, now you're back kaboose after preaching the shit out of the forums and declaring you have no time for us?

I think that God does speak to people. and people who talk to Him aren't delusional. like honestly i think that's very cruel to think about people.

1) People hearing a voice that tells them to murder their own children or run for president are fucking delusional.
2) It is NOT cruel. It is FAIR. The rest of us shouldn't have to suffer because a group of idiotic and delusional individuals had to fuck things up.

if you had a best friend who was a christian and you knew he wasn't delusional, then what would you say when he talks about prayer?

I'd tell him he's misinformed, was born into the religion or simply never thought about it.

anyway, God enjoys talking to people.

Yes, he loves telling people to sacrifice their children to him, sacrifice animals, apologize for being born, etc, etc. Good god you have there.

Now the difference between the fakes and the reals

Oh great, here we go again.

souly depends on the truths of the heart from where the prayer came from. Like a murderer who says God said to kill someone clearly has issues they need to get checked,

First, learn to fucking spell for shit. Second, you're contradicting yourself. You say you believe God speaks to people yet when murderers say God spoke to them, they are delusional now? Fuck you.

but as it says in the bible "All good things come from God." so if i heard a voice in my head (usually in my own voice.) saying like go help so and so picking up the things they dropped or why don't i sit with the kid who is all alone and be his friend... things like that, then i would know they are from God.

You fail so hard at this. Just get off the Internet and back into the pews with your head between a priest's legs.

I mean I personally believe that God plants the general idea and allows us to go about it however we want.

Preaching, preaching, preaching.

I don't see how kind and unselfish thoughts make me delusional. and especially if it's not even always when i'm talking to God. there are a lot of aspects that you are missing from your points btw. And you know, God doesn't always tell me to do things that i would want to do. nothing bad obviously, but something other than doing something i enjoy and rather doing something for someone else. Also just saying 1 more thing, God doesn't always answer prayers in the ways we want Him to. Sometimes He will like straight up, but sometimes He takes a different route.

Are you stupid or are you just incredibly fucking stupid? I'd say the latter.

But i mean you have all been discussing something you don't believe in. i think that's interesting.

Yeah guys! We are so fucking retarded! We're contradicting ourselves and atheism is really a religion LOLOLOL. It's like we can't discuss things we don't believe in, like MOVIES, fucking GAME CHARACTERS, or maybe A BILLION OTHER THINGS.

Well just figured a christian figure needed to be placed into this subject since this was about God basically.

But seriously, you contribute nothing to the forums other than a bunch of horseshit to be used as examples for future generations of newcomers to see and shake their heads at when they're told to not be like this preachy asshole called Kaboose.

I also loved how you said:

"I am ignorant when it comes to the science of a lot of things. i hope you don't mind waiting for my response. i would like to give it at least a week to gather my information more. Thanks!"

and

"I have been taking time to study both sides. I am going to make my argument when i feel as though i can give you the best possible answer. i haven't been able to get on though because of schooling and stuff"

Yet you come back with dissapointing horseshit. Go back to studying "both sides" and take your time this time. One letter at a time.

Just run away again if you're scared to have your "faith" crushed.

[Nick]

I think that God does speak to people. and people who talk to Him aren't delusional. like honestly i think that's very cruel to think about people. if you had a best friend who was a christian and you knew he wasn't delusional, then what would you say when he talks about prayer? anyway, God enjoys talking to people. Now the difference between the fakes and the reals souly depends on the truths of the heart from where the prayer came from. Like a murderer who says God said to kill someone clearly has issues they need to get checked, but as it says in the bible "All good things come from God." so if i heard a voice in my head (usually in my own voice.) saying like go help so and so picking up the things they dropped or why don't i sit with the kid who is all alone and be his friend... things like that, then i would know they are from God. I mean I personally believe that God plants the general idea and allows us to go about it however we want. I don't see how kind and unselfish thoughts make me delusional. and especially if it's not even always when i'm talking to God. there are a lot of aspects that you are missing from your points btw. And you know, God doesn't always tell me to do things that i would want to do. nothing bad obviously, but something other than doing something i enjoy and rather doing something for someone else. Also just saying 1 more thing, God doesn't always answer prayers in the ways we want Him to. Sometimes He will like straight up, but sometimes He takes a different route. But i mean you have all been discussing something you don't believe in. i think that's interesting. Well just figured a christian figure needed to be placed into this subject since this was about God basically.

Yeah, God just tells people to do good things.  Other things are your own delusions or perhaps demons.  What about that thing with Abraham and killing his jkid?  I guess God di not really mean that one since He stopped it.  Good thing He is quick.  Old Ab was about to do the deed.