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       #Post#: 6466--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Power of prayer
       By: Kerry Date: December 19, 2013, 11:58 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       [quote author=George M. C. Jr. link=topic=656.msg6464#msg6464
       date=1387501417]
       [quote author=Kerry link=topic=656.msg6460#msg6460
       date=1387427334]
       Does it seem reasonable to try to understand how prayer works
       before you understand how your own body works?  Perhaps running
       your body is a type of miracle.
       [/quote]
       For that matter why understand anything before understanding how
       our body works? I would say that there are very few if any that
       truly know with full understanding of how our bodies work. Would
       you say that you know 100% how the body works?[/quote]We need to
       know enough about it to make it work the way we want.   If your
       ideas get the results you want, then your theory may be right.
       But if you get results you don't want, your theory needs looked
       at again -- just the way science keeps modifying and refining
       theories.
       If you know you don't know about something, then you are wise to
       find someone who does.  So we go to doctors.   We hope they know
       more than we do.   If my car breaks down, I take it to my
       mechanic since he's demonstrated to me that he knows more about
       cars than I do.   I know he does by his past acts, so I trust
       his judgment.    He makes some mistakes but I'd make more.
       [quote][quote author=Kerry link=topic=656.msg6460#msg6460
       date=1387427334]
       But what changes at the exact second the urge to move gets so
       strong you get up and move?
       [/quote]
       I would say reason. I think there is reason behind all action or
       lack of action.[/quote]"Reason" is not measurable in any real
       way.   It exists mostly in people's minds.   I can't smell it,
       taste it, touch it, weigh it, hear it or see it.  "Reason" is
       not a thing.
       [quote]From my experience smoking pot has little change on
       actual reality.[/quote]Ha, no, it has more to do with our
       perceptions of reality.   With our feelings.
       But any drug which changes our thoughts and feelings can be
       dangerous.  If I was on so many drugs I couldn't feel any pain,
       I could burn my hand on the stove not knowing I had it in the
       fire.   Pain can be a good experience.  Very good.   Negative
       emotions can be good to experience -- they tell us something is
       wrong out there in reality.   The fear of the rabbit when it
       sees a bigger animal helps that rabbit survive.  Emotions should
       relate to reality.   We should not feel depressed if there's
       nothing to be depressed about; and we shouldn't be happy if
       there's nothing to be happy about.
       How drugs affect reality can be subtle.   I get drunk and don't
       do the things I need to do.  So I feel good.   I may call off
       work and have some more booze to feel good about that.   How
       long can I neglect doing the things in reality that I need to do
       to have things the way I want so I'm happy about them?
       [quote]Now there are cases such as coldwars experience when
       someone in my opinion over does it and it affects there reality.
       [/quote]Does it really affect reality, or only their perception
       of it?
       [quote]This wasn't a pleasurable experience though. I think if
       smoked within limitation it enhances reality, it makes pleasure
       even more pleasurable, if one loves music it seems to make the
       music that much better. Or if one loves chocolate it makes it
       that much more desirable. Similar to adding seasoning to food.
       Potatoes are good, add butter and salt and its that much better.
       Does it make it wrong to add butter and salt? I would say no.
       [/quote]Butter and salt are real.  My tongue can taste them.
       I'm not hallucinating them.  I'm not feeling good about
       something that isn't there.
       [quote]The only way I see it becoming a problem is if one became
       dependent on pot, if one cannot enjoy life unless they are
       smoking. Yet I think that is a vary rare occasion for someone to
       be dependent on pot. I wouldn't say I was dependent on pot when
       I was smoking, I never felt like without it I couldn't function
       or enjoy things. Compare that to eating the potatoes, one could
       eat the potatoes if they were starving and there was no salt or
       butter; but if there is salt and butter available, why not add
       it?
       To me there are a lot of things in life that are this way, we
       add all types of enhancements to all sorts of things that we do.
       I love music, so I buy a large speaker and an amplifier to play
       the music loader. Women are beautiful yet they wear makeup to
       enhance there beauty. Men cut there hair or grow there hair,
       shave or don't shave, we all do something to enhance what we
       like or enjoy. To me pot is in the same category, unlike pain
       pills. people become addicted to pain pills, without them they
       cannot function, they cant eat, they cant even get out of the
       bed until the get there fix. Like heroin or crack, there are
       certain substances that take control and people become dependent
       on them. Pot doesn't seem to me to be that way, not from my
       experience. [/quote]You are still confusing real things in
       reality with altered perceptions of real things.  You are
       avoiding reality if you do pot to make the music sound better
       than it really is.   Maybe you should go find better music or
       get a better sound system instead of altering your perception of
       reality.  Pot tends to make people apathetic. Life already seems
       good to them, so why try to make it better?
       [quote]Then there are the beneficial effects of pot. there are
       many things even in the medical field that pot is good for,
       people suffering from loss of appetite due to chemo therapy have
       been proven to gain there appetite after smoking pot for
       example. Ive even seen in studies where it was claimed that
       smoking pot had many cancer fighting benefits associated with
       it, more so than even consuming the plant by means of eating it.
       It was said that when eating it the body processes it
       differently and destroys many of the cancer fighting substances
       that one receives when smoking it. Its claimed that smoking pot
       is good for the eyes and many other things.
       Tobacco is more of a dependent substance than pot in my opinion,
       I was able to give up pot; but cigarettes is a battle. I am not
       even sure what it is about cigarettes that I enjoy, yet I can't
       just put them down. Do you think cigarettes change reality, or
       have any effect on reality? Why do you think people smoke
       cigarettes? [/quote]
       You wouldn't believe me if I told you.   Nicotine addiction is
       more subtle than almost any other.  It also may be the only drug
       that once you're addicted, doesn't make you feel good by doing.
       Its major effect is making you feel bad if you don't do it.
       If God is a spirit and you are something else -- how could you
       know about Him?  If God is a spirit and you are a spirit also,
       that would imply you could know something about Him.   If you
       are a spirit but don't know what a spirit is, how could you
       worship God "in spirit and in truth"?    If you were made in the
       image and likeness of God but can't find that in yourself,  how
       would you know what to look for "out there"?
       If you and God are both "cause" because you are both spirit,
       this may have something to do with how prayer works.
       #Post#: 6469--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Power of prayer
       By: Kerry Date: December 21, 2013, 10:33 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       Speaking of nicotine!  I was wondering if maybe smoking
       cigarettes would help dystonia.    By my theory of things, it
       might.  Indeed, it has worked for some people, I discovered.
  HTML http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(05)63142-X/fulltext<br
       />  Doctors prefer nicotine patches to cigarettes, of course.
       #Post#: 6470--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Power of prayer
       By: coldwar Date: December 21, 2013, 12:10 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       ^ That is interesting, but I'm sceptical. Nicotine is a
       stimulant to the central nervous system - and so is sugar. Sugar
       is the absolute worst thing for me - even a small amount will
       set off my spasms and pain real bad. I'm glad for this, as it
       helps keep my weight under control. The drugs I take (Valium and
       codeine) are CNS depressants, and so is the neuro-stimulator for
       that matter. These all help - with the stimulator providing
       about 50% of the benefit now. Near the beginning, it gave me
       more like 80% relief, so it's effectiveness is dwindling over
       the years. So did the marijuana, except as George notes - I
       overdid it; but for the life of me George, I still find it
       incredible that I could at one time share several joints with my
       friends, and still function, but this recent experience of
       smoking just one joint with one friend caused the cheese to slip
       right off my cracker! I guess I could say, I'm all for Pot, but
       Pot isn't for me. If it has really gotten that much stronger,
       then I believe that people who dispense it for medical purposes
       ought to provide very strong precautions about what could happen
       in certain cases.
       Anyway, we ought to get back to the prayer discussion. I've seen
       so many cases among Pentecostal type Christians where people are
       believing lies about prayer. About a dozen years ago, there was
       this "gold tooth filling" phenomena going around. One guy I knew
       was very convinced that he got a gold filling from God when he
       had gone to the very (in)famous Toronto Airport Christian
       Fellowship church. He was showing it to everybody when he
       returned home, and everybody at church was "Woww! Praise the
       Lord, thank you Jesus!" I asked him to show me, and all I saw
       was one old fashioned mercury-silver filling - it was almost
       black in colour as if it had been there for years. I confronted
       him with this; but he insisted that his mother told him he had
       never had a tooth filled in his life.
       Now my daughter is into much the same thing, but this time it's
       "angel feathers" she keeps finding in her house. Again I said
       "show me", and sure enough, she took a small box out of a
       drawer, in which there were several very small white feathers,
       and every one of them had a very small strip of a golden colour
       along one edge. Of course, I am glad that my daughter is of
       strong Christian faith and I don't want to discourage her, so I
       just responded with "well, how about that" I suspect these
       feathers were coming out of a down-filled comforter somewhere in
       her house. But I can't explain the gold edge - I've never noted
       such a thing on down-feathers before, but then, I haven't
       actually seen many of them, period. An even bigger issue for me
       is that her six year old son has Autism, her two year old isn't
       talking yet, she has just booted her husband out and wants to
       divorce him - I need to know why God isn't answering her real
       serious needs, but is giving her gold-edged feathers instead???
       Now, Paul said that "Love... Beareth all things, believeth all
       things, hopeth all things, endureth all things." (1 Cor 13:7) It
       seems at first glance that these people are indeed "believing
       all things" to be true, even if they're not. What does Paul mean
       here? I can't answer that right now, because I don't know.
       #Post#: 6473--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Power of prayer
       By: Kerry Date: December 22, 2013, 8:21 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       [quote]That is interesting, but I'm sceptical. Nicotine is a
       stimulant to the central nervous system - and so is sugar. Sugar
       is the absolute worst thing for me - even a small amount will
       set off my spasms and pain real bad. I'm glad for this, as it
       helps keep my weight under control. [/quote]
       Nicotine affects the autonomic nervous system.
  HTML http://www.mhhe.com/biosci/ap/saladin/nervous/reading12.mhtml
       
       [quote]The drugs I take (Valium and codeine) are CNS
       depressants, and so is the neuro-stimulator for that matter.
       These all help - with the stimulator providing about 50% of the
       benefit now. Near the beginning, it gave me more like 80%
       relief, so it's effectiveness is dwindling over the
       years.[/quote]
       The activity of the CNS relative to the ANS may be something to
       look at.   Coffee and cigarettes tend to offset each other, with
       the caffeine stimulating the CNS making it more active than the
       ANS -- creating at times a feeling of tension, etc.  So if you
       stimulate the ANS with nicotine, that level creeps up and tends
       to balance things out.
       My guess is it's unpredictable but in some cases, stimulating
       the ANS would give similar results to depressing the CNS.
       [quote]So did the ****, except as George notes - I overdid it;
       but for the life of me George, I still find it incredible that I
       could at one time share several joints with my friends, and
       still function, but this recent experience of smoking just one
       joint with one friend caused the cheese to slip right off my
       cracker! I guess I could say, I'm all for Pot, but Pot isn't for
       me. If it has really gotten that much stronger, then I believe
       that people who dispense it for medical purposes ought to
       provide very strong precautions about what could happen in
       certain cases.[/quote]
       There are several variables; but if you kept using it, you'd get
       used to it.   It's like having dials on your car dashboard that
       register wrong.  You get used to it and adjust.  Or it's like
       having two cars, one with a good set of brakes and one with a
       bad set.   You get used to driving them both.
       Any drug that severs the mind-body connection can produce some
       very strange results initially -- or under stress. I had a very
       strange experience once when I got high.  My body was very
       sensitive to air currents too -- the slightest breeze made me
       shiver.    I got under some covers and started hallucinating.  I
       saw a beautiful vibrantly red rose on a stem, and a drop of
       water falling onto it.
       It varies by the person too.  But it's can become  destructive
       since you are never sure if what you're seeing is real or not.
       A few years later I started seeing lines of light.  I wasn't
       sure if they were really there or not.  I stopped getting high.
       The lines were still there at times.  Then I found out what they
       were.  If I had kept getting high, I think I may have driven
       myself nuts -- deriving fanciful theories and losing my grip on
       reality.
       There are several spiritual things which get mimicked by drugs.
       Acid is particularly bad for mimicking things; and it can twist
       the mind permanently.    Almost anything people say they have
       experienced on acid, I can say I've seen without it.  The
       problem is they don't know what's going on.  If I see a wall
       vibrating, I know what's going on.  If I see through something,
       it's a minor annoyance.  But I also know full well that other
       people aren't seeing things the way I'm seeing them; so I
       wouldn't discuss them unless I was with a person who wouldn't
       get freaked out.
       I also would not freak out too much if I saw someone's face
       start to resemble his father's face. I'd feel confident I knew
       what I was seeing.  You may find it hard to believe, but those
       "faces" can put on and taken off.  I was talking to a girl once
       and she said somewhat surprised that I looked like Jesus.  Now
       really I do not; but she was correct when she saw me that way.
       It was a "face" I had been putting on.
       That is harder to do in the waking state -- the physical reality
       interferes with the "projected" pictures.  It's much easier in
       dreams.  I've been known to disguise myself in dreams to play
       tricks.  Call it shape-shifting perhaps. I have dreamed about
       being "other people."   But last week, I dreamed about being
       about six years old as myself, and I was giving a teacher a
       difficult time.  I won her over in the end.
       In another recent dream, I was tired of having too many people
       in the dream and got rid of their projected bodies into my dream
       by whacking them over the head -- they just went poof.   It
       didn't harm them really -- just sent them back to their physical
       bodies.
       But what you saw was a bad sign.  That fellow is not in good
       mental health; and if his father is still alive, I'd advise him
       to stop seeing him.  Remember when I said we control bodies
       using electrical fields?   I never knew how to describe it right
       and never got around to it; but now you saw that, I'm telling
       you you saw something that was probably real.  (Keep doing the
       pot, and you couldn't trust what you saw -- but such faces can
       be real.)  He was probably projecting it.   And it will affet
       his body eventually.  People can get diseases that way.  If his
       father had diabetes and he's projecting a copy of his father
       onto his own electrical field, he could create diabetes in his
       own body.
       [quote]Anyway, we ought to get back to the prayer discussion.
       I've seen so many cases among Pentecostal type Christians where
       people are believing lies about prayer. About a dozen years ago,
       there was this "gold tooth filling" phenomena going around. One
       guy I knew was very convinced that he got a gold filling from
       God when he had gone to the very (in)famous Toronto Airport
       Christian Fellowship church. He was showing it to everybody when
       he returned home, and everybody at church was "Woww! Praise the
       Lord, thank you Jesus!" I asked him to show me, and all I saw
       was one old fashioned mercury-silver filling - it was almost
       black in colour as if it had been there for years. I confronted
       him with this; but he insisted that his mother told him he had
       never had a tooth filled in his life.[/quote]
       He's also playing with projections.  In his mind, all those
       things are true, absolutely true.  The only problem is they
       don't match up with the "shared reality" of other people; and he
       has no way of making his projection become true.  A "miracle"
       would occur -- changing reality -- if his mercury filling was
       changed to gold and looked like gold to everyone else.
       A critical factor in prayer is having the "right picture" in the
       mind. Then it's a matter of getting the power to make it true.
       Some people can imagine that what they picture has become true
       in the "common reality" when really all they've done is made it
       true in their minds.  Thus they're out of synch.  Ideally, you
       should be able to tell the difference between "my universe" and
       "the commonly shared universe."
       If you are flexible enough mentally, you can even "walk into
       someone else's universe."  You can read his mind.  You can feel
       what he's feeling.  The trick there is being able to drop your
       own assumptions about reality and being willing to adopt his.
       Some people also "broadcast" their thoughts -- one guy was
       "thinking so loud" one day, I had to ask him, "What are you
       doing in those woods?"  We were in a stockroom in fact; but I
       kept getting this picture of him in the woods.  So I knew he was
       thinking about being in the woods.  At first he tried to deny it
       -- then he admitted it was true.  He and his girlfriend had had
       a pleasant outing in the woods; and he was daydreaming about it.
       
       [quote]Now my daughter is into much the same thing, but this
       time it's "angel feathers" she keeps finding in her house. Again
       I said "show me", and sure enough, she took a small box out of a
       drawer, in which there were several very small white feathers,
       and every one of them had a very small strip of a golden colour
       along one edge. Of course, I am glad that my daughter is of
       strong Christian faith and I don't want to discourage her, so I
       just responded with "well, how about that" I suspect these
       feathers were coming out of a down-filled comforter somewhere in
       her house. But I can't explain the gold edge - I've never noted
       such a thing on down-feathers before, but then, I haven't
       actually seen many of them, period. An even bigger issue for me
       is that her six year old son has Autism, her two year old isn't
       talking yet, she has just booted her husband out and wants to
       divorce him - I need to know why God isn't answering her real
       serious needs, but is giving her gold-edged feathers
       instead???[/quote]She has  what she wants.  It is a rule with me
       that people get what they want. It doesn't matter if they like
       it or not.
       [quote]Now, Paul said that "Love... Beareth all things,
       believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things."
       (1 Cor 13:7) It seems at first glance that these people are
       indeed "believing all things" to be true, even if they're not.
       What does Paul mean here? I can't answer that right now, because
       I don't know.[/quote]
       Believeth all things really means, I think, believes what is
       really there in the shared universe or reality.  She has pin
       feathers but doesn't believe they are pin feathers.  I'd say she
       doesn't believe all things.
       What is reality?  To me, I know what is true in my own universe
       and I believe I also know what is true in the shared universe we
       call the physical universe.  I also try to understand other
       people's personal universes if they try to communicate them.
       You can "understand" that she is convinced these feathers are
       "angel feathers" in her universe.  You can't change that -- not
       really -- only she can.  It is "true" in her mind -- thus in
       your mind you tell yourself it is true for her but not for you.
       Your mind encompasses her set of beliefs and understands them as
       "her truths."
       To be sure, she is apt to run into further problems as the
       "reality out there, the common reality" conflicts with her
       personal reality.
       "The Word of God" when it came to prophets often was pictures or
       words, sometimes both.  Having the pictures come true -- that is
       also involved in prayer.  But one must be sane.  I have to know
       that the picture in my mind is not true already out there.  And
       I have to have  faith in seeing it become true out there.
       The process is little different from opening a door when someone
       knocks.  You know you want the person to come through the door
       when it's open; and you know it's closed.  So you imagine this
       state of the person coming through the door -- it's true in your
       mind at that point  and false in the physical universe.  There
       is a difference between the two -- the door is shut but you
       imagine it open.  So you must "do" something -- using power --
       to make it so.
       The person who can't harness the power to make things true is
       free of course to get wrapped up in fantasies.
       #Post#: 6475--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Power of prayer
       By: coldwar Date: December 22, 2013, 10:25 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       "But what you saw was a bad sign.  That fellow is not in good
       mental health; and if his father is still alive, I'd advise him
       to stop seeing him.  Remember when I said we control bodies
       using electrical fields?   I never knew how to describe it right
       and never got around to it; but now you saw that, I'm telling
       you you saw something that was probably real.  (Keep doing the
       pot, and you couldn't trust what you saw -- but such faces can
       be real.)  He was probably projecting it.   And it will affet
       his body eventually.  People can get diseases that way.  If his
       father had diabetes and he's projecting a copy of his father
       onto his own electrical field, he could create diabetes in his
       own body. "
       OMG Kerry - you don't know this guy at all - never met him! But,
       all this took place in his father's house - it consists of two
       flats, with his father living downstairs, and the upper kept
       vacant for my friend when he comes home (his father used to rent
       out the upper flat). For the past 5 years or so, my friend has
       been living in the Orient - various countries. But you nailed it
       - his father and he both have diabetes - four needles a day
       required, both of them. While we were smoking, "dad" was
       downstairs comfortably watching TV. Upstairs, like I said
       before, I was confused as to who was in the room with me - was
       it my friend or his Dad - especially when he would occasionally
       take on his Dad's foreign accent.
       His mother died about 10 years ago of cancer, and I recall he
       always had a rocky relationship with her. I always felt his
       relationship with his father was OK in comparison, and now, he
       says he gets along with his father better than ever before.
       Now, as for my friends mental health - he seems to have it
       altogether, but has recently told me he has great trouble
       sleeping, and has restless leg syndrome, and he smokes Pot as an
       antidote for both of these. He used to be a Christian - that's
       where I first met him - it was at a church about 15 years ago
       (it was the  Vineyard Church, which started out OK, but
       eventually went with the gold fillings type of stuff) He told me
       recently he was never happy as a Christian, but claims to be now
       very happy as an agnostic socialist, save the world type of
       person. He has taken on a very strong sense of justice, and
       posts a lot on Facebook about various injustices that are
       happening in the world. But he also is very worried about his
       own life and his future. He never got into a career track until
       he was 40 years old, and that was overseas; and so he will never
       qualify for Canada's universal pension plan. I'm sure his
       physical health bothers him mentally too. BTW, he regards me as
       more than a friend, often referring to me as "his older
       brother".
       Meanwhile, I'm re-reading what you wrote above, to see if I can
       gain any greater understanding of it.
       #Post#: 6477--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Power of prayer
       By: coldwar Date: December 22, 2013, 12:30 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       "It is "true" in her mind -- thus in your mind you tell yourself
       it is true for her but not for you.  Your mind encompasses her
       set of beliefs and understands them as "her truths.""
       That is indeed what I am doing, but should I be doing it? Aren't
       I being an enabler by not objecting against what she's
       believing? Then there's always the question - "maybe she's
       right?" I've never seen feathers quite like them - the gold edge
       is really quite golden, not merely yellow or brown. Perhaps
       she's making these herself by applying a bit of gold-leaf paint
       to the edges - she is exceptionally good with arts and crafts,
       especially extremely fine work. She's almost like one of those
       people who can do a painting on the head of a pin.
       #Post#: 6478--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Power of prayer
       By: Kerry Date: December 22, 2013, 12:41 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       I am a little stunned myself.  I thought diabetes would be a
       good example.   It's very bad news he's still hanging out with
       his father.   And yes, I can imagine his relationship with his
       mother could have had its problems.  When two people are around
       someone like his father, they are usually afraid to take on the
       real source of the problems and blame each other.   Once the
       third person can get two people fighting with each other and
       suspicious of each other, he can tell them almost anything and
       they'll believe him.   Both can be convinced the third person is
       on their "side."
       I doubt if you could pry this fellow away.  If you tried, I bet
       he'd say something about it to his father who would then poison
       him against you.
       Odds are too that without the father around, he and his mother
       would have gotten along fine.   Both were probably duped by the
       things the father said -- the ideas he projected were "more
       real" than what they actually saw.   Humans are very vulnerable
       to having their relationships poisoned.   If a woman tells
       another woman her husband was staring at a third woman, odds are
       the wife will get upset although she didn't see it and she was
       happy up until then with her husband.   If she gets quiet and
       broods about it and never sorts it out in reality, it can poison
       the marriage.   People really do live a lot in a world of ideas.
       
       People tend to take on the faces and mannerisms of other people
       they see as "winning."   I had a friend once who was a dedicated
       alcoholic.   When she started drinking,  she often went through
       a phase where her language changed and she'd tell people they
       had heart of gold.  That was one expression she used.  She
       appeared friendly in that personality.   As she drank more,
       she'd switch to another personality.  You could tell how much
       she had had to drink by which personality she was showing.
       Those were personalities from her past; and when drunk, she'd
       slip into them.  I never found out who she had copied and was
       projecting.   I'd say she was one of the most impressive people
       I ever met; and if she had never done the speed and the booze,
       she would have been a splendid person.   But she was
       deteriorating quickly -- almost before my eyes -- physically and
       mentally.  And yes, she had me convinced she was my best and
       only friend and everyone else was not to be trusted that much.
       Later I found out she had told various lies to other people
       about me, rousing suspicion in them.
       #Post#: 6479--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Power of prayer
       By: Kerry Date: December 22, 2013, 12:49 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       [quote author=coldwar link=topic=656.msg6477#msg6477
       date=1387737008]
       That is indeed what I am doing, but should I be doing it? Aren't
       I being an enabler by not objecting against what she's
       believing? Then there's always the question - "maybe she's
       right?" I've never seen feathers quite like them - the gold edge
       is really quite golden, not merely yellow or brown. Perhaps
       she's making these herself by applying a bit of gold-leaf paint
       to the edges - she is exceptionally good with arts and crafts,
       especially extremely fine work. She's almost like one of those
       people who can do a painting on the head of a pin.[/quote]
       I don't know if you're enabling her or not.  You don't know.
       All you can do is try to understand; and the time may come when
       you see what you should do.  I'd be wanting to look around to
       see if I could find the source of the feathers.  She could be
       making them herself or perhaps someone else was making them to
       drive her nutty.  Did they look like any of the feathers at this
       site:
  HTML http://honestlywtf.com/diy/diy-gold-dipped-feathers/
       If you can figure out how her feathers got done, you could make
       some of your own and pretend yours are angel feathers too.  When
       she is so happy about that, then you tell her you were joking
       and really had made them yourself.   Logic may not work; but
       something dramatic may shock her out of the delusion.
       #Post#: 6485--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Power of prayer
       By: Saul Date: December 23, 2013, 6:29 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       I am curious how many have witness the power in prayer,
       experienced something that could not be explained through any
       other means other than an act of God, and seen this happen
       continually. Not just one or two unexplained acts throughout
       several years of fervent prayer.
       I am a witness to the power of prayer. The question is how many
       examples would you like? I'll give one that truly shows how
       powerful Jesus is. I was invited to a Bible study, little did I
       know they were inviting me to lead the study group. Well, there
       were 8 of us. While I was on the porch talking to a woman, she
       stated how bad her feet hurt. I prayed for her the swelling went
       down, and the pain stopped. The next woman I recieved a word of
       knowledge on, I asked her if she had something wrong with her
       brain (I tried to word it without being insulting lol) and
       pointed to a spot on the back of her head. Turns out she had
       been in a bike accident, she was healed. We went inside, The
       Lord gave me words of knowledge on every person in the room
       except one. I had them pray over each other, to show them that
       it wasn't anything with me, that it is The Holy Spirit doing the
       healing. All got healed of their various problems, since then
       all have been medically confirmed. Now, for the one that didn't
       get a word of knowledge, she refused to let anyone pray for her.
       I asked her why not, she said it wasn't God's Will for her,
       because I didn't get a specific word of knowledge for her. I
       said ok, whatever is wrong with you, simply move that part. She
       looked at me, then did it, turns how her kneck had been the
       part, she was healed and I never prayed for her. Out of 8 people
       in the room 7 were healed. I was the eigth and am perfectly
       healthy......lol Praise Jesus!  Seven people within a 30 minute
       time span.........that's power in prayer!!! In a nine month time
       span I have prayed for at least one person a day and saw them
       get healed. I was working for a transportation company, where I
       took people to their doctor appointments. So each person was
       medically diagnosed with the problem and medically confirmed.
       There were cases where the person wasn't healed, I do not keep
       count, but would say there is about a 80% success rate. My
       company has since closed down, so unfortunately I do not get to
       pray for as many people now. But, this does show the power of
       Prayer.
       Experiments (my opinion) will not show positive results, because
       there is built-in unbelief with experiments. You are trying to
       prove or disapprove the power of prayer. If I were to pray for
       someone knowing it was an expirement then I believe the outcome
       would not be positive.
       The weather my examples a little less impressive. I'll just
       state this, in the year and a half I have been a true believer,
       there hasn't been a extreme storm hit my area. Recently, we were
       supposed to be hit with that ice storm that hit the east coast,
       it didn't happen. A bad snow storm, hasn't happened. This
       weekend thunderstorms, hasn't happened. Praying for weather or
       natural disasters on a national level, not very successful. I
       would say this is because of the mass of people talking negative
       and not prophesying against them. But you figure in a area with
       three small cities population around guessing 13,000, with two
       people known to be praying (surely more than that praying),
       that's pretty positive results.
       There is a price to pay, especially when praying for the sick.
       After my healing when I started to pray for the sick, when The
       Holy Spirit moved and healed someone, I would pay a price when I
       got home, there would be chaos and bad things happen. Whenever,
       God's Kingdom advances there is a push back, from our advesary.
       But once we recognized this and trusted Jesus, then the enemy is
       powerless. Another cross to bear is the one's that do not get
       healed. I've had more than one heartbreak, that I've had to hand
       over to Jesus. I still have times when I cry over the one's that
       have gone to be with Jesus. But even then Jesus steps in and
       comforts me.  The comfort is also in the fact if there are ten
       people dying and seven are healed, then that is worth it. We
       serve a Loving and a Merciful Father!!
       #Post#: 6486--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Power of prayer
       By: Kerry Date: December 23, 2013, 7:17 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       I did experiments with hurricanes.  It started when I had a
       friend who was living in New Orleans, and I had a vision one
       night of a massive wall of water.   I knew there was going to a
       problem there.  When I called him, I told him about my vision
       and asked him if he would leave.  Of course, I don't think he
       took me too seriously; but he said he wasn't going to move that
       year because there were still things he wanted to wrap up.  So I
       prayed that year.   I can't remember how many hurricanes there
       were that year; but New Orleans didn't get hit -- I think it was
       a pretty slow year.   He moved back to Pennsylvania the
       following year, and I did not pray that year.  I  felt perhaps
       it was correct for New Orleans to get hit and I had already
       pressed my luck asking for a year's worth of mercy.   That was
       the year Katrina hit.
       Then I met Leaf (she is a member here but doesn't post that
       much) at another forum, and the topic came up; and we agreed to
       pray that year to try to stop hurricanes.   That was also a very
       slow year for hurricanes -- but if a storm was headed towards
       Haiti, I wouldn't pray for them.  The voodoo in Haiti was part
       of the reason for hurricanes in my opinion -- as had the voodoo
       in New Orlean, the voodoo in Africa where those winds go over --
       and an evil presence in the Atlantic Ocean.  So it seems to me.
       So it was back and forth.  Some years I would pray and others I
       wouldn't.  I don't know if the prayers messed up scientific
       studies or not; but I read where they said they were giving up
       trying to predict which years would have lots of hurricanes. I
       may be guilty of messing up their studies.
       This year, without telling anyone, I prayed to prevent
       hurricanes. I don't think there needs to be as much prayer as in
       the past since the voodoo centers of evil finally got hit
       themselves.  For too many years, they summoned these forces that
       then went and hit other places.  But I was praying this year.  I
       can't prove that, of course, by saying it after the fact; but
       Leaf can tell you about the past year when we were praying.   I
       was not praying about the Pacific.  While I feel sure there was
       some dark spiritual force at work, I cannot say I have a clue
       what it is.  I know I was surprised when the Philippines got
       hit.  I didn't feel too bad.  After all, there are millions of
       people there -- they could have been praying themselves.  I
       started watching weather maps off the coast of Africa.  And I
       noticed that prayers seemed to work best early as the winds left
       Africa and hit the ocean. (The section of Africa the winds go
       across is the voodoo area.)  A little weak potential storm could
       be handled.  The bigger it got, I think the more people knew
       about it from the news.  And the more people knew about it, the
       more faith they had in it becoming a hurricane.
       One can pray to God; and you can also talk to the spiritual
       forces (the elementals) that govern the weather.  Yes, I think
       you  can talk to the wind.  One day I was driving and had to
       stop.   When I turned my head to look out the window, I got a
       puff of air right on my nose.  Nowhere else.  There was no other
       breeze.  Some wind spirit was trying to talk to me to get my
       attention, so I talked back.
       Ah, that reminds me of when I lived in Greenville, South
       Carolina.  I was not a Christian at the time; but I did know
       about the wind spirits.  I could tell it was going to rain and I
       was walking home.  So I asked if the rain could please be
       postponed until I got home.   The first drops fell as I stepped
       onto the sidewalk going from the street to our house.  That was
       good enough for me.  In fact, I saw the drops on the sidewalk
       before I felt any.
       
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