My story! I am an Ex-Muslim, became and Atheist. I was visited by an Angel of God.

[downbeatplumb]

This is a verse of a poem i wrote describes the Angel. 

The Angel I saw, his face shining brighter than sun;
   His beautiful wings sparkle like jewels,
His garment was whiter as snow; 
   His arms and legs glow like polished chrome

You had a gay wet dream.
Nothing to be ashamed of.

[robvalue]

The mind can trick you into thinking pretty much anything. It's more than capable of making you think something pulled your leg. To me, that isn't anything special or any further evidence. And that is if your memory of the event is event accurate; every time you access a memory it changes a little bit.

I mean, consider what happens when you are asleep. Your mind fools you into thinking you're in some bizarre, crazy situation every time you have a dream. Also, when you're in the transition between dreaming and waking up, it's very easy for your brain to carry things over so they appear to be real for a little while. I can personally attest to that. Since both dreaming and waking are things happening mostly in bed, I think this addresses what you said about the bible too. The fact that strange occurrences are written in the bible gives them no more weight than any other claims. The language used in the bible seems to suggest that people at that time put massive stock in dreams having significance, and if someone had a dream but said it was a vision, a prophecy or God talking to them, people simply accepted it. It doesn't mean it really was what they claimed. People were very superstitious back then, even more so than now.

[Prince]

This is a verse of a poem i wrote describes the Angel. 

The Angel I saw, his face shining brighter than sun;
   His beautiful wings sparkle like jewels,
His garment was whiter as snow; 
   His arms and legs glow like polished chrome

Con men have started religions with a lot less than that.  But the last thing we need is another BS religion so please don't start one.  

I am not trying to start a religion here, in fact my true religion is Football... I vow for this believe everyday. I have wrote this poem 4 years ago! when i first encountered the spirit (i assumed it was an Angel). My initial take on the encounter it was either a delusion or a genuine spirit. How would I verify the facts? I didn't have a solid foundation of real evidence at that time, a part from the spirit "pulled my leg". And, i have another weak evidence that the same experience might resembles the divine encounter that happened to Daniel in the Bible. 

Maybe i was blind and didn't face the fact it was just a hallucination; believe me when i say, if the same shit happen to you, I bet you will feel the same thing... It seemed the only logical explanation at that time, as i was going through a rough patch in my life and i needed a spiritual guidance. 

Capiche?

---

The mind can trick you into thinking pretty much anything. It's more than capable of making you think something pulled your leg. To me, that isn't anything special or any further evidence. And that is if your memory of the event is event accurate; every time you access a memory it changes a little bit.

I mean, consider what happens when you are asleep. Your mind fools you into thinking you're in some bizarre, crazy situation every time you have a dream. Also, when you're in the transition between dreaming and waking up, it's very easy for your brain to carry things over so they appear to be real for a little while. I can personally attest to that. Since both dreaming and waking are things happening mostly in bed, I think this addresses what you said about the bible too. The fact that strange occurrences are written in the bible gives them no more weight than any other claims. The language used in the bible seems to suggest that people at that time put massive stock in dreams having significance, and if someone had a dream but said it was a vision, a prophecy or God talking to them, people simply accepted it. It doesn't mean it really was what they claimed. People were very superstitious back then, even more so than now.

True that! 

When I was under the negative influence of Islam, I was taught that prophet Muhammad was seeing a vision of himself dressed in woman clothing while in bed. It sounds really ridiculous!, the claim is  according to his wife. Most of his prophecies were absurd and far more than reality itself, he had a vivid imagination, but he was able to deceive and persuade a whole nation with his irrational thoughts. 

[Hatshepsut]

...The language used in the bible seems to suggest that people at that time put massive stock in dreams having significance, and if someone had a dream but said it was a vision, a prophecy or God talking to them, people simply accepted it. ... People were very superstitious back then, even more so than now.

Dreams had symbolism, sure. The wheat sheafs bend toward Joseph in Joseph's dream because Joseph will soon be the vizier of Egypt (Gen. 37:6-8, 41:41). But after the fact. Whether a person having a dream would be accepted as bearing the word of God is less certain. I doubt just anyone could make such a claim and the "rules of eligibility," as it were, are lost to us today. The word "superstitious" is pejorative, it conjures up visions of people cowering in caves or jumping at a bird's shadow. People certainly did believe a lot of stuff we don't buy today; they remained blissfully unaware of today's hypothesis-experiment cycle as gold standard of truth (with a few Greek exceptions). This could make them vulnerable to confirmatory bias and other peeves regarding a nexus of spirit & Mother Nature.

Sometimes even the "superstitious" label is justified, as in the Salem witch trials or cargo cults on Vanuatu. Most of the time, though, I think ancient people had about as much horse sense as we do. Engineers learned things by experiment albeit with minimal theory. More importantly, though, religious symbols were keys to power for those who possessed them.

We live in an age of mass literacy where anyone can get a dream book, have a dream, and put a religious interpretation on it. Back then, only a few elite folks could do this. You, Prince, and I would all be completely shut out of the dream game because we would be peasants bending over grain all day in the hot sun, while the dreamers sat in the shade writing our production figures down.  

[Aoi Magi]

If I wake up to find a strange glowing dude pulling and pinching my leg, my first order of business would be to punch it straight in the face, no questions asked, and then hightail outta the room...

[robvalue]

Yeah, maybe saying "they were more superstitious" isn't quite accurate. Maybe "more prone to superstition due to lack of scientific knowledge" fits better.

Superstition is defined as, "Believing in something for reasons that make robvalue screw his face up weird."

[Hatshepsut]

Of course I don't want to defend ancient cultures as ideal in every way. Our sciences are hard-won tools that really do make us more effective than they could ever hope to be. No doubt some of the "hardness" of "winning" those tools was due to religious obstinacy in the face of new information, as with Galileo, and with the 20th cent. Scopes monkey trial when there was no excuse for it anymore.  

But it does pay to remember that most bible stories are a province & playground for the rich and powerful to symbolize and justify their dominant way of thinking.

[tjakey]

Funny how these "Angel visits" never happen in the middle of the day, at the local Coffee Shop, to a person who isn't suffering some kind of personal crisis or mental breakdown.  They never happen to a someone who is surrounded by friends, all of whom experience the same visit, get to ask their own questions of "The Angel", and who receive actual answers.  The Angel never hangs around for a selfie or two, or scribbles some cosmic secret on a napkin to share with the world, never does anything to leave an imprint anywhere but in the mind of a single individual.  

So, tell you what ... have one ping my email, set up a meet, let me invite all the friends I want, and pick the place and the time. Once that happens I'll get back to you on the reality of "Angels and Spirits."

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Even the Bible says that dreams are BS.

As it says in Sirach 34:1-2 (CEB) = 1 Senseless people have empty and false hopes, and dreams excite fools.
2 Those who pay attention to dreams are just like people who grasp at a shadow or pursue the wind.

[vodkafan]

Prince says that he didn't know about angels till he read Daniel after his experience. But as an ex muslim he must know that belief in angels is one of the tenets of islam. Muslims are taught that they have an angel sitting at each shoulder and they address them during prayer. Prince, your brain already had all the material it needed. It sounds like a typical lucid waking dream. I have them many times, I was prone to them as a kid. Once I saw two elves or little men in my room either side of a sandpit ; one ruffled the sand up and then the other one would smooth it over. My mother told me the next morning that she came in in the night because I was restless and I was asleep with my eyes open looking at the corner of the room. Why elves and a sandpit? I have no idea. My brain was supplying the vision.
But even now I can remember the little men and they were as real as anything to me.