Was that God? The Messenger : Joan Of Arc

When someone says they have received a message from God or Intuition from the Universe. How do you know that isn't just their conscience? Perhaps their existing thoughts cloud, or dilute any intuition that comes to them.

This post has a more serious tone. It’s not about disregarding religion because I am spiritual person myself and I have had my own fair share of religious experiences. But how come so many different people hear God saying so many different things? Whilst some people, never experience divine intervention or recall having any divine intuition.

I recently watched The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc which is and great film (A historical war movie based on her life). Afterwards I did my research and what scared me was that (in my opinion) whoever or whatever she was talking to was not God.

I believe God does not punish people for the pure sake of punishment. Whatever punishment you receive is a direct result of your actions. God does not tell people to kill each other (even if it is war time). But people do!

It seems there are 2 different main interpretations of God:

1) An all loving and forgiving God who wants us to change and grow so he does not intervene.

2) A God who critically judges us and wants us to be under his control, so we can carry out his will.

Again this idea always makes me think of the Lego Movie (A Must Watch!) because it is about Change vs. Tradition.  

I feel that if god meant to control us then he would have! Therefore I agree with the first interpretation of God. People talk about divine intervention and being inspired to change their lifestyles for the better and help others. So would the same god who invented forgiveness, decide that some people are just hopeless and tell “his people” to go and kill them?

There have been numerous people e.g. leaders, terrorists etc. who have claimed that they were told by God, to kill a certain group of people. It’s easy to just say 'well they probably made it up' or 'oh they are just crazy'. But simply labelling people as crazy is just an easy explanation. 

Is there just God?
 
If people can communicate with or receive intuition from God, angels, the divine, the universe etc... Then perhaps they can also communicate with other entities as well. Whom they could mistakenly label as god. Not every idea is a good idea and if there are energies outside of us, then perhaps there are energies that match every feeling, thought and belief we have, including the bad ones.

When someone goes into an angry rage. They are so filled with anger that they temporarily lose control of their actions. (Sometimes this is referred to as temporary insanity). They have lost control to something else. Their emotions have somehow attracted a power that exists both inside and outside of themselves that temporarily took over their actions.

That's what seemed to happen to Joan of Arc. During battle, she was convinced that she had not personally killed anyone. That is because her conscience couldn't handle it. She probably wasn't in full control of her actions whilst fighting for France. Her trauma and anger from seeing her be sister killed and violated by English solders caused her to do it. As a child she frequently asked for forgiveness multiple times a day. It seems her pre-existing ideas about a strict demanding God, combined with trauma and her tendency to see visions produced and altered these ‘visions of God’. Whether or not these visions existed outside of her, or just inside her head. They were still strong enough to make her demand to and successfully lead the French army with no prior military training at 17. Before she allowed herself to be burned at stake for wearing men’s clothing at the age of 19.  

Her idea that God wanted her to fight in battle clashed with her idea of killing people being a sin. Before her death she said that the voices (God and the Angels had turned on her). That she would rather die than live with these voices for the rest of her life. Yes these voices may have been real but from my experience God would never tell someone to go and do something that they secretly wanted to do, but their conscience couldn't handle (sin). Then turn on them afterwards!

We Interpret God

If everyone is 100 % sure about what God is then why would we need religions and holy books to teach us? The reason is because people want to check that whatever they feel, hear, or experience, is in line with what they expect from God. To me that surely means that any other concept we can think of also exist somewhere out there.

Our own thoughts, beliefs and strong emotions can sometimes prevent us from seeing what’s right and block divine intuition, if we are not mentally in a good place.   

This confirms that we really do create our own realities. Sometimes we just hear God saying what we expect him to say. We see what we expect to see! That doesn't mean that there isn't more out there, but remember, we as humans can only experience what we can interpret. If most of us cannot even understand what the birds are saying. How can we fully understand a God beyond our own existence?

I would advise people to clear away their existing beliefs when looking for answers. Focus on unconditional love, because that is what most of us need. Then pray, meditate, ask questions and pay attention to what ideas come though.