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Thanks for listening to the Hey Alicia podcast,
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where together we consider the truth of Christianity episode by episode,
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week by week. Regardless of where you are in your journey,
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whether you're someone who's not sure what's true about God, or maybe once believed but
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have since changed, I'm glad you've chosen a few minutes of your day to
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learn alongside me as we discuss Christianity and how
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it brings clarity to the the understanding of our existence, truth,
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and our current cultural topics. Don't forget to
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go to apologetics.org and submit your questions and comments. And welcome
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to Hey Alicia.
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Hello and welcome to the Hey Alicia podcast, where we take a few
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minutes to consider the case for Christianity. I'm your host,
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Emily Marasco, and in this episode,
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Alicia will be answering this question: how
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can Christians think their personal religious experiences with God
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are any more true than those of adherents to other belief
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systems? Yes. Okay, so this question
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of personal religious experiences and
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which one to believe, uh, is a great one.
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This is something that where people— it's phrased in a lot of ways.
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People say, well, I have this particular
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religion, and I have had this experience with God. So if you are a Mormon,
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for example, Mormons will have this experience with God that they refer
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to as this burning in the bosom, where they ask God, show yourself to me.
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Show me if you are real. Show me the truth about you
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versus the other religions. Show me this is the true religion. And they get this
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burning, this sense, this experience in their bosom that this is the
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true faith to follow. And other people will have other experiences.
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Around the world based on whatever religion they have that somehow this— they've connected
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with the spiritual, they've connected with the divine. And Christians wouldn't be any different in
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that way. So I do think that this is something— it's a good
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question because people would think,
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okay, if somebody has a religious experience and nobody else does, then that might
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say the person with the religious experience might be onto something. But if I'm
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finding that everybody's having religious experiences, then either
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something's wrong with the experiences Or the God or gods is playing games
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with everybody and making them think different things or whatever,
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just causing confusion. So let me just
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maybe lay a little bit of a framework here and just say, yes,
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I recognize that experiences are subjective.
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Okay? So if I have an experience with God that
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is very meaningful or special to me, it's going to be really hard
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for me to convince Emily of how, let's just say,
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amazing God is because I had this experience that just changed my
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view of him and I think he's amazing. It's going to be really hard for
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me to convince Emily of that same amazement.
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What I can do is share it with
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her. I can talk about it with her. I can try
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and describe it the best I can. And Emily can do her best to find
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connection there or to relate to it. Or to share in what I'm telling
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her, but she can't really get
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the full experience because it wasn't hers.
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Experiences are not transferable. And so
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it's really hard to get somebody to jump
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on and get as excited about experience as you. So here's just a simple example
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of that. Let's say that I
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was with some friends today and somebody told this super, super funny joke,
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right? And then we just all just crying laughing, just thought it was so,
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so funny. So then I see Emily later on in the day and I'm like,
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Emily, guess what? Let me tell you this joke that we heard today. And I
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tell it to her and she's like, oh, okay, yeah, that's pretty funny. But she's
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not— she's just being polite, you know? Yeah, that's funny. She doesn't really get it.
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What is the thing that we often say when this happens? Is we say,
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never mind, you just had to be there. Okay?
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In other words, this idea that I can only transfer
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my experience to you only but so much.
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In order for you to really capture this experience, you had to be there.
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In other words, the experience— you had to be part of the original experience.
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And so, yeah, so experiences are subjective. They don't transfer from one
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person to the next. And, and so we need to keep all that in mind
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when we're looking at this question. But we also need to keep in
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mind that
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experiences don't always convey truth. Okay,
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just because I had an experience does
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not mean that it is telling me— it's
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giving me full clarity of what might be there. So it is completely possible that,
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um, let's say I asked for a particular feeling about
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God and I get that feeling,
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but it may— I may think that's God But
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many Christians, me included, also believe that if there's God
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who's good, there's also something that is bad that exists.
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So that feeling may have actually happened, but it doesn't mean it came from the
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true God. It may have come from some sort of
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demonic, dark spiritual force. So just
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because I have an experience and I'm saying I want there, I want this
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experience or this feeling to tell me that the true God exists,
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there could be a demonic type force or spirit,
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spirit being that is actually swaying me in a different direction, giving me
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this feeling, making me think that it's the true and good divine, but it's
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actually the demonic. And this is why we've got to be really careful with experience,
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because experiences give us an indication that there is a
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supernatural, that there's something more than the natural physical world. It can
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tell us, it can, it can point that, okay, there's something that heard
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this prayer that I said in my head or this request I made in my
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head, and it has clearly responded to
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me. Okay, so it can give us this indication that there's a supernatural, but it
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doesn't necessarily give you clarity as to what in the supernatural
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gave you the experience. Was it demonic?
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Was it a divine good being? Was it
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a good being, a bad being, whatever words you want to use there?
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It doesn't give you the full revelation of
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where that actual feeling came from. And so this is
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why I would say that I would be hesitant to talk about a supernatural experience
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fully and 100% of the time pointing us to a
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greater truth that actually exists. And when I say truth, a greater
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capital T truth. So I'm hesitant to say that every experience that
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people go through, um, you know,
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that people, different people, all these different experiences around the world, I don't
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think that they're all pointing towards the same capital T truth.
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I think that some are pointing to the, to a capital T truth,
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and I think others are pointing more towards a demonic dark truth as
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well. And I don't talk much about that on the podcast. We don't get
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much in terms of the spiritual realm in terms of
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questions, but I definitely do believe in the, in the, in the dark and in
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the demonic and, you know, and these ideas of of spiritual
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beings that are in collaboration with God and spiritual beings that are at war
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with God. And the demonic obviously being at war with God.
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So I think the supernatural experience can help us recognize that there's something
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supernatural there, but I think we still need to do the legwork to find out
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what actually is there. And so now you're back to the same thing
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as which God is it? Okay, if you've had an experience and there's some
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pointing to some sort of supernatural, then the next question is what supernatural being?
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Is out there? Um, was the feeling I got from a
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good being or from a bad being? Uh, what is— how can I
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figure out what is true? How can I figure out what direction I'm going with?
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Like, you know, like, these are going to be your classic questions of like,
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how do you know God exists? How do you know which God is real?
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How do you know what religion is true? How do you know
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what text is accurate, etc., etc., etc.? So I would say
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the, the experience that you may have with God gives an indication of
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a supernatural, but I think you still need to do,
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uh, some sort of quest for truth that
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is not based on a subjective type thing such as an
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experience. Hopefully that makes some sense. So we always want to
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remind you guys that, you know, if you ever have a question about something I
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say or you disagree with something I say, submit those Say Whats. I love hearing
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from people, and so feel free to submit those and challenge me or give
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me some different perspectives maybe that I hadn't thought about. So definitely feel free to
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do that. Just go to apologetics.org and you can fill out the form and
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make sure you mark it as a Say What so that we can know that
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that's what you're doing. So yeah, so hopefully some bits in there were really helpful
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to you, and we'll see you next time on Hey Alicia.
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Thank you for tuning in to Hey Alicia, where we take a
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few minutes to consider the case for Christianity. To submit your questions
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and comments, go to apologetics.org or click the link in in the show