Inconceivable wrote:You're killing me Jak.
I agree, the tornado missed a house. Quite meaningless to the Baptist with the demo'd one next door. A lot of emotion and conjecture there. Not what I'm talking about at all. Neither am I referring to the indoctrination of radical Islamists that have their sights set on sharing virgins with Brigham Young.
I have received distinct impressions while minding my own business. I have witnessed and seen with my own eyes the consequences of either using the information or rejecting it. To anyone that did not witness it could only sum it up as an Faith-Promoting Rumor (faith promoting rumor). I'm ok with that. That is my evaluation as well.
For example (from one of the incidents I related in another thread). I received a distinct impression to slow down and take it easy. I dropped to 65. The morning traffic was quite heavy and I would not have gotten much further ahead than a few hundred yards. Several miles down the road I watch an SUV slide sideways across 2 lanes till the front tire pinned the shoulder and flipped violently end over end. There is little doubt in my mind that in my own conservative calculations that I would have found myself at that precise area had I not reacted positively to this "impression". The impression was simply what it was. I can draw all sorts of conclusions as to "why", but all I do know for sure is that I got a heads up, and I am here in one piece.
Obviously there is no conceivable way for you to quantify my experience. I'm not offended. But because I'm just as human as you are, I see little reason why you would not be entitled on occasion to the same treatment so you can have your own. Don't be surprised if I poo poo it. It's not mine, it's yours.
Now, on the other hand. Last May, while travelling to the Lake we came over a small hill to see that a vehicle had just come to a stop on it's roof in the middle of our path - occuring only several hundred yards ahead as well. I received no impressions. There were some interesting circumstances that impeded our progress that placed us where we were to the timing of this horrific and emotionally charged scene - but I can make only conjecture here of the coincidence. And have little interest in doing so.
With 6 billion people on the planet, life is filled with coincidences. In battle, one soldier is killed, another looses both legs and another has no injuries.
None of your stories support your claim of “spiritual.” They support the fact of propinquity. Faith-based-conclusions are unreliable. You might have been killed. You weren’t. But people are killed every day on the roads. They are seriously injured. They also have narrow escapes. None of that supports a leap to conclusion of “spiritual” anything.
Religious indoctrination tends to make people believe the irrational. Religious indoctrination short-circuits the thinking process. I understand that you were making no reference to Islamic terrorists. The point of the reference was to clarify for you that every religious group, cult, sect, or denomination tends to indoctrinate mindless followers to believe various things which are contrary to fact and contrary to evidence.
You are not Muslim (I presume). Had you been born in a Muslim country and raised Muslim, you would likely believe as any of them believe. Had you been raised a Hindu, you would likely believe as any of them believe. That was the point of the reference. Religious myth impairs the mind.
It was also the point of the reference to demonstrate that religious myths are unreliable. They disagree.
Your escape from a deadly accident is not evidence for some supernatural intervention. No evidence has established such claims. The fact that people make such claims is evidence that they have been successfully indoctrinated. Keep sharply in mind that the dead tell no tales of miraculous protection. Hence, only those who escape to tell their story have a voice. That’s a most important fact to keep at the conscious level.
Further, the most successful indoctrination is that which goes unrecognized by the one who has been indoctrinated. As one recognizes that he has been or is being indoctrinated, he becomes free to employ rational thinking.
Propinquity. You were in the right place at the right time to escape “in one piece.” Had the experience had a different ending, you would not be writing here. Those six miners trapped in the coal mine will likely not escape death in the mine. Some in the same mine, but at a different location, did escape. They were in the right place at the right time to escape. They can tell a story.
Inconceivable stated:
There were some interesting circumstances that impeded our progress that placed us where we were to the timing of this horrific and emotionally charged scene - but I can make only conjecture here of the coincidence. And have little interest in doing so.
“Conjecture” is right. Propinquity. You were where you were as a result of previous circumstances. The “emotionally charged scene” was also a result of previous circumstances. I can presume that numerous vehicles travel the road to the lake you describe.
Denial is a technique implicit in various religious myths. There are rational explanations for both your arrival at the scene and the arrival of those in the over-turned car. I suggest that you should be interested the details in which you claim you “have little interest.”
Propinquity. You might have passed through minutes or even seconds before the scene you observed.
Consider the people who crossed the bridge in Minneapolis just before the bridge collapsed. It was estimated that 120,000 vehicles crossed that bridge every 24 hours. Some missed the collapse by hours, days, even months (for people who are generally not there). Likely, some who went down with the bridge were there for the first time just passing through and just happened to be on the bridge when it went down.
Some who crossed that bridge twice a day were NOT on or near the bridge when it went down. Somebody was late and missed the tragedy. Somebody else was early and also missed the tragedy. For the 100,000 people who drove vehicles on that bridge on that day, there is a story about where they were and how they happened to miss the tragedy. The people who were killed tell no story. The kids who got off the school bus each have a story. By a second or two, they missed the tragedy.
So that in which you say you “have little interest” is precisely that about which you should think. My discussion here is intended to bring that to your intellect and to by-pass your indoctrination which misleads you assume some force for which there is no evidence.
You have stories. Most people have stories of near misses, close calls, or even stories of being in a tragic event which they survived. Propinquity.
We have hundreds of thousands of people in the US. By accident things happen which were not planned as many people occupy the same spaces (but not at the same time).
Your stories give no support to some irrational other world as you appear to wish. No story you told appears to be without rational explanation in a step by step construction of the time-frames and the events.
To believe otherwise is tooth fairy talk.
JAK