Evidence for God from Science

Hey guys I've got a question again concerning emotional experiences of many chrismatic Christians such as the ones who claim to feel God's presence, the Holy Spirit, God's love etc etc.

According to what you all study in the new testament about the disciples and the other early believers, did they ever experience such?

Like for instance in difficult times, did God send them supernatural waves of comfort or did they just merely find comfort and love by focusing, thinking about, or meditating on Christ's promises and message of salvation by faith?

Recently I've been reading through the new testament looking for such instances of supernatural love and comfort (kinda like what I see either on television among chrismatics or at a chrismatic church or meeting) and as of now I'm in the book of Hebrews and thus far I haven't seen any instance.

I do however, am more under the impression that the disciples got general love, comfort, assurance, joy or whatever from just thinking about, reflecting, and meditating upon Christ's sacrifice and His promises to them and to humanity.

Let me know what you all think. Thank you all for your time, God bless.

The HS comforts us in our time of need, He strengths US and fills Us full of God's Love through Christ.
It would have been the same, perhaps even stronger, for the apostles since they knew Christ personally and had a far greater emotional attachement then we do.
Not sure if that is "chrismatic" per say, but who is to say what is or isn't right?
I do recall the tears of joy and the immense feeling of Love I felt when I found Christ and felt Him and heard His voice and words of love and compassion.

Well if you could be more specific, what specific instances in the New Testament did these things occur to the disciples or the early church? Could you name the specific chapter and verse? Thanks.

DRDS wrote:Well if you could be more specific, what specific instances in the New Testament did these things occur to the disciples or the early church? Could you name the specific chapter and verse? Thanks.

The stoning of Stephen comes to mind.

I don't know for sure if that would be a good example. I don't see any major similarities between Stephen's expirience and the more common and many times fake experiences in chrismatic churches (especially the ones done by or with televangelists).

But in all seriousness Paul, have you ever had these experiences? And if so assuming they were directly from God were you able to CONTROL them?

That's a big issue I take with all these chrismatic experiences with the Holy Spirit. Because if God was directly filling a person with love, comfort, peace or even fear, I assume since God is so overwhelmingly powerful the experience would be so strong to the person experiencing it, it would either almost kill them or it would at the very least be stronger and less likely to control than if that same person was under heavy drug or alcohol use.

I mean if these experiences are genuine you are recieving them from the Creator of the entire universe, would you even expect to control them?

But as for me sadly, I've never experienced anything like this yet. I just hope if these chrismatic experiences are real perhaps I too could experience one someday.

DRDS wrote:I don't know for sure if that would be a good example. I don't see any major similarities between Stephen's expirience and the more common and many times fake experiences in chrismatic churches (especially the ones done by or with televangelists).

But in all seriousness Paul, have you ever had these experiences? And if so assuming they were directly from God were you able to CONTROL them?

That's a big issue I take with all these chrismatic experiences with the Holy Spirit. Because if God was directly filling a person with love, comfort, peace or even fear, I assume since God is so overwhelmingly powerful the experience would be so strong to the person experiencing it, it would either almost kill them or it would at the very least be stronger and less likely to control than if that same person was under heavy drug or alcohol use.

I mean if these experiences are genuine you are recieving them from the Creator of the entire universe, would you even expect to control them?

But as for me sadly, I've never experienced anything like this yet. I just hope if these chrismatic experiences are real perhaps I too could experience one someday.

No, I have never been "take a hold" of in that way, but the sense of peace, of being Part of God, of feeling this immense sense of love and fullfillment, almost euphoric, it brought tears to me eyes.
This profound sense of "coming home" and being at peace...
Hard to describe my friend...
But something that almost sounds "violent"? no, never.

Well I didn't mean for it to sound violent.

I was mostly wondering whether or not you were able to control the experience when you had it.

The reason why I ask that is, if you could not control the experience than it clearly shows it came from an outside source (God) instead from your brain.

One of the things I've noticed over the years from chrismatics is that they tend to create their own experiences and turn around and say they are from God, whether they purposely lie to make others think they are experiencing the real thing or they literally fooled themselves into thinking they had an experience from God but in reality, the experience was merely induced by their brains.