Seems like quackery to me.
Paidion,
Your example is irrelevant given my concession that a Ouija board can put one in touch with tdemonic impersonators and my warning not to use this board. But you have no idea whether this is always the case and the William James case may well be an important exception. After all, there is solid evidence that the righteous dead sometimes manifest their survival to the living.
The Wiki article I alluded to, will present different perspectives - on the Ouija board… Anywhere from a scientific perspective, with the ideomotor response… To speaking with the dead or demons. Personally, I seek scientific explanations first. Then I look for supernatural ones. Even when it comes to zombies, from the possible Zombie Apocalypse.
And supernatural happenings is like describing snow to Africans - before mass communication. Just because they haven’t seen it - or experienced it - snow is real, nevertheless.
True. But in the Native American world, where spirits are an integral part of the equation…they don’t use Ouija boards in ceremony. NOT that what you say, may well be possible. But in most cases, a scientific explanation will suffice. After all, before the Roman Catholic Church conducts an exorcism…That have medical experts certify first, that there is no organic disease or abnormal psychosis present.
“A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be.”-- Rosalynn Carter
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You can’t “try” to have faith or to speak in tongues. Both assets must be received as a surprise gift, as if you have been lovingly ambushed by God. Here are 4 principles that experience shows will help you break through to authentic speaking in tongues:
(1) Acknowledge the Spirit’s sovereign timing. The Holy Spirit doesn’t jump just because we crack our whip! Don’t expect the Spirit’s outpouring in your first extended prayer vigil.
(2) Therefore, recognize the need to seek the Giver, not the gift. Yes, you must “strive for spiritual gifts (1 Cor 12:31).” But do that this way: ask God to give you the gift of tongues, and then, recognize God’s policy: “You will find Me if you seek Me with all your heart (Jeremiah 29:13).”
(3) Wait on God–and I do mean “wait”-- until you get lost in praise and your words seem cheap and inadequate to express your soaring delight in the mystery of God’s beauty and tender love: “Delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart… But be silent before the Lord, and wait patiently for Him (Psalm 37:4, 7).”
(4) Then, out of that sense of inadequate speech, the Spirit will give you a heavenly language and, as you surrender to it, your intimate connection with the Spirit will intensify to the point where you are engulfed by wave after wave of liquid love and an unimaginable sweetness of God’s presence. Church worship will never be the same again. You will thus learn one way to obey the command to “pray in the Spirit (Ephesians 6:18)” and will now be capable of far more effective prolonged intercessory prayer.
Present your “solid evidence”!
There is no solid evidence that any of the dead even exist.
The apostle Paul indicated that unless the dead are raised, we might as well eat, drink, and be merry, for in that case, this life would be all that we have!
…If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” (1 Cor 15:32)
And the dead have not yet been raised, and will not be raised until the last day. Jesus said that He would raise up on the last day those who believe in Him (that is who entrust themselves to Him)
John 6:39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.
John 6:40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day."
John 6:44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.
John 6:54 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.
Jesus also told the dying thief, “Today you shall be with me in Paradise (Luke 23:43).”
Jesus tells Martha, “Whoever lives and believes in me shall never die (John 11:26).”
Moses and Elijah return to converse with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration (Mark 9:1-9).
The righteous dead are alive in heaven and able to speak in Rev. 6:10.
Paul implies that at death he will immediately be enjoying Christ’s presence: “I am hard pressed between the 2 (choices): my desire is to depart and be with Christ; for that is far better.; for to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you (Philippians 1:23-24).”
But the Bible’s teaching about conscious survival immediately after death is not evidence. The NDEs and ADCs and the accompanying videos are far more impressive evidence for immediate postmortem survival than the evidence for Christ’s resurrection, which, as a Christian, I of course embrace. I must assume that you have not bothered to read the cases and watch the posted videos. It is absurd to dismiss all evidence that refutes your preconceptions as demonic. A Muslim could of course dismiss the NT testimonials to Jesus’ resurrection as demonic.
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Let me add to Berserk’s talk. There is a book called Christ and the Pipe. The Pipe is the most sacred instrument of prayer, for the Native Americans. And the author is a Roman Catholic priest. And this book is a dialogue between Roman Catholic Clergy and Lakota medicine men and women. The author talks about the spirits of heaven, hell, and the earth. And the spirits even said something, that SHOCKED the medicine people. If the Catholic priests continued, in the right way… they could ALSO hear and see the spirits.
The problem is that there is something called Sacred Tradition, in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. And EVEN the Methodist Church, emphasizes Primary Scriptura over Sola Scriptura. Where they also take into consideration Sacred Tradition, reason and spiritual experience. And the Quaker tradition, puts spiritual experience even above Holy Scripture (or perhaps on an equal footing).
Jesus also told the dying thief, “Today you shall be with me in Paradise (Luke 23:43).”
There was no punctuation in Hellenistic Greek. If I were to translate that verse, I would place the comma AFTER the word “today.” Thusly:
And he said to him, “Truly I’m telling you today, you will be with me in Paradise.”
Someone has told me, “No one talks like that! Whoever says, ‘I’m telling you today’?” Yet, I’m sure nearly everyone has heard someone say, “I’m telling you right now…” It’s a manner of speaking.
Jesus tells Martha, “Whoever lives and believes in me shall never die (John 11:26).”
No, He didn’t. He said, “Whoever lives and believes in me shall not be dying into the age.”
I think He was talking about the next age—the age to come. Whoever believes in Him will not remain in a state of death right into the next age, but will be raised to life by Jesus on the last day of this present age.
Moses and Elijah return to converse with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration (Mark 9:1-9).
No, they didn’t. Peter, James, and John saw a VISION. They saw our Lord transfigured, and saw Moses and Elijah in a vision.
Now as they came down from the mountain, Jesus commanded them, saying, “Tell the vision to no one until the Son of Man is risen from the dead.” (Matt 17:9)
The righteous dead are alive in heaven and able to speak in Rev. 6:10.
Doctrine cannot be established from the book of Revelation. For the whole book is John’s description of what he saw in his vision. He also saw in his vision “a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns.” That in no way implies that such a beast existed or will exist.
Have I missed these? Where are they?_
[quote=“Paidion, post:41, topic:13264”]
Jesus also told the dying thief, “Today you shall be with me in Paradise (Luke 23:43).”
Paidion: "There was no punctuation in Hellenistic Greek. If I were to translate that verse, I would place the comma AFTER the word “today.” Thusly:
And he said to him, “Truly I’m telling you today, you will be with me in Paradise.”
You miss the point: Jesus uses the formula, “Truly I say to you” and its variant “Truly, truly I say to you” many times and never once is it followed by a modifier like “today.” That’s why no academic scholar translates it in the way the fits your bias.
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If what you say is true, it would prove nothing. However, it is not at all certain that it IS true.
Duh, no, it would decisively refute your claim because it would mean that the thief joined Jesus, fully conscious, in Paradise that very day. Paidion will now produce an academic commentary on Luke that puts the comma after “today.” Not!
Decisively refute my claim??? Is it your position that if a person uses a phrase in a particular way several times, that he will NEVER use that phrase in any other way? That would HAVE TO be the case if it would “decisively refute my claim.”
Consider also Matthew 26:34
Jesus said to him, “Truly I tell you, this very night, before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.”(NRSV)
Remove the first two commas and the final one and you have:
Jesus said to him, “Truly I tell you this very night, before the cock crows you will deny me three times.”
Or do you think it means “This very night, you will deny me three times”? How could it? Peter didn’t deny him in the night, but in the morning just before the cock crowed.
A trumpet call, known as the cockcrow signaled the end of the 3rd and beginning of the 4th watch.
ie 3 a.m.
If Peter denied before the cockcrow, he denied before dawn. Jewish morning starts at dawn.
Paidion, Pilgrim’s critique refutes your claim. Here are 2 points you don’t seem to get:
(1) When Bible scholars confront an interpretive or punctuation issue, they allow the pattern of precedent to be the decisive factor.
(2) Your bias is breath-taking. You ignore texts I cited that demonstrate postmortem survival at death and, worse, you make the ludicrous claim that afterlife human speech in the Apocalypse of John can’t be used in this debate. You are apparently ignorant of the fact that such postmortem human dialogue is characteristic of Jewish apocalyptic literature.
And why don’t you have the decency to start a separate thread on this topic instead of derailing my thread on speaking in tongues. The presence of your ilk on this site has motivated me to phase out my posts here.
WELL EXCUSE ME! I wasn’t aware that you OWNED this thread. It was my belief that all threads were public domain.
Maybe if you spoke in tongues you could get rid of me.
Woo Don!
I like your sand.
And what’s with this “ILK” business - Don is highly respected - and he’s EARNED it over time. WE need more like him.
Let’s keep our yapping to ourselves and make the Forum a welcoming place.
Tongues is the supernatural capacity to speak in an unlearned foreign language, whether as a public prophetic utterance from God to man—requiring interpretation, or as a divinely inspired private prayer from man to God—not requiring interpretation. (Please reconsider my earlier comments on the baptism in the Spirit, and two kinds of tongues.)
Where there is smoke, there is fire; and the devil wants to sow confusion regarding the Holy Spirit and His Gifts, by promoting misunderstandings, abuses, and counterfeits.
Qaz, I appreciate your interest in this topic of tongues, and I offer these verses to you and to anyone else interested in tongues, for your prayerful consideration:
Matthew 7:9-11
9 “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?
10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?
11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!Luke 11:10-13
10 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
11 “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead?
12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?
13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”Matthew 18:1-4
1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”
2 He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them.
3 And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
4 Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.1 Corinthians 14:18
I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you.1 Corinthians 14:5a
I would like every one of you to speak in tongues….