A voice.....

ReverendRoy

As some of you may have noticed I always include this quote with my signature - "Why is it when we talk to God we're praying - but when God talks to us, we're schizophrenic?". I am poking some fun at this concept basically, as I tend to do with all things.

However, a few years ago, driving in my car on the way to work, I heard a very clear, audible voice that was not mine. There was no one else in the car, the radio was not on. I have not been diagnosed with schizophrenia or other ailments. I have gone to the doctor to make sure that I am not crazy, what ever that may be defined as.

Here is the fun part, what I heard. The voice clearly said, "God is everywhere. God is everything. God will protect you." Being the sarcastic-agnostic I am I was not sure what this meant or if it meant anything. Part of me thought "well, this is cool" and the other part of me thought I was heading to the the mental ward and a new padded room. Raised as a JW, I was taught you are not supposed to hear this type of thing. Although in my studies of other religions, beliefs and cultures it appears to happen often.

Has anyone else experienced anything like this? While the good doctors do not think I am crazy, I have to wonder, what are your thoughts?

I have pretty much accepted this an a real occurance in my life and feel fortunate to have had the experience. While it may have been weird at the time and I had to struggle for a while with it, it has made life interesting for me.

Now with all that said, if it were really a message from God, why do I still consider myself an agnostic?

Nathan Natas

What an experience!

I'm a bit further "over the hill" than you are - I'm an atheist now after about 20 years in God's service. (HA!)

I don't believe in the existence of a "spiritual realm" inhabited by anything. Do you?

Kat_

Hey Roy,

Cool, albeit eerie, story. I tend to be a optomistic skeptic. I always start thinking, "Naaahhhh"...but then I go to "well, it could happen".

I think people are so skeptical these days about everything. There are a lot of people, myself included, who believe in some unquestionable and undefinable higher power or powers. With that said, why is it so hard to accept something like hearing a voice from nowhere? Sure, it sounds crazy. I'd have been the first one to admit you to a psych ward, but why? For those of us who do believe in the even just the possibility of God, who are we to say what is possible and what is not?

To answer your question about personal experiences: I personally heard a voice but I attributed that to my pregnancy hormones affecting my mental state of mind. It wasn't a deep, heavenly or meaningful message. It was downright stupid and ended up being nothing. I was alone in bed reading a book and it was late at night. The entire house was silent. My son was asleep, my husband wasn't home, and the tv was off. I heard a man's deep voice, low but commanding, a little louder than a whisper, say "Put the book down". It was IN my room, not far away...so near me that I felt it (if that makes sense). At the time it happened, I screamed and jumped out of bed so quickly and got so startled that I nearly induced my own labor from all the excitement! I called my brother and my mother to pass the time because I was too scared to go back to bed. They laughed hysterically and told me I was crazy. And, once I calmed down, I put the whole event behind me as a figment of my imagination. To this day I deny it was anything. I won't believe it was anything other than my imagination. If I let myself believe it was anything more than that, I would never read in bed again! I think that's why I am skeptical.

Kat

ReverendRoy

Nathan -
I guess that I do believe in a spiritual realm, although what that is and whay that involves I am not sure. From the concept of reincarnation to ghosts to angels, I do think there is something around us all the time. Some of us may be more intuned to it than others Now the thought of a God as I was raised to belive, I do doubt to some degree.

Kat -
Thanks for sharing. I have had other people tell me similar stories, to the point of causing the person to take an acrtion that may have prevented an accident or injury to themselves or someone they know. I can understand being spooked, especially with our upbringing as JW's and the whole demonic influence thing. That was an odd intering thing that happened to me that day...

GentlyFeral

Roy, I have a name for this kind of experience: a "didactic hallucination." Your brain threw together a little "special effect" to make sure you noticed something true and important. Sometimes, though, the same (entirely physical) mechanisms generate "junk visions" like Kat_ being told to "put the book down".

About a year ago, while taking a "Build Your Own Theology" class at a Unitarian Universalist church, I realized that the reason I have such an active imagination (and have since childhood) is so I can have spiritual adventures like this. I was the only one in the class who came to this conclusion, which was the whole point of the class, actually: for each of us to get a clearer idea of what we believe and why, as well as to understand everybody else better.

After that I began to *court* visions -- with fatigue at first, then with (ahem) certain herbal medicines. I've come to accept (most of the time) that spirituality includes the unexplainable, the coincidental, and the imaginary -- all of which are real! For me, communications with The Intangible are slippery and fragile. I think it's just something that the spiritual adventurer has to deal with.

I read somewhere, long ago, that perfectly sane people do hallucinate. If I persistently heard voices telling me to do horrible things, or that I was evil, I would definitely question my sanity. So far the voices in my head, whether they come to me as sound (rarely) or thought (mostly), have given me good advice -- and/or left me free to contradict.

And they know that if they mistreat me, I will FIRE them.

GentlyFeral

SlayerLayer

Do you have a little plastic smurf hanging from you rear view mirror? Maybe you bought your car from a yard sale? Maybe the former owner of the vehicle was a Satan worshiper? Next time it happens, say "Jehovah Jehovah Jehovah!" really loud and drive to the nearest Kingdumb Hell.

Slayer

ReverendRoy

SlayerLayer-
Does a Plastic Hula Girl count?

jurs

Roy,

Hi! I have never had that kind of experience. I'm also the skeptical sort. There must be some reasonable explanation. Perhaps you were tired or under alot of stress. Stress can cause strange symptoms.

jurs

Nathan Natas

Reverend,

It's that damned plastic Hula Girl!

This is not just some ridiculous superstitious mumbo jumbo, but is ALSO a fact verified in Watchtower Laboratories, where Watchtower Scientists under the direction of the Holy Spirit, aka Jack Daniels (the sleeping prophet), have actually imprisioned demons in specially designed stasis chambers where they are tormented by a laser light show which beams the tetragrammaton directly onto the demon's ocular arrays.

Watchtower Laboratories also hold the secret to an internal combustion engine which runs on ordinary tap water, varieties of common grains (corn, rice, wheat) that will grow in seawater, and a perpetual wind machine that will blow hot air without any perceptable energy source!

I have never actually BEEN to Watchtower Laboratories, but I have heard of people who knew people who may or may not have had visions of the Theocratic Science that is both on display and continuously being invented there. There is a large population of imprisioned smurfs of both the ambulatory and speaking varieties, a petting zoo populated with a variety of exploding livestock (here's a little known fact: some of the Spinal Tap drummers were brothers who worked at Watchtower Laboratories!) Hula Hoops and second-hand statuary!

Witness the marvelous "Shroud of Turturo" - being an actual facecloth used by the actor PRIOR to his rise to fame.

View with boundless awe the "Acraptic Manuscripts", the primary source of The New World Translation! Fragments of scrolls date from the late Triassic period and reveal (upon exposure to new light) that the generation of the last days will begin in 2014 (or 27076 - the date cannot be easily decoded becasue the Acraptic scribes used only one character to represent all possible numbers).

This Satanic world will never enjoy the magnificent sassitudinizations that Watchtower Laboratories will reveal to those priviledged flock members who survive into the beatitudinous new world, which will arrrive either tomorrow or ten million years from now.

What a joy it will be to live in that world of tomorrow, where men will demonstrate the true spirit of loving Christ (who said, "...bring THE CHILDREN to ME!") and viciously kick the shit out of anyone who smells different!

It is rumored that Watchtower Laboratories is concealed deep within the rotting infrastructure of New York City - could someone please verify this?

A voice.....

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