Communicating with Him

[FallentoReason]

To me it looks like both you and Undecievied have similar experiences. The only difference is to what you see as the cause of that experience. Undecieved believes God initiates a physiological response to devotional activities. You see a physiological response to valued mental constructs. Taken from a dualist perspective, Undecieved appears to invoke an unnecessary element, God, to describe the experience.

I can't speak for Undeceived's experiences, but I know in my heart that what I described in my post is definitely what I used to do. Whenever I felt inspired to compose songs I thought it was because I was doing God's Will of spreading his message. Now I feel just as inspired simply because the passion I have for music is what gets me composing anyways. So the inspiration is still there which means that it was more sensible to say that I used to get inspired because I like to compose. God didn't make a difference in that respect.

It's not that I want to take away from Undeceived's experiences but because I have been on both sides at some stage, I know for myself what I was really feeling at the time.

What exactly is the difference between the emotion a person feels when they ‘hunger for the Word of God’ and infernal fire that drives lustful impulses? I see both as confirmation that you have made something an important part of your being, for good or evil. The only test I can currently imagine for telling one from the other is to evaluate the effect it has on one’s life, i.e. the ‘fruits’.

On the topic of music again, I went to a gig last night and saw blessthefall and Northlane. Blessthefall are Christians and Northlane are definitely not. They both produce the same fruits even though one has God on their side. So how would we evaluate how their lives have changed, because from the outside they look identical? Maybe if you elaborate on the 'fruits' part I can understand what you mean.

If I were FallentoReason I'd be rather pissed off with you right about now.

You're seriously comparing FtR's efforts to start up missionary work and raising the necessary funds, to you getting off your fat arse to go to church for one Sunday morning service?

I think he meant that after 8 years of missionary work he felt just as lost as before he even became a Christian(?)