How Do Christians Know When God Is Speaking to Them?

[Rhondazvous]

If people believe that God told them - after prayer - to move, then they wanted to move all along.  This is no different than flipping a coin.  If you're undecided about whether to move, flip a coin - heads you move, tails you stay.  If you're happy that the coin came up heads, then you wanted to move all along.

So, in the final analysis, God's value is no greater than a 50c piece.

Boru

And if you really want to move then heads you move, tails you flip again. Christians call this "waiting on the Lord."

[Darwins Disciple]

I was in an Army unit that required psychological evaluations. One of the questions repeated several times "Do you speak to God?"

If you answered yes, it would lead to more delving questions. If you really thought you were speaking with God, you would be called into psychiatrists - they would be all over you.

I know of at least 1 person that was removed from the program, Failed Psych Exam, because he heard voices and spoke with God.

[robvalue]

Wow, I'm surprised. I thought they'd probably sent you for an eval if you said you weren't talking to God.

How people reconcile God watching over them with wars, I'll never know.

[Darwins Disciple]

If you talk to God, ...its called prayer,

but when God talks to you, ...its called schizophrenia.

[Athene]

I imagine it's marked by some sort of pressure to the back (non-anal). Or perhaps a tickling sensation in the feet.

[T.J.]

If I'm understanding correctly, the brain can perceive things in many different ways based on the individual. Patterns and so forth. For a hypothetical entity to speak directly to our minds, it'd have to send some kind of signal that can be analyzed with the right technology. Something we can piece together like a puzzle and make sense out of. Maybe some form of telekinesis. How would we go about proving such a thing if it did exist?

Perhaps the 'voices' are more of a defect in the brain leading to irrational thinking, or they're confusing God with their subconscious desires to rationalize their decisions so they hold no responsibility for the consequences of the actions they take. 'The devil made me do it,' essentially.

[Excited Penguin]

Yeah, it's pretty much that thing when you ask yourself something and whichever answer seems right you go along with, except probably more intense than that since you actually have a reason you believe in that it works.

I wouldn't dismiss the possibility that the more you believe the more are your brain patterns modified by that belief and the more distorted your worldview is as a result. Including such normally incredible things as someone talking to you in your own mind. It may happen for a lot of believers yet be so 'natural' for them that it's never classified as a symptom of mental illness. And maybe it shouldn't be either, so long as they're actually high-functioning individuals. Well, of course, being religious necessarily makes you a worse model than a non-religious person, as far as thinking things go, but maybe that's not always cause for extreme measures.


Or maybe... Maybe, they're simply imagining someone talking to them. I do it sometimes when I want to entertain myself, or when I replay a scene from real life in my head, either exactly as it occured, or with my own modifications. The effect is incredibly real, I can actually hear in my mind the voice(s) I conjure up and the process of making it say specific things is so subtle as to be almost automatic. Maybe that's what is happening here, in which case it's actually pretty trivial.

[robvalue]

I've had conversations kind of like this:

"God speaks to me"

"You hear a voice?"

"Of course not"

"OK, how does he speak to you?"

"Stuff happens and I interpret it"

"Really."

[Wyrd of Gawd]

I was in an Army unit that required psychological evaluations. One of the questions repeated several times "Do you speak to God?"

If you answered yes, it would lead to more delving questions. If you really thought you were speaking with God, you would be called into psychiatrists - they would be all over you.

I know of at least 1 person that was removed from the program, Failed Psych Exam, because he heard voices and spoke with God.

Moses heard God yakking all the time.  How do we know?  Because a guy who wasn't there recorded their conversations word for word.

[vorlon13]

Is this the only thing a voice in the head ever tells these people to do, is to kill others?
Doesn't a voice ever tell a guy: "go take a shit on the salad bar at wendy's".

George Carlin

[cough] [cough]

rule 34

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