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Feelings come and go..if it was just feelings I wouldn't have the faith in God that I do..there were many times it would have been much easier not to believe..and many feelings that came along that were powerful and should have swept my belief in God away if that's all my faith was about..but God has always been there, eternal and unchanging..providing stability in the midst of the chaos..providing truth that is real and tangibly useful in life.

It depends on what you think the nature of truth is..whether it is relative or absolute to you..because in the relative truth world, feelings are king..you are always running a race you can never win. in the world of absolute truth, feelings are like shifting sand..they aren't a foundation for what is real..you must plant yourself on a rock to be well grounded

In reply to this comment by Crunchy:
>> ^shinyblurry:

Well, if I am psychotic I don't have any symptoms. I don't have hallucinations or hear voices, nor am I at all paranoid. My thoughts and feelings are organized and stable. I obey all laws, those of society and those from God. I have empathy for others, compassion for their plights, and generally love and care for my fellow man. I am emotionally stable and can relate to others and form relationships. If I am psychotic, I am the rare well adjusted empathetic type.
My initial experience opened me to an awareness of the spiritual. It started out as an awareness of energy. That in the moment, one could perceive the energy which was flowing through all things. Through other people, through objects, through the room or space you are in..that there was a tangible vibrational signature to everything. This is somewhat described in much of the new age literature.
After getting used to this, God unequivicably showed me He was there. He did this by instructing me in the Spirit about who He is. He showed me how He had always been there my entire life, and that He loved me. He showed me His omnipresence in the moment, that He was always working behind the scenes to bring all things together to His will..and by all things I mean everything, everywhere. He showed me He was the unifying principle underlying reality.
He also taught me He is the God of the bible. He taught me He is a triune God. He taught me there is a messiash, ie, someone whose job it is to save the world. He taught me about good and evil. He showed me that Satan is real and that he has a host of demons which suborindate people to his will and can even possess them utterly. That and many other things before I even knew anything about Christianity.
I couldn't ignore God if I tried..it would be a joke. I would have to pretend He didn't exist. Even still, all I would have to do is look outside and the illusion would be shattered. It is true what this scripture says:
Romans 1:20
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
So that's a little bit about it. The most important thing I learned is that God loves us and wants to give us a real future, ie eternal life. All he requires is that we turn from our evil and acknowledge our responsibility to Him to live a moral life. Two things make someone a Christian and saves you..believing in your heart that Jesus rose from the dead, and confessing that He is your Lord and Savior. He died for our sins so that we could be redeemed, and because of that, is worthy of all praise.

<em>>> <a rel="nofollow" href='http://videosift.com/member/shinyblurry#comment-1231303'>^Crunchy</a>:<br />Hi, big fan... Ive seen your comments on some sifts and well... they've been interesting and when reading your profile i came across this <BR><BR>"10 years ago I was where you are now. I've was agnostic for the majority of my life. I thought truth was relative, humanism was superior, and was a strict materialist who saw no evidence for spirit or God. Then God woke me up and showed me He is there. God is more real to me than my own reflection in a mirror. I'm here because God commanded me to preach the gospel, and because I care about my fellow man. I am here out of love for God and love for people, and that alone. "<BR><BR>What scared me is that you say that you've been "one of us" and then god appeared and gave commands directly to you, point being you experienced something supernatural.<BR><BR>Now my first reaction was, oh god i hope i dont become bat shit and experience "supernatural" things one day, which seemd plausible since you said you've been one of us.<BR><BR>But then i remembered what i know about the human mind and psychosis. When a person is in a psychosis he/she is deemd mentally insane and has lost contact with reality. "Funny" thing is though, that the person is not aware of it, and so does not feel that there is anything wrong with him/her and might get frustrated about why people think he/she is insane.<BR><BR>Now there are alot of things that can create a psychosis but im not gonna start listing, if youre interested you can google it.<BR><BR>There are no hard lines when it comes to the human mind, theres no 100% insane or 100% sane, everyone have most of the mental illneses to some small extent. And we can witness symptoms of these diseases in most people to some extent. (Denial<BR><BR>The mind is a tricky thing, it has lots of funny defence mechanisms (you guessed it, psychosis), and if you dont know enough of your brain and how it functions, it can royally screw you over one day.<BR><BR>So... to me it sounds like you've experienced something traumatic and suffer from a psychosis, I am however interested in hearing about what turned you religious, how did god wake you up and show you that he is there, and i notice you write he with a capital H so why is he a he <IMG class=smiley src="http://cdn.videosift.com/cdm/emoticon/tongue.gif"><BR><BR>Im sorry to say but if you dont tell me more about your experience, in other words convince me that what you experienced wasnt a mental brakedown, im gonna continue believing that youre bat shit and ignore you<BR><BR>You can always argue that im the one who is psychotic, but then you cant convince my because im in denial<BR></em>


The thing is that emotions are much stronger in controlling trains of thought than logic, why is why depressesion is so common and when in a depression you think of only sad things, which is why medication is prescribed, its not to make people numb (which alot of people seem to think) but to ease the pain temporarily so the person can think logically and not in the same trains of thoughts. And from my point of view it seems like you've confused emotions and mechanisms of your brain with the presence of a god (stephen fry talked a bit about this in the infamous stephen fry on god and gods video didn't he ?)

Now that is my opinion, ive created that from the experience and "knowledge" ive gathered in my lifetime regarding the human mind, philosophy and religion etc. Its gonna take alot to change my view on this, and I think it might be even harder to change your view of what really happend and what is going on, with the god and what not.

So, I guess we can just agree to disagree?

Happy anniversary! Today marks year number 2 since you first became a Sifter and the community is better for having you. Thanks for your contributions!

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