Is it God or Is it me?

[Jacob Samuelson]

Here is a very common question that I believe is used in various scenarios both introspectively and from the outside.

Faith is subjective therefore mostly rejected by the scientific community. Someone outside that particular faith will ask the question in different ways.

How do you know your religion is correct? How do you know God answered your prayer? How do you know the Scriptures say this? How do you know your not brainwashed into believing this? How do you know Satan didn't come to you? Where's the evidence?

All of these question has been asked to most if not all theists at least once in their lives and to retain our faith we must have an answer to each and everyone of them.

My faith in particular is not only of interest to Atheists but also to many Christian Faiths as it is directly founded mostly on a testimony of a singular man prophet in the early 1800's who claimed to have witnessed God firsthand and organized scripture and a church because of it.

Because the claims are hard to swallow in a modern scientific world, everyone who skeptical to them, find them asking the questions above as a means to rhetorically discredit any possibility of whether the claims could be true or not.

I am most interested in this question, If you read the scriptures and feel it is true and someone else reads the same scriptures and feel that it is not true, how can you determine what is true?

The context being that God has promised those who read and ask in faith will know the truthfulness of the scriptures by his Spirit.

If the Spirit says to another Christian it is false, is it Him or the Spirit that deems it so. Visa Versa.

As a believer, you are taught in scripture to always follow God and listen to the prompting of the Holy Ghost, which was given to us when Jesus left the Earth. The Holy Ghost and Faith in Christ were to be our guide and companion since then.

So to a believer it isn't wrong to follow what you believe God is telling you to do. We also know that God will never tell you to do evil, but only good.

Non-believers will find this to be a recipe for disaster, because now it opens the door for a believer to use God as an excuse for any action they perform whether, to them, it is evil or not. Subjective reasoning at its best.

Thinking about this a lot, I have come up with a way for me to determine the difference between whether God wills this action or whether that person wills it.

We must understand the difference between these two clauses: 1. I feel therefore I do. 2. I do so that I can feel.

For me if I can determine whether the action precedes the feeling or visa versa, I can better determine whether if this feeling comes from God or not.

Example: 1. I feel like I need to go for a jog everyday therefore I jog every day. 2. I go for a jog everyday so that I can feel good about myself.

The first example indicates that you know jogging is a good thing and therefore 'something' is telling you to jog more.

The second example indicates that you care less if jogging is good or not, you only care that it makes you feel good and so you do it.

Think of the examples where you feel people have made the excuse that God told them to do it. Do those examples work for scenario one or two?


. .

 

[NArdas]

It's the voices in your head, listen to them only if they are positive and will help you in the long run even if you don't understand they are.

 

[Jacob Samuelson]

It's the voices in your head, listen to them only if they are positive and will help you in the long run even if you don't understand they are.

I would accept your answer if I loved myself to even care about what I thought. I don't believe my voices would be telling me to do anything because I'm actually pretty lazy, my voices will mostly say to sleep all day and not care about a thing. I wouldn't say those are negative thoughts because I really love sleeping and thinking about things. Yet, I have found there are other things besides my thoughts that tell me to do other things like work, provide for my family, write on this blog etc,. If they are good they must be from God right?

 

[NArdas]

I would accept your answer if I loved myself to even care about what I thought. I don't believe my voices would be telling me to do anything because I'm actually pretty lazy, my voices will mostly say to sleep all day and not care about a thing. I wouldn't say those are negative thoughts because I really love sleeping and thinking about things. Yet, I have found there are other things besides my thoughts that tell me to do other things like work, provide for my family, write on this blog etc,. If they are good they must be from God right?

Then why ask a question in the first place? Sloth is underrated

 

[sun rise]

How do you know your religion is correct?

I don't follow an organized religion.

How do you know God answered your prayer?

I don't pray for things. I pray to be more and more loving. It's not mine to judge the result.

How do you know the Scriptures say this?

The true book is the book of the heart.

How do you know Satan didn't come to you?

There is no 'satan' who is in Manichean opposition to a "God".

, If you read the scriptures and feel it is true and someone else reads the same scriptures and feel that it is not true, how can you determine what is true?

The voice of the heart is the true voice. What is in books can be a help but always in the back of my mind is that religions at best have a partial truth (blind men and the elephant) so theological differences are not critical to me.

 

[NArdas]

I don't follow an organized religion.



I don't pray for things. I pray to be more and more loving. It's not mine to judge the result.



The true book is the book of the heart.



There is no 'satan' who is in Manichean opposition to a "God".



The voice of the heart is the true voice. What is in books can be a help but always in the back of my mind is that religions at best have a partial truth (blind men and the elephant) so theological differences are not critical to me.

You seem defensive, what is up with that?

 

[stvdv]

For me if I can determine whether the action precedes the feeling or visa versa, I can better determine whether if this feeling comes from God or not.

Example: 1. I feel like I need to go for a jog everyday therefore I jog every day. 2. I go for a jog everyday so that I can feel good about myself.

The first example indicates that you know jogging is a good thing and therefore 'something' is telling you to jog more.

The second example indicates that you care less if jogging is good or not, you only care that it makes you feel good and so you do it.

Jogging is good for some, not for all
This is the same with Religions
Good for 1, not for all

I don't tell others "Jogging is good for you"
Nor do I tell others "My Religion is good for you"

Some feel they do need Religion, fine with me
Some feel they don't need Religion, fine with me too

 

[Hermit Philosopher]

Dear @Jacob Samuelson

I would add to your interesting reflections that religion and faith are not about worldliness, but about the state of Spirit (not as in state of mind/emotion/psychology - that too is worldliness).

Spiritually speaking, it is never about what you get; it is only ever about what you give.

Much of what we do to make ourselves feel good are (spiritually speaking) neutral acts. Jogging for example, is nice and hopefully won’t do anyone much harm, but spiritually speaking - regardless of how great it be for your health and state of mind - it is a neutral act.

When we live in God, our focus is not on the self and its worldly attachments (body/mind/achievements/possessions…) but on those whom we encounter. What we do (and don’t) is based on their spiritual needs.

One of the greatest challenges Man faces when trying to live in God, is learning how to sense the spiritual needs of those whom he encounters because, while his will and commitment can be turned onto God in a second, a lifetime may not suffice him to acquire the sensitivity to recognise his brother’s spiritual needs.

When we live in God, we live for the spiritual state of our fellow beings and our life becomes about learning to understand what that actually means. Through practice our spiritual sensitivity grows and through mistakes (countless, unfortunately) we learn both what aspects are not conducive to attend to and what is simply not for us to meddle in - two lists that become rather long in time.

Our lessons are endless of course, but what I will say that I feel rather certain of is that whether someone is of faith or not has no impact on their spiritual needs - we do not need to convert people to be able to be of spiritual good to them and to the whole.


Humbly
Hermit

 

[Nimos]

Non-believers will find this to be a recipe for disaster, because now it opens the door for a believer to use God as an excuse for any action they perform whether, to them, it is evil or not. Subjective reasoning at its best.

I don't think this particular example is of great concern for atheists. And the reason is that simply being atheist doesn't magically give you clear sight or what to say

Whether you are religious and uses God as an excuse for doing something wrong, or whether you as an atheist do wrong, because you have some other excuse for doing so, I don't think is very different. Said in another way, both religious and atheists can commit murder, rape or molest children etc.

Where I think atheists see a problem is, when someone gets convinced by other religious people that they ought to do certain things, because God wills it. Meaning that God or the religious rules are used to manipulate people into doing things for which they have no authority too. Which could lead to one group of people attacking and killing others for having the wrong religion or threating people bad, because of this, having societies adjust to certain religious views and rules, which as a result could reduce the freedom for other groups etc.

Thinking about this a lot, I have come up with a way for me to determine the difference between whether God wills this action or whether that person wills it.

We must understand the difference between these two clauses: 1. I feel therefore I do. 2. I do so that I can feel.

For me if I can determine whether the action precedes the feeling or visa versa, I can better determine whether if this feeling comes from God or not.

Example: 1. I feel like I need to go for a jog everyday therefore I jog every day. 2. I go for a jog everyday so that I can feel good about myself.

The first example indicates that you know jogging is a good thing and therefore 'something' is telling you to jog more.

The second example indicates that you care less if jogging is good or not, you only care that it makes you feel good and so you do it.

Think of the examples where you feel people have made the excuse that God told them to do it. Do those examples work for scenario one or two?

I don't think these works, I don't think it changes anything in regards to the issue at hand.

You are still making a series of subjective assertions, clearly with a lot of uncertainties involved as well. In principle, you could just as well say that.

1. If I instantly think its a good idea then it must be God's will. 2. If I don't instantly think its a good idea, then it was not God.

None of these, yours or my examples, makes it more likely whether God willed it or not. We simply assume that certain criteria is exactly what God uses to communicate his will, without having any good reason for thinking that it is the case in the first place.

Using your example, how do you know that God doesn't approve or want you to feel good about yourself, and if you believe in free will, that this is one of the reasons he gave it to you. If the first one is what God wants, then he is manipulating you to feel good about certain things and therefore you ought to do them. This obviously causes some issues, because a person might feel "good" about molesting children and therefore act on it. In that case God made them feel that way... because I don't think that people that molest children feel especially good about themselves for doing so, obviously some might, but in general I think they are well aware that what they are doing is not right.

But if you hold the believe that God can only do good, then either molesting children must be perfectly fine in the eyes of God, or you would have to explain how this feeling fits into the system.

In the end the question still becomes, how do you determine that God prefer one thing over the other when it comes to communication? How do you even know that it is God and not something else?

 

[Suave]

Here is a very common question that I believe is used in various scenarios both introspectively and from the outside.

Faith is subjective therefore mostly rejected by the scientific community. Someone outside that particular faith will ask the question in different ways.

How do you know your religion is correct? How do you know God answered your prayer? How do you know the Scriptures say this? How do you know your not brainwashed into believing this? How do you know Satan didn't come to you? Where's the evidence?

All of these question has been asked to most if not all theists at least once in their lives and to retain our faith we must have an answer to each and everyone of them.

My faith in particular is not only of interest to Atheists but also to many Christian Faiths as it is directly founded mostly on a testimony of a singular man prophet in the early 1800's who claimed to have witnessed God firsthand and organized scripture and a church because of it.

Because the claims are hard to swallow in a modern scientific world, everyone who skeptical to them, find them asking the questions above as a means to rhetorically discredit any possibility of whether the claims could be true or not.

I am most interested in this question, If you read the scriptures and feel it is true and someone else reads the same scriptures and feel that it is not true, how can you determine what is true?

The context being that God has promised those who read and ask in faith will know the truthfulness of the scriptures by his Spirit.

If the Spirit says to another Christian it is false, is it Him or the Spirit that deems it so. Visa Versa.

As a believer, you are taught in scripture to always follow God and listen to the prompting of the Holy Ghost, which was given to us when Jesus left the Earth. The Holy Ghost and Faith in Christ were to be our guide and companion since then.

So to a believer it isn't wrong to follow what you believe God is telling you to do. We also know that God will never tell you to do evil, but only good.

Non-believers will find this to be a recipe for disaster, because now it opens the door for a believer to use God as an excuse for any action they perform whether, to them, it is evil or not. Subjective reasoning at its best.

Thinking about this a lot, I have come up with a way for me to determine the difference between whether God wills this action or whether that person wills it.

We must understand the difference between these two clauses: 1. I feel therefore I do. 2. I do so that I can feel.

For me if I can determine whether the action precedes the feeling or visa versa, I can better determine whether if this feeling comes from God or not.

Example: 1. I feel like I need to go for a jog everyday therefore I jog every day. 2. I go for a jog everyday so that I can feel good about myself.

The first example indicates that you know jogging is a good thing and therefore 'something' is telling you to jog more.

The second example indicates that you care less if jogging is good or not, you only care that it makes you feel good and so you do it.

Think of the examples where you feel people have made the excuse that God told them to do it. Do those examples work for scenario one or two?


. .

I suspect our genetic code's signature or God's mark of intelligence might be found in life's genetic code,

Our genetic code's creator has left this mathematical pattern in our genetic code conveying to me the symbol of an Egyptian triangle as well as the number 37 embedded in our genetic code.

Eight of the canonical amino acids can be sufficiently defined by the composition of their codon's first and second base nucleotides. The nucleon sum of these amino acids' side chains is 333 (=37 * 3 squared), the sun of their block nucleons (basic core structure) is 592 (=37 * 4 squared), and the sum of their total nucleons is 925 (=37 * 5 squared ). With 37 factored out, this results in 3 squared + 4 squared + 5 squared, which is representative of an Egyptian triangle.

Reference:
The “Wow! signal― of the terrestrial genetic code (podcastufo.com)

The ‘‘Wow! signal’’ of the terrestrial genetic code
Vladimir I. shCherbak a , Maxim A. Makukov
Icarus, 2013.

The mathematical pattern of the number 37 being used as a key factor for conveying an Egyptian triangle might be related to the gematria value of 37 appearing in the Hebrew language of Genesis 1:1.

The 3 main words (God, the heaven, the earth) in Hebrew have a gematria numeric value of 777 (111x7), ". which is divisible by 37.

The numeric value of the entire verse is 2701 which is divisible by 37.

We may now proceed to finding the number 37 interlaced in the first verse of the Bible. We can do this by discovering words or groups of words with number values evenly divisible by 37, e.g. the 3 main words (“God” + ”the heaven” + ”the earth” = 777 = 21x37), the 5 first words (“In the beginning” + “created” + “God” + “*” + “the heaven” = 1998 = 54x37), or the last two words separately (“and” = 407 = 11x37 and “the earth” = 296 = 8x37)

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

My faith in particular is not only of interest to Atheists but also to many Christian Faiths as it is directly founded mostly on a testimony of a singular man prophet in the early 1800's who claimed to have witnessed God firsthand and organized scripture and a church because of it.

You think that your faith is of interest to atheists, and for the reasons you gave? Not to my knowledge.

I'm personally uninterested in theology, or what people who believe in gods also believe as a result of their god belief. I think that most of the theology I know about Mormonism I learned from South Park. Check this out beginning at about 4:45, and then again at about 10:22, 14:30, and 17:25 at https://www.southpark.lat/en/episodes/rl7pjr/south-park-all-about-mormons-season-7-ep-12 . You might find it inaccurate and irreverent, but I thought that it was fairly flattering and sympathetic to Mormons apart from singing dum-dum-dum over and over.

Because the claims are hard to swallow in a modern scientific world, everyone who skeptical to them, find them asking the questions above as a means to rhetorically discredit any possibility of whether the claims could be true or not.

Skeptics will reject unsupported claims however easy or hard they are to swallow.

We also know that God will never tell you to do evil, but only good. Non-believers will find this to be a recipe for disaster, because now it opens the door for a believer to use God as an excuse for any action they perform whether, to them, it is evil or not.

Yes, this is a dangerous doctrine, the divine command theory of morals. I left the following comment on another thread earlier today, where I had previously been chided for calling the actions of the Christian God immoral at times, and told that I could not apply my standards of good and bad, right and wrong, to a deity:

"I expect deities to be at least as moral as moral human beings. I have no reason to call what I deem immoral moral because a deity is said to have said or done it. In fact, such an attitude open Pandora's box to immoral acts being called moral. Maybe you've seen this from Steven Weinberg: "Religion ... With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. For good people to do evil things, it takes religion." And because of this divine command theory of morals, you've got theists marginalizing and demonizing atheists and gays and calling it love. Look at what's become of the white American evangelicals, who have become grossly immoral in the pursuit of what they have been taught that a good god wants from them."

 

[Redemptionsong]

Here is a very common question that I believe is used in various scenarios both introspectively and from the outside.

Faith is subjective therefore mostly rejected by the scientific community. Someone outside that particular faith will ask the question in different ways.

How do you know your religion is correct? How do you know God answered your prayer? How do you know the Scriptures say this? How do you know your not brainwashed into believing this? How do you know Satan didn't come to you? Where's the evidence?

All of these question has been asked to most if not all theists at least once in their lives and to retain our faith we must have an answer to each and everyone of them.

My faith in particular is not only of interest to Atheists but also to many Christian Faiths as it is directly founded mostly on a testimony of a singular man prophet in the early 1800's who claimed to have witnessed God firsthand and organized scripture and a church because of it.

Because the claims are hard to swallow in a modern scientific world, everyone who skeptical to them, find them asking the questions above as a means to rhetorically discredit any possibility of whether the claims could be true or not.

I am most interested in this question, If you read the scriptures and feel it is true and someone else reads the same scriptures and feel that it is not true, how can you determine what is true?

The context being that God has promised those who read and ask in faith will know the truthfulness of the scriptures by his Spirit.

If the Spirit says to another Christian it is false, is it Him or the Spirit that deems it so. Visa Versa.

As a believer, you are taught in scripture to always follow God and listen to the prompting of the Holy Ghost, which was given to us when Jesus left the Earth. The Holy Ghost and Faith in Christ were to be our guide and companion since then.

So to a believer it isn't wrong to follow what you believe God is telling you to do. We also know that God will never tell you to do evil, but only good.

Non-believers will find this to be a recipe for disaster, because now it opens the door for a believer to use God as an excuse for any action they perform whether, to them, it is evil or not. Subjective reasoning at its best.

Thinking about this a lot, I have come up with a way for me to determine the difference between whether God wills this action or whether that person wills it.

We must understand the difference between these two clauses: 1. I feel therefore I do. 2. I do so that I can feel.

For me if I can determine whether the action precedes the feeling or visa versa, I can better determine whether if this feeling comes from God or not.

Example: 1. I feel like I need to go for a jog everyday therefore I jog every day. 2. I go for a jog everyday so that I can feel good about myself.

The first example indicates that you know jogging is a good thing and therefore 'something' is telling you to jog more.

The second example indicates that you care less if jogging is good or not, you only care that it makes you feel good and so you do it.

Think of the examples where you feel people have made the excuse that God told them to do it. Do those examples work for scenario one or two?


. .

Hello again!

Here's an interesting story from John's Gospel:
John 9:17-21.'They [the Jews] say unto the blind man again, What sayest thou of him [Jesus], that he hath opened thine eyes? He [the blind man] said, He is a prophet.
But the Jews did not believe concerning him, that he had been blind, and received his sight, until they called the parents of him that had received his sight.
And they asked them, saying, Is this your son, who ye say was born blind? how then doth he now see?
His parents answered them and said, We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind:
But by what means he now seeth, we know not; or who hath opened his eyes, we know not: he is of age; ask him: he shall speak for himself.'

Atheists will deny the story is true. But were an atheist to witness a scene like this, where a man born blind was prayed for, and immediately healed, what would they then say?

I think that healing and miracles, like prophecy, are evidence of God's intervention. They are not just subjective experiences, but responses to faith by God, and demonstrations of His power.

 

[wellwisher]

Here is a very common question that I believe is used in various scenarios both introspectively and from the outside.

Faith is subjective therefore mostly rejected by the scientific community. Someone outside that particular faith will ask the question in different ways.

How do you know your religion is correct? How do you know God answered your prayer? How do you know the Scriptures say this? How do you know your not brainwashed into believing this? How do you know Satan didn't come to you? Where's the evidence?

All of these question has been asked to most if not all theists at least once in their lives and to retain our faith we must have an answer to each and everyone of them.

My faith in particular is not only of interest to Atheists but also to many Christian Faiths as it is directly founded mostly on a testimony of a singular man prophet in the early 1800's who claimed to have witnessed God firsthand and organized scripture and a church because of it.

Because the claims are hard to swallow in a modern scientific world, everyone who skeptical to them, find them asking the questions above as a means to rhetorically discredit any possibility of whether the claims could be true or not.

I am most interested in this question, If you read the scriptures and feel it is true and someone else reads the same scriptures and feel that it is not true, how can you determine what is true?

The context being that God has promised those who read and ask in faith will know the truthfulness of the scriptures by his Spirit.

If the Spirit says to another Christian it is false, is it Him or the Spirit that deems it so. Visa Versa.

As a believer, you are taught in scripture to always follow God and listen to the prompting of the Holy Ghost, which was given to us when Jesus left the Earth. The Holy Ghost and Faith in Christ were to be our guide and companion since then.

So to a believer it isn't wrong to follow what you believe God is telling you to do. We also know that God will never tell you to do evil, but only good.

Non-believers will find this to be a recipe for disaster, because now it opens the door for a believer to use God as an excuse for any action they perform whether, to them, it is evil or not. Subjective reasoning at its best.

Thinking about this a lot, I have come up with a way for me to determine the difference between whether God wills this action or whether that person wills it.

We must understand the difference between these two clauses: 1. I feel therefore I do. 2. I do so that I can feel.

For me if I can determine whether the action precedes the feeling or visa versa, I can better determine whether if this feeling comes from God or not.

Example: 1. I feel like I need to go for a jog everyday therefore I jog every day. 2. I go for a jog everyday so that I can feel good about myself.

The first example indicates that you know jogging is a good thing and therefore 'something' is telling you to jog more.

The second example indicates that you care less if jogging is good or not, you only care that it makes you feel good and so you do it.

Think of the examples where you feel people have made the excuse that God told them to do it. Do those examples work for scenario one or two?
. .

Faith is misunderstood by science. Faith is the belief in things not seen. This describe the preconscious creative process, for all forms of innovation, even in science. Innovation does not start out with all the proof needed to be seen to believe. For example, Christopher Columbus thought the earth was round, even when the science of the day thought it was flat. The common wisdom thought he would sail over the edge of the earth if he went too far. Yet he had a creative hunch that the consensus was wrong, even before he had the proof created by seeing is believing. His vision drove him, to do what would have been seen as suicide, by the flat earth experts of the day; science bureaucracy.

This was more than just a hunch, since it also drove him to go way beyond dabbling with this idea, quietly, in the safety and confront of his home or office. He pushed and finally sold his idea to a Queen, who could have had him killed for heresy. She sensed his unique conviction and believed in hm. He then sailed toward the big waterfall at the edge of the earth, which was not there. You can often tell true inspiration, when faith is not just the vision, but also the motivation that will drive one onward, even against all the social odds that the status quo will create against you. They all try to shut you down since this spooks them.

We have two centers of consciousness; inner self and ego. The inner self is older and is the center of consciousness connected to our DNA. Animals also have an inner self, which is the center of natural instinct and their nature as a species; human nature. The ego is much newer and offers choice and will, apart from nature and the inner self. The ego allows us to choose to be unnatural or artificial. These two centers are often broken down by science as conscious mind; ego, and unconscious mind; inner self. The unconscious mind has better; subliminal, observational resolution and skills. This can be demonstrated with hypnosis.

The current estimate is that we; conscious mind or ego, uses about 10% of our brain's capacity. The inner self can uses all 100%, if need be in times of trouble. Faith is often connected to the inner self using the full brain to derive conclusions, that the ego senses, that often appear beyond the ego and its time and space, and are therefore, doubted.

In science, the super computer; inner self can do things faster, more efficiently and with more parameters compared to a terminal; ego. The inner self can also make adjustments to our neurotransmitters, so the ego stays motivated since it needs the ego for the cultural interface. The super computer of the inner self can often see benefits in discovery, since it sees the bigger picture and not just the small temporal political picture of the ego. It is about evolving secular with natural in the context of our DNA history.

Faith and God is often about the inner self providing a portal; terminal connection, for the ego to the main frame brain. Often you may get a gut feeling and some bottom lines, but no fully conscious analysis, since the ego does not know how to think in 3-D, like the inner self. These bottom lines will look wishful to the outside observer. However, one can tell by the motivations it creates within innovators, often pushing then forward, even in the worse storms of social criticism. They sense the processed truth and may even have seen the proof, that they cannot recreate, but which affected them at a very deep level.

In evolution, there is the survival of the individual and the survival of the species. The survival of the individual has a connection to the inner self and our DNA; main frame. Survival of the species is like a team affect, where the team can become more than the sum of its parts. This affect is the sum of all our human inner selves, forming a network, that is more than any one part, but reflects the needs of all. This team affect is where the concept of God resides. The mother animal will fight to defend her child against all odds, placing her own safety at risk. Her inner self does this for the higher cause; species. There is no greater love than to lay down you life for others. This is seen as the connected to love and a higher power; big picture.

The computer analogy of the survival of the species, is like a network of supercomputers that will unconsciously work on the same team project, that impacts the fate of all the supercomputers. This network is how all cultures of old ended with the same mythology of a great flood, even when there is no proof of outside contact with some of these culture; Aborigines. This network processing can become conscious to the egos of those who are often seen as the prophets, leaders and Gods of old.

Faith is a portal to the inner self supercomputer and even sometimes to the network of supercomputers. The ego needs come down its high horse, since it is at the bottom of the neural pecking order. Knowledge has the egos of humans networked via each culture and collective education, while faith connects us to the inner self and the larger network associated with all inner selves ; natural instinct; secular and religion, respectively.

 

[Joshua Pryce]

For me if I can determine whether the action precedes the feeling or visa versa, I can better determine whether if this feeling comes from God or not.

This word is a double edged sword which makes sense to a natural mind but causes problems for the spiritual mentality. Feelings never come from God but from experienced circumstances, anticipation and human emotions. God works with the mind and desires.