> My wife Thanh wrote this for a religion class a few weeks ago. It's
> basically the same story We told Rohit, Adam and Michelle last week, I
> thought all of you might enjoy it.
> PS. I would never have believed this possible if it didn't happen to me :-=
)
> JB
Ok, I'm going to have to bite on this one. Why do you choose to label wht
happened to you as Christianity? Because of a certain english language name
that was used? Because of a certain human ritual that was used?
What if on say a bizzaro Earth you had to stand on your head, and pray to
Dog. What if that manifested the exact same results? What does that mean to
you?
I guess I have a problem with (here I go again) finite beings choosing to
define the infinite by creating a certain set of rules, then believing
those rules to be the only rules that work. God is infinite, and as such
cannot be defined.
=46urthermore, what says God's hand was involved? Why couldn't that be a
certain "tuning in" to the either's? Let me give you an example. Recently
one of my dogs died. At 4:00 AM she woke up and went outside to die. At
exactly the same time my other dog named Lizzy that is living over 45 miles
away woke up and made her owner get out of bed, and at exactly the same
time my friend on this list, Clover woke up having a nightmare that I was
outside her living room pounding on the door to get in. Now the question is
did God wake up a dog 45 miles away and a friend of mine 2 miles away? And
if so did Shelia my dying dog make the call to God, or did I by waking to
let her out?
In summation what I'm trying to say is that yes I do believe in God. Yes I
do believe ritual is necessary to set up the conditions to communicate with
God. However, I also believe that their are many many levels of awareness
that we can reach. Thousands. And I believe that if we had a better
understanding of those levels, things such as you describe could be
explained that way.
Tim
> In defending my belief =96 Thanh Boyer
>
>
> My belief in Christianity is somewhat different from the Christians who
> were raised around here. My belief in Christianity has very little to do
> with what the Bible teaches. In other words, while I believe the Bible, I
> do not use it as the basis of my faith. I believe my life was touched by
> God through the experiences that I had faced and Christianity is the
> religion that I most identify with. I was raised in Vietnam as a Buddhist
> because my parents=92 faith is Buddhism. In 1978, I left Vietnam with my
> aunt=92s family and one of my sisters. My boat narrowly survived after a
> huge storm and piracy at sea. Robbed and left adrift to die in the ocean,
> we were rescued after several days. We lived in a squalid refugee camp for
> a little over a year. Eventually, we were randomly chosen and sponsored by
> a Catholic church group in Athens. In 1980, we arrived in Alabama. I met
> my best friend, Adrian, during junior high school. She was a deeply
> spiritual person but never tried to force Christianity on me. She prayed
> for me because she felt burdened to do so. On the night of our senior pro=
m
> she and her fiance, now her husband, left the prom and went to the park.
> Still wearing their prom clothes, they knelt together in the grass and
> began to pray for me. At that same time John, who is my husband now, was
> going down an escalator in the mall and something made him think of his
> past. He had always thought that he would marry an Asian woman some day.
> Not caring if anyone heard him or not, he said aloud, "God, that is what I
> need". At that same time Adrian and her fiance were still praying for me i=
n
> the park. They suddenly looked up at each other and said "John".
> We knew we were right for each other as soon as they introduced us. We
> have been happily married now for seven years and have a wonderful son and
> daughter. We know that our marriage was ordained by God and it is such a
> blessing to have that knowledge.
--I got up feeling so down, I got off being sold out I've keep the movie rolling, But the story's getting old now I just looked in the mirror, Things aren't looking so good I'm looking California, and feeling Minnesota. ...Soundgarden
<> tbyars@earthlink.net <>