To think Angels might be real

[Turquoiserosepeony]

I let ll month old DD play with my phone briefly today so that I could drink my coffee and she somehow managed to google 'archangels' which got me thinking - I've unexpectedly found white feathers indoors and seen pretty blue lights in my room at night (not from passing emergency vehicles!) but nothing more convincing than that.

Ex DP's DM however swore blind that soon after her own DM died she saw something in her living room that she can only describe as an angel. She was convinced.

Anyone else had more impressive experiences than mine? I'd love to think they're real.

Are we sure they're angels and not Birdpeople from a distant planet?

I strongly believe in Angels 😊😇

I am now actually hung up on the feathers business.

Are the feathers invisible until they are left by the angel? Are they FROM the angel or a gift that is nothing to do with the angel's body? If they are a gift then why a feather? Why not a McDonalds happy meal figure? (NB. I might have found one of those in an entirely unlikely setting recently).

Thanks sardines

playing in my experience people really do believe those things implicitly. There is some evidence that a lot of depression is caused by people deciding they must in fact be bad people because something bad has happened to them. 'I must deserve this' is a toxic and very common element in depression.

I am glad your family seem to have escaped these delusions...but I don't think people who truly understand how random and uncaring the world is are very common.

there is everyone who votes tory for one thing! "Defund social security because I'll never need it!" "people wouldn't need food banks if they worked harder!" etc.

regardless of angels or not you definitely shouldn't eat in restaurants where you find feathers. That's not cool.

That properly made me laugh. And DH.

It's more likely the restaurant is 'harvesting' pigeons to use in the food like those places in London years ago.

So bashing people's crazy beliefs is fine

Gotta draw the line somewhere. Religion is a protected class, but belief in angels definitely isn't.

Also, forgive me if I'm wrong, but is this thread not posted in AIBU? As in, the poster is asking if her belief in angels is unreasonable?

I can't believe people do believe this stuff. Where does it even come from? It's definitely not Biblical angels which are quite scary. It is some sort of spiritualism thing?

And why do some people not get them? Why do truly horrifying things happen to small children daily, where are these angels then?

Op, you'd be better off posting in Unexplained or Philosophy. Asking for trouble putting it here!

oh, yes, I'm a believer

Believing in angels is literally zero to do with reason.

If you used any reason at all you wouldnt believe.

Can feathers be dna tested- i bet angel dna would be amazing

I believe in all the kind of signs angels can send not just white feathers but reoccurring number sequences too for example.
Angels only help some people and not others because you have to ask them for help otherwise they can't help you even though they're always with you.
Angels have for me through some really hard times and it was belief in them that got me through.
So now whenever I see a white feather I try to remember what I was thinking about when it crossed my path and know that no matter what I'm being looked after 😊

I am glad your family seem to have escaped these delusions

My family had a different delusion - the deeply religious 'life is a vale of tears, and all happiness resides in the hope of the world to come' one, which wasn't exactly healthy to grow up around, either.

God was testing you with trials, like Job on his dungheap, but you were somehow still supposed to castigate yourself as a sinner and worship God, because apparently he really, really loved you, despite allowing appalling suffering to be visited on you. Apparently it was all to do with free will. My life abruptly became 100% better once I realised that apologetics is a mug's game, and that I'd grown out of those particular mind gymnastics.

I thought of this thread this morning when a pure white feather drifted down from the sky and landed at my feet as I was leaving the house. Was it a passing angel sending an intimation of the divine? A dear departed relative communicating from the beyond? Actually, it was DH making our bed, and throwing a feather from a leaking down pillow out the window, for reasons best known to himself...

Angels only help some people and not others because you have to ask them for help otherwise they can't help you even though they're always with you

Right, so angels are with everyone and have these powers to help you, but they only do it if you believe and ask nicely? And if you don't, they will just watch while awful things happen to you?

Your angels are proper cunts, aren't they?

Biblical angels tend to look something more like this, at least in Ezekiel 1.

At least there's a good reason the standard greeting tends to be "do not be afraid"

Angels only help some people and not others because you have to ask them for help otherwise they can't help you even though they're always with you.

Did one of them tell you this via a code of recurring number sequences and the occasional feather? Or is this based on the same fundamentally cruel, victim-blaming 'logic' of guff like The Secret, where people dying of malnutrition or natural disasters apparently simply haven't focused their thoughts firmly enough on food or the absence of tsunamis or earthquakes or droughts?

I've read books on it and I totally believe.

Not very nice to put down someone on what they believe in though just because other people don't

You haven't answered. How do you know how angels work, and why wouldn;t they help people who don't ask for it?

Do you really think that sounds good or fair? Would that be a good thing, supernatural beings that could easily help a suffering child but don't for their own reasons?
Why would you want to believe something so horrible?

Not very nice to put down someone on what they believe in though just because other people don't

There's nothing 'nice' about your belief. Do you honestly imagine the Grenfell Tower inhabitants each had an angel who was thinking 'I could save you, only you have to jump through various hoops, including identifying me as an angel and specifically asking me for help, regardless of whether you come from a belief system where angels exist or not -- otherwise I'm going to sit here rolling my eyes at your obtuseness and watch you burn to death'???

Be the angel you think might be real.

Not very nice to put down someone on what they believe in though just because other people don't

No it's not. But people shouldn't post in AIBU and not expect to hear other people's opinions.

steppedonlego Brilliant, here's another Biblical angel.

If this left a feather on my pillow, I'd move house.

Can I ask the believers, what other supernatural or mythical beings they believe in?

Dragons?
Tooth fairy?
Unicorns?
Santa?
Bigfoot?

If you don't believe in those, why not? And why do you feel differently about angels? Is it just wishful thinking?

If God is real, then so are angels. Apparently angels are messengers from God. If anyone ridicules you about your angel experience, ask them if they believe in God.

Erm.... dragons are OBVIOUSLY real