I went out to dinner with a few of my friends. We went to a pretty laid back restaurant where the tables are fairly close to each other. To cut the story short, I pretty much struck up a conversation with one of my friends about morality and a bit of evolution in the mix (my friends' beliefs in terms of creation vary from 100% literal to evolution guided by God). Everyone joined in on the conversation and about a minute after everyone joined in this man sat next to me in the table next to us. One of my friends noticed he kept giggling at some of the things we were saying so she pointed him out to me and I asked him what his view was.
The conversation covered a lot of topics and towards the end it was mainly me talking to this (Christian) guy and he kept telling me that all this discussing and pondering about every last word in the Bible is distracting me. He said I should just start living. Up to this point I was rather amazed because all this research has actually drained me and I haven't really been there for friends.
When we called it a night it was just this guy, two friends and me. In the parking lot my friends said they believed that was an angel because they found it rather weird that he went to eat on his own and that he focused on just me and my questions (no one knows yet that I don't believe by the way). I just went with it and I did have to agree that he seemed to know me inside out.
Being a good friend I told my friend that pointed him out at the beginning. I thought she would be amazed that it was a (supposed) angel. She starts laughing at that and dismantles all the 'pointers' I gave for why my two other friends thought he was an angel. I asked her how she figured all that out and she told me that her past has trained her up to read people because she had lost confidence with those close to her.
So... Two things:
1) How can a Christian know when something was genuinely from God? Please be creative with your answer instead of calling her a fake Christian. You don't know her therefore you can't make that call.
2) Knowledge (in the broadest sense of the word) clearly alters what one percieves. Had she not lost confidence in people she wouldn't have figured this guy out and therefore everyone would have been in agreement that it was an angel. Thoughts?
The conversation covered a lot of topics and towards the end it was mainly me talking to this (Christian) guy and he kept telling me that all this discussing and pondering about every last word in the Bible is distracting me. He said I should just start living. Up to this point I was rather amazed because all this research has actually drained me and I haven't really been there for friends.
When we called it a night it was just this guy, two friends and me. In the parking lot my friends said they believed that was an angel because they found it rather weird that he went to eat on his own and that he focused on just me and my questions (no one knows yet that I don't believe by the way). I just went with it and I did have to agree that he seemed to know me inside out.
Being a good friend I told my friend that pointed him out at the beginning. I thought she would be amazed that it was a (supposed) angel. She starts laughing at that and dismantles all the 'pointers' I gave for why my two other friends thought he was an angel. I asked her how she figured all that out and she told me that her past has trained her up to read people because she had lost confidence with those close to her.
So... Two things:
1) How can a Christian know when something was genuinely from God? Please be creative with your answer instead of calling her a fake Christian. You don't know her therefore you can't make that call.
2) Knowledge (in the broadest sense of the word) clearly alters what one percieves. Had she not lost confidence in people she wouldn't have figured this guy out and therefore everyone would have been in agreement that it was an angel. Thoughts?
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it" ~ Aristotle
