Blacknad wrote:
"Dan, the message may seem ambiguous, but those who choose an honest exploration of God find things that confirm the message."
Are you sure? Those of the Jewish faith didn't get it? Those who are Shiite, Suni, Alawite didn't get it. Those who are Hindu, Buddhist didn't get it. And even within the family of Christianity, beginning most obviously with Martin Luther there has been violent disagreement that turned into many a bloody war with respect to that interpretation.
I find it hard to believe the message is subject to unambiguous interpretation when people stick swords into other people, when people burn other people at the stake, due to different interpretations. Reconsider your statement. And I most certainly consider my personal friend who is a Lutheran minister a very sincere Christian and I think he and philege would not agree on much of anything other than the temperature at which water boils: Certainly nothing theological.
Blacknad wrote:
"I know he is utterly trustworthy but he has admitted that he has seen physical manifestations that are beyond the explainable ? heavy objects moving across the room etc."
Is your friend trustworthy? Absoltely. Is he telling you the truth as he honestly believes it? Absolutely. Do I believe I or a video camera would have recorded the event as he described it? Not a chance in the world.
A bit of history ... my step-daughter used to see things like that too. Then we put her on antidepressants. A year later she shopped having those experiences. To you it is evidence of something beyond the material. To me it is evidence of psychosis.
A very good friend of mine just got out of the hospital and is staying with me for a week or two. Today, while asleep, he had a fully believable dream that when he woke up there were six old men standing around him in a semi-circle, all dressed as Beef Eaters and all singing a Heinz Pickle jingle he hadn't heard since the 1960s. He sang it to me more than once this evening while simultaneously admitting he hadn't heard it in 35+ years. Was his experience any less real than your friends? No. The difference is that he is able to attribute it to a specific synthetic opiate. I am afraid I would refer your friend, as I have others, for treatment. And while you may not wish to hear it ... I've no doubt that once receiving that standard treatment protocol he would never experience those things again.
The problem with the things you offer up as evidence is that they are ALL anecdotal. ALL impossible to confirm. ALL impossible to reproduce. They are more easily dismissed than believed. So I put to you a challenge. Find a single one of these incidents that can pass the test of science? Surely god(s) don't run and hide at the sight of a college researcher with video equipment.
