[split] Are Questions About God Important?

[FrustratedFool]

So the things that you wanted in life during a dark time: hope, purpose, love, morality, protection, etc you got a strong sense of being true whilst receiving a pleasant numinous experience which you interpreted as being connected to the key religious figure of your existing cultural milieu.

I'm sure it seemed profound and meaningful, and I'm glad that it helped you escape a bad place in your life, and I'm also glad you are not blindly following the bible but rather evaluating it within the light of your own conscience.  But it does seem very much likely to me to be a purely psychological experience, the benefits of which could be had without any belief in the supernatural or Christianity.

yeah - we see things very similarly.

except you think its in my head and i think it was from an outside reality.

If im right - one day we will find out eh??!!  ;-)

Not necessarily; there's multiple possible options. Maybe it was in your head, and we will find that out. Maybe it was outside your head but neither of us will ever have that confirmed. Maybe it was outside your head but was Satan misleading you into false beliefs about Jesus to trick your soul into eternal damnation. Maybe it was this, that or the other.

Given there could a huge range of possible options it seems best to evaluate the experience sceptically and carefully, and if possible also test it and rule out various possibilities. I would suggest caution, especially where intense subjective experiences that occurred in deeply emotional times are concerned; doubly so if they seem to meet a felt need at the time and resemble wish fulfillment.

The danger is that this intense experience could lead you into accepting beliefs and ideologies you wouldn't accept from a more dispassionate, rational and objective consideration. Of that, I would beware. And I say that as someone who was an adult convert who had intense emotional experiences at a difficult time in my life that offered me hope, only to find that I too readily accepted religion and that my poor judgement negatively impacted the rest of my life. Your experience might have been benign, but where it might lead you may not be.