Hell, or rather my brief experience of it.

[Nine]

Reminds me of whenever people say how god showed them this that or the other. How is it fair that a god would show one person and not another evidence of an afterlife be it hell or heaven? Surely its cheating to show some and not others.

[Cinjin]

Some dreams are fun, some dreams are scary, some dreams feel so very real.

I dreamed about being attacked by a killer clown most of my childhood because I had a very frightening experience with one as a toddler (no real fault of the clown). I assure you, it felt extremely real and even took place in the same familiar setting.

People dream what their experiences tell them to dream. If you had never heard about jesus christ, your dream would never have had his character in it.
It's the same reason muslims have near death experiences with Muhammad and Allah --- guess what --- no Jesus to be found.

Whether the dream actually ever happened or not, in the end, this is just propaganda. Fear makes far more devotees to a cause than love does. The church figured that out long ago. You Tube has ample videos of 'trips to hell.' Every single one of them is significantly different from the rest, and I'm far more inclined to believe that nearly all of them are just liars concocting a grander story than the one they heard so they too can have a moment in the lime light.

In a follow up post you said the words, "the bible tells us...blah blah blah," as if those words mean anything to a non-christian.
It's like we can't get it through your head that no one is buying it.

[Faith No More]

Special pleading only applies if their is a logical inconsistancy being explained by special circumstance. This is not the case here. We are told (I can give you scripture if you like) that all of us can only see or accept God if He calls us. He will only call us if their is something worth saving. The fact that you have not been able to see God to this point does not mean you haven't been called. For not all that are called answer that call.

Actually, it is a textbook case of special pleading. It has been said frequently on this forums that if god showed himself, that would be sufficient evidence for belief, and you have consistently rejected this notion, saying that for god to show himself would take away our ability to do the one thing we were created for, to choose to be with or without him. Then you have claimed to have been shown god and hell, which has violated your will to choose. When asked why you were given this, your reply was that god must have seen something worth saving. That is special pleading.

[Cato]

Drich,

You hear voices and claim its god because you want the voice to be god. You have dreams and you mind conjurs up the biblical shit you feed it on a daily basis. This shouldn't come as a big fucking surprise.

I recommend swearing off the bible for a year and give your mind a daily dose of Penthouse Forums. The voices and dreams are sure to change to something more pleasurable.

[Drich]

Special pleading only applies if their is a logical inconsistancy being explained by special circumstance. This is not the case here. We are told (I can give you scripture if you like) that all of us can only see or accept God if He calls us. He will only call us if their is something worth saving. The fact that you have not been able to see God to this point does not mean you haven't been called. For not all that are called answer that call.

Actually, it is a textbook case of special pleading. It has been said frequently on this forums that if god showed himself, that would be sufficient evidence for belief, and you have consistently rejected this notion, saying that for god to show himself would take away our ability to do the one thing we were created for, to choose to be with or without him. Then you have claimed to have been shown god and hell, which has violated your will to choose. When asked why you were given this, your reply was that god must have seen something worth saving. That is special pleading.

It is appearent you do not understand the answer given. It is impossiable for ANYONE to choose God if God did not first choose them. So for me to say God must have seen something in me worth saving points back to the default reason we All have the same oppertunity to be saved. Their is not 'special' about me or my 'pleading.'

---

You hear voices and claim its god because you want the voice to be god.

I Now receive direction consistant with the scripture so i know it to be God.

You have dreams and you mind conjurs up the biblical shit you feed it on a daily basis. This shouldn't come as a big fucking surprise.

This all happened before the bible "BS"

I recommend swearing off the bible for a year and give your mind a daily dose of Penthouse Forums.

It's funny that you should mention this, For Penthouse Forums or anyone of a dozen other places like it was where i was the night before my trip to hell

The voices and dreams are sure to change to something more pleasurable.

Maybe for a season, and then i would have to go deeper into that world to chase those 'pleasurable dreams.'

[popeyespappy]

Dirch, you need to go back on your meds bud.

[Aroura]

Two words: Sleep Paralysis.

Look it up.

This might prove interesting, as well as bloody creepy:

That is not really a great "documentary" and mostly focuses on the paranormal aspects through history. Though at least they didn't go into the alien subculture that uses this to claim visitation of aliens. It also doesn't include any recent scientific advances in neoroscience related to Sleep Paralysis (like the God helmet being able to create the "entity" feeling in waking people.

[Minimalist]

o for me to say God must have seen something in me worth saving

So in addition to everything else your 'god' is a lousy judge of character, too.

[Jackalope]

Two words: Sleep Paralysis.

I had a single experience with sleep paralysis, which I think I talked about here before. I believe it was a combination of sleep deprivation, stress, and medication. I don't fully recall the details, but I do remember feeling wide awake, completely unable to move, and absolutely terrified. I had a sense that I was not alone in the room, and that those present were there to harm me. The experience was reminiscent of what I've read from UFO abduction stories.

Fortunately, I had the benefit of not being alone, and although the experience felt VERY real, I know that it was not. Had I been alone, I cannot be sure that I could dismiss the experience as unreal so easily.

For what it's worth, I don't put a lot of stock in anything that happens when someone is in an altered state of consciousness.

[Angrboda]

Yeah, sleep paralysis can be nasty. I've had a few episodes.


We're so used to conceiving of ourselves as rational, thinking creatures that we forget that underneath everything is mood and emotion, bathing your experiences, in dreams, or in waking, in significance you did not choose and which may or may not relate to the conscious content. My chosen forum name here, apophenia, refers to the experience of perceiving otherwise random or senseless data, images, sounds, whatever, as undeniably meaningful. I have had experiences in my life where I've converted to Buddhism for a few weeks at a time. And at the end, I could look back and see, some kind of heightened emotional, meaning sensitivity clicked on suddenly, making me seek my answers in the Buddha's teachings, and then just as suddenly, it clicked off again. Intensely meaningful and motivating thoughts from days before, no longer moved me. The neurologist V.S. Ramachandran had one patient whose so-called "God centers" would be unnaturally stimulated on a regular basis, making him suddenly feel hyper-religious, that everything he saw was God, even that he himself was God. Clearly an emotional cognitive response overpowering the reasoning parts. And things can go the other direction as well. I don't dream much any more, but when I did dream, my dreams frequently had horrific imagery; picking up severed body parts and stuffing them in a mail box, going through the neighborhood gathering up dismembered body parts left by a serial killer, mopping up gallons of blood in a McDonald's restaurant bathroom — but I had no emotional reaction to any of it, I might as well having been folding laundry instead of dead corpses. And we all know the contortion of spirit brought on those whose emotion bath is defective, making them psychopathic or sociopathic, in some sense, more victims of their broken brains, as much as the monsters we think of them as. Emotion will make you do the thing you don't want to do. You can't control it, normal or abnormal. I recently had a mild overdose of haldol, the major side effect of which was an inability to sit still, or feeling that you can't. While I was going through the several hour ordeal that is being admitted to the hospital via the emergency room, I could not sit still for more than 15-25 seconds, tops. I would get up, pace a little, lie down, sit up, walk to the chair, sit down, get up, lie down, over and over and over again. I knew intellectually what was happening to me, but that thought was powerless against the overpowering agitation and unrest. After a couple hours, I was still moving every 10-15 seconds, but I was so exhausted, I couldn't keep my eyes open, and I passed out. I came to a couple hours later, having slept off the bulk of the rest of the akathisia I experienced. You think you chose how you responded to an intense emotional experience based on logical reasoning and deduction. You did not. Your brain cooked you up an emotional cocktail, fed it bullshit religious ideas you already had in your head, and turned you loose like a spinning top. You're an idiot Drich. I don't deny the power of such emotional experiences. I live with them because I have a broken brain. But that you have apparently based your whole life (and how you treat others) on these experiences, because you had a loose wire, a hot, sparking, loose wire in your brain; that's just sad.