I am proud to say I surround myself with a varied amount of people from cultural and religious backgrounds. I also attempt my best to learn as much as I can about multiple denominations of faiths. That said, I can also admit that some people, in my opinion, become very biased and closed minded based off of their particular faith.
Atheists included.
I know a few atheists who are really good, wholesome people. You’d actually think they were living the hidden lives of Christians and often act more Christian than some of faith. Regardless, they become very absent of room to grow or move.. and they equally condemn those who don’t doubt faith but also get mired in their own form of refusal of doubt when it comes to NOT believing in something.
But that is until strange things happen to good atheists..
I recently invoked conversations with two atheists I know, on separate occasions. To protect the innocent, I will call them “Joe and Jim.” I asked Joe and Jim if something weird ever happened to them, something unexplainable with ‘modern science.’ I noted to them I was not looking for something a ‘god’ would have done, but characterized my question as this, just to make them comfortable: “We know God didn’t do it, but have there ever been any weird or strange occurrence happening to you that SCIENCE has YET TO EXPLAIN?” They were comfortable with the premise..
And they let loose.
Joe was first. He said emphatically yes. It was almost like a relief that he was able to explain it, and he admitted he rarely to anyone what he was going to tell me.. It happened a few years ago. His wife, who is a somewhat superstitious Catholic from Puerto Rico, was in the car when him when they both arrived back home from being out. When they looked outside of the windshield, they saw what appeared to be a bubble of substance meandering its way through the forest near their home. As Joe would explain, it was not really a ‘light’ but instead appeared to be a hole of darkness. And it seemed intelligent. Joe said the ‘darkness’ actually was dodging trees and moving around objects with a knowing. Joe said the darkness literally stopped for a while.. Joe and his wife were mesmerized by what they were witnessing. Joe does not outright recall losing time, but certainly thinks they were staring into the blackness of this material for ‘a while.’ Then the hole simply floated away.. And as it did, Joe said it had no real form. Instead, it was almost flat. But even though it compressed into a flat object, he still watched it the entire time. Joe was shaken up. And as he told the story, he became shaken up again, this time emphatically stating that the object could “NOT BE a devil or a god” but gave room for the potential it was alien. Maybe. Or just something science has yet to explain.. I told Joe that he is not the first to have seen such objects, and that globally there have been reports from people about these. Even some that people claim they place their hands into the object and often lose time, hours or even days. He did not seem comforted by that realization….
As for Jim? Jim is the more hardcore atheist. He gives no room for any chance a god exists. He disputes all the passages of the Bible but goes on to declare the book meaningless and something that, he thinks, should be banned. And that is why Jim’s story surprised me even more than Joe’s. Jim explained that this happened recently. He just lost a cat, and as you’d imagine, this cat was a member of the family for him and his girlfriend. He has other cats as well. Just recently, when Jim was getting ready to fill his cat’s bowl with food, something bizarre occurred right in front of him. A piece of food that was on the table acted with intelligence. Jim said it did not fall off the table, but instead floated through the air in front of him and landed in his cat’s bowl. When he turned around to see what from the table may have pushed it, he realized he put his deceased cat’s collar there. He did not seem shaken up when telling me. He still gave no credence to a ‘spirit’ or afterlife scenario, instead stated that this will one day be explained by science. And Jim told me this: He is choosing not to concern himself with the reason or meaning since, he said, he will never find one anyway.
People of faith often have moments of doubt.
And now I came to find that people of doubt often have moments of confusion … what they thought was not real may be.
The paranormal is just fiction until you’re mired in it.
