Who Said That?

On Tentmaker recently there was a discussion in a thread called The God I Know about hearing God...and whether it is God we hear or just our imagination. There has been an atheist hanging out at TM...very well read, well versed in scripture and Christianity and many religions...and well mannered. He is not there to simply stir up trouble. He has been there for a while and participated in quite a few threads. He goes by the name Transponder. His avatar is a water bottle which he (tongue in cheek) claims represents the water bottle sitting on his desk...the one he is waiting for God to turn into wine. There were several quotes in the thread about hearing from God that tickled me. He said about the "still small voice"

I have also had this relationship with the voice in my head with which I commune, debate, reason, discuss and share my life. It is me.

And he went on to say:

....the fact that they all occur 'in the head' would indicate, would it not, that it all emanates from the head? In fact, even before I had heard of the studies on 'voices' which indicated a mental origin, reading deconversion stories gave me quite a lot of evidence that - as one deconvert put it in a way that I regard as summing it all up - "I thought for so long that I was talking to God, but I realized in the end that I was just talking to myself".

I hijacked the topic and posted it on Emerging Universalist for discussion and asked for comments from my buds there about how they discern whether it is the voice of God speaking to them or just the voices in their heads. Brian related an amusing anecdote...

LOL...the last comment reminds me of a piece of dialog from a movie I saw about 30 years ago, can't even remember its name. There was a guy in it who was having delusions - he thought he was God. A psychiatrist asked him how he knew he was God and I remember his reply : "Because when I pray to God, I find that I'm talking to myself".

Hmmmmmm....sometimes prayer does seem a bit that way doesn't it?

My friend annie said:

i'm sure there's a balance and i'm sure folks like jim jones and david koresh weren't hearing from God. but their error shouldn't make us shy away from the still small voice that speaks truth to our hearts. and without that, do we REALLY KNOW God? or do we just know what we've read about him in a book, the testimonies of others who claimed to know him? in a court of law, secondhand testimony or "hearsay" is not allowed?

if we're going to make the PERSON of Christ our foundation (1 cor 3.11), then we're going to have to have some sort of personal experience aisi and not just go with other folks say so... but we must test the spirits and i think the best test of that is against the historical record we have of Jesus. if the voice in our head told us to kill someone, we can know it to be false, for God as revealed in Jesus said, "love your enemies... bless... pray for... do good".

Dena said:

I also see that we're told to test the spirits...
I assume that means that there are both good and bad spirits who can speak to us (in our thoughts, in other things/people). I see that I need to ask for discernment -- and He gives it as a gift. I see that I have to trust Him to confirm that a thing is either of Him, or not of Him... and I can also test things by the fruit they bear.

I read many posts on message boards where people claim to have had all kinds of experiences, conversations, teachings, leadings and extraordinary experiences with God. Like on a minute by minute basis. Although I know he is always with me and that I always have his ear, I also am a bit skeptical of all the "God told me, God showed, God taught me, God gave me this experience and that experience" Sometimes I think it is a bit more fanciful thinking than anything. I have had one extraordinary experience with God...when I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt it was him who tapped my shoulder and whispered into my ear. I have had numerous less dramatic experiences...some I am certain were him. Sometimes, when the thought that pops into my mind is something that totally takes me by surprise....and often gives me an insight into a situation or a conflict or annoying behavior by someone I am at odds with that hadn't occurred to me and probably would never have occurred to me otherwise. The insight is always a softer, gentler thought than anything I might come up with. I think he has spoken to me through scripture, through the words of my online buddies, through the words in a movie or a quote...and often in opinions that I vehemently disagree with (hell, total determinism, the party line view of the atonement) when he whispers in my ear....you don't really believe that about me do you? Reminds me of the scripture that promises...and thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, this is the way, walk ye in it........