Divine vs Natural Dreams
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Does God still speak through dreams? How do we know that it is God, and not just our own minds?
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Does God speak in dreams at all?
God has spoken to people many times throughout the Scriptures by means of dreams. Examples would be Joseph son of Jacob (Genesis 37:5-10), Joseph the husband of Mary (Matthew 2:12-22), Solomon (1 Kings 3:5-15), and several others (Daniel 2:1; 7:1; Matthew 27:19). There is also a prophesy of the prophet Joel (Joel 2:28), quoted by the Apostle Peter in Acts 2:17, that mentions God using dreams. So the simple answer is yes, God can and does speak through dreams.
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Dreams of Divine origin
Anything God says, whether it is a dream, vision, impression, or “still small voice” will agree completely with what He has already revealed in His Word.
Dreams cannot be put into a place of authority over the Scriptures. Again, IF God were to speak to a person in a dream, His message would be in perfect agreement with His Word.
If you have a dream and feel that perhaps God gave it to you, prayerfully examine the Word of God and make sure your dream is in agreement with Scripture.
If so, prayerfully consider what God would have you do in response to your dream (James 1:5). In Scripture, whenever anyone experienced a dream from God, God always made the meaning of the dream clear, whether directly to the person, through an angel, or through a messenger (Genesis 40:5-11; Daniel 2:45; 4:19).
When God speaks to us, He makes sure His message is clearly understood.
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Why does God speak in dreams?
You may wonder why God may need to use a dream to speak to you, when, in fact, He could have used another means to speak to you. When you are asleep your conscious mind cannot fight God’s message.
Often when we are awake, our conscious minds gets in the way of hearing from God, but when we are asleep God is able to do things to us that we cannot contest.
When you’re asleep you’re vulnerable. You lose control of your life, and God has it. This is when God can really speak to you.
1. Warn of sin. God is concerned about our lifestyle. Abimelech was admonished in a dream about committing adultery with Abraham’s wife, Sarah.
But God came to Abimelech in a dream one night and said to him, “You are as good as dead because of the woman you have taken; she is a married woman.” (Genesis 20:3)
Through this dream, Abimelech repented.
2. Guidance. God will also guide you through dreams. He did it for Joseph no less than five times (Matthew 2) and for Pilate’s wife (Matthew 27:19).
Joseph, husband of Mary: he had a dream from God when he was only seventeen years old (Genesis 17:2).
3. Encouragement. Sometimes God gives you a dream to simply encourage you. For example, when Gideon needed reassurance to fight the Midianites he was inspired through a dream and its interpretation.
Gideon arrived just as a man was telling a friend his dream. “I had a dream,” he was saying. “A round loaf of barley bread came tumbling into the Midianite camp. It struck the tent with such force that the tent overturned and collapsed.”
His friend responded, “This can be nothing other than the sword of Gideon son of Joash, the Israelite. God has given the Midianites and the whole camp into his hands.”
When Gideon heard the dream and its interpretation, he worshipped God. He returned to the camp of Israel and called out, “Get up! The LORD has given the Midianite camp into your hands.” Judges 7:13-15
4. Protection and provision
Daniel was a young aspirant when God gave him a dream and the interpretation in order to protect everyone from Nebuchadnezzar’s wrath (Daniel 2:19).
Solomon, a young king. He had dreamt that God gave him wisdom. He called himself “a little child” (1 Kings 3:7) when he had the dream.
5. Information.
Prophecy about upcoming events, or information about current circumstances. Example: Joseph’s dream about having his family bowing to him predicted an elevated future status.
6. Warn against sin in life
This also is part of guidance. God will warn us that we are in sin, to bring us back to repentance.
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Notice, in each of these cases, the dreamer knew exactly what the dream meant. If God sends a dream, he makes his meaning clear. If a dream is not clear to you, it may not bee from God. It may be just a natural dream.
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Do Dreams Belong to the New Covenant?
On the day of Pentecost, when the New Covenant was established, Peter preached (Acts 2:17),
“In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams”.
Dreams are for our age. In fact, according to this promise, dreams would be more frequent in our time. Dreams belong to the last days, the days we live in.
Scripture demonstrates what is called Hebrew Parallelism. This repeats itself in different words, and attempts to paint a broad brush by including sons and daughters, young and old, visions and dreams.
It is not meant to convey that only young men have visions and only old men have dreams. It is saying that visions and dreams belong to everyone—young and old alike.
Can you have dreams from God too?
God works by means of faith. If you have faith that God will do something in His Word, then He will do it. The reason many believers don’t have many dreams from the Lord is because they don’t have faith in them. Exercise your faith for dreams.
Start by asking God for dreams. You have not because you ask not.
Expect that you will have dreams from God.
Put your faith into action by placing a notebook and pen next to your bed, and when you have a dream, write it down. Daniel did!
In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon Daniel had a dream and visions of his head upon his bed: then he wrote the dream, and told the sum of the matters. Daniel 7:1
Not Every Dream is from God
The majority of our dreams will be natural dreams. This is our mind, which God gave us, working through, and processing issues in our lives.
The conclusions our minds come to can be correct, or incorrect, so we have to reflect on what they tell us.
There are many causes of dreams including worry. “…a dream comes when there are many cares…”(Eccl 5:3).
Satan can give counterfeit dreams, especially when the dreamer is involved in occult activities.
The lust of the flesh can cause X rated dreams.
Bitterness can cause dreams whereby you kill people, or fear can cause you to have nightmares.
Many dreams are confused mixes of concerns or events that the mind is still working on. Just reflect on them, and do not worry about them.
One thing I see is what I call “wishful thinking” dreams, or their interpretation. This is when we take a dream that is natural, or carnal in nature, and claim God said something. This is delusion.
Obviously you must use discernment to know if a dream is from God or not. The Holy Spirit will provide this, so we do not go in the way of error.
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Interpret Dreams
One of the common mistakes people make when interpreting their dreams is to take the dream literal. Most dreams are symbolic—like Joseph’s dream of stars, Pharaoh’s dream of cows, or Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of a statue.
How can you tell if a dream should be taken literally or symbolically? If everything in the dream seems possible and real, then it probably is a literal dream.
For example, if you’re driving your car going to your job and get into an accident, then probably you need to take it literally, and pray for protection.
On the other hand, if there is a part in the dream that seems improbable or unreal, then you should interpret the entire dream as symbolic. If, for example, you’re driving another car, or going to a fictitious place then the dream is symbolic, even if the accident seems real. The dream is speaking about spiritual danger, not physical danger.
You need to learn to think symbolically. It takes practice. Increase the vocabulary of symbols. As your vocabulary of symbols increase, your ability to understand your dreams will get better and better. The more you know the general meaning of symbols, the easier it will be to interpret dreams, and you’ll be more accurate.
Use an online bible site, and enter in the symbol for a search. See if you can find that symbol, object, person, place, etc in the bible, and find out more about it that way.
Beware of using New Age type books to interpret symbols. These books twist the meaning of symbols.
These are two good Christian books on dreams.
Exploring the World of Dreams by Benny Thomas and
Understanding the Dreams You Dream by Ira Milligan.
Also, this is more psychology oriented:
The Dreamers Dictionary, by Stearn Robinson & Tom Corbett
Keep in mind that a symbol may mean something different to different people. If someone lives in India and dreams of a cow, and an American farmer dreams the same thing, the cow will probably have a “religious” meaning to the Indian, while it means “livelihood” to the American.
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Visions
There is a difference between dream and a vision. Visions can occur during dreams, and many times do, but they still have their own unique qualities:
1. You are in the presence of God. You will know this and be shocked, stunned, fearful, or overjoyed. You are awestruck. You will lose all sense of time, and forget everything that ever happened to you, like instant amnesia. All you know is what is in front of you. All other thoughts are dead during that time.
2. You will be aware that something of great importance is being given to you. The fear of God will take hold of you, and you will not dare misrepresent it, for fleshly purposes.
3. Revelation knowledge. You will learn something that is consistent with scripture, or does not contradict it in any way, but may be totally new. It can have an earthly application, like an upcoming pregnancy, or a new love in one’s life. It may show you your relationship with God, or a truth about the world, or future, that He wants you to share.
4. If prophetic in nature, it will be crystal clear, 100% credible, and will occur exactly as it is given to you. You will have no doubts at all that this will come to pass. You may be even given details in the vision, as to when it will occur.
5. Complex symbols may be used, but they will be very scriptural, and the meaning will reveal itself, in God’s timing. They will always line up with scripture. For example, the beast in Revelation is interpreted by the interpretation given for Daniel’s beast. A winged lion is still Babylon. A leopard is still Greece. A bear is still Medo-Persia (Iran). The horses in Revelation will be the same ones mentioned in Zechariah. If you see the same symbols, then the meaning has already been interpreted in scripture for you.
6. Time will not dilute the vision, or make it lost in your memory. You will never forget what you saw. You will remember every detail 30 years, or a lifetime later.
7. You will feel highly energized by the vision, and when it is finished, you
will immediately wake up, if asleep, or become highly alert, if you are already awake. It will be all you can think about for a long time. It will change you spiritually and mentally. You cannot go back to who you were before the vision.
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Carnal Dreams – dreams from the human consciousness
This will not have the divine characteristics mentioned above. Personal desires, fears, impressions, confused thoughts will manifest. Thoughts and temptations to lust, anger, greed, jealousy, etc, will fall in this realm.
Satan can interject thoughts into dreams, so it is good to guard the mind while awake. Sometimes, bugs, snakes, etc come to torment us. If this is done, night terrors and temptations will be less likely. Also, it is this nighttime arena where we work out daily problems and find solutions.
One can dream about their impressions of God and worldly events in an ordinary dream, but what makes this different is that their flesh or mind controls the interpretation. One could say it is a delusion of the ego, in order to satisfy a need to be important, or be a part of something that impresses others. In the divine dream, the needs of the ego are crushed, and God rules.
The natural “god” dream is also based on common knowledge of the bible, or can be obtained from worldly sources. A good example are all the “visions” about the end times- like World War 3, or war with Israel. People are declaring doom over the world.
So what? This is not news.
The bible predicted this, and it is now in today’s newspaper. People are just repeating what everyone already knows. God does not enter a dream, and waste his time, telling you something that even the heathen know about.
Prophesies and visions of carnal origin are also long winded, and put you to sleep, having to read, or listen to it all. The length is to keep your attention on the dreamer, not God, as being someone special.
God is usually more blunt, and concise. He even knocks you off your feet with the first sentence, and first image. He is not full of hot air. He is full of power. When it is from Him, and not your own mind, you will really, really know it.
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Divine vs. Natural Dreams « Heaven Awaits said this on February 24, 2009 at 5:51 pm |
First of all, I would like to thank you for this nice post.
My opinion is that all dreams have a very natural origin: US!
Dreams can help us to show what is going on with us and we should consider them something we “create” to deal with the world around us and the way we deal with it.
When we’re dreaming we are creating new things and dealing with reality at the same time.
Best regards.
Hi Peter
Thanks. You were really quick. I had this posted for about 30 seconds, and you were on it already.
Sweet dreams
marianne
Thanks!
Same wishes to you!
Peter
Sorry for the mess …
What I meant is that – in my opinion – all dreams are natural ones and that they are expressions of our personal experience with the real world.
Great blog, will read more when I have time! xx
Interesting topic. In the bible you will find that visions are understood. Daniel, Peter etc. had visions and knew what the Lord mean’t. Cornelius understood what the Holy Ghost was saying concerning Paul.
Dreams however need interpretation. Daniel had to interpret the kings dream. Joseph however knew what the stars and the moon mean’t. Hope this helps.
hi Rev Williams
Interesting point. The believers understood, but the unbelievers needed an interpretation.
blessings
marianne
Peter: Your opinion is pretty much on one side and based on what? I am getting somewhat the notion that you do not believe in the existence of anything supernatural at all.
I have had many dreams. Most of them were a combination of known elements, however somewhat changed. Then I also had these kind of dreams which Marianne mentioned. I was very clear in my mind and I knew they were out of the ordinary because of the theme and the awe I felt. I was viewing scenes which seem to come up during the great tribulation. In many other dreams I was only a spectator, taken for a ride but in others I had some interaction with people I have never met.
My conclusion is that based on scripture and experience, not all dreams are a fabric of our mind.
the mechanics of dreaming has been explored at length. most famously by freud. it is of course a working of our subconscious imagination and nothing to do with ‘messages’ from god.
i find the most compelling explanation of the purpose of dreams to be that of the ‘human givens’ theory which states that dreaming is a way of expressing the emotional energy we did not act upon during the day. if we are incredibly angry with someone we will dream that we are attacking them for instance.
or if we are struggling with a seemingly insumountable problem we will have a metaphorical dream in which we do something like succeeding in climbing over a huge fence etc.
the majority of dreams are not remembered of course. we usually only remember our dreams when we wake unexpectedly from REM sleep (although recent research has showed that dreaming can occur in other types of sleep as well).
this is the mechanism of dreaming which has always existed. previous, less knowledgable civilisations interpretted dreams as messages from god because they didn’t have our modern understanding of their purpose.
in reality no one has ever received a ‘message from god’ in a dream. they have only interpreted it as such. by studying the practical history of christianity and it’s purpose in terms of power structures we can see why the priest classes would find it useful to receieve a ‘message from god’ in order to create laws and give instructions for their own personal gain under the cloak of passing on god’s instructions.
zarathustra,
how do you explain dreams which predict the future far in advance? There are historically recorded dreams/visions like this.
GYOD has a message below, which was here before mine. I think it refers to your message, not my post, since there was a dialogue going between you 2. I will leave him to explain further if he needs to.
And you prove it how? It is nothing more than “I know it all” thinking without any solid base. In the same manner people think they have proven evolution. I am sorry but this kind of assurance is simply embarrassing.
i didn’t prove it. the scientists and psychologists who make up the human givens school of thinking did.
the evolution “debate” isn’t a debate. evolution is a fact. the only people who still see it as a “debate” are those of a religious persuasion. the “debate” ended about 100 years ago.
my base is expreimentation, observation and common sense. your base is a book written by people with a very specific agenda seeking to find proof for their pre-defined ideas.
what is embarrasing is any member of the human race blinding themselves to the obvious in favour of an unfounded belief.
“and you prove it how?” is a hilarious comment in the face of massive scientific evidence. especially considering that there is absolutely no proof of any kind for what you are propsing to be a reasonable view.
if you can find any proof not based on the bible or subjective personal experience then let me know.
zarathustra
Please supply the evidence, not the conclusions for evolution.
I am a scientist. I took physical anthropology. I was taught conclusions, but never saw the evidence. I was expected to believe what i was told.
if you already have a background in it why haven’t you looked into it for yourself. it seems unlikely that it would not have been explained to you at the time had you wanted to hear the response.
look for yourself at the staggering amount of evidence. i suspect you have avoided doing so because you do not want to know. maybe it is easier to say “well i was only taught conclusions, seems like they were hiding something” thatn to actually find out the truth for yourself.
zarathustra
There is no evidence. Only opinion. Anything that may have been found has more than one explanation for it. For example, they find 2 bones, one in one place, and another 30 feet away. From 2 bones, they make a theory that they belonged together, and reconstruct a person from it. In one case, one of the bones belonged to a pig.
well done… very good and well researched example…
people constructed all sorts of bizzare hybrid creatures out of bones during the victorian times. luckily science re-evaluates past theories constantly and corrected it’s errors.
how many times has the creation story been re-considered? it was considered to be a myth and nothing more immediately by all thinking people. the rest chose not to think about it at all but to believe it without question.
zarathustra
so if the basic idea of evolution was based on bizarre theories, how did science correct the errors?
what is the new data, that confirms the data, based on the bizarre?
the people who falsified skeleton’s weren’t scientists. it is only people like you looking for counter evidence to evolution who pretend that they were.
zarathustra
you are not a scientist, are you?
If you were, you would not be interested in this topic, because this is not a priority for scientists. There is no money in it. The only cones who care are a few anthropologist trying to keep their jobs, and people who do not believe in God.
Scientists have more important things to work on than a dead topic. If you were to walk into a major scientific research center, you would not hear anyone discussing this. This is because we do not care……
There is just no evidence for evolution. There are no links from one species to another. There are contrived records from long ago. It has become a quaint topic for the general public, and it is just entertainment for the masses.
And as far as the skeletons go, scientists keep everything like that locked. Non staff are not allowed to walk in and fool with anything.
I have dreams from God, so I know they are real. I know God loves me.
Wow! You had some passionate dialog going on there. I related to the thought that when you have a dream or vision from God, you know it. You do NOT wonder if it was from God, you just know it. Many years ago, I had a dream/vision that I would see the coming of Christ. It was real to me. I anxiously await…
Marianne. It would be good news. Yes?
Whoops. Maybe you can edit. IT should have said you do NOT wonder if it was from God.
Hi archie
We know what you mean!
Both comments are posted anyhow…..but if you want, I will edit the first one to make it right.
Your dream sounds good to me !
i would have thought the human genome project, one of the largest and most expensive scientific projects of recent times (finished in 2003) would show that the bleeding edge of science is still very much interested in the new genetic theories developed from the theory of evolution. no one discusses it anymore in the same way that no-one discusses gravity anymore.
the existence of gravity is a “a quaint topic for the general public” not given a moments thought by scientists because it has been proved beyond reasonable doubt.
zarathustra
The human genome project is a very industrious one. Its main goal is the identification and mapping of all the human genes.
Scientists of this generation “grew up” with evolution presented as fact. It was like being told that Santa was real. No one was actively investigating it to see if it was really true. I remember being just told it was true, and someone showed graphs and explained theories. This was “college” in 1968. This was also long before any ambitious projects. Today, Santa is still real, because he is accepted as real. It is not because people have challenged it, and found it true. Conclusions sometimes are just ascribed to evolution, just because it is in the lingo to say this.
The human genome project really has nothing about it that proves evolution as the exclusive reason for content, or the way the genome is organized.
We see similar patterns across all species for the same molecule. The gene for glucose, which is needed by all animal systems, is the same. There is a gene for hair, for all animals who have it. Of course, many animals have similar features, but also differences.
What we find is that there is a “genome of life” that reflects a good template for all species. All organisms need to breathe, and eat, so that is provided. All organisms need to eliminate waste and toxins, so that is provided. All organisms need to produce and use energy, and the same molecule is involved.
Interestingly, many of the same molecules that animals use to achieve basic functions are also used by plants. For example, both plants and animals need ATP for energy. Both plants and animals exhibit respiration. So, did we evolve from plants?
There is a master template for all life, with a little variation for unique properties. And then there is selective gene expression for each organism. We get specialization not from evolution, but from selective gene expression, which is controlled by specific binding proteins.
Zarathustra, from a scientific viewpoint, do you believe the eye on the earliest life came into being slowly, or completely operable all at once? DavWms
zarathustra:
Evolution is stupid, has no concepts and even less capability for aesthetics. The attempt to prove evolution as we see it, is circular thinking. We assume that evolution is correct, see that “different” animals share genes and conclude thereby that they developed from each other or have common ancestors. From the fossils this is even concluded from mere physical similarities.
The gen pool is vast and the variations are endless. Just having a bigger beak does not create a new bird subspecies.
A human being has roughly 3billion base pairs. Any idea how aimlessly changing them without a knowledge about how they work will lead to anything useful?
Human products are attributed “intelligence” with far fewer attributes and no one doubts a designer. But a human being which is so complex that scientists still understand hardly anything at all is supposed to have come from an amebe?
I see this behavior of evolutionists only as symptom of a desperately wicked heart.
Great blog and hope to have some time soon to come back and read more!
I believe that God *does* speak thru dreams! I think the powers that be (our wonderful government) know this and is attempting to interfere. There are many interesting “dream” type electornic products on the market today. Also, Steven Spielberg’s film company is called “Dreamworks”. Hmmm..
Hi Marianne: When I first became a christain, I found myself listening to this one certain C.D. “Peace I Leave With You” this group no longer makes this C.D. and wouldn’t you know it…it was and is the most precious song ever!!! I found myself singing to it and crying to the music as i lifted my hands. I fell asleep…within moments i was in a deep sleep! I was in the presence of the Lord God!!!! I didn’t see him immediately, but i did see the buildings of Russia and China side by side as if bombs were hitting (debris was everywhere) yet the buildings were still intact, and some folks were running for dear life…i was just standing there hoping i could leave and i wondered how did i get here!!! Then i heard the voice of the Lord God say, “Are you ready to worship me more?”
I said, “yes, yes!!”
The Lord God said, “okay you may come back!”
I then found myself in an environment similiar to Hawaii, a waterfall, yellow lilies all around, just a beautiful atmosphere….
I believe Jesus was giving me a glimpse of what was to come in the near future..
Ani
DavidLWilliams…
These days the “Eye” question of intelligent design, just like it’s brother argument- Paley’s “Watchmaker” is only discussed as an excercise in highschool philosophy classes. No-one else gives it any thought for a very good reason. “unlikely” has no relation to “impossible”. in a universe as vast as ours- both in space and time it is actually likely that a structure like the eye will come about. aside from the probabalistic argument it has been shown to be possible through experimenation.
i’ll leave you with some interesting quotes
“…the odds against DNA assembling by chance are 1040,000 to one [according to Fred Hoyle, Evolution from Space,1981]. This is true, but highly misleading. DNA did not assemble purely by chance. It assembled by a combination of chance and the laws of physics. Without the laws of physics as we know them, life on earth as we know it would not have evolved in the short span of six billion years. The nuclear force was needed to bind protons and neutrons in the nuclei of atoms; electromagnetism was needed to keep atoms and molecules together; and gravity was needed to keep the resulting ingredients for life stuck to the surface of the earth.” –Victor J. Stenger
“… rarity by itself shouldn’t necessarily be evidence of anything. When one is dealt a bridge hand of thirteen cards, the probability of being dealt that particular hand is less than one in 600 billion. Still, it would be absurd for someone to be dealt a hand, examine it carefully, calculate that the probability of getting it is less than one in 600 billion, and then conclude that he must not have been dealt that very hand because it is so very improbable.” –John Allen Paulos, Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences
“If things were different, things would not be the way things are.” –Bob Park
“To explain the origin of the DNA/protein machine by invoking a supernatural Designer is to explain precisely nothing, for it leaves unexplained the origin of the Designer. You have to say something like ‘God was always there’, and if you allow yourself that kind of lazy way out, you might as well just say ‘DNA was always there’, or “Life was always there’, and be done with it.” –Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker : Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design
“Most of the debate between creationists and evolutionary theories (of which I do not partake) lies in the following: creationists believe that the world comes from some form of design while evolutionary theorists see the world as a result of random changes by an aimless process. But it is hard to look at a computer or a car and consider them the result of aimless process. Yet they are.” –Nassim Nicholas Taleb
more about the evolution of the eye in this: http://www.talkreason.org/articles/coulter1.cfm
zarathustra
interesting…..life can come out of nowhere, by laws that come out of nowhere…..with materials that come out of nowhere.
where did all the starting materials come from,?….and do not say….they were always there
probability of life involves more than DNA sequences. The fact that they actually MEAN something defies the law of physics.
BTW…what are you majoring in – in college?
thats TRUE marianne! why hadn’t i thought of that!!!
there must be SOMETHING which CREATED the things out of nothing.
so that means there was nothing.. except for this thing which created… things… out of nothing.
well that just doesn’t seem to make any sense. maybe if i imagine him to be some kind of kindly sky spirit who talks to me when i think really hard.
or maybe you’ve never looked at any of the philisophical arguments for the existence of god and why none of them prove anything at all, just as science doesn’t prove anything at all.
it is the limitations of our imagination which mean we fail to understand how things come from nothing. we can even observe (indirectly of course) things coming from nothing on the quantum scale.
linguistically speaking, your deffinition of god in this case is “something which i cannot understand” which is fair enough. except when you somehow equate that with a kindly old man in the sky who talks to you in your head and tells you things.
zarathustra
in other words, where did the something come from that you see now?
do not say it was always there, because you cannot prove it.
the old man in the sky has a son named Jesus. I have met him, so I know His Father is real too.
Zaruth, thanx for replying. It was what i expected, tho. You have been reading and applying what you read as truth. But it is but a theory that has NO scientific foundations. Sure, there are mini-evolutions that we can see. But nothing like the claims you make about evolving from whatever.
As you probably expect, I will now ask you how the eye was formed? Did a photosensitive cell evolve somewhere on the skin of an early life form? What advantage would that give it to survive over others? Did the life form have a brain already? If it did, how did the connection to the eye come about? How could a primitive brain understand what it “saw?” Oh, it must have all formed at one time, by an evolutionary leap. Of course.
You are always able to lean on what scientists say, so you do not have to answer those impossible feats. That shifts the responsibility off yourself, doesn’t it? You may be comfortable now to lean on them, but you won’t find a place to lean one day, along with the scientists you prefer to believe now.
You assume we have made up a God that gives us a fantasy that comforts us. But why do you suppose we put up with all that comes upon us, including the ridicule from the likes of you? True, there are many who blindly accept that there is a God. But under great persecution, they would fall by the wayside.
But most of the people you find on this site have had actual experiences with God, and will take what comes our way. God usually only really proves Himself after we take a step of faith and accept the Gospel. Then is when He makes Himself known to us. That is why your arguments fail to convince us, for we actually know Him and are known by Him.
Do you dare to take a chance and ask that IF there is a Supreme God, that He will make himself known to you?.. DavWms
HI david,
Good explanation. Those that do not accept our answers also have none of their own. The difference in the answers is that we have experienced what we believe, and they act in unbelief, because of lack of experience.
pfft lack of experience.
i’m not a scientist so i’m not going to attempt to go into the photosensitive cell development question. it is wisest not to attempt to come to a conclusion without fully understanding the evidence- i suggest you might do the same. all i will say is that it is that given current evidence it is far from impossible. we have not even begun to understand the way the brain processes visual signals- in one famous experiment a blind man who had working eyes but who’s brain was damaged (he was unable to process the data) could still identify the emotion displayed by pictures of faces held up in front of him. he couldn’t say what sex they were or describe any of their features but he still received an emotion, this suggests that their is a separate channel for processing emotional stimuli in the brain.
none of this is the heart of what you are arguing. what you are arguing is a right to personal experience of god.
it is not the case that personal experience differs, that some experience god and some don’t. just as many unexplainable coincidences and numinous feelings of lying under the stars or wondering at the natural world have happened to me since i left the church. it is no the case that i “lost faith” or “decided god didn’t exist”. i simply shifted from the dialectic of faith into the more realistic dialectic of scepticism. if one person has a terrifying dream of the apocalypse and wakes up with their heart beating like a drum (as i have) they say, shit the worlds really getting to me, my primordial fear of death is throwing up some weird dreams- this is the mechanics of what is happening. another person says “god has sent me a dream of the apocalypse!” the mechanics of the situation are identical, the dream is still thrown up by their experience of the world and their primordial fear of death, they just choose to label it within their dialectic of faith- a dialectic which focus’s on superstition rather than description.
we create the world through the way we experience it, our paradigm IS our reality, scepticism acknowledges this (hence creating the paradox that it’s own claims are baseless). the paradigm of faith distracts from examining the mechanics and instead palms everything off as “the will of god” “a message from god”.
furthermore, when personal motives are examined it becomes clear that “faith” is literally the sword and shield of the believer.
in every single case where the mechanics of faith are investigated it can be readily classified as a human activity with a useful earthly purpose. morality for instance, if morality is the “law of god written on mens hearts” which “even the gentiles follow by nature” it is only because this is a social norm. the “good” is that which is THE SAME and therefore provides unity for a community. it doesn’t matter what the moral laws are as long as everyones are the same. hence ancient greece got along just fine with “an eye for an eye” and “the warrior is the ideal”. those of faith may claim that it is the law of god, in this case either most others of the same religion are wrong (because their morality differs) abortion, contraception, stem cells, capital punishment etc. etc. provide numerous barriers to identical morality. or “god has a different moral code for every individual” the real meaning of this statement in the dialectic of scepticism is “everyones moral code is different”.
just because you say “jesus gave me the strength to carry on” or “jesus guided me so i met a friend in need in a crowd of thousands” and i say “i got a sudden burst of strength” or “it was very lucky i met him in that crowd of thousands just as he needed me” doesn’t mean exactly the same thing didn’t happen. i just described it one way and you another. using this experience as evidence for the existence of god doesn’t make any sense. this way of describing events is only valid if you have previous proof of gods existence- hence validating your dialectic. this is impossible.
aside from any of this, i usually find it a good idea to judge ideas by the people that hold them. i have met a huge number of incredibly boring, incredibly closed minded, racist, xenophobic, old fashioned, uncritical christians (this is the historical dialectic and one which the least adventurous are yet to break free from), and so far none who are sceptics.
how many suicide bombers do you know of who blow themselves up the name of getting on with your life without irrational beliefs impinging on your freedom?
scepticism is the progressive paradigm of philosophical and scientific investigation. the old paradigm of christian faith is dying out (except in less developed countries with little education) because it is archaic and no longer accurately describes human experience.
“Those that do not accept our answers also have none of their own.”
this is the fullest answer you are likely to find: no one knows what happens when we die, except that our bodies rot and our atoms are reabsorbed back into the melee of the universe. now get on with life free of the shackles of faith.
zarathustra
You arguments are just based on unbelief. The unbelief has no proof.
You have yet to prove that morality is dependent on biology, and not independent from it.
You “experience” me. Do I exist, or am I something you have based on “faith?”
zarathustra,
I pray that one day you will have cause to reach out to God, and call on Him for whatever it is you need. When He answers you, that is when you ‘ experience ‘ Him and then you will know He is real. Believe it or not, He does love you. I believe He is causing you to keep returning to this blog, and you are under much conviction to find real truth.
It is never to late.
Patty
Zaruth, as i read your post, I was thinking how to respond, but Marianne’s and Patty’s spoke well what I thot. What I sense you are thinking, is that when we speak of an experience with God, it means something that could have happened in the natural, aside from a God. But we are trying to tell you, these experiences go BEYOND the natural.
Among us, we understand this, for we all have experienced the otherwise impossible. We have even heard the voice of God speaking to us with encouragement, or maybe instructions on how to handle a situation that is important. Can we prove this scientifically? No.
You see, we each have our own relationship with God, and He therefore helps us and we can see His help. You cannot see this, as you have no relationship with Him. So all you are left with is to look from the outside in, and see what to you is scientifically impossible.
If you are holding out for us to scientifically prove to you there is a God, it cannot be done by us. As i said in a previous post, He is the One who does the proving, but ONLY on His terms. He does not have to bow to you or any scientist to change His ways. But like anyone who has experienced the love of God first hand, we are anxious to see others also experience His Love. That is why we don’t just blow you off.
Like a man once said, “I am a fool for God. Whose fool are you?” This means yes, one who has taken a stand against God may likely feel too foolish to later repent. I know, for I rebelled and became an atheist for 7 years long ago, and did my best to lead anyone away from their “fantasy.” But He came after me and I could no longer deny Him. He did this in a way that could not have been by natural means, and I am forever grateful. DavWms
all of these answers can be deconstructed and described using the concepts explained in my post. it is unnecessary for me to attempt to provide answers to these questions as they are self explanatory. i will attempt to elaborate however, perhaps sheer volume of language might wash over you and leave a stain of my argument behind.
you are unwittingly trapped within the paradigm of belief, to the point where metaphorical language has taken on a strong, literal emotional significance. i am perhaps equally trapped within the paradigm of scepticism. my paradigm however acknowledges it’s limitations including the fact that it is a form of entrapment- paradoxically freeing me of it’s shackles by describing them.
i only come back to this forum to see if the gradual change from the old paradigm of faith into the new one of the modern or post-modern (altermodern- whatever you want to call it) can be effected by exposing people in a very isolated, self referential group to the language and conceptual thought of the outside world.
do you wonder why these posts often draw the attention of people who struggle with basic spelling and grammar? why (in my experience at least) a huge proportion of church attendees are the less educated or those desperately in need of social support. it is because the free thinkers, the liberated intellectuals of recent generations are no longer trapped within the medieval mindset of christianity. the church remains only as a social institution- a meeting place for ageing friends and nothing more in most communities.
if you really examine, honestly, the circumstances in which “god came after you” David you will find there are sufficient observable reasons for the experience based in natural means to make the involvement of the concept “god” unnecessary.
the same literal thing will have happened whether or not you call it “god”. you say “god came and found me”, i say “fear of death caught up with you and convinced you to delude yourself that you’re not going to die”. because these are describing the same event, they are synonymous.
zarathustra
It might help discussion if you get off your pedantic pedestal of self -exaltation, and quit the psycho-babble, regurgitating, with the help of copy and paste functions, the opinions of men, who think they are gods.
Your self-analysis leads to self-absorption, and selfish thinking, rather that universal thinking.
There are educated, and less educated, people in both camps – religious and godless. The liberal Obama only got into office because of uneducated people who could be brainwashed.
I have been in liberal universities for 30 years. Liberal they are. Intelligent and open-minded, they may not be. I have spent most of time at one of the most prestigious universities in America, and they are the nastiest, most narrow-minded, most unethical, stupid people I know. I have had to do the jobs of others because they were too stupid, and did not know how. They had lofty credentials from 30 years ago, that they just use for status. They stopped thinking when they left graduate school. All they did was make mistakes, and I spent all my time correcting them.
Some may be ok, but they are in the growing minority. What is important in the university setting is status, and getting credit for accomplishments, whether the accomplishments are truly theirs or not. Lying is ok if it gets you what you want. Many are so snotty and stupid, they are intolerable, and hatred for human rights abounds. They will champion the terrorist and condemn the victim, because they want to show how open minded they are to the terrorists, and gain their approval.
Universities should only be for teaching facts. Human opinions are morally bankrupt, unethical, and narrow minded, and should be eliminated from the campus setting.
zarthustra,
I only graduated from highschool, but I have had to deal with many things in life.
One thing I learned in elementary school was to capatalize the first letter of every sentence. I am glad our education does not matter to God. I am not afraid to die, and welcome being with my loved ones who have gone before me. I know David feels the same.
Love,
Patty
Hi Patty,
Knowledge is useless without wisdom, and you have that !!
blessings
marianne
the non capitalization is a tip of the hat to ee cummings.
human opinions are morally bankrupt? interesting. i see you are implying by this that your opinions are more than human?
you are only hiding your egoism with sentiments like ‘i will not boast in anything but in the lord” seeing as you act as a mouthpiece for “the lords” will.
i haven’t used a single copy and paste or even read anything else for reference while writing these posts- other than a few lengthy quotes taken as a whole and presented separately to any of my argument. i don’t think you understand what psycho-babble is if you are labeling my posts as such; the above is phenomenology and critical theory.
Where are you going to be when you die then? And in what sense will your loved ones be there? Describe to me what heaven will be like? In what sense will it reflect life? Won’t it be incredibly boring to exist for an eternity as a consciousness which cannot interact in a meaningful way?
zarathustra
Yes, human opinion is morally bankrupt, for the most part in universities, so it should not be taught as “fact.”
No, as a human, my opinions are not more than human.
But I do acknowledge the opinions of God, which you don’t.
So, to deny the opinions – perfect will – of God is egotism.
Zaruth, to slightly switch off the thrust of another’s comment is not answering. This is a habit you have developed to help you think the way you do, and not have to truly consider the others’ opinions. I know you won’t agree that you do this, but you do. Over and over. No one, no matter how many times they point it out, will convince you that you do this. I write books on this subject, of how we develop self-protection methods of getting thru life as children. And most never go back to discover why we really think the way we do.
This eventually becomes our set personality, and unfortunately, it is based on what demons helped you adapt to while you were but a child with no wisdom to know waht was really guiding you. I know you don’t believe in demons or angels, so to argue with you on this would be futile.
Yes Zaruth when i said God came after me, it could easily be explained away by you, an unbeliever. But I knew the circumstances I was going thru, and when two angels came to me to help, I was personally involved and know what I know is true. You may find yourself up against a wall here, because we know that we know God is God, and He loves us. DavWms
utter, utter, nonsense.
i hope you can see the irony in your accusations of questino dodging given your complete failure to engage with any of my questions regarding the opposing paradigms of faith and scepticism and their respective descriptions (or non descriptions) of the world.
instead turning to proclamations of faith and the power of the “supernatural” and “science defying” nature of god.
i’m not talking about scientific proof, i’m talking about phenomenological proof. please attempt to engage with the questions i raised in my post starting- “pfft lack of experience”. you cannot ground your faith in the truth of these experiences in biblical evidence because your biblical evidence is dependent on the experience. what is your independent reason for believing in either of them?
zarathustra
You have dodged questions I have asked.
for example:
do you believe I exist, and how do you know I do, if you believe that?
theory or opinion is not fact. At least experience is a fact.
Phenomenal proof has existed for many. All you have is empty words.
zarathustra
Since you do not believe in God, or believe His Word, you will not even understand this. I am not arguing with you, because God tells me not to.
Faith is believing in things you cannot see. You will never understand this, unless you KNOW God.
Hebrews 11
1NOW FAITH is the assurance of the things hoped for, being the proof of things we do not see and the conviction of their reality [faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses].
Your intellegence and education in science will get you no where with God.
You asked where will I go when I die. I will go to heaven to see my Lord face to face, and I will see my loved ones who have gone before me. We will know each other and I will know even brothers and sisters in Christ I have never met before, as Marianne and David. It is so beautiful there, we cannot retain it all in our minds now.
The opposite is hell. People will go there who have not believed in God and don’t KNOW Him and have not received His son, Jesus. People who go there will burn forever and forever.
I hope to see you in heaven.
I pray God’s mercy for you.
Patty
Hi this blog is great I will be recommending it to friends.
Interesting blog, I’ll try and spread the word.
Many of you are very smart to be skeptical of theories and Zarathustra may have not been the best one to be defending evolution given his lack of ability to himself understand and explain the causal mechanisms and evidence that justifies evolution. For those that simply don’t want to hear the words of an atheist such as myself, I would highly recommend these websites:
http://www.asa3.org/
http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/p14.htm
The ASA is the American Scientific Affiliation: A Fellowship of Christians in Science
I figure that it would be most suitable for those of you who are of the faith to hear the evidence and why it makes so much sense from those who share in your beliefs but are also able to reconcile these beliefs with the evidence at hand. These are some truly intelligent scientists who have done enough work and studying to see the irrefutable evidence that supports evolution.
The evidence for a 4.5 billion year old earth is very highly supported by radiometric isochron dating, which contrary to many creationist claims, does not have many inaccuracies or flaws with it. In fact, the ASA has an article specifically addressing this issue. Not to mention that these dating techniques have been confirmed to be accurate with many other methods that all match, such as fission track dating and thermoluminescence dating. Any analysis of possible errors of any single dating technique may be possible, but they all use different mechanisms for dating and still correlate with each other. Radiometric dating combined with laws of geology allow us to date fossils themselves. Even without this one must still explain the law of faunal succession. This law means that all the fossils of life we find appear in an order from the bottom up. This means that we never find human fossils in the same layers of the earth’s crust as dinosaurs. Homosapien fossils appear at a very specific time. In fact, all animals have specific layers and therefore corresponding radiometrically dated times in which they first appear. Many species that are now extinct, such as dinosaurs, all show an ending time to and above that layer all around the earth, we are unable to find any dinosaurs. Evolution could be extremely easily disproven if we were to find, for just one of many many many examples, a rabbit early on around the Cambrian period. The problem is that we don’t and not only this but all the fossils in their given order go from less complex to more complex and we can even see and explain most of the changes that occur during these time periods. Evolution is known in the scientific community as a proven fact (including many Christians and scientists of all different kinds of religions) but only a small few deny this proven fact and these people’s mistakes are revealed commonly by those with even a basic understanding of evolution. A few examples are the many video series on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS5vid4GkEY&feature=PlayList&p=AC3481305829426D&index=0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8O46wUCw5A
http://www.youtube.com/potholer54debunks
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=126AFB53A6F002CC
Note that each of these links leads to a different series and many of them debunk all the myths that many creationists claim to be the undoing of evolution yet none of them that I have ever seen directly address the law of faunal succession because that is the most irrefutable part of evolution.
Now on to the questions of God. I call myself an atheist but I don’t completely reject the possibility of God, so I would call myself more of a weak atheist. I do, however, reject the majority’s idea of God for many reasons. If God made all of this for us, then why did he create so much extra stuff? Including extra stuff which is terribly negative and could possibly destroy all of life on the earth in the blink of an eye, just some of which are asteroids, black holes, gamma ray bursts, and increased solar activity. This is not to mention that we know stars all die out eventually in a relatively rapid expansion that would burn our earth up as the sun becomes a red giant. It would then collapse and eventually become a black hole, sucking everything in our solar system and beyond inside of it tear all matter apart. Why would God interact with us so much according to the bible and most religious doctrines and then suddenly he disappears and it suddenly becomes extremely indeterminable whether or not he is performing miracles? I know that many of you might say, well God does perform miracles all the time, but I am talking about all the direct interaction he did way back when, like killing people and splitting apart rivers. The other problem is that most ideas of God are of a supreme perfect being who is infallible. There are many issues with this (as there always are with claiming an absolute) such as the commonly known paradoxes like whether or not God could make a rock so big that he could not lift it. This is not a simple question that can be answered by saying God does not play by our rules, but it is a paradox that is intrinsically linked with claiming perfection and omniscience and that there exists a being who can do absolutely anything.
Not only that but truly taking a look at what science really can prove to us, it seems that we find a world bordering upon astronomically huge and incomprehensible numbers no matter which direction we look. We look deeper into what makes matter itself and we find atoms and even those atoms are made of even tinier particles that behave the laws of quantum mechanics. An average grain of salt that weighs only 0.0000585 grams has 1,200,000,000,000,000,000 molecules of NaCl. Btw that is pronounced 1 quintillion, 200 quadrillion molecules. This is a large amount! And to think that each molecule of NaCl has a combined 28 protons and 30 neutrons and also many electrons. Each proton and neutron is made up of a number of quarks as well. This is so large that our brains cannot understand these numbers and truly have a grasp on their meaning.
This is already devastatingly complicated and seems not like the work of a God, but the work of some random pool of particles that behave in certain ways. Yet we can then look in the other direction at the rest of our universe. Let’s take our solar system with 9 planets. We know there are about 400,000,000,000 stars in just our galaxy. This means around 3,600,000,000,000 planets in our galaxy. Then multiply that by the estimated 125,000,000,000 galaxies in our universe and we get around 450,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets in our universe. Considering just the number of atoms in our earth (which by the way is extremely insignificant given that our sun contains around 99.9% of our solar systems mass) is about 133,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms. Wow, so multiply that by the number of planets and you get a universe teeming with way way more than 59,850,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms all moving around randomly and smashing into one another behaving with the laws of physics. For some reason everywhere we look, all we see are astronomically huge numbers which are incomprehensible by our standards. This is because we are likely to be nothing in an abyss of huge numbers. Why would there be a God who is specifically looking at just us when we are obviously not the main attraction?
And btw about the whole eye evolution thing. The benefit of sensing basic light is that it might know when a predator moves in front of it, or it might help with a basic sense of direction. The point of evolution is not that the creature’s mutations need to be really useful, but just more useful than the other creatures it competes with and in this sense, being able to sense light is a vast advantage over not being able to sense light at all. After this, perhaps a simple concave (or “cupped in”) light sensing ability would’ve allowed the organism to directly sense light sources themselves and this would have in turn been a great advantage over the previous organisms that could not do this. It is more thoroughly explained here http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/01/1/l_011_01.html
Also, it should be noted that a brain is not necessary to have mechanisms. We have central brains and consciousness and such but early simple organisms worked off more basic mechanical operations. For example, look at a Rube Goldberg machine. These take a simple beginning operation that sets in series a complex system of mechanical operations which cause something else to happen. Perhaps if a predator gives off light, this very early single light sensing cell might mechanically cause the cell to propel itself backwards, rather than sending it back to a brain which then tells the creature it should go backwards. This would arise through even earlier evolutions that helped allow motion. This could easily be explained as a benefit because cells with motion are able to move all over the place and therefore populate and split in many numerous places where there are fewer cells to compete with for splitting space. In a densely populated area, cells would require more energy to push against their neighboring cells to split. But given that these cells were able to split and self replicated, the exponential effect would be great and life would spread very fast and would accelerate and spread all over the earth.
HI Kevin,
I am a biochemist so I appreciate your desire to consider science and what it has to offer.
Some things are really speculative in science, and other things are proven.
First, it depends on where you “dig.” There are some areas where you see strata in one order. There are other strata where you do see trees standing upright through several strata, indicating a rapid burial within multiple layers that were all laid down at the same time.
They have found human foot prints with dinosaur footprints, which makes them contemporaries.
Dating methods have no way to be proven as accurate as billions of years. In science, we need controls to compare data with.
For example, if I were to try to measure an unknown sample for a protein, I would first establish a standard curve with material that is that protein, and use different dilutions of that protein to establish the curve, and how that protein would act at different concentrations. I would also use an antibody against that protein and special dyes that react with that protein to further identify it. Whatever I do to the sample is also done in the standard curve, so they can be compared. Then when I measure the unknown sample, I can not only tell if the protein is there, but also how much of it is there. The secret is to have a good known control to compare it with.
In dating methods for billions of years, there is no standard for comparison. There is no way to establish what carbon would be given off over time, because no one has ever been alive that long to collect the data to put into a curve. All we know is how carbon dated material behaves within the period of man’s current lifetime.
We do not know, if we were to live billions of years and collect that data, if the curve would be linear, exponential, polynomial, etc. So what scientists do is ASSUME the line is linear, which is definitely an assumption, and then extrapolate off the curve. This is the best they can do.
There is other data in science that indicates that materials and time itself is NOT linear. Einstein explored this with his theory of relativity, and this theory gained momentum with the Philadelphia experiment, where they established time travel. They overcame time, because time is non-linear.
The complexity of the universe and “creation” only indicates a magnificent order to things, which would not be expected if it was randomly assembled over a long time.
This is food for thought.
To me, Earth is older than we can “imagine”. In a literal sense. (We are not really able to “imagine” Millions of years, aren’t we?). The more we step backwards in natural history, the less we do really “know”, that’s for sure. But it seems quite obvious to me that humans are the result of a very long process of life. Life flows. Life means change.
Those things do not happen instantly.
So, YES, I think that the Theory of Evolution is quite a good model to “explain” the circumstances how life went on and on.
And, in my opinion, this has nothing to do with the existence of God. Atheists might use Darwin’s theory for their arguments, but I cannot really agree to that.
There are many different readings of what Genesis was really telling us. Many Hebrew scholars questioned where it says, “The earth was without form and void.” They understood that the word, “was” could just as well been, “became.” Isaiah 45;18 tells us that the world was not created a chaos.
We could let this pass over us lightly, if not for some following criteria. Why, if the world was created for inhabitants, was there a need for a Garden in its midst? And why was Adam to be a watchguard over the Garden? (A better translation than a “keeper.” Were there already people outside the Garden that Adam was supposed to keep out? Was there a preadamic race ruled by satan, that one day Adam and Eve were to go out and subdue? If not, then just who was it that Cain was afraid of over in Nod, that might kill him when he was sent there? Why was the word, “fill” the earth used, when it is better translated, “refill” the earth?
There are many questions we do not have the answers to, and they are all the more confusing as we dig up the remains of “people: buried thousands of years before we assume the Garden was formed. Just when did Jesus see satan cast to the earth as lightning? Pre-Adam, of post-Adam?
BTW, Kevin. Your response to my “eye” thing failed to answer how the info the light sensitive cell “saw’ got to the brain. Your theory demands that the cell had a way of understanding and sending the info already in place. How could that evolve? DavWms
Hi Marianne
What happens when a person has the same dream again and again? I will share my dream with you. I have had this dream on average about 7 or 8 times a year for 3years! My husband has a brother who I avoid. He is very much into witchcraft and has meany books on the subject, he is very intelligent, and high up in social circles. Him and my husband have businesses together. He is very authorative and even my husband knows that is uncomfortable to be around him and the only word to describe him is creepy. I am quite nervous around him. I constantly dream that him and I am kissing, I always dream that as soon as my husband leaves our presence we kiss and that I betray my husband. My husbands brother is already married and I don’t think of him in a romantic way at all. He has a house on our property because of a business situation and him and his wife only sleeps there sometimes, they have other houses where they stay. They also have cursed objects in their house on our property. Do you think it is through their witchcraft that I have these dreams?Or is God trying to warn me?
It is getting rediculous.
Kind Regards,lona