No, I'm not talking about the old Slayer CD. Do you believe in it? Have you ever experienced something that came between you and death. I have..many times. I personally believe it just wasn't my time to go. I work with a guy whome I've known for years and played inseveral bands with. He's an athiest and doesn't believe in God. He used to be a paramedic and has seen alot of gruesome things. I personally have noticed alot of people who have worked in the medical profession tend to look at everything from a scientific viewpoint. I try not to be "preachy", but I have made it clear I do believe in God. Also, having grown up in one of the most haunted cities in the world, I have had the misfortune of experincing things I wish I hadn't, but that's another story.



 Has anyone else had any  "close calls" that you can't quite explain? Please do tell...

I was carrying out a hit with my partner on this Flock of Seagulls guy when this mofo comes out of the bathroom with a g-d handcannon. Emptied the whole thing at me, bullets in the wall all around me, even behind me.

God came down from heaven and stopped those mother-effin' bullets!

 I should have seen this one coming...

Sorry, I couldn't help myself...

good form. good form.

Every time something happens that I am unable to explain, I attribute it to the Flying Spaghetti Monster (peace be upon him, ramen). Of course, I can't "prove" He was the cause, but faith doesn't require silly things like that. That's why it's faith.



Remember, my faith is very important to me, and you're not allowed to criticize it. Don't be arrogant, now. You can't possibly know everything. I believe in the FSM (peace be upon him, ramen), and that makes me immune from closed minded criticism.

 Soooooo... you're sarcastically proclaiming your athiesm?


ETA: I'm not critisizing or judging. Just trying to figure out where you stand. It is human nature to want to believe that we can explain every little thing in the world, and that there is no superior being. Modern technology has explained alot of things, but not all....

Yes, I had a close encounter with a firearm and I almost got buried as a result.  A friend and I took another friend of ours out to the range one day.

Afterwards, we went to stand in the lobby and our friend decided that she was going to casually move her gun around.  She goofily (quite by accident)
muzzle flashed me and then pointed it down to clear it before putting it away.  A bullet ejected right out of the chamber and landed on the floor,
later I realized that she had her finger on the trigger the whole time.  She should have done all of this on the range.

Not so bright.  But I could have been toast that day if my bud hadn't been there to move that pistol right out of her hand and straighten her out.

I've felt his noodley appendage upon me as well...

That's what she said!

... Noodley appendege.

You guys got the Ghey

ETA:  failed attempt to quote the guy above me

Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

Pretty much, yeah.



Here's the thing - when I can't explain something (I don't know everything, after all) I believe the appropriate response is "I don't know". When I have no evidence to support something, my response is "I don't know". I'm content to not know everything, because I know I can't possibly know everything. No one can.



Modern science has explained a lot of things sure, but the important thing to take away, is that it has explained things that we used to assign supernatural causes to. Those that were content to attribute these things to supernatural causes ceased looking for a proper answer. Those that said "I don't know" kept looking, and eventually solved some of these tough questions. And the bonus? They wrote down what they learned, so that guys like you and me could benefit from their hard work.



This is a personal thing, but I really despise the concept of faith as a virtue. There's another story posted here today, about a Muslim pilot who stopped what he was doing to pray, instead of following emergency procedures. 16 people died. He was acting on faith (his faith is every bit as real to him as yours is to you), which is another way of saying he possessed "belief absent reason". To deny everything you know and hold absolutely firm to a belief without any regard for evidence, is the very nature of faith. And I hate everything about it. To me, it's a dumb way to live.



Now, you may think it's silly that I attribute something I can't explain to the FSM, and your (justified) reasons for this are exactly - and I do mean exactly - the same reasons I have for thinking that your notions of divine intervention are silly. Right down to the last detail, it's exactly the same thing.



You know how you hate the sin, but love the sinner? Well, I hate the faith, but love the faithful. And I mean that.




 

   I try not to push my beliefs on anyone else. I didn't start this thread to debate religion, I just wanted to hear some stories from other people. That being said, tragedies happen all the time. Good things happen all the time as well. When good things happen, faithers call them miracles and when bad things happen skeptics use it as an excuse to say that there is no God. Talk to some Vietnam vets who have spent time in fox-holes.


  You'll never feel more alive than after you've stared death in the face. Have you come close to death?

Back in the day I was in my bathroom checking my flock of seaguls hair when I heard this guy in my house. I knew it was a hitman so I came out with my handcannon blazing...hit everywhere but him, I mean around him, through him and nothin. I think God came down and stopped those motherfiin bullets. I whistled for a cab and when it came near the license plate said fresh and had a dice in the mirror If anything I could say that this cab was rare but I thought now forget it, yo home to bel-air I pulled up to a house about seven or eight and I yelled to the cabby yo, home smell you later looked at my kingdom I was finally there to settle my throne as the prince of bel-air. And thats pretty much how I became the prince of bel air. Divine intervention?

I thought I would post this because it actually happened and I believe it was divine intervention.

When I was younger me and my wife struggled financially. I had a choice one time to put my last 2 dollars in my car for gas to get to work the next day or use it to go to church. I chose to put my last 2 dollars in my car and go to church. I had faith that the Lord would be faithful to me as well.

After the service a woman that we knew from church came up to us and said the Lord laid it on my heart to give you this. You have to take it or I won't be happy. She handed my wife 20 dollars.
I have never asked anyone for money and my wife hasn't either, It was provided.

I have a number of stories just like this. It seems to happen more when I am in church regular.

Stuff like this never happened to me till I got into church.

If I introduce you to a Vietnam vet who spent time in a fox hole, and is still an Atheist, does it invalidate the guy who converted? In other words, does it matter? Does it prove anything? Faith by it's very nature is just a belief in something - anything - for any reason at all. If it was substantiated by mountains of evidence and reason, we wouldn't call it faith.



I'm not sure how close I've come to death. It's open to interpretation, I suppose. I once split lanes on a motorcycle in opposing traffic on a bet. I climbed an 80' tower at night with no harness, to fix a TV antenna for $20 in gas money, so I could make it home. I was knocked off a motorcycle at 70mph by a pickup changing lanes. I had a head on collision in a Toyota Van at an intersection. I had a US Forest Service LEO point a pistol at me, with her finger on the trigger and visibly shaking. I've been bungee jumping. I flashed my brights at a guy, who then stopped at the next intersection, got our of his car (pistol in hand) and started running towards me. I've been downrange to change a target, and had a guy back on the line ND his firearm and barely miss me.



Any one of these could have resulted in death, but none did. Did I come close? Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows? They are what they are, each is a potentially good story I suppose, and I'm still here.



The proper answer to "Why didn't I die" is "I don't know". Nothing that's ever happened (or not happened) to me offers any proof of divine intervention, which is what this thread is about, no? If all you wanted to hear were near death stories from other people, you would have left out the "Divine Intervention" part. You DID want to discuss faith, but only among those who agreed with you.




 

Awhile back my grandpa had cancer and it had paralyzed him from the waist down from the cancer eating away at his spine and one night the doctors the said he had minutes to live and it was best to go home and prepare arrangements. Long story short about 3 months later he was up walking around on his own cancer free. If we would have listened to the doctors that night he would have died. Anyways thats my little story about divine intervention.

I would say it happened to me once.  



There's really no doubt in my mind, actually.



I am unable to explain what happened by any other means.   I am a very analytical, logically oriented person with a strong

background in the sciences.    By no means am I superstitious or eager to give credit to an unseen being without just cause.





The light turned green, I hit the gas to go...and then my foot stomped the brake pedal,  almost as if by itself.  Then I looked

to my left and saw the asshole blow the light at at least 60 MPH.   I'd have been RIGHT THERE, RIGHT THEN,  if I hadn't

received this absolutely unstoppable urge to STOP RIGHT NOW.   It would have been ugly.  Serious injury if not fatality.

No doubt about it.



I had no warning.  None.  No clue.  I just "heard" a voice say "STOP" and my foot hit the brake pedal.  And I "felt" a hand on

my shoulder along with the word.





Of course, I was alone in my car,  with the windows up, the A/C going, and the CD player cranked up a little.  I was not in the

state of greatest possible situational awareness.





Yes,  I'd say that was divine intervention.





CJ

Meeting Lootie would be a religious experience.        I've had near misses with Big Rig trucks....  I beleive!

OK, I have a real one this time. Actually a twofer.

You probably heard about the bar blowing up a week or so ago in Bozeman MT.  Got a couple from that one.

First.

My STBX drives past that bar every morning on her way to work. I woke up that morning not looking forward to going to work (nothing new) so I was dragging ass and running late. I get to the stop light on my way and see the STBX and realize she's running late too. Had she been on time she would've been driving by the explosion roughly as it happened. Which makes me wonder if maybe God hates me.

Second.

Same explosion. A couple days later this chick who works as a wine distributor stops by the office to talk to my boss, who drinks a shit load of wine btw. She said she had a meeting in that bar that morning, on the way she realized she was a little early so she stopped a couple of blocks away for coffee. Which she says she NEVER does because she gets it free at whatever meeting she goes to. As she is ordering her coffee the bar explodes. Had she not stopped she would probably be dead.

A possible third.

The morning of the explosion it was snowing pretty hard, everyone was running late. Usually there is a construction crew working on a building across the street from that bar but because of the snow everyone was late or dragging ass.  Could be coincidence, who knows.

http://www.addictinggames.com/divineintervention.html

Yes........avoided a grisly fate by falling asleep at the wheel of a car when I was 18 years old...........and I found myself at the end of an exit ramp with the car idling and in park.........

One time I was drowning in flood water. I had already gone through fear, bargaining, and acceptance that I was about to die. I was actually in the process of dying. I was under the water so far when I opened my eyes it was black.
  Then I got what I guess was a huge adrenaline dump and was able to swim back to the top. Here comes the weird part. I had already tried to grab a lot of tree limbs and they all broke off. I was now out in the middle far from the bank. All of a sudden, I just started heading for the bank like I had a motor on my back. I wasn't even really swimming much because I was too exhausted.
  I was able to grab a limb and eventually climb out. The water was so fast under me when I was holding the limb that the backs of my legs were coming out of the water and then slamming back down like a boat on choppy water when you are going fast. It was not like I got sucked into a swirl.
 I am not sure how the laws of physics were suspended while I cruised across the water from the channel to the bank. I know I had been doing a lot of praying right before it happened.

I have stared death in the face more times than I can count. Both my own, and that of other people. All this intervention stuff, when you should have died but didn't... I'm the guy that makes that possible for people in my little slice of the world.

My partner and I ride around town in an ambulance doing everything we can to help those we can help.

Now, I have to admit, sometimes the situation is beyond our control. Sometimes, you're just dead no matter what we do, and sometimes you're dead long before we even get there. But, those we can save, we do save.

All that being said, I'm still an atheist. I understand the science behind life, and don't assign any paranormal explanations to it. I also don't have any silly notions about death, what happens when you die, or what might or might not happen afterwards. Best I can tell, it's like a light switch. On one minute, off the next. I'm still waiting for someone to show me some proof of something more. Bring me back a t-shirt, and I'll change my opinion

While pedaling a bike, I got hit in the ass by a bus going 45 mph. I got helicoptered/thrown about 50’ through the air. I did not hit my head at all, and I did not lose consciousness. It broke a few bones and damaged a few nerves, but luckily I could still move my toes immediately afterwards, and I have since made more or less a full recovery.

Right before the bus appeared I was overcome with a kind of warm friendly feeling, as if I was meeting an old friend. When the bus appeared out of the corner of my eye, in that split second, it was as if I was being introduced to the bus and being reassured that everything was OK. Then everything went kind of soft black and muffled, like I was underwater. It seemed/felt like I was being guided through this muffled darkness.

The next thing I know I’m in the street on my hands and knees blabbering some sounds that I can’t re-create. I slowly kind of regained my senses and realized what happened. As the emergency personnel gathered and expressed their concerns to each other I somehow was not worried. Even when the ER nurse came over with a long face and said it looked like my back was broken I knew I would be all right.

This was 4 years ago next month.

I assure you I am not a mystical fruitloop, but I don’t think I was alone that day.

Dude, you found Lootie.... WTF else can you hope for in this universe?

May he keep you in his sauce, ramen

Isaac Newton did that very same thing. He couldn't explain calculate why the solar system stayed together and didn't fly apart. He couldn't come up with an answer and stopped looking and just said "God did it" The thing is, Newton was one of the smartest people to live, ever, he came up with calculus on a dare basically to answer a question. Someone came along 100 years later and found the answer to Newtons solar system problem using what would have been basic math for Newton

Finding fault with the obviously metaphoric dogma of an ancient and translated text is not proof of a negative.

A wise man once said “If you think you have it all figured out, you probably haven’t thought about it very much”

Subby, I kow from reading your posts that you are witty and intellegent. I respect your beliefs/ non-beliefs and am not in any way trying to sway your outlook. I am not, as well, trying to only seek answers/ posts from people who share my view. I respect everyone's religous beliefs whether they coiincide with mine or not. I realize that you have had close-calls, as well as many others have. There is, however difference in circumstances in all incidents. While some people may have a brush with death and shrug it off as good luck or whatever, there are other incidents that have different factors involved. For instance, out-of-body experiences where patients describe things that happened while they were under. I don't mean to go too far out of left-field here, but not everything is explained by science. Faith is what it literally means, "Faith". I don't think that anyone can show you concrete evidence that there is a "Spaghetti Monster", or "God". I don't believe in organized religion and think it's been commercialized. I do, however believe that life doesn't end beyond our mortal coil. I amicably disagree with you, but respect your opinion. This is a very touchy subject which one has to experience in order to understand. I also have friends who are doctors and have told me numerous stories about things that happened in the O.R. that they couldn't explain. This is an argument that has been debated for centuries, I don't think we'll solve it here on arfcom, and it was not my intention to either.

As a fireman for 18 years, there have been several situations where I should have been serisouly hurt or killed.

I'm a good fireman, but there had to have been more to it than that. I think I had a little help...

I'll bet that was a tasty cheeseburger too!

It's been debated for centuries, and will continue to be debated (on arfcom and elsewhere) but it was answered to my satisfaction thousands of years ago.





To tell you the truth, when I was close to death, I felt His noodly appendage (pesto be upon Him). Guess you had to be there.





May you one day see the light. RAmen.




 

No.

Had a cousin who was 4 years old, he wasted away from bone cancer screaming the whole time. No divine being stepped in, the only helpful intervention was morphine until he died.

Anything that is probable is inevitable.


I'm not so arrogant as to think something in the sky is paying attention to my fate.

And I have to agree with Subnet, faith: technically defined as belief absent of or in contradiction of evidence, is utterly abhorrent. Humans are capable of so much better than that. It promotes willful dumbing-down and the acceptance simplistic glib feel good answers which we like and agree with. It's simply shameful.

I am not religious at all I would rather not go into detail but I had a close call about a year ago. I believe I am here on borrowed time. There were so many variable that day that ended up going in my favor I couldn't imagine someone or something wasn't looking out for me that day. If I was to chart out the chance of these events going my way in the correct sequence of events that saved me it would probably be like 1 out of 10,000.



Not only life or death situations I have had this happen in other important areas of my life.

I should have been dead several times already.

The fact that I'm not is no less than a miracle.

If a set of coincidences can line up to 'save' someone, just as easily a set of coincidences can line up to kill somebody.

one big physics experiment.

On average every single person has an experience which could statistically be calculated as 1 in 1 million, each and every month.

Sometimes shit just happens in a way that cant be explained.



Those that believe in a higher power tend to lean towards a God.



I just think that shit sometimes happens that cant be explained.

Sometimes the real explanation is beyond your capacity to comprehend right now.

"People break down into two groups. When they experience something lucky, group number one sees it as more than luck, more than coincidence. They see it as a sign, evidence, that there is someone up there, watching out for them. Group number two sees it as just pure luck. Just a happy turn of chance....There is no one watching out for us, Merrill. We are all on our own."

  I think the point everyone here is missing is that I was talking about personal experiences where there was definitely unseen hands at work. For instance, a friend of mine when we were kids got hit by a car and drug underneath it for about 10 feet. He told me then and swears to this day he felt someone literally grab him by his shoulders and grab him out from underneath the car while he was being dragged at about 15 MPH. I'm not talking about pure coincidence.

Divine Internetion was a cool little computer program back in the day....you could bring havoc to people.

Anyway......I do believe God puts road blocks in our way, so yes, I believe in it.

I have had a few close calls and been tagged more than once, but never have I ever felt there was some "higher power" looking out for me.

Sounds like you have read too much Dawkins.  Between the FSM and your positions on "faith as a virtue" (Dawkins concepts as presented in The God Delusion
) you have allowed this guy to influence you.  Dawkins is a crummy philosopher and takes on theological criticism that when under scrutiny shows he doesn't even have a basic comprehension of what faiths, particularly  Christianity teaches.  Richard performs poorly in debates, especially with other accredited scientists.  He may be a point man for atheism, but I think the movement could find much better.

Dawkins is naive in his assertion in relation to Christianity............. that it is blind faith.  Most strong Christians however have based their faith on evidence they find convincing and it is evidence that gets very little mainstream exposure.  

While in the Amy, I began to come to the conclusion that faith is dead.  Then I was shown evidence for faith and I really wrestled with this.  I had never heard or seen evidence for faith that I could observe as I always believed the abstract concept that it was an emotional/spiritual inference that required no evidence. The truth is faith is a devotion to something as being more true than anything else.  Your faith is Atheism, mine is not.  However,  faith is a virtue when it comes from deductive reasoning.............which also makes it genuine.  

I would move the faith that you and poor Richard have decided to critique is the fake faith...............the faith based on assumption with no evidence at best or contradictory evidence at worst.  

Just my two cents


By the way I have seen some things that I would attribute to divine intervention though there may be other explainable causes.

#1 Whole dismounted Infantry Platoon standing at ground zero of a large exploding IED (I observed this take place, the surreal silent rising of the dirt cloud before the sound of the explosion, from about 75 meters away and was waiting to get peppered).  5 guys where literally less than  10m from the blast. Not a scrach on anyone, not even in the ears.  Explosion left a 6 foot deep crater about 8 ft across.

#2.........guy driving a car blasted with over 400 rds of M855 at less than 15 meters from 180 degrees in a matter of 5-8 seconds.  Windshield and doors shattered/shredded, drivers seat shredded in torso and head rest, all tires flattened, gas tank penetrated, lights shout out.  Driver, not a scratch.   Can't explain it.  40 plus people that were there were flabbergasted as it seems to give Isaac Newton the finger.

Perhaps this was God's way of endorsing 6.8 SPC

I absolutely believe in divine intervention.  I prefer to think of it as "grace", or something given from God that was not earned.  I've told this story before here, but never to anyone in person.

In December 2003, I was assigned to a civil affairs team in Sadr City, Iraq. We lived in a FOB on the northeast side of town, but typically spent most days out and about. Due to a certain mission, we had no choice but to leave the FOB at the same time and by the same route three days in a row.

No problem on the first day. On the second day, as we were loading up, something made me change where I was sitting.  We had humvees with open backs (like pick-up trucks).  I normally sat in the TC seat (the passenger seat), but I decided not to that day for some reason. The TC seat was empty. Instead, I and another soldier were riding in the back as rear security. We were the last vehicle of 4. We had liberated a heavy leather office chair a few months before and had strapped it to the center of the bed. I was sitting in the office chair facing to the rear, and the other guy was sitting on the bench seat of the passenger side. We typically ran with the tailgate down so we could kick out a grenade if one got tossed into the truck.  I also decided to close the tailgate.  No reason why, just a feeling.  

That morning, hadji caught us in an ambush with IEDs and small arms fire from the rooftops on either side of the street. One of the IEDs detonated by our front passenger side door, throwing shrapnel through the passenger door opening and hitting me in the back of the helmet. Nothing hit my back, since it was protected by the office chair. The blast and shrapnel cracked the spine of the soldier next to me (he's fine now, luckily, and was actually able to function for a while afterwards before the pain kicked in). The hit on my helmet and the blast tossed me out of the chair and onto the floorboards. The other guy was also thrown into the bed, and we both ended up against the closed tailgate, keeping us from falling out.

We picked ourselves up and put suppressive fire onto the rooftops while the drivers got us out of the kill zone. After a few hundred yards, we stopped at the next open area (not smart in retrospect) to check the wounded and see if we were going back to the FOB for a medevac, or driving directly to the surgical hospital in the green zone. I and the guy with the cracked spine set up rear security while folks checked on the wounded (an AK wound to the bicep of a gunner and some shrapnel wounds.)

During the ~10 minutes that we were stopped, we had an extremely hard time keeping a group of 8-10 men away from us and the vehicles. They kept trying to inch closer, but weren't armed, so we couldn't shoot. I ended up barrel striking one in the sternum, and they still wouldn't back up. Tunnel vision set in while we were shouting at them, and we didn't notice that another group was trying to cut us off from the vehicles while we were pushing the rest of the hadjis away. We heard the shout to mount up, and we turned to see that in about 30 more seconds we would have been cut off. We looked at each other with an "Oh, Fuck" look and sprinted for the trucks. Mounted up and got back to the FOB right before 2 of the trucks completely died (the blast had blown all the hoses and shredded a few tires).

So, here's "strange issue" number 1. Something made me decide to deviate from my normal seating and sit in the back that morning. If I hadn't, I would be either dead or seriously screwed up, judging by the shrapnel pattern that hit the TC seat. Something also made me decide to close the tailgate that morning. If not, my buddy and I would have been dumped out on the street and into the kill zone. Maybe the driver would have noticed, and maybe not.

Now on to "strange issue" number 2. The next morning we got ready to roll out at the same time and by the same route. No choice in the matter, despite our protests. I hadn't slept at all the night before because of the close call and worrying what would have happened if we had been captured by the hadjis. I also had a really strong feeling that something bad was going to happen again. So, as I'm sitting in my trusty leather office chair, heart beating about 130 beats a minute, I heard a voice in my head. The voice said, "Be still, for I am with you." I was filled with calm, my heart slowed down, and I knew that we'd be fine. And we were. No problems at all.

I went to church as a child, but not as an adult. I have problems with organized religion, but still believe in God and pray.  Was it a guardian angel?  Grace?  Luck?  Divine intervention?  I don't know what it was, but I know that something carried us through that day.

Numerous times...I'm only here because of my Lord.

HH

Who?







Seriously, other than having watched a couple of youtube videos, I really don't know THAT much about the guy, other than he's an evolutionary biologist at Oxford, has a nifty English accent, and is well-known atheist who's written some books that piss people off (none of which I've ever read).





You know, people _ARE_ capable of independent thought. I was a Christian for a very long time. Talk to me, not Mr. Dawkins. Otherwise, I'm going to accuse you of reading too much Lee Strobel or William Lane Craig, and letting them dictate your thoughts. Savvy?







And yes, it is in fact blind faith if you dig deep enough. And yes, faith is seen as a virtue, and as a Christian, you should know that.





 

   Amazing and interesting story. Glad everything is okay with you and you have my utmost respect !  I don't believe in organized religion either, but sometimes it takes things like this for some people to believe.

If god in heaven loved your friend so much, why did he allow him to be struck by a car and dragged underneath it?  And if he wanted to save his life wouldn't it have been easier to make the engine throw a rod 30 seconds earlier or something?



 

There is no such thing.