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Does God guide people to find or rescue others?

JAVO

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Does God guide people to find or rescue others? Have you experienced or witnessed this type of divine guidance yourself?

Is it possible to distinguish between divine guidance, human intuition, probability, and luck in these cases?

Here's a recent example:

From God 'led me directly' to girl lost in swamp, Florida rescuer says - CNN.com

The man who rescued an 11-year-old girl lost in a dense Florida swamp said Wednesday that God led him directly to her, and that finding her was no surprise.
"I didn't know where she was. The only person who knew where she was was God, and I asked him, and he led me directly to her, straight -- well, as straight as you can go through the swamp."

King said he prayed the whole time he was searching, even when it seemed like he was going in the wrong direction. In one case, he said, there was water all around and he didn't know where to go.

"He said, 'Go that way.' And I'm looking at water. I said, 'Lord, are you sure?' He said. 'I got ya.' And as soon as I start walking, the ground under the water is solid. It's only about a foot and a half deep. He took care of me all the way there."
 
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93JC

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I think anyone who seriously believes people are guided by God is nuts.

God doesn't guide people: God has a TomTom portable GPS system.
 

Spamtar

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Maybe. Then again it might be the Devil. I have a slight rescuer complex and usually often I just learn that no good deed goes unpunished.

Also I have looked into my psyche and feel that being a rescuer is not as self sacrificing as it may seem. It is a bit of a facade and a demonstration of self absorption.

That being said I have been in life and death situations and prayed to God and from Him or from wherever got what felt like temporary super powers in order to accomplish remarkable things.
 

Feops

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People like to think they're special. Like they have the batphone to God. It's easy to convince yourself that something mystical must have been helping when the stars align and you find something, or survive something, or get a surge of adrenaline and do something you normally couldn't.

If he had wandered in circles for a few hours and didn't find her he would've shrugged it off. There certainly wouldn't have been a headline - GOD FAILS TO GUIDE MAN TO RESCUE. Or we'd have thousands of these daily.
 

Tiltyred

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I was lost once and a woman came to find me who had been sound asleep. She said she got a message to get up and get in her car and drive, and she did, and she saw me, and she knew I was the reason she'd been "told" to get up. On the other end, I had been praying for a way out of the neighborhood I had mistakenly walked into in the middle of the night, lost.
 

Billy

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Maybe. Then again it might be the Devil. I have a slight rescuer complex and usually often I just learn that no good deed goes unpunished.

Also I have looked into my psyche and feel that being a rescuer is not as self sacrificing as it may seem. It is a bit of a facade and a demonstration of self absorption.

That being said I have been in life and death situations and prayed to God and from Him or from wherever got what felt like temporary super powers in order to accomplish remarkable things.

Its not always self absorption, sometimes doing the right thing is just doing the right thing. Sure I would feel guilty if I passed by someone who needed help, but that doesnt mean I help people because I fear guilt.

And I find via my insane amount of Fe that its much easier for me to empathize with the people around me, then it is to empathize with my self or my own needs. How is that self absorption?

And good deeds being punished is a poor excuse to not do good deeds, I hand cash out to the homeless for example KNOWING that some of them are scam artists, but thats not whats relevant, whats relevant is that the right thing is done on my end, thats all I can control.
 

Ivy

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My completely unsubstantiated theory: that guy, by centering himself in a prayer state, was able to tune into his intuition and follow her trail without really realizing it.
 

gromit

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Is it possible to distinguish between divine guidance, human intuition, probability, and luck in these cases?
Divine guidance is probably similar to a type of intuition, but not necessarily in the MBTI sense. Like how Ivy explains it.

My completely unsubstantiated theory: that guy, by centering himself in a prayer state, was able to tune into his intuition and follow her trail without really realizing it.
 

Feops

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My completely unsubstantiated theory: that guy, by centering himself in a prayer state, was able to tune into his intuition and follow her trail without really realizing it.

I could certainly accept that.
 

Spamtar

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Still doesn't mean that God didn't give the dude the super intuition in the first place.
 

Ivy

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Still doesn't mean that God didn't give the dude the super intuition in the first place.

If there is a God, and if prayer is something that God wants us to do, IMO it's probably because it's built into our physiology to be a way to strengthen ourselves to ride out rough times and tune into our intuition for guidance, not because it's a magical lifeline to the almighty. Either way, it's built in, whether by random mutations that offer a survival advantage or by divine intervention (or both). But none of that is provable or unprovable so IMO it's not really relevant. How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
 

Hexis

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I cant believe Ivys explanation that his hieghtened sense of intuition through a state of prayer enabled him to follow a trail through a SWAMP. I would be hard pressed to even believe an expert woodsman could follow a trail through a swamp, especially once the guy said he had to go through "foot deep water". You dont leave a trail in water as far as i know. Yeah broken reeds and sticks and stuff ok yes. But it would take the expert woodsman to distinguish a reed that was broken by human interaction and that of say...a snake.

Of course being agnostic im hard pressed to believe in the truth of "prayer" and all that anyways. But like Ivy also said, you cant really prove it either.
 

Spamtar

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How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

I used my batphone to God and He says 3 angels can dance on the head of a pin...but that the real question is what dance moves are they making. ;)
 

Ivy

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they're all doing the robot. God done tole me.
 

Spamtar

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they're all doing the robot. God done tole me.

***Spamtar having an 'Ah-ha' moment***

637-robot-angel-web.jpg
 

Quinlan

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Selection/confirmation bias, I'm sure there are hundreds (thousands?) of would be rescuers that prayed to god and didn't find who they were looking for.
 

Kanamori

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That depends on which version of God you're talking about.

Wikipedia said:
Spinoza believed God exists only philosophically and that God was abstract and impersonal.[1] Spinoza's system imparted order and unity to the tradition of radical thought, offering powerful weapons for prevailing against "received authority." As a youth he first subscribed to Descartes's dualistic belief that body and mind are two separate substances, but later changed his view and asserted that they were not separate, being a single identity. He contended that everything that exists in Nature (i.e., everything in the Universe) is one Reality (substance) and there is only one set of rules governing the whole of the reality which surrounds us and of which we are part. Spinoza viewed God and Nature as two names for the same reality,[11] namely the single substance (meaning "that which stands beneath" rather than "matter") that is the basis of the universe and of which all lesser "entities" are actually modes or modifications, that all things are determined by Nature to exist and cause effects, and that the complex chain of cause and effect is only understood in part. His identification of God with nature was more fully explained in his posthumously published Ethics

I'm inclined to agree in which case everything is guided by God.
 

Lark

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I think anyone who seriously believes people are guided by God is nuts.

God doesn't guide people: God has a TomTom portable GPS system.

I think people who believe people who are guided by God are nuts are really nuts themselves and projecting. Badly.
 

Lark

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Selection/confirmation bias, I'm sure there are hundreds (thousands?) of would be rescuers that prayed to god and didn't find who they were looking for.

I'm interested in this, yes, I do believe there is such a thing as confirmation bias and yes it is a problem in many people and in bad science however if anyone can demonstrate to me how confirmation bias does not also exist in finding other explanations for the seemingly inexplicable, spiritual or otherworldly I'll be very impessed because as much as belief matters to some people disbelief appears to matter a lot more to others.
 
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