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RE: Silly things you misunderstood about religion as a child
September 14, 2015 at 9:39 am
(September 14, 2015 at 1:56 am)Starvald Demelain Wrote: I thought that Jesus literally lived in my heart when I was about 5 or 6.
I definitely had this one...that drawing of Jesus in the atrium of the heart....that was EXACTLY how I pictured it, too!
this ties into a post I left on another thread...
WARNING:
this is kind of heavy and a bit of a downer,
so feel free to skip this part:
A while back, when I was in the throes of letting go of the last shreds of my faith,
I hit my rock bottom one night...things were bad, in my family, and I had been wrestling with personal issues.
Finally I broke down and wept, prostrated myself before god,
admitted I had no faith left, begged His forgiveness and mercy, and begged for faith and illumination.
This is the point where most Theists would tell you that they fell asleep and had a dream about a great peace and serenity and a voice telling them to "Be not afraid, for I am with you", or something.
I had just the opposite.
I had taken my leap of faith, I relinquished all my pride and reason, and threw myself on God's mercy.
That night, I dreamt normally, until just before dawn.
Then suddenly my nondescript dreams shifted,
and became very visceral:
I still slept, but I dreamt I had opened my eyes, and looked around my room,
and in my dream, my room looked exactly as it would have looked IRL at that hour,
the first cracks of light around the drapes.
I dreamt I felt a cutting sensation in my chest, coming from within.
It was cold and hot at the same time, a searing sensation.
A fissure suddenly opened in my chest, a faint light emanated from within,
and very quickly, a glowing, bluish mist slipped outward and upward, and was gone in a second.
But in that split-second, a face appeared in the mist, and looked, knowingly, right at me.
I knew instantly it was Jesus.
His face was alert and conscious, but expressionless.
And he left me.
The fissure in my chest was hollow and dark.
I woke, and of course my hand flew to my chest, which of course was fine.
I sat up and thought it over.
Certainly it was a disquieting dream,
but the last vestiges of my Christianity left me.
The reasoning part of me realizes, of course, that this dream was my subconscious
telling me I am too old for this nonsense and I don't need it anymore.
But what I would point out to Theists, is this:
If your Jesus really exists, and really is who He SAYS that He is,
why in the world,
when someone has no pride left, no hope left, nothing...
...but pleads for His forgiveness and His guidance...
...why, contrary to everything the Bible says,
would Jesus respond to my plea by allowing me to have a dream of His leaving me,
...unless that is really what He was doing?
In other words,
even if you, as a Theist, think that this was my unrepentant brain
causing me to have a dream about Jesus,
that wasn't really Jesus,
...then why, after begging for faith, begging for mercy,
would he ALLOW my brain to have a dream like that???
Of being consciously abandoned by Him?
It can mean only one of two things:
1. There is no such thing as Jesus,
(and therefore no-one to prevent my brain from producing a dream like that, on its own)
...and I'm right to put away such childish things.
2. There IS a Jesus, but He is a LIAR and does NOT love me.