Wrong Path?

[Muslimwoman]

This is meant to be light hearted so I hope nobody will take offense.

If an angel/spirit or whatever you believe in turned up today and said to you "you are on the wrong path, choose a different one", which new path would you choose?

If you have a faith, would you convert to a different faith, if yes which?
If you have no faith, would you choose a current faith?

Opinions/comments please.

Salaam
MW

[China Cat Sunflower]

Wait a minute... If an angel showed up, wouldn't it be an angel of your conception? A Christian gets a Christian angel, A Muslim gets a Muslim angel etc. So why would your angel tell you to go to a different path? Unless it's an angel from another path sneaking in, but wouldn't your angel, like, defeat the other angel before it takes you away? I used to have a guardian angel, but I left him outside a strip club and he wandered away.

I'd like to be Jewish but without all the weird food.

Chris

[Pathless]

lmao Chris...

Hmmm. I pick church of the flying spaghetti monster--

Pastafarians unite.

Wait, no. I pick Rastafari.

[China Cat Sunflower]

I'm partly Rasta now. I partake in the sacrament.

One love.

Chris

[China Cat Sunflower]

Rastajubuhinditaoist. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Chris

[Muslimwoman]

Originally Posted by China Cat Sunflower

Wait a minute... If an angel showed up, wouldn't it be an angel of your conception? A Christian gets a Christian angel, A Muslim gets a Muslim angel etc. So why would your angel tell you to go to a different path? Unless it's an angel from another path sneaking in, but wouldn't your angel, like, defeat the other angel before it takes you away? I used to have a guardian angel, but I left him outside a strip club and he wandered away.

I'd like to be Jewish but without all the weird food.

Chris

Well I knew someone would be a wiseass and I suppose I should have guessed it would be you Chris!!!

That is why I said angel/spirit or whatever you believe in.

Although it did cross my mind that if an angel turned up and said I was on the wrong path I would probably assume it was a devil in disguise (singsong anyone?).

If I believed them then I think I would have to go with Judaism, the originals are often the best - just look at Levi's.

[Francis king]

i would tell the angel to go away, and if he didn't go, I would then listen, see what they had to say, and then I'd tell them again to go away.... if s/he didn't, I would then punch it on the nose... hopefully that would work...

failing that, I would go to the vatican online, and get the exorcism ritual, and perform that...

[Snoopy]

I would always go with my Sat Nav.

s.

[Snoopy]

If the “path” that one is “on” is self-made (wherever that has presently “led to”), can it be the “wrong” one?

What if the “right” path is one in which angels / spirits do not exist?

s.

[Paladin]

Or maybe the angel wanted to tell you that being on a "path" in the first place was wrong, that there was no where to go, and nothing to get.

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by Muslimwoman

This is meant to be light hearted so I hope nobody will take offense.

If an angel/spirit or whatever you believe in turned up today and said to you "you are on the wrong path, choose a different one", which new path would you choose?

If you have a faith, would you convert to a different faith, if yes which?
If you have no faith, would you choose a current faith?

Opinions/comments please.

Salaam
MW

Hmm, wasn't it a donkey who warned Balaam that he was on the wrong path?
{Numbers 22}

[dauer]

If that happened to me I'd try to understand what aspect of my psyche I projected out in the form of an angel/spirit, and then try to understand what part of my current way of living was meant as path, then I'd look for a way to appease that part of myself without short-changing the rest of me. I'd consider what conscious attitudes I'd been holding lately that might not have sat as well with me.

[Snoopy]

OK MW, I'm being pernickerty. Quaker or Sufi I think.

[Muslimwoman]

Originally Posted by Pathless

I pick church of the flying spaghetti monster--

I have decided not to convert to this faith, as I would just feel so hungry all the time. Maybe not the done thing to start eating the churches god.

Originally Posted by Francis king

failing that, I would go to the vatican online, and get the exorcism ritual, and perform that...

LMAO Francis. May I ask why? What do you have against angels, they are just doing their job. I now have a mental image of some poor angel returning to heaven with a black eye and bleeding nose and saying "you better just let her in or there will be big trouble".

Originally Posted by Snoopy

If the “path” that one is “on” is self-made (wherever that has presently “led to”), can it be the “wrong” one?

But is it self-made or has G-d led us exactly where He wants us? Oh no, one of those circular religious arguments. It is something I often consider, have I chosen this path because it suits my thinking these days or has G-d led me to it? I pray the latter but fear the former.

Originally Posted by seattlegal

Hmm, wasn't it a donkey who warned Balaam that he was on the wrong path?
{Numbers 22}

You really need to change your username to Infogirl, always full of interesting information. Do you know how many donkeys we have in Egypt, I am going to look a complete plonker walking round the streets sidling up to donkeys in case they have anything to say to me.

Originally Posted by dauer

If that happened to me I'd try to understand what aspect of my psyche I projected out in the form of an angel/spirit,

So for you Dauer, all is self? We create such images/visions, as our brain produces dreams to examine our issues. Do you believe in anything outside of self? If I have understood you correctly, do you then think the Prophets were simply seeing visions or hearing voices as a result of their belief that the world around them was in error?

Originally Posted by Snoopy

OK MW, I'm being pernickerty.

Who you Snoop, pernickerty, never.

[dauer]

MW,

So for you Dauer, all is self? We create such images/visions, as our brain produces dreams to examine our issues. Do you believe in anything outside of self? If I have understood you correctly, do you then think the Prophets were simply seeing visions or hearing voices as a result of their belief that the world around them was in error?

If it's something that appears to be supernatural, I'll apply occam's razor. I do believe that everything that happens to us is at least partially influenced by our own subjective experience but I wouldn't go so far as to say everything is self. I have an idea that there is a whole world outside of me that I'm constantly projecting my own experience of reality onto, which is just another way of saying that everything that comes to me is being filtered through a lens.

As prophets go, it really depends on the type of prophet. If you recall some of the threads on mental health, I said many of the prophets would probably be labelled mentally ill today. But there are different types of prophets. Even within the tanach there are multiple varieties. Some of them didn't seem to give prophecies but instead filled another role. They would go into ecstatic fits and such. Then there are the ones like Elijah who's attributed with all sorts of miracles. I tend to view that as myth and legend.

When we get someone like Isaiah, I don't think he heard voices as a result of the belief that the world around him was in error but more likely two other possibilities. He may have heard what he did from those voices because a part of him believed the world around him was in error (i.e. he may have heard the voices even if everything was okay, but they wouldn't have said the same things. And maybe because of the social expectation for the content of voices and visions, because there was a special role in the society for people who had halucinations, the visions and voices frequently fit themselves to agree with social expectation.) We have record of him wandering naked for a year so that's a possibility. Or it's also possible he had a much more socio-political role and the myth of G!d speaking to him was only a device employed because it's what his audience expected. Maybe it was something rooted in the earlier tradition of ruach hakodesh sending prophets into ecstatic fits. I think it's quite possible a lot of the hearing of voices and such is really only a way to fulfill audience expectations or in some cases grant an individual authority, like when Solomon's scribes attribute Divine wisdom to him.

Critical scholars sometimes identify the book of Isaiah with two different authors so it's possible there's a different motivation for each.