Fellow Christians PLEASE Help Me!

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I say you should see a psychiatrist to help you come back to reality and not whatever deluded world you're in.

What evidence do you have that such experiences are always delusional? I'm aware that there ARE disorders characterized by delusional thinking that have known causes--like schizophrenia, for example. The world of psychology and psychiatry, however, DO recognize that there are sometimes acute and chronic cognitive and behavioral aberrations that have no medical or physiological cause. Though not commonly diagnosed in the Western world, Trance and Possession Disorder IS one such recognized condition. With no evidence to the contrary, you have to at least admit the possibility of supernatural influence on the psyche when no possible explanation is to be found. Even those who lived at the time of Jesus recognized the differences between natural disorders of delusion, depravity, dementia, and demon possession.

What's more likely, mediums exist but can't prove they can contact the dead, or they're deluded?

How do you know that it's impossible to contact the dead? By asking me another question, you avoid answering mine. I've learned through enough discussion on here never to leave a rhetorical question unanswered. I have no way of knowing for sure, but it seems to me you're asking a rhetorical question and that I'm supposed to assume the answer is "they're deluded." But, you see, this is unfair. Why limit the choices to two diametrically opposed alternatives? I would think that by some sign a medium COULD verify that they really do communicate with the dead. As for evidence for this, consider the Witch of Endor story in the Bible. King Saul used a medium to contact his late friend and advisor Samuel only to have his plan backfire. As I recall, that was the turning point in the downfall of his reign.

The problem here, is necromancy. It is expressly forbidden because it is a human attempt to manipulate the spirit world to bring about results based upon purely human, and thus sinful, desires. One only need consult and trust in God Himself for all his or her needs. Mediums do not claim divine power from God. They can't, because God forbids the practice of necromancy.

However, one who is endowed with supernatural gifts and wisdom may have the ability to communicate and converse with God in vivid ways not always apparent to most people. Perhaps someone open-minded enough to recognize such a gift can put it to work for the glory of God. Such a person should pray that God keep her away from demons and evil powers, but rather replace that which can work for evil with an ability that can work for good.

I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm saying it's most likely a delusion and they should seek help. I deliberately omitted the chance that they could be a medium because it goes against my beliefs.

To be honest, it goes against my beliefs as well. If it weren't possible, it would never have been documented. My issue against mediums is a moral one. I'm not defending consulting mediums, and to be honest, too many who claim to be "mediums" are really nothing more than con-artists. I can say something very general, broad, and profound about you and your relationship with your mother and your sister and you'll be, like, "oh yeah, that's it EXACTLY. How did you now? You must be psychic!" That's not a difficult thing to do, but it is NOT the same things as channeling spirits.

So for the fakes, it's wrong because it makes the thieves. For the real deal, it violates God's order. But regardless, anything that may have been purposed for evil, God can use it for good. And I think what we're talking about here really is such a case.

Dragons have been documented, except we haven't found any fossils.
I'd like some proof of mediums really existing. Until then, I'm going to go with it being a mental condition.

In my books, the dead are dead. No brainwaves, no thought patterns, no ability to communicate.

Fossils are a funny thing.

First of all, dinosaurs and dragons have a lot in common in the way they're described.

Second, you have the nature of fossils themselves. We Christians are apt to point out the lack of transition fossils while hard evolutionists INSIST that they exist. Whatever. The thing about fossils has to do with how they are preserved, Because MOST natural conditions allow for the decay of organic material and even bone, the formation of fossils under optimal conditions is highly unlikely to happen. The only way we DO have fossils seems to happen at times during which we have evidence of MASS extinction. It amuses me somewhat that no one, neither evolutionists nor creationists seem to point out this fact. So of course we don't have transition fossils--why would we?

But once again, science prevails in it's reasoning. If there's no evidence for it, it doesn't exist.

And dragons, if they ever DID exist, would never have been found due to the natural cycles of growth and decay. Dragons are documented as having coexisted with human beings and, as you know, there has never been any such catastrophic mass extinction in human history on the level of the dinosaur mass extinction. The only equivalent documented report of such is the flood that only Noah and his family escaped. Dragons are not reported to exist in the Bible save for passages that are known to be symbolic in nature. One thing the Bible does say about mythical creatures when it does mention them indicates that IF those mythical creatures exist(ed), it was God who was responsible for their creation rather than a pagan deity.

Finally, there is a very interesting passage in Genesis. Verse 1--In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Note that "heavens" here is plural, suggesting the intent was a spiritual, physically unattainable realm. I'm speculating, of course, but it's worth noting.

Check out Verse 2--Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness covered the surface of the watery depths, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.

The book of Genesis is concerned with origins and a sequence of events, not a precise chronology. My wife would sometimes complain to me about certain events in Genesis and how they didn't make sense. I explained to her that often the stories are related in flashback. The order is determined by how relevant the writer (we assume Moses) found them at the time he wrote it. By using clues within the text, it's possible to reconstruct an exact chronological order to those events, but it still doesn't account for a precise period of time.

Verse 2 is an example of this apparent loss of time in the Bible. Why would have Moses began this passage with the word "Now"? In other words, what happened between "In the beginning God created..." and "Now"?

That MAY have been the intention of the writer, or it may not have. We can only guess. But if it's an indicator of a "gap" between one creation and a new creation, it demonstrates at least the possibility of a time of preparation or even an unwritten period of history during which a whole different kind of creation existed which may have been corrupted (just as through Adam) resulting in God's dissatisfaction and destruction of it. Think about it--why is it there are no descriptive revelations of any kind of war in heaven or the origins of Satan until the New Testament? And at what period of pre-history did this occur? The Old Testament gives no indication of anything prior to human existence EXCEPT this possible gap between Genesis 1, verses 1 and 2.

You have to actually THINK about this stuff. I mean, it raises a lot of questions, and where there are mysteries, there lies the possibilities that the explanations of our present questions, doubts, and mysteries lie within these.

Check out this passage: Genesis 6:4--The Nephilim were on the earth both in those days and afterwards, when the sons of God came to the daughters of man, who bore children to them. They were the powerful men of old, the famous men.

That certainly does allow for what we may think of as outlandish stories of extraordinary heroes, such as the Greek myths of their pantheon, the Titans, and so on. The Bible does not delve into Hebrew folklore or mythology, but such passages as I've pointed out here do allow for some basis for those stories, whether the stories are entirely accurate or not!

Regarding the dead--not ENTIRELY true. There have been numerous accounts of people who have ceased all vital signs, including brain waves, who managed to come back. THOSE people HAVE communicated, and I believe what they experienced at the brink of death is our first and best glimpse into what the afterlife is like.

There's enough transitional fossils to prove evolution exists.



No, that's called rationality and logic. Why don't you believe the Koran? It seems to have a steady backing.



Mythological books aren't documentation, they're fairy tails. Noah's flood has more holes in it than swiss cheese. Like how would Noah have enough space, room and food (especially meat for the cannibals) on a boat smaller than the Titanic? This would mix salt waver and fresh water, killing water life. The time the Earth was flooded would've drowned plants, what happens to herbivores after the flood? Do they just die out from nothing to eat? How would the animals reproduce without having hideous mutations in the gene pool due to being in the same family?



You shouldn't look that deep in to the bible, it's been translated so many times that it's not funny.



Yes, but what length is a day defined at? Hours, years, decades? That brings more questions with the timeline, such as how long the tasks took on the days and why space the tasks out to 7 days instead of doing it as quickly as possible. Surely not all tasks took a full day's work.



No, those are people who had near-death experiences. They weren't dead and were hallucinating. The other flawed end of communicating with the dead is that you don't have the dead's witness to prove they communicated with them.

What do you mean, 'translated so many times'?

If you mean that there are a number of translations from the original languages to many target languages, then yes, but so what? If I translated your post into 47 different languages, would that make what you say less true?

If you're saying that the originals were translated, then the translations were translated, and so on in a long chain, and that we only have the tail end of it, then you're simply wrong.

You have to make up your own mind about Noah's flood. Your response shows heavy, baseless, anti-supernatural bias. If you don't want to believe, you're not going to.

People who hallucinate do so because of neurological function, often neurological functions that have been altered in some profound way (drug use, mental illness, stroke, seizure, etc.). If one's brain is unable to function, one is unable to hallucinate.

People who have had near-death experience may cease brain functioning altogether. Clinically, that person IS dead. The amount of time the person "survives" the dead state is irrelevant. Dead means dead. Loss of brain activity means a loss of communication with the sensory world. In that event the person shouldn't be able to tell ANYTHING. But people who have experienced this have revealed some remarkable truths that they shouldn't have had the ability to, for example, accurate and detailed descriptions of people and things surrounding them that they should not have had any knowledge of while they were unconscious. A dead person would have no physical mechanism to even BE conscious. If death is truly the end of life, such experiences are impossible. But since we do have knowledge of these experiences from the people who experienced them, we must draw the conclusion that physical death is NOT the end.

Oddly enough, that's what I thought.

The problem here is not that the Bible has been translated into meaninglessness, though. Get it right! This is false information perpetuated among unbelievers so that they'll have an excuse to go on living in whatever self-created and self-serving world they wish to live in.

Examine the facts. MOST Bible translations--nearly all, in fact--are derived directly from either the Masoretic Text or the Septuagint, or possibly even a comparison of both. The Epistles of Paul also indicate that there also existed various Greek translations possibly related to the LXX that disappeared, probably due to lack of continued copying and use but were widespread at the time. It has even been argued that the LXX might actually pre-date the MT, but most translations favor the MT because the MT tends to be more often verified by even older manuscript texts than the MT or the LXX.

The New Testament existed in a combination of oral traditions and separate books (like the gospels and the letters) of which entire copies of the individual books have been found that date to the late 1st or early 2nd century. The earliest text was ORIGINALLY written (based on clues within the text) within roughly 30 years of Jesus' ministry--I THINK it might have been 1 Peter, but I'm not 100% sure. My understanding is that all the books and letters we accept into the canon were written by A.D. 90. The gospels and letters in use were so widespread and so well-distributed that the church counsels had relatively little trouble accepting them as the Christian canon. The apocrypha were added much later, and well-informed Protestants should have no trouble at all nor waste any time explaining why something close to the earlier canon was restored.

As long as modern translations are consistent with the earliest available and verifiable texts, there is no need to fear that modern translations are inaccurate.

One "translation" of the Bible popular with young people is called "The Message." It's an enjoyable read, but it aligns itself with the most commonplace interpretations of the Bible as it is used in sermons. The use of everyday language makes it an interesting and engaging read, but it should not be confused with more scholarly texts. Even the writers/editors of "The Message" will tell you that. Indeed, I've caught certain depictions that are subtly inaccurate. While the underlying truth of the Message (note the lack of quotes here) has not been altered in "The Message" (with quotes), it is always good to have a firm grasp on what the Bible actually says in order to recognize what it doesn't say. A new Christian believer would likely enjoy "The Message" as a good devotional tool for gaining a basic, fundamental understanding of the tenets of our faith. But if a mature Christian wishes to "love the Lord with...his MIND," a good, thorough study Bible is indispensable. Every now and then I'll catch Brian Houston on TV, and he uses the NKJV. The King Jimmy has long been a reason why I DIDN'T read the Bible, and from little bit I've heard quoted from the New King Jimmy, it's a much easier read. It broke my heart when my parents made me stop reading my paraphrased Bible and stuck me with a King Jimmy. Reading the Bible was more like a mental endurance exercise, and I actually learned very little. But I do like the NIV and the ASV. I wouldn't mind having a "pocket-size" NIV to keep in my car, but my favorite is the HSCB (Hohlman). I think it is extremely well-worded and thorough, with the usual footnotes that explain variations among the earliest manuscripts, not to mention some good commentary to help keep the historical context in perspective. One thing that makes me uneasy about study Bibles is you need to be careful about what you read--there are a lot of them, and sometimes Bible commentary might be interpreted in such a way as to promote one or more secular views in such a way that it is not representative of proper Biblical understanding. The study Bible I use approaches Bible study from a more scholarly perspective. While the commentary is easy to read and understand, it does get quite "deep" at times, and I doubt everyone studying the Bible would really enjoy that approach to study. My copy of "The Message" is written as a daily reading Bible, balancing the Old Testament with the New in such a way as it can be read through in a year. So while one approach might be more desirable for one person at one time, it's not necessarily the way to go for the same person or a different person at a different time or even all the time. If you want to understand the Bible, you really have to be open-minded and willing to approach it in a well-rounded and disciplined way.

But accusations that the Bible has been translated, re-translated, and re-re-translated over millennia are entirely false. Bible translators stay close to the source. You have no need to worry that the Bible we read and understand in our own language preserves as closely as is possible the earliest words and meanings of the ancient Bible. The historical (though fictional) text that comes in second place to the Bible in its rendering and copying is Homer's Ilyad. Though the Ilyad far surpasses other ancient texts in copying accuracy, it still doesn't even TOUCH the Bible.

I've heard that assertion multiple times before and it always irks me, because it is verifiably false.

The bible was originally written in Hebrew, Greek, and a little bit of Aramaic. The copies that we have are in Hebrew, Greek, and a little bit of Aramaic.

There are some rather ancient translations of all or parts of it (for example, the Septuagint, a translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew to Greek from about 132 BC) that are so old they can be useful sources of information. What we have is better preserved than any similarly ancient manuscript.

Unless Noah's flood was meant to be interpreted, it doesn't add up. Neither does Jonah being swallowed by a fish and surving stomach acid, ignoring that there's not enough oxygen down there. Same as people coming back to life after being dead for 3 days.

I think it's just a way for people to feel special, not so alone in the universe and that we're not here by chance. I also think it was a good theory on how to understand the Universe in the bronze age.

Have I read any ancient texts or even the bible? No. I don't need to read books about pink unicorns to dismiss them as being false. What's more likely, a book recounting events that bend modern day science and observation or for it to simply be a story?

I admit, I have made some terrible points due to my ignorance on the topic, but I think my overall point still stands: everything can be explained with science and logic.

How are you certain that the person did have an outer body experience at death? Unless they were having it as they were telling you, you can't pass up the human brain fabricating the memory of having it.

This argument is moving towards the bible's content, which I have only sparse knowledge of from my early childhood, so I think this is a good time to leave.

Stupidly I didn't actually think they were translated from the original languages straight to English, I thought it would've been done from something close to English to English, like Latin.

Whoa, don't stop NOW!! ! lol

You're doing ok, Jookia, and the point of intellectual/theological exchanges is precisely for clearing up misconceptions. This works BOTH ways, and you should never assume that it is one-sided.

I'm just pleased that you CAN admit what it is you do and don't know, and that's a difficult thing for MOST people to admit. Quite simply, just read the Bible. The WRONG thing to do is just simply recycle all the same, tired, old platitudes other unbelievers and anti-theists keep bringing up. I generally stop responding when things just get downright silly.

One false assumption that you are making, to be honest, is the same many unbelievers make: That supernatural interaction with the natural universe is simply not possible. I'm not going to go on and make an atheistic case in support of that view for them, but it doesn't take a lot of work to oppose that view.

But, in my opinion, perhaps a worse assumption than that (if that's possible) is that ancient texts are nothing more than fairy tales. If they are read as historical accounts, then they answer a lot of questions. The problem with understanding historical text is in how you go about determining what is historical. In many ways, the Bible as a historical document holds up to comparably high standards, maybe even better standards, as contemporary histories. To argue that the Bible is not an accurate history is not really different in principle as, say, denying that Abraham Lincoln ever lived and that his name, grave, place in the American succession of presidents, and so forth are merely products of United States folklore. And any U.S. History professor worth his credentials would easily cut you to shreds intellectually if you attempted to make that argument. Further, contemporary histories are often shaded by the opinions of the authors (good, objective historians avoid doing this, but all you have to do is watch American mainstream news outlets to see that at varying times the media favors certain views over others--the liberals on this forum will INSTANTLY point their fingers at Fox News as an example, and conservatives will instantly point their fingers at CNN and NPR. It really does get silly). If all you have to go on are campaign slogans, then historical representation of American politics highly obscures the facts. I mentioned Abraham Lincoln, who had a GIFT for telling his audiences what they wanted to hear. In today's fast-paced dissemination of information, Lincoln wouldn't have made it past the primaries using his approach. "Honest Abe" would have been quickly exposed as a two-faced liar.

So in a sense, the Bible historically presents itself as holding to a higher standard because it isn't colored by political motivations but rather simply expresses the political and diplomatic atmosphere of the times. If you want to understand the Bible from a purely factual viewpoint, that is, as perfectly corresponding to history, read the books of King and Chronicles. Those 4 books seem to have different authorship, slightly different themes, but predominantly function as a report card of the kings of Judah and Israel. We have extra-Biblical evidence of different successes/failures than that presented in the Bible, but Kings and Chronicles are more concerned with how well the kings conformed to God's law--more often quite poorly. Other Biblical accounts, but including Kings and Chronicles, often paint their characters in an unfavorable light. You almost want to accuse the Bible of anti-Semitic bias, but that's not really accurate because, as ruveyn will point out, the Bible was written "by and for the Jews." Thus you have to accept that it is free from a lot of the bias that it is accused of.

But even if the OT is a collection of myth and fairy tales (it's not), you still have to contend with the facts presented in the NT. That Jesus was a real person who taught throughout Judea and Samaria HAS been verified by external writings. Even those who don't believe in Jesus or the God of the Bible have to admit that Paul was the indisputable author of the Letters and there is no reason at all to dispute that. Contrast with the Gospels according to Matthew and Mark, which were anonymous writings (Luke and Acts clearly had the same author, John's Gospel was likely either written by John or compiled from his teachings while at Ephesus). It's very difficult to make a case for the NT as being a collection of fairy tales. Likewise, the OT contains records of the kings, details of post-exilic reconstruction of the walls of Jerusalem and the Temple, prophecies including Messianic predictions, poetry/songs, a compilation of wise sayings, something that might even be interpreted as mild erotica, and the oldest lasting Hebrew laws and traditions. Those things are nothing like fairy tales, and dismissing them all as such is unfair and unnecessary. The NT is PLAINLY not.

Further, the high standards of Enlightenment logic and reason have their origins in Greek thought. These people were heavy debaters and philosophers, curious and open to new ideas, but not really that easily swayed. Paul's arguments are presented in rigidly disciplined logic to match the intellectual values of his Greek audience. Obviously what Paul had to say made at least enough sense to be convincing because his teachings became widespread within the Greco-Roman world at the time. So if it made sense at that point in time when audiences were actually a lot tougher than they are now, why can't it still make sense now when more people value keeping an open mind? Well, there ARE reasons for that, but not reasons based on the facts of the text. The fact is that Christianity has enjoyed prominence as a Western religion for a long time. Living in free societies such as we do now allows us the room to question the validity of religion, same as in the early days of Christianity. But because of Christianity's history and prominence, it's a lot easier to reject it as mere tradition or status quo, especially since Christianity forces its adherents to decide on issues and take a stand. It's easier to live "according to the world" because of the seductive attractiveness of what secular life offers, but it's better spiritually to live "according to the Word," even if it isn't always easy and convenient. If I have to decide between a few short decades on earth or an eternity in God's presence, it shouldn't be too difficult to figure out what and why regarding the choice I've made.