Good Dan demolishes DCP’s favorite apologetic tactic

[huckelberry]

Drumdude, I think schizophrenia is a wide ranging pattern of perceptions that involve a whole large part of a person.

I'm not sure what you're asking about the person claiming the devil made him do it. If he did it, he's guilty as a criminal act. I don't think it matters legally if the devil got him up to it. Well, unless we are speaking of a person with schizophrenia which would be a legal defense.

[Moksha]

The Church tends to leave people like McClellan alone.

It's like the Sterling McMurrin effect. Only those truly wrong want to attack.

[msnobody]

Interesting topic. I think Dan is right that there is no scientific data to prove the existence of angels and demons, or what I would call elohim or non-embodied spirits, yet I have experienced four times what I would call the sometimes seen realm. I saw, what I saw, period, and nothing can change that fact. Just because no one else was there to see it, or I was not toting around a camera in hopes of capturing on film something I in no way expected to see, does not change the fact that I saw what I saw. Yes, I interpret what I saw either by the interpretation being revealed to me (this is where my strongest belief lies, as the interpretation was immediate without my having time to think about it, or reason it in my mind), or through what I know from the Bible (my belief that this explanation is in hindsight from having it revealed to me).

Nevertheless, I saw what I saw. I suppose one would be left to rationalize it in anyway one saw fit, or suppress what they saw as maybe not having happened.

My thought process is now interrupted due to honking geese that just splashed down.

[sock puppet]

Interesting topic. I think Dan is right that there is no scientific data to prove the existence of angels and demons, or what I would call elohim or non-embodied spirits, yet I have experienced four times what I would call the sometimes seen realm. I saw, what I saw, period, and nothing can change that fact. Just because no one else was there to see it, or I was not toting around a camera in hopes of capturing on film something I in no way expected to see, does not change the fact that I saw what I saw. Yes, I interpret what I saw either by the interpretation being revealed to me (this is where my strongest belief lies, as the interpretation was immediate without my having time to think about it, or reason it in my mind), or through what I know from the Bible (my belief that this explanation is in hindsight from having it revealed to me).

Nevertheless, I saw what I saw. I suppose one would be left to rationalize it in anyway one saw fit, or suppress what they saw as maybe not having happened.

My thought process is now interrupted due to honking geese that just splashed down.

I have no doubt you experienced something four times. Many images in the mind are from visual stimuli to the eyes, activating cones and rods and then transmitting the 'signals' to the conscious part of the brain. A physical visualization. There are also images that occur in the mind due to misinterpretations of visual stimuli, imagination (the root of which is image) and halucinations. As you point out, you alone had these experiences. The subconscious mind is very quick and your understanding or interpretation did not rely upon contemplation--"think about it, or reason it in the [conscious] mind." You ascribe your interpretation of what you 'saw' in your experiences as being either revealed to you or through what you know from the Bible. Have you considered other possibilities?

In cognitive psychology, many experiences have been studied. For example, deja vu was long held to have been the eventualization of a premonition. One had previously been given a glimpse of the future. It was supernatural. However, a much simpler explanation is that the conscious center of the mind receives data from two main sources: current sensory transmissions to that conscious center and also when call upon some from our past, from memory. Current sensory data is transmitted both to the conscious center and the memory. The conscious center processes the data and interprets it in real time so that we use it at the moment, and the interpretation is also saved into memory. Each of these transmissions happens through miniscule electrical impulses along different synapses routes in the brain. Deja vu, it is explained, is when the conscious center is in the same moment receiving the current sensory data not only directly but also indirectly, via the memory. So the conscious mind is thinking that data is both current and past (the past part being a 'memory').

Again, you alone have had the experience which you relate. I do not doubt it, but it is possible that there are explanations for the experiences that go beyond revelation or the Bible.

[Physics Guy]

I don't believe in angels. I wouldn't say that I'm sure they can't exist, but I don't take the possibility seriously. Once, though, in one of my little snippets of fiction that never went anywhere, I did try to imagine what a real angel might be like. This thread made me dig up the old file. Maybe I should figure out what happens next. Anyway, in case anyone likes the image, here the old snippet is.

It's just after noon, and Adam Leamis is sitting alone at the back table of a dirty bar, drinking very slowly. The bar is one that never quite closes, but its thin stream of business has a dead lull each morning, like the long pause in an old man’s breathing. Adam has been sipping and looking, and thinking and sipping, but he's been here a while now, and leaving fast at this point would involve unseemly lurches. Having to leave fast is one of those unlikely eventualities that he has to ignore firmly if he wants to keep going each day.

He has his back wedged into the booth corner and one knee braced against the table leg, to keep upright for the long haul. He isn't worried, but he's cautious. It's very unlikely that anything much will happen today, but letting his guard down would be irresponsible. The drinking itself can’t be helped. Adam knows his own nerves. He can pace himself carefully, though, and he can keep it together to look okay if anyone does happen to come by. The booth with the screwed down table was the smart choice. Too bad about the ceiling. Too bad he can’t help seeing it, but his sitting position doesn’t leave him much range in comfortable viewing angles, and he can’t afford to close his eyes too long.

Suddenly there is someone else at the table. A tall black guy wearing black. Adam blinks. He believes he has a reputation for calmness, so he slowly blinks again. His pacing must have slipped more than he was realizing; okay, move on. Make a nonchalant invitation. He lets his right hand flop across the table towards the bench the guy is already sitting in. The guy doesn't move. Adam lets it pass for close enough.

Um, crap. The guy is high as a satellite. This might not be so good. That aura of godlike energy never bodes well in this line of work. Adam Leamis sticks to alcohol. Though on second thought maybe this guy’s problem is just pure weirdness. Dark black, tall, white sunglasses, bleached white hair. White sunglasses. What the hell? The lenses are like slices of cueball, opaque white. Adam blinks again. Black jacket, hanging open over a shirt of white silk. Shoulder holster!

It’s okay, though, no problem, the big black hands are spread palm down on the table now, it’s cool. “F”, though! What is that piece in there? Something big, by the look of the grip. Blow a hole in a truck big. But the guy's hands are on the table, and he looks cool for now. The hands are as clean as a surgeon’s, the fingers bare. They lie still on the grimy wood.

Three beats. Then just more beats.

Maybe the guy is looking Adam over, if he somehow can. Nobody walks in here just to sit down, and if there were nothing to discuss, that piece wouldn’t still be in its holster. Time to say something. Introduce himself? Still looking at the pistol’s hammer, about the size of a pipe wrench, Adam pushes his hand out and murmurs, "Leamis." The guy's hand meets his. A brisk grip, but the guy's skin is hot. Not just feverish. Hot like a pan on a stove. damned hell. Adam's own hand has pulled back smartly and slapped the table, and started fingertapping piano chords he hasn't played since he was twelve. He faintly hears the old notes and the pieces fall into place.

Behind those blank white lenses is a golden glow. On the ceiling over the guy's head, the big stain is gone. It's all a gently radiant white up there now. The table has handprints, now, too, but they're handprints of polished mahogany in the old plywood board, and they're spreading. If it doesn’t stop, the table will be worth a lot soon. Adam's eyes widen. So does his mouth, but he doesn't know what to say, because the truth has sunk in. The guy facing him moves through the world in a sort of bubble, like an A-list celebrity with an airtight entourage, except that this guy's entourage is a conspiracy of everything, a moving impingement on the world, from some deeper reality.

Wherever this guy is, the pieces are always falling into place. One of those pieces is the way people recognize what he is. Like a solar eclipse, it’s a shock if you’ve never seen one before, but you know what it has to be as soon as you see it. Whatever an angel is, this is an angel.

The angel gives Leamis a little nod. A faint smile? An angel with a gun.