If you believe in God or a Creator what's your main reason for believing

If you believe because of scripture would you still believe if there was no scriptures. Or was it a personal experience. Or does it just make sense to you to believe in some higher power of some sort

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swirlie · 31-35, F

When I was 10 years of age, I had my first awareness that a higher power than myself existed, despite being born into a blonde-rooted Scandinavian family who never once practiced religious teachings. This means that I knew nothing about people like Jesus nor those who held higher rank than he did at the time of his life on earth, because my family never once went to church on Sundays.

Asking about this non-religious family anomaly later on in life, I was told by my parents that "nobody needs to go to church unless of course, they feel the need to socialize with their neighbors every Sunday".

Eventually I learned that the concept of 'church' resides within the mind, not within the pre-assigned holy structure of a bricks and mortar building which comes fully equipped with an Alter cut from stone found at a local stone quarry by someone who is in the business of supplying Alter stones to churches upon request.

What you can probably gather from all this, is that my sisters and I were never taught that God exists, nor were we ever taught that God doesn't exist! That understanding became my benchmark from which I went forth to do whatever.

Unlike a so-called 'near death experience' many people often talk about, I'm qualified in saying that 'near death' is really nothing more than a near-brush with the guardrails of life itself in describing how we 'almost' went off the road and 'almost' got ourselves killed.

On the other hand and quite the opposite to those who've had a 'near death' experience, I incurred a bonafide 'death experience' at 10 years of age because of my own mismanaged stupidity at the time.

Managed stupidity for the record, is a derivative of 'mismanaged intelligence'.

Following that 'death experience', I immediately experienced Devine Intervention after I did in fact jump the guardrail of life and showed up at Heaven's Gate long before my scheduled arrival time and certainly without a dinner invitation.

Yes, I was accused of trying to crash their party apparently! The bouncer at Heaven's Gate even called the Authorities on me and I was denied full access! He let me peek through the bars of Heaven's Gate but he wouldn't let me help myself to the horderves I could see spread out in abundance on the 'other side'.

I was sent back to where I had come from only shortly after I'd arrived at Heaven's Gate, meaning I was literally denied entry through Heaven's Gate, basically getting myself kicked out of the line up at the door leading into the bar so to speak, before I even got in there to start any problems which I'm pretty good at!

But I didn't want to go back home to where I'd come from and nobody was going to make me go back either, I said with great defiance! 🤬

Why didn't I want to go back home? Because heaven is like sex. Once we've been exposed to it even once, we're no longer happy to just sit around speculating about what it must be like. But once you've experience Heaven even once, you're hooked like a cocaine junkie and there's no turning back.

Even to a 10 year old kid, once she's been to Disneyland, the annual county fair back home just doesn't cut it for her anymore, despite the hayrides. That's what I saw when I looked through Heaven's Gate. I saw Disneyland! No more county fairs for this little cutie, is what I decided for myself on the spot and I wasn't leaving!

Regardless of what I thought, I was escorted back to the accident scene against my better judgement by the bouncer at Heaven's Gate, despite my kicking and screaming and blonde-rooted little girl obstinance which always got it's way and which I must say had otherwise worked quite well for me in some pretty heated family issues involving my past! But not this time! That dude was seriously by-the-book!

In a sense, I've always wished that my 'death experience' could have happened to me when I was much older than 10, for no other reason than to say to you now that I could have attached greater understanding of what I was being shown at the time, rather than what I had otherwise garnered from that experience as a 10 year old girl with Scandinavian blonde roots and an attitude.

The good thing is, I was gifted from my time of birth with a photographic memory for detail, which means I can still recall every aspect of that 'death experience' as if it had happened to me right now at this time in my life.

From that recollection of 'detail' of which I now look at very objectively involving that 'death experience', I am able to see very clearly today what the details of that experience were truly revealing to me at the time.

I never questioned those details at the time but accepted them at face value, while storing the details of the event in my memory data for a future time in my life when I could look back at all of it with greater clarity, which I started recalling and documenting in my early 20's roughly 10 years ago.

Some people assign the name "God" to what they know as being a higher power.

What I've learned from my own death experience is that the name "God" is a very generic reference to an invisible energy source which bears no likeness whatsoever to humankind, nor does that invisible energy source have an ego, nor does that invisible energy source think like Santa Clause does about who's being naughty and who's being nice down there.

"Down there" doesn't exist in reality, but our perception of God (combined with the influence of church teachings), have us otherwise believing that God watches down over us like Santa Clause does during the off-season.

I can assure the reader of this piece that God is not an old man with a white beard who always wears ankle-length night shirts and leather sandals with bare feet. And no folks, God doesn't wear black socks with sandals either, thank Christ for that! God does not have human-form and never did.

As we all know, Santa Clause most definitely keeps notes. And don't I know it!

God Energy however, does not keep notes. We think God does, but what we know about God is only what we were taught by some guy in church. What does that guy really know for sure then? Nothing about God, for sure! Nobody does.

For those of you who read this far, here's a cookie for your gallant efforts! 🍥

Axeroberts · 56-60, M

@swirlie thanks for the post and cookie. That must have been an incredible experience. Has God (for lack of a better word but meaning Living Being) changed your life. Has He enabled you to do things you couldn't otherwise do?

swirlie · 31-35, F

@Axeroberts
I think the only way that my mind would accept that surreal experience at the time, was because of my age. At 10 years of age, I accepted things at face value because everything seems surreal and magical to a 10 year old girl anyway.

If I'd been an adult when this experience happened to me, my mind probably would have gone into denial mode and dismissed what I was witnessing, while knowing that if I ever told anyone of my experience, they would probably institutionalize me for a psychiatric assessment.

For that reason, if my 'death experience' had presented itself to me as an adult experience, I might be inclined to not ever talk about it... something like an adult seeing a flying saucer land in their backyard but being afraid to tell the authorities if tangible evidence no longer existed that a landing had actually occurred.

If a 10 year old girl calls the cops after seeing a flying saucer land in her back yard, they would dismiss her claims as being 'something imagined' from a science fiction movie she probably saw if no tangible evidence remained in her backyard when authorities arrived on the scene. But she wouldn't be institutionalized for an assessment! Her wild imaginings would just be dismissed as child's play!

To your question of "Has God changed my life?", the short answer is yes. The long answer is, I lost all sense of 'fear' after I had been re-united with my body through Devine Intervention, as my motionless body lie on the bottom of a sandy lakebed in shallow water where I had left it remaining trapped under that minibike before being escorted away from it after I had stopped breathing from drowning.

The very first thing I became aware of after I stood up on my own two feet as I stood there in 3 feet of lake water, but only after I'd been freed from under that motorized minibike through Devine Intervention, was my own physical body as I looked straight down the front of my dripping wet torso.

I didn't quite recognize my body's physical form, other than still remembering myself putting on the clothes I was wearing that morning before that incident had occurred.

I was a junior athlete in my school, meaning that I had been immersed into a swimming program by my parents prior to starting grade one and then continued with aquatics as a junior sports program, in addition to being introduced to junior gymnastics in that same capacity.

Consequently, at 10 years of age and now in the academic equivalent of grade 5 in school, I looked the part of a junior athlete after 5 full years of swimming and gymnastics training in my school's athletic program for youths.

As I looked down the front of my soaking wet body after I stood up from being submerged in the water for how long I didn't know, only then did I notice for the very first time those physical aspects of my body which would be consistent with a girl whom had been consistently physically active who's diet would be as lean and fat-free as she was.

Prior to my accident involving the motorized minibike, I hadn't really paid too much attention to my physical form because every girl I knew including my sisters, looked just like I did, so I never questioned my 'looks' in the mirror.

But then again, they too were involved in the same athletic programs I was in, which would give reason for their bodies to look very similar to that of my own!

Of course, I explain this description of myself to you now as an adult, but as a 10 year old girl, I did not yet think in the same terms I've just described to you about what I saw of myself as I looked down the front of my soaking wet torso with it's drenched summer clothing, wondering what had just happened, but remembering everything from the death experience itself.

As time progressed by only a couple of months, I began to lose the thought process that would be consistent with that of a 10 year old girl. No more toys, no more dolls, no more interest in anything of that nature, no more hatred of evil young boys either!

Where my interest became suddenly focused after my 'death experience', was in things like 'adult appearances', not kid appearances.

I suddenly began to notice adult clothing on store window mannequins when I'd ride my bicycle around town on my way to the town pool with my sisters on Saturdays, seeing myself as being the teenaged plastic mannequin in the window which was wearing cool shorts and tank tops and adult swimsuits, while suddenly losing all interest in clothes consistent with that of my own age.

Suddenly, I could somehow identify with what it must be like as a ripe old aged teenager of 18 years, to be wearing those shorts, tops and swimsuits because somehow, I'd developed an intuitive awareness of what that would be like emotionally and psychologically for me as a young woman.

Looking back on it now as an adult, I realize from my remembered experiences after that accident, that my psychological as well as emotional age had become rapidly advanced by 8 years immediately following that accident of which was obviously a grossly premature advancement in my conscious awareness, but I do believe that 8 year advancement was facilitated through an Act of Devine Intervention.

I appeared to have been put back onto my old body that I'd left on the lake bottom, to then have my life's energy restored back into my body, but with that restoration came an 8 year advancement to my psychological as well as emotional conscious awareness.

Did God screw up when He Intervened I wondered, or had God given me a gift?

All I knew was, I was no longer a 10 year old girl in a 10 year old girl's body with a 10 year old girl's mindset, I was now a 10 year old girl in a 10 year old's body but with an 18 year old teenaged girl's psychological perspective on life.

I'll let you catch up, so I'll stop for now!