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

[Iroscato]

It honestly sounds to me like a holdover from the doublethink that a religious upbringing requires of the human mind. All that stretching and straining to accomodate, reconcile or outright ignore countless logical inconsistencies and contradictions in badly translated and factually dubious holy books does not a healthy mind make. Prince appears to be deeply conflicted and obviously troubled, the spectre of abusively ingrained indoctrination struggling against the logical thought processes that can come so naturally to a human brain once it tries.

[Jenny A]

Then explain my invisible dog encounter.

Simple.  It was a sign god really created dogs, not people, in his image.

But as long as he's explaining your dog, he might as well explain mine.  It woke me up barking to get out the downstairs door.  I was half way down the hall before really woke up and realized:  1) I didn't own a dog; 2) my apartment didn't have a downstairs.

---

If you think religion is bullshit then why would consult a religious holy book and why would you believe anything it tells you?

I don't believe in a Holy Book, or a book from God as they say. I read the Bible as I am reading a history book. To examine the evidence regarding the spiritual being which I have encountered, also to compare the differences between the Quran and the Bible. I am sick of the people around whom they say, the bible is corrupted, and the Quran is the true word of God. SO, I decided to examine the facts. To study both religion and I was shocked when i saw some of the similarities between my story and of in the Bible. I thought it was interesting.

Not shocking at all.  Halluciations tends to mirror cultural experience.  UFO reports tend to mirror the lastest movie/TV version of them.  You come from a Muslim background.  It's similar to a Jewish or Christian one, and you saw a Judeo/Christian/Islamic angel.  What would have been surprising is if you'd seen a American Indian one.

[ignoramus]

If I was visited by something at night and it grabbed my toes, I'd grab the 2 by 4 under the bed and yes, by the time I'm finished, there will be blood and feathers everywhere!

I trust and hope you see your angel again. In the meatime, be strong, healthy and happy my friend.

[Prince]

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.

The believe that there are angels sitting on each shoulder,it has to do with writing deeds and not directing Muslims during prayer. I read about this recently. I don't remember learning this fact at a young age, even if i did I must have forgotten it. 

Also, there is another myth in Islam culture that says there is a Good Angel & Evil Angel sitting on each shoulder. I am not sure which story is correct. Anyway, after my encounter with the spiritual being, the only unclear reference i found in the Quran, or in Islamic literature regarding spirits, Angels & demons is that an Angel is created from light, and a Demon is created from smoke. There is no way were i can verify this fact. In addition, that an angel might take a shape of a man. 

While i was growing up as a Muslim, i learned one clear thing about angels, and that Gabriel visited Muhammad inside a cave. This is all i remember from Islamic traditions. That's why i turned to other materials such as the Bible. I thought i could find some convincing answers. 
 

[robvalue]

It's not surprising that angels are almost always in humanoid form, because they are most likely a human abstract construct and not anything real. Just like "God" is really just a super-human in most stories (with plenty of human emotions) even though theists wouldn't like to admit to that now I imagine.

Or to put it scientifically, there has never been any (credible, objective) evidence they are real. Further, there's never been any evidence that anything paranormal/supernatural exists.

I don't know if that helps you, but those are the facts, as far as I'm aware. All we have are anecdotes and speculation.

I'm not trying to say that you don't have what you consider good evidence for you to believe. All I'm saying is that anecdotes are not considered hard, objective evidence because of all the reasons we've been talking about. We would have to take everyone's word for everything, without being able to verify anything at all. I hope you can see that isn't practical. We must have ways of determining which things are supported claims, and which are not. Sadly, it may be the case that something really is true (such as your angel) but that there is no evidence for anyone else to study. If that's the case, those incidents are victims of the system, but the system really does have to be this way. However, if something is real and does interact with us, we would expect some sort of evidence to emerge at some point in the future. It is always reasonable to assume it is more likely that such things are the mind playing tricks.

[Prince]

It honestly sounds to me like a holdover from the doublethink that a religious upbringing requires of the human mind. All that stretching and straining to accomodate, reconcile or outright ignore countless logical inconsistencies and contradictions in badly translated and factually dubious holy books does not a healthy mind make. Prince appears to be deeply conflicted and obviously troubled, the spectre of abusively ingrained indoctrination struggling against the logical thought processes that can come so naturally to a human brain once it tries.

In this case, what do you suggest i should do? This experience is stuck into my brain, cannot erase it out of my memory. I tried to consume alcohol, smoke cigars in hope to destroy some of my brain cells, so i would forget the whole experience that ever happen in the first place. It sounds like a desperate attempt to blow my brains out! 


Psychologically, yes my mind is deeply conflicted between reality and fictitious events.  

[Longhorn]

Let it go, let it gooo...

For real though, it was just a hallucination. Happens. No biggie. Just chill.

[robvalue]

It sounds to me like you're coming round to the idea that it most likely wasn't real. If so, that is a huge step to take. I would suggest some form of counselling, but I don't know what that is like where you live. Hopefully as time goes on its hold on you will fade.

[Iroscato]

It honestly sounds to me like a holdover from the doublethink that a religious upbringing requires of the human mind. All that stretching and straining to accomodate, reconcile or outright ignore countless logical inconsistencies and contradictions in badly translated and factually dubious holy books does not a healthy mind make. Prince appears to be deeply conflicted and obviously troubled, the spectre of abusively ingrained indoctrination struggling against the logical thought processes that can come so naturally to a human brain once it tries.

In this case, what do you suggest i should do? This experience is stuck into my brain, cannot erase it out of my memory. I tried to consume alcohol, smoke cigars in hope to destroy some of my brain cells, so i would forget the whole experience that ever happen in the first place. It sounds like a desperate attempt to blow my brains out! 


Psychologically, yes my mind is deeply conflicted between reality and fictitious events.  

First of all, don't turn to drink or drugs, that's the VERY last thing you need, and it doesn't work anyway.
Second, come to terms with who you are. You have done nothing wrong, absolutely nothing - it's the absurdity of your upbringing and your country that is at fault here. You deserve happiness, not what amounts to self- harming through substance abuse.
Whatever it is you saw - angel, demon, alien, hallucination - it shook you, for better or worse. But that doesn't change the fact that you saw it, or at least thought you did. Look deeper into the links and evidence people have provided in this very thread, and make up your own mind.

[robvalue]

Very good advice.

My long term advice would be to get the fuck out of that country if/when you can and into one more civilised and accepting of differences of belief.