Just interested because of some weird happennings. There has been a lot of - demanding proof of God's existence, or absolute proof that He/She /It - does not exist .. But has anyone on the board had unexplained phenominum or totally out of this world bizarre coincedences. These have no logical or reasonable explanations, but nonetheless they definitely happend to you. You know like the old Radio program "The Twilight Zone"
My weird experience is that I have lived long enough to see someone say that "The Twilight Zone" was a radio show. It was a TV show, and it was in black and white and the narrator, Rod Serling, smoked enough cigarettes to stun an ox.
There isn't proof that god exists. There's especially no proof that he doesn't exist, because you can't prove a negative. My belief is that he most probably doesn't exist. Phenomena that seems strange or inexplicable always has an explanation. It's just sometimes not readily apparent.
I was living in Colorado at the time, but in town where there were a normal number of lights from houses, front porches, etc. So the night sky was usually reasonably clear and starry, but not as starry as you would see up on a mountaintop. One night I remember looking out my window at the night sky. Everything looked normal except for a small circular patch right in front of me. Looking at that small patch was like looking through the Hubble telescope at the Deep Field image -- many, many more stars than I would normally expect to see.
It was probably some atmospheric anomaly. But it was beautiful and memorable.
I remember one night, while on vacation, I looked up at the night sky, and there were all these thousands of tiny points of light slowly floating across the sky. Freaked me out, until someone told me that there was a nearby military base doing flare testing, and that they had announced in the papers they would be doing it for months.
It was one of those long box kites, and it had gotten away. I was about ten years old, and it was during that UFO craze after the Close Encounters movie. It looked kind of gray and metallic in the distance, and it was long and looked like it was constructed with girders. I was standing out in the street with a bunch of other kids watching it. We couldn't figure out what it was. So, it could only have been an alien spacecraft. It was many years before I finally figured out what it was.
A small thing, but I haven't been able to explain it:
I had lost a necklace and thought I'd probably never see it again. Comes Sunday, and just as I put my foot on the first step of the ward building stairs, I see _in my mind_ as a quick flash, how my necklace is hanging on the bulletin board.
I went in, took off my coat, and went to the bb. And there it was, just as I had seen it in my mind. I never even found out who had found it and pinned it up on the bb.
I experienced a timeslip, where it seemed like ~10 minutes passed and then I went back and went through the same ~10 minutes again. It was curiously interesting, however I dont believe it had any objective reality, outside of my subjective experience.........just a mindfart.
If someone says that had a weird experience, my view is that they simply experienced something that was either subjective (misinterpretation/hallucination) or that they dont have the understanding to be able to explain it (eg, knowledge of modern aircraft, or knowledge of weather phenomena)
This is where I fall too. There is always a rational explanation, even should one choose not to accept it.
When I was a child, I used to believe very firmly that I could swap bodies with people but had gotten stuck in this one, also constantly felt like I was awakening from a dream all day long, and if I closed my eyes I could immediately see myself from a different vantage point, as if I was 'astral projecting' or seeing myself through someone else's vantage point.
Turns out these are all common reactions in children to childhood trauma and extreme stress. Whenever I tried to bring any of this up to my parents(because this was all very troubling!) who should have gotten me help, their reaction was either to twist it into a spiritual experience or poke fun at my 'imagination'. I thought I was going crazy(I was), but sometimes they'd regale the extended family with tales of my 'spirituality' or jokes about my 'vivid imagination'. Imagine having very troublesome experiences described in front of you to others as either very mystical or just plain funny. Yes, add to the stress, thanks mom.
I was waling down the street one day when all of a sudden, right there before was God and his good sone jesus. They told me that they wanted me to believe as I WAS an athiest. We went all around the world together and now I am a strong believer.
Just wondering why you bring the two ideas together: proof of the existence of God and weird experiences. Or am I reading too much into your initial post?
I was once surrounded by people who believed in an ancient civilization on this continent descended from Jews. They believed this lost civilization disappeared without a trace and left a golden book which their leader could translate by putting a stone in a hat. This lost civilization had been visited by Jesus. They had a lot of other weird beliefs that were easy to disprove, yet they went on believing. It was like living among people under a mass delusion.