Actually, I am being really unreasonable. However I would like to ask those who have experienced Angel Feathers to....

[DioneTheDiabolist]

...answer a few questions that I have.

1). What does it feel like when you see that feather?

2). What are your thoughts when this happens?

And

3). What would you say are the long term (if any) effects that you would attribute to these encounters.

I understand that this belief has been the subject of some ridicule here. I have no intention of ridiculing anyone. This thread has been inspired by a previous AIBU thread, but is not a thread about a thread. I am not a journalist. I am not seeking results to use in an academic submission or publication. What I am seeking is knowledge and understanding in the hope that I can use it to help others.

IABU for the following reasons:
I only posted in AIBU for the traffic. If MN rule that I have breached guidelines, can it be moved and not deleted.

And I ask the skeptics not to put people off answering honestly. If you think it necessary, I can start another thread for all your thoughts to be discussed. Perhaps the scientifically minded of you could look at this as an information gathering excersise.

What "choice"?

Love me, or bad things will happen to you (or at least, you can't come into my magic kingdom).

That's not a choice, that's a threat. And no, I wouldn't want to be loved like that.

I'd run like feck and call the police.

Yes there is Free Will in Heaven

Could I exercise my free will to hate God in Heaven? If I can only be "good", what happened to my free will to be bad?

sublime, I'm not sure I know what you mean by 'concept of freedom might be lacking', but I'll tell you why I asked.

Assume that I woke up tomorrow believing in god and sincerely regretted all the bad things I ever did (I do as it goes, but that sentence may not mean to christians what it does to an atheist)

I could end up in heaven right?

Now I wouldn't be there under false pretences - we'll take that as given, but if I have free will I could change my mind and do something that upset the other people there.

Okay god could know and stop me but that would negate free will. I'd be a prisoner in effect.

If heaven is perfect it must be policed and controlled rigidly.

Hettie Put it another way. Imagine the concept of scaffolding in Theory of Mind. You cannot appreciate a final concept without taking certain foundational concepts on board first. You have to delay your gratification until you get to appreciate or understand the really juicy stuff. The knowledge is hierarchical because you do not know what you have not experienced, so have to trust a person telling you or experience it yourself. Once you have the earlier concepts the later ones make more sense. Accepting Christ is like a Gateway concept.

Hettie, I see we're thinking along the same lines :)

You have to accept Christ Back as well as admit your sin (nature). That is my belief. Once you have truly accepted Him, there is no going back, it transforms you into a new creature.

Once you have truly accepted Him, there is no going back, it transforms you into a new creature.

Sorry that won't do. I've met plenty of good and devout christians. None of them were saints and totally beyond sin.

If you are saying only such perfect beings reach heaven than it will be empty

Back no. You are transformed spiritually, in your spirit. We have a Spirit (part which is Saved, our essence), soul (thinking part, mind) and body. Your mind (soul) and body has to be refreshed. There is a certain amount of inertia. That is why I speak of process.

The Spirit is saved once you are Born Again, accept Christ as your Saviour.

I've read that three times, sublime, and I have not the first idea what you're on about.

Your god supposedly envisaged and created a universe without evil.

Is this true?

Yes - then he's staggering useless at creating universes because he failed miserably. Did his omniscience let him down?

No - then he planned, plotted & wanted rape, murder & torture to be part of his big plan. In other words, he's a monstrous tyrant, not worthy of my worship.

The opposite of good is not evil - it's "not good". You don't have to have evil to make sense of the good, you can just have the "not good".

Yep, Back

'Wouldn't you rather have someone love you by choice'

Of course I would. But if a person decided not to love me, or decided not to love me later on I wouldn't drown them, torture them or put them in harms ways because they didn't love me. People who do that aren't thinking straight. As a society we act when people hurt other people (smacking issue aside).

When does this happen? Because clearly it does not happen when you accept christ or we'd see millions of saints now around us. If you are saying that when you die god does something to you to remove the option to sin then it won't really be me - the me that's typing this - that gets to heaven will it. Some part of me would have to be cut out and discarded.

What's our spirit made off. Why haven't we been able,to detect it?

Hettie The opposite of good is evil. Everything that does not originate form God is evil. God inspires all good. You will disagree if you don't believe this. However it is a foundational concept to Christianity. We all sin which is evil. However if you have accepted Christ you are not a Slave to Sin, it does not rule you, you are not a slave to it. You confess and evil has no Dominion over you.

'Made of' sorry.

Back There are millions of Saints. A true Christian is a Saint. (I am not a Catholic).

Headinhands I don't know but we weigh less when we die.

Millions of saints totally and permanently incapable of the smallest sin?

Because that's what we're talking about. Not just people doing their very best, but 100% pure good with no possibility of changing back.

'It transforms you into a new creature'.

That happens anyway, the cells we have are constantly renewed about every 7 years. I like that.

We do? Where can I see proof? How much less? So our spirit has mass and should therefore be perceptible to current scientific apparatus? What's it made of?

Back No Saints can sin, though they are no longer slaves to Sin as they have accepted Christ as their Redeemer.

ok that brings us back to my point. If those decent people go to heaven they are still capable of sinning in heaven. Unless god does something to them when they die to prevent it.

The opposite of good is evil

No, it isn't. In fact, the opposite of good is actually "bad", the word we use for "not good".

Are all bad things evil?

And if your God is omniscient, omnipotent & omnibenevolent, then everything comes from him. There is no alternative.

head 5g I seem to remember from somewhere. No one has discovered what it is made of or why physically we weigh less when we die. It is a scientific mystery. There was a film with the title a while ago (decade or so, I'm getting old!). But the premise was based on scientific observations.

New creature, even potentially genetically, with new gene expression, with the discovery of epigenetics in mind.

sublime

Do you believe that some people will go to Hell?