Have you experienced divine intervention?

Many times, I’m amazed I’m alive.

I’m not going to question your recollection of the facts or the physics involved. My only question is this: When faced with something you didn’t understand, why would you insert “god did it”? You even describe yourself as not religious, yet when faced with either acknowledging that you don’t know or don’t understand how you survived that, you have decided that god intervened – something for which you have no evidence for.

Not that i’m aware of no.

*lots of stuff that I just deleted *

What @hominid said.

There are about a million more likely explanations for what happened than “Goddidit”

@hominid @Seek_Kolinahr yep. I agree with both of you completely. All I can say is I just know. It was a feeling. I’ve only felt it that one time. I was completely calm on my resignation of my death (keep in mind this happened in no more than 5 seconds tops), and gripped the wheel and that was it. I realize the tires might have caught, or whatever, but it was just the way it was. Something divine happened. I felt it.

So I respect, but I don’t worship. I don’t believe there is a “God” watching over me. But that day, for whatever reason, an whatever it was, fate intervened. It was 17 years ago, and nothing has ever felt like that again.

Maybe it was a ghost, or the laws of physics, or a strong gust of wind, who knows

@GloPro: “All I can say is I just know.”

Well, there is nothing much to say to this response.

Are you somewhat concerned, however, that all of us are susceptible to different types of problems in our thinking? All of us. You seem convinced because it’s something you “felt”, yet are not concerned that there is a more likely explanation for those sensations you felt.

As a side note. (FYI, I’m not mentioning this to call you mentally ill. I promise.) I used to work with adult schizophrenics. Every single one of them knew things that we knew were not factual. And there was nothing we could do to dissuade them from their beliefs. There was a guy who knew that Robert Redford (the actor) and the FBI were out to get him. They had implanted a device in his head that was used to read his thoughts and send him messages, hence the voices. He also knew that they would break into his apartment at night occasionally and sexually assault him. There was no evidence for any of this. You could provide all of the evidence available (MRI brain scans, intact locks on doors, etc). It wouldn’t matter.

I’m not saying that everyone who replaces “I don’t know” with “god did it” is ill. Rather, mental illness sheds light on an important feature of human consciousness – it’s real easy to get tripped up and get caught in over-applying our natural inclination towards pattern recognition or the application of agency – things that were adaptive and a result of our evolution that now make us susceptible.

@hominid: “Well, there is nothing much to say to this response.”

Ok, maybe there is. :)

Of course. Satan always walks by my side.

@GloPro There are several of us on this site who are not mentally ill and still believe in a Higher Power so if you ever want to have a real, open discussion feel free to PM and we can all chat privately. There are probably a lot more than you think that are open to the possiblity.

Here’s the thing. When I wrote this question, I knew @KNOWITALL would respond with ‘all the time’ because she is defined largely by her faith and religion. In contrast to myself, she believes God intervenes regularly, because she is religious.
I am not religious. There is a difference between believing a bigger entity exists and worshipping that entity. I believe in ghosts, too, but I don’t worship them. If I had been drowning in the ocean and a dolphin pushed me to shore I would credit the dolphin. It’s just how it was. It was something that has only happened to me once, I felt it, and I’ve never felt it since. That, to me, is divine intervention. Something bigger had a hand in there, be it God, or karma, or fate, or chaos, or whatever. I don’t claim to understand things bigger than me, of which there are many.
Last summer I had a tarp wrap around my head and torso while driving my motorcycle. I easily could have died. I credit myself for handling the situation, not divine intervention. I guess it was solely based on the feeling that something intervened that I attribute that one occurrence to what I would call divine intervention.

@GloPro Wow, got me a God rep, nice. :)

Yes; many times. But as far as divine is concerned I’m not certain about that. It could be aliens who spoke to me and sent me a strong scent of rose pedals twice. For starters. After my father and best friend died.
The super cool part is the first time it happened I was in bed with my ex husband and he alerted me to the scent. He’s an agnostic.

I can say it has happened in many, many ways, not just lifesaving incidences but health, financial, and other things as well. I could spout many but scoffers would certainly just chalk it up to chance. I believe you had some guardian angels protecting you off the details you gave. Was it God saving you, or saving the driver of the truck, who might have been a rooted and anchored believer, I can’t say. Maybe some time in the future that you can’t see or believe, this incident will lead you from the darkness into the Marvelous Light, or it might for him, or even the woman driving the cab, and the two of you were by products of that grace. However, I give God the glory all of you are still alive to tell of it, and even if you don’t believe, God still get the glory for it. ;-)

I want you to be yourself. Y’know, boy, guilt is like a bag of fucking bricks. All you gotta do is set it down…..Who are you carrying all those bricks for anyway? God? Is that it? God? Well, I’ll tell ya, lemme give you a little inside information about God. God likes to watch. He’s a prankster. Think about it. He gives man instincts! He gives this extraordinary gift and then—what does he do? I swear—for his own amusement—his own private cosmic gag reel—he sets the rules in opposition. It’s the goof of all time! Look. But don’t touch! Touch. But don’t taste! Taste. Don’t swallow! And while you’re jumping from one foot to the next, he’s laughing his sick fucking ass off!! He’s a tight ass, he’s a sadist, he’s an absentee landlord!! Worship that never!

I’m here on the ground with my nose in it since the whole thing began!
I’ve nurtured every sensation Man has been inspired to have! I cared about what he wanted and I never judged him. Why? Because I never rejected him. In spite of all his imperfections, I’m a fan of man!!

I’m a humanist. Maybe the last humanist. Who, in their right mind, Kevin, could possibly deny the 20th century was entirely mine? All of it, Kevin, all of it! Mine! I’m peaking here! It’s my time now. It’s our time.

Sometimes when I see wrecks I think, “If they’d just left the house 10 seconds earlier or later this might not have happened to them because they wouldn’t have been in that place at that moment.” I then wonder how many times I’ve been spared from a wreck because I ran back in the house to get something.

But it works the other way too. If I hadn’t ran back in the house to get something I wouldn’t have been in that place at that moment and gotten into a wreck.

So if I DO get in a wreck or I DON’T get into a wreck, both are the result of “divine intervention.”

@Dutchess_III If you don’t believe in God, how do you believe in Divine Intervention? Like guardian angels or something?

How do you define divine interventions?

I look at the many reasons I am still alive as a Guardian Angel was there to look over me. I had a very similar story when I was in the passenger seat of my friends Camaro and as we were driving I spotted some friends so I leaned out the window and waved to my friends and I swear someone grabbed or pushed me back into the car less than a split second before we got in a head on collision that totaled both cars. My friend was pretty cut up and I was crumpled up under the dashboard unscathed. Had been still hanging out that window at impact I would have surely been decapitated. I have 7 other stories where I do believe a Guardian Angle was there and 2 of the time I had last rites and one was a near death experience.

Once, I was going for a coffee run. Literally all I had to do was cross the 6 lane highway, as the place I worked was on one corner, and the place I was going was on the adjacent corner. But there were a lot of people and a lot of coffee to carry, so I took the car.

I was 18, so of course my car was NOT going to move without a song I liked playing on the radio, so while I’m sitting at the light frakking with the CD player, I hear a crunch, like a thousand Coke cans being stepped on at once. I look up to see what was left of a sedan get covered with the full load of gravel from the truck that just flipped over it. The gravel truck went fully arse over tits, spun out into the intersection, and stopped about two feet away from the front of my car.

And I had the green light.

Divine intervention? No, it was Josh Groban that kept me at that light.

but Josh Groban has the voice of an angel

A sexy, sexy angel who sings in Italian.

I didn’t say I believed in divine intervention @KNOWITALL. That’s why I put it in quotes. I think it’s simply a coincidence.

^^^ Could have been a divine assignment for the CD to not be in the player already causing you do delay for having to find it, or having to locate the song on the CD if it were in the player already.

@Dutchess_III I figured, just checking- lol

Coincidence or Divine Intervention, like HC said, all glory goes to God anyway, for believers anyway.

Forgot to ask – is divine intervention ever bad (or appears bad). It seems that nearly everything that is good is possibly a result of divine intervention, despite the lack of any evidence. Could getting fired or getting in an accident also be divine intervention?

And does God’s intervention cause any problems for the concept of “free will” that is accepted by Christians?

On the contrary, @Hypocrisy_Central , I was exercising my free will to take my eyes off the road, ignoring myriad safety guidelines.

Besides, where’s the divine intervention for the 60 year old father of three and grandfather of ten in the sedan that got pancaked?

@hominid Are you kidding?! Of course God can punish us.

As far as getting fired, that could be ascribed to ‘when one door closes, another door opens’, maybe God’s way of leading you where you need to be for His purposes.

I have free will, it’s completely up to me to believe or not, obey the ‘rules’ as I understand them or not, to share the word or not, to fellowship with other Christians or not. All the choices are mine to make.

For instance, when God led me to my husband I had the choice to accept His choice for me or marry someone else I cared about. I chose God’s choice, and accept it and all , for whatever His reasons are and it’s worked out fairly well for me.

I just thought of this:

When I was 18, I was a good little Christian girl. A virgin. A Sunday School teacher. I went to church five times a week and never thought a single rebellious thought.

God could have smushed me with a gravel truck and taken me straight to heaven that day.

BUT HE DIDN’T.

I was allowed to live. And a scant four years after I left the church entirely and became the noxious little gadfly you know me to be now, battling religion at every turn.

Take THAT, divine intervention theory!

@Seek_Kolinahr How’s that workin’ for ya?

It’s AWESOME.

@KNOWITALL
Very well indeed.

@Seek_Kolinahr Okay then, skeptical.

@ragingloli Shouldn’t you be cussing God somewhere, who jerked your chain?

* hides chain behind back *

Chain? What chain? Who’s got a chain?

@KNOWITALL
Evil must be opposed.

@ragingloli All I’m saying is that as long as you feel that way, there’s no need to address me, I resent your rude and offensive language.
If you worshipped a rock in your driveway I wouldn’t be hateful to you, but that’s par for the course here isn’t it?!

offensive language, huh?
you have not seen anything yet, ms. thinskin.

@KNOWITALL Chillax, bro. Literally ALL Loli said was “very well indeed” before you hopped on their case with your “chain jerking” nonsense. Who’s being rude and offensive?

Maybe it was their time to go, the men that got buried in gravel.
Maybe “divine” isn’t the right word for some of us… But for those of you adamantly agnostic/atheistic, do you believe in karma, chaos, spirits, a fourth dimension, fate, etc? Those odd unexplainable things that happen… Maybe something intervened that isn’t easy to explain. Not scientific, or reasonable, or logical.
Or is that also not believable?

do you believe in karma, chaos, spirits, a fourth dimension, fate, etc? Those odd unexplainable things that happen…

Karma: Only in the sense that cause and effect exists. If you’re a douche your whole life, don’t be surprised when you find yourself with no friends.

Chaos: In the Greek sense? No.
Spirits: No.
Fourth dimension: Isn’t that “time”?
Fate: I’m neutral on free will vs. determination theory. I’m not educated enough in the philosophy to have a stance.

It’s my experience that those odd unexplainable things usually have an explanation, and they’re not nearly as odd as we’d like them to be.

Yeah, yeah, 5th dimension, sixth sense, yadda yadda yadda. You’re conversing with a girl that won’t say “Candyman” to a mirror, here, and most of the time I am over the top logical.
I believe that with everything science has taught us can you imagine the possibilities of the things we don’t know? Maybe sometimes those things effect us, but are still just out of reach of understanding.

Chaos theory is actually quite fascinating, but let’s not go off on that tangent sidetrack today.

Why won’t you say “Candyman” to a mirror???

most of the time I am over the top logical.
Forgive me, but I’m not seeing evidence of that.

Learning things isn’t evidence of what we don’t know yet. It’s evidence for what we have learned. I don’t see any reason to assume that there’s a great something out there, and I definitely don’t see any reason to give it a name and anthropomorphise it.

Haha, this is not one of my more logical conversational topics, it’s true. My right brain has center stage today. I think there are many great somethings out there that we don’t know or understand, just given how infinite the universe is. I don’t anthropomorphize any of it, I just acknowledge and accept it. Then I stop really thinking about it. It doesn’t effect my life (except for my one car accident, and I’ve been in many accidents or dangerous situations). I don’t fault others or try to disprove things if another feels “more connected,” cause I just don’t know and I’m open to not judging things that can neither be proven or disproven.

oh, shit. That’s twice. Nobody say it again or we’re all in big trouble…

Candyman Candyman Candyman Candlejack Candym

@ragingloli I’m glad I’m not at your house!

@Seek_Kolinahr You’re not my friend, so you don’t get to correct me, but thanks.

I’m more of deist on this issue (like a non religious type of theist) but yes I feel the same way. I’ve had too many odd experiences in my life to simply just write off. I’ve known many people who had as well.

I had an odd event a little over a year ago concerning a close call while driving my truck very fast on a wet road while running late for work. I’m not comfortable getting into details on here about the near accident, but I probably shouldn’t be typing this post right now.

^^^Tease.

Massive yawn

Believer = Divine Intervention. (thought it happens to those who don’t believe anyhow)

Secular = luck.

I’m yawning too, I’m tired from work.

I see a lot of divine intervention cases and I often see it as nothing more than an example of the confirmation bias. When good devout people lose a child to illness, they don’t call that “divine intervention”. When Tim Tebow wins a football game after praying, he might call it that. It’s all about perspective.

Sometimes I think it might be possible, with things like the Tunguska event. In 1908, a meteor struck the earth in a remote area of Siberia where essentially no one lived. Imagine if it had hit a more populated part of the earth. It’s like—it’s going to hit the earth anyway, but could a deity perhaps nudge it ever so slightly so that it lands in a place where it will do the least harm?

I am agnostic. It seems highly unlikely to me that there is an all-powerful being micromanaging our daily existences. I have not experienced any miraculous situations. However, I have experienced many things in my life that seem beyond random chance or sheer coincidence. I do believe there are things that science will never be able to fully explain. On the other hand, I think it is pointless to try to guess what those things are, or to imagine that there is a knowable ‘purpose’ to them, or to imagine that those things have expectations of us. I think we humans use our great big brains to overthink such things. I see all other living things and they are simply living. I try to emulate that.

A little over a year ago, I was physically manipulated into a series of yoga-like poses by “light” beings to extract some dark/demon energy that was residing in my gut. I was high (not something I do but once in a great while), but it definitely happened, and the results were what one would expect from such an unburdening. I had been asking generally for help for some time before it happened.

Wow, @KNOWITALL, who pissed in your corn flakes today?

@Seek_Kolinahr I’m good, I keep an open mind.

I believe in coincidence and serendipity, not divine intervention. That’s not to say I haven’t felt like I was in the presence of the divine a time or two…I have felt that way. I just don’t take that feeling to be the truth.