Talk:Conversations with God

Parallels in other belief systems
"Feelings are more important as a source of guidance than intellect" (Rousseau/Sikhism).

The author writes, that feelings and intellect are same important, human words are only limited and feelings are better for communication.

G-d said?
"In one of the books God states that the universe had a beginning" Have you all lost your minds? Some guy writes a book and you let some one write in wikipedia "G-d states". Have we, as a civilization, fallen so deep into the abyss of craziness as to allow someone to state in an encyclopedia what G-d states? please, flag this article and re-write it.

controversy
What? I removed the small section which had some last minute babble about controversy. Two sentences of unsourced, weasle word filled content. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.7.51.223 (talk) 05:22, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Arguments
I wrote some arguments to show that this doctrine has enough inconsistencies to conclude that it cannot be a true revelation. I also criticize a classical Christian argument against him.

Did other people write criticisms, or argumentations for or against Walsch's view ?

--Spoirier 07:27, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * I'd argue that this is not the place for that, really. This page is just supposed to lay out what his argument is. You can always use the Discussion page to dispute what he has to say. 82.111.242.163 18:49, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Walsch says that childeren know no fear. I don't remember whether this assertion has been channelled. Anyway, it is clearly untrue. If I can't trust Walsch with regards to the objective world then why should I trust his metaphysical assertions? Andries 17:27, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Reply- From CWG, Book 3,p.26 - " All babies are born with only 2 fears: the fear of falling, and the fear of loud noises. All other fears are learned responses, brought to the child from it's environment, taught to the child by it's environment." Piaget says there are 4 fears from birth, fear of falling, fear of loud noises and 2 others, fear of pain and fear of the kinds of patterns one finds on snakes.

Epistomological a-priori fears should be distinguished from a-posteriori, I see no fault in his logic. --213.106.102.178 10:54, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

I believe what Neale/"God" is referring to is the Moro reflex. --Musicmonk 23:47, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Occult
I've removed this page from the Occult category, because the category page describes: "This category comprises article pertaining to supernatural influences, agencies, or phenomena thought to be beyond the realm of human comprehension and available only to the initiated while hidden from others." That is the opposite of CWG's doctrine. The God of CWG says that he/she is everything, and speaks to everyone, at all times. And he/she also attempts to explain everything very clearly in understandable language. So the "beyond human comprehension" thing doesn't apply, nor does the "available only to the initiated."

He's making it all up...
...and he's both said it and written it. "God" says it, too: see CwG Book 2, Chapter 18. He just believes that what he's making up is pointing to things which are true...but of course the problem is that if he's not really talking to God, then he's just spouting out whatever's coming into his head--and I sincerely doubt any reasonable person can believe that whatever comes into your head is good enough to be truth.

I was at a workshop he led back in the late 90's (back when I believed this stuff), and right after he finished replying to a questioner he added: "I could be wrong. I could be making this all up." Needless to say, the questioner was aghast. After a short pause to absorb the shock, which I sensed was being felt by many in the room, she said something to the effect of: "But I thought this was coming from God!" To which he responded, as I recall, "Well, I'm saying it is...but I don't know that. I believe that I did, but I don't know." (He isn't entirely consistent about this, however, and I think that's what confuses people.)

Now I'm not sure, because I can't know what everyone in the audience felt, but it seemed to me that many of them were disturbed by his comments. It shook their "faith." Many people took (and still take) this book way too literally. They really consider it to be a revelation from God and as an authoritative source of "Truth." I see it more as an interesting thought exercise which did have an influence on me in my later teens. But as an authoritative guide to life, as "the Truth"...well, after you read CwG, read Voltaire's Candide. If you can still take the concepts in CwG seriously after that, then I guess CwG is the book for you. --Musicmonk 23:47, 17 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I see it more as an interesting thought exercise which did have an influence on me in my later teens.
 * This is certainly the best way to look at things. If one were to put oneself in the author's shoes, assuming that the writings/ideas really did come from God, I think we would all ask "Am I making this up?" It's possible. We can't really know the subconscious; that's why it's the *sub*conscious. Maybe it came from the author's subconscious? But that in itself opens up a can of worms. Adasta   [[Image:Flag_of_England.svg|15px]] [[Image:Flag of the United Kingdom.svg|15px]] 11:49, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
 * This is certainly the best way to look at things. If one were to put oneself in the author's shoes, assuming that the writings/ideas really did come from God, I think we would all ask "Am I making this up?" It's possible. We can't really know the subconscious; that's why it's the *sub*conscious. Maybe it came from the author's subconscious? But that in itself opens up a can of worms. Adasta   [[Image:Flag_of_England.svg|15px]] [[Image:Flag of the United Kingdom.svg|15px]] 11:49, 22 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I haven't read Candide for a while, and I've never read CwG, but I imagine it's possible for both to be true. 82.111.242.163 18:51, 8 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Luckily we don't have to have opinions about it. We just have to report what is known to be the case, namely, the content and assertions of the book and similar pertaining to it. Makes life very easy. FT2 (Talk 18:30, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah...he's making it all up. That confuses loads of people whether he is talking about a true God, or an abstract one.

Hmmm you lot really ought to work on that sense of humour - "I could be wrong. I could be making this all up." is very funny, and here's the thing, do you think the leader of any other spiritual movement (conventional or unconventional) would dare say such a thing? It's hilarious and ironic and a warning - not just about CWG but about all belief systems, they could ALL be making it up, what a welcome breath of fresh air :) Am tempted to sign this Richard Dawkings but in fairness will sign it correctly 86.0.119.212 (talk) 20:27, 15 October 2008 (UTC)Derek Oct 08


 * Criticizing this aspect misses the point. To get frustrated and say "oh, so these words aren't being delivered from one solid entity called God to another solid entity called Neale Donald Walsch. This doesn't make sense." is missing the point. The point is that both God and you and me and Neale Donald Walsch are all one in the same. There's no God "out there" to stand on high and gift us "down here" with a set of divine revelations. There's just us. God is who we are when we are clear and listen to the voice of love. Anyone can do this, and Walsch just happens to be very good at it. There are innumerable books that point toward the same ideas in CWG. The "truth" of it is up to you. The books are not intended as a "doctrine" or a final answer. It's a conversation with an inner voice that applies the concepts of peace, love, and holistic eternal recursion to all of life. Walsch emphasizes that there's nothing special about him and that he's "making it all up", he does this because any of us could be doing what he is doing. He's the one brave enough to believe so much in the idea that "all is one and all is love" that no message he writes is tainted with fear or doubt or second-guessing. As a fan of the books, I couldn't care less about the question "is it really God talking" because the question is meaningless. I simply agree with him that the universe is a self-determining, self-perpetuating infinite field of energy that encompasses all matter, energy, and operable contexts.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.19.196.34 (talk) 12:28, 5 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Your comment is slightly confusing and all over the place..I think the basic idea people are referring to is this: People take the word of God more seriously than some random person who says he has some good ideas, or even a spiritual author, because God is all-knowing and all-powerful, and the author is not and could make many mistakes or misinterpretations. Obviously you still need to test out whether he's really channeling God or not (by running personal experiments to determine whether you can create your own reality as written in that book), but on the whole the potential value of a book channeled by God is worth far more than a book written by some random person. It also doesn't really make sense what you're saying; even if God, Walsch, you, and me are all the same, why does it suddenly not matter whether God is speaking or not? It doesn't matter whether he is separate or we are part of him, either way the ability to communicate with God is rare and any person who can accomplish that is paid special attention, because obviously God is an extremely valuable source of knowledge. Also, while this book is slightly vague in many areas, it does at least provide a basic version of the truth that really isn't "up to you". Its either the truth or its not. Either the law of attraction works or it doesn't; the ultimate proof lies in personal tests. Also he's not really brave, the whole thing channeling thing happened to him because he was pissed off and really wanted answers. After learning to channel God for three books and several others, he can probably do it without too much trouble at this point. Finally understand that other people would like to know whether they are really reading a book channeled by God or not, because that makes a huge difference as to whether the entirety of the material can be trusted or not (the difference between trusting the word of an infallible, all-knowing entity or just a random elderly person who made it all up). Most people aren't so certain as you are of what the universe is, don't trust spiritual authors and other ideas so readily, and don't have much time to test out these ideas. So having one collection of truths (even if they are basic) is important, because it gives people some concrete knowledge rather than flimsy beliefs that change based on one's arbitrary preferences or a bunch of fallible authors.


 * However I will say this. Walsch is making a very simple statement. Even if he has experience channeling God, he can't truly know with absolute certainty whether its actually God he's channeling because its simply impossible to know. He might be 90-95% sure but there's just no way of knowing for sure (its basically common sense). So you shouldn't get freaked out by it. Just realize nobody can be absolutely certain about these things, or much else for that matter. 24.150.131.48 (talk) 00:53, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I want to point out that such a question is only an issue for someone with a conservative view about an exterior personified god, but if one believes that god is an expression of ones highest self, the distinction between external historical word-of-mouth-transcripts versus contemporary in-sights becomes irrelevant for both are man-made in the end. Also the book answers this question itself, because Walsh asks at page 10:
 * "How can I know this communication is from God? How do I know this is not my own imagination? And the answer he got is:
 * What would be the difference? Do you not see that I could just as easily work through your imagination as anything else? I will bring you the exact right thoughts, words or feelings, at any given moment, suited precisely to the purpose at hand, using one device, or several. You will know these words are from me because you, of your own accord, have never spoken so clearly. Had you already spoken so clearly on these questions, you would not be asking them."

Grammar
The grammar on this page kind of sucks. Maybe someone can clean it up (or at least remove the sentence fragments, etc).

Re-write
There are areas of this article which need to be rewritten, as I've not read the book I cannot even attempt to try to sort it out, if someone has read the book, cpould they please try to sort out the page. Especially this section below


 * at the deepest level consciousness is and that there is only one 'voice' regardless whether it is thought to belong to God, or an individual, or imagination. This leads to a statement of the Divine Dichotomy: that two contradictory truths can exist, neither making the other untrue. This is possible only in the realm of the relative, because, as was stated above, in the absolute all things are one thing, and there is nothing else. So where is my motion?

I've read it several times and cannot make out what the editor is trying to say. It's like there's part of the text missing or something.--NeilEvans 14:57, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Criticism
There's obviously a great deal of suspicion regarding this man's philosophy, why isn't this reflected in the article? —Ortchel 22:45, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't know, there should be some criticism added. Surely there's enough of it to go around, considering the things this man has claimed? Also, the "prophecies/predictions" section is currently unsourced. It'd be nice if someone could add sources for the predictions regarding Bill Clinton, along with any other notable predictions that the author has put forth. --RoyalFool 01:15, 1 August 2007 (UTC)


 * There has to be some sourced criticism of this guy, right? TuckerResearch (talk) 18:24, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Bill Hicks
I think references to Bill Hick's comments have been deliberately taken out of context. Specifically "Hicks' belief that all humanity is in fact one eternal consciousness separated by a loving God only by illusion", and "claimed to have received these revelations through the use of psychedelic substances". In this speech he was trying to extol the virtues of using mind altering substances as a medium for creative thinking. Although he freely admitted to using drugs like LSD, he never claimed (to my knowledge) to have "received revelations" from anywhere. I also believe that he was an atheist (although I haven't got a reference for this at the moment), and never made any assertion that he believed that we are "separated from a loving God" in this routine, or any other. (128.243.220.41 (talk) 12:50, 27 February 2008 (UTC))

Im just going to edit that, I don't think it belongs there, either. -taosk8r73.25.114.93 (talk) 20:19, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

Prophecies and prediction section
From the article


 * "In one of the books "God" states that the universe had a beginning and will have an end (as part of the 'breathing in and out of God')[citation needed]. The latter part of this statement appears to have been disproved by the discovery of Dark Energy.


 * However, it should be noted that the CwG books do not really claim to make predictions."

there is no need for the entire section on prediction as stated in the section itself. The mention of Dark Energy as proof for the Fate of the universe seems out of place, edited by someone with nascent understanding of Dark Energy. There are only speculative ideas about the implications of Dark energy on the future of the universe. It has no relation to the topic whatsoever, for reference please check the wiki on Dark Energy or The fate of the universe, Its mention seems unlikely and out of place in the article. This entire section should be removed from the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.180.13.112 (talk) 00:53, 21 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Hello. I'm the one who edited this line into the article. You are right that just because Dark Energy exists does not mean the universe will expand forever - but the quantity of Dark Energy as our best observations are right now indicates that the universe will, indeed, expand forever (see the Wiki on the ultimate fate of the universe). I think since "God" did make the prediction that the universe will have an end as part of the "breathing in and out of God", the section should stay, although I will edit to make it clearer. Banedon (talk) 01:29, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi, thank you for the reply. First, you might want to read the first line of the Dark Energy wiki "dark energy is a hypothetical form of energy that permeates all of space" as stated its a hypothetical form of energy, since "The exact nature of this dark energy is a matter of speculation" and "it is hard to imagine experiments to detect it in the laboratory" we can only speculate about its implication on the ultimate fate of the universe i.e. Big Freeze, Big Rip, Big crunch or some other.Secondly the idea of "breathing in and out of god" is a general and a vague statement, making allusions to eternal return and other philosophical ideas (like Nietzsche), it has no scientific merit. the Nature of the book and the article seems to be spiritual/religious, nothing stated in the article seems unique enough to merit an entire section devoted to its prophecies which the book itself doesn't claim to make that is why I suggested deleting the entire section. If you leave that section in, a similar and rather unnecessary section could be attached to any other self-help spiritual book's wiki since they talk about similar ideas and themes and never claim to make any prediction.


 * While the exact nature of Dark Energy is unknown, the current available data points to an accelerating universe and therefore a universe that will expand forever. You can see the first line of the "ultimate fate of the universe" page, section "theories about the end of the universe". As for the "breathing in and out of God", there's one section in one of the books - don't recall which, and I haven't searched up, but I remember clearly the words - where Neale asks "God", will the universe expand forever? And God responds with "no", as part of the "breathing in and out of God". If the universe does expand forever then this prediction is bogus. I do read this as a prediction by the way, since it's a definite statement of what will happen in the future. I'll see if I can find the source. Banedon (talk) 05:15, 13 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Found it. Conversations with God, book 2, chapter 6. Neale asks, 'will it expand forever'? God answers: 'No. There will come a time when the energies driving the expansion will dissipate, and the energies holding things together will take over - pulling everything "back together" again.' On the next page Neale asks God what will happen after the universe collapses, and God says the whole process will start over again, with another Big Bang and another universe. Banedon (talk) 05:19, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Hi, First I want to say that I respect your opinions but I think I have made my point. I think that your personal beliefs and interpretations might be getting in the way of reporting on the book objectively. It is your own interpretation to take the book as prophetic while the book itself DOESN'T CLAIM TO MAKE ANY PREDICTIONS as you yourself pointed out in the original section. the nature of the book has nothing to do with real science and physics, forcing interpretation on vague statements without any scientific merits only proves my point further, you're letting your personal feelings and beliefs influence your judgment, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia not a forum for personal interpretations and beliefs. you took a line from a collection of these books and interpreted it as a prophecy, a prophecy which you are debating here through excerpts from the book itself and your own interpretations. you are making quantum leaps here, you might also want to look up some wikis on Buddhist or zen philosophy, karma and eternal return (all that happened will happen again)I believe its called Samsara, the idea itself is very old, delved into much detail by many older religions like Buddhism, Hinduism, as opposed to the ideas of Abrahamic religion of fate and an afterlife. If you want to debate about the scientific merits any further than I await your response. Hope there aren't any hard feelings, Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.180.75.148 (talk) 11:33, 4 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Let's just say that I didn't write the "it should be noted that the CwG books do not really claim to make predictions" line; it was there before I first edited it. Feel free to remove it if you want. Also, if you don't think the lines I cited above mean CwG predicts the universe will recollapse, go ahead and advance another option. Finally, the science that we understand right now clearly indicates that the universe will expand forever. This assessment may change in the future (it has in the past), but the current best evidence is for a big freeze. I can cite you references to that if you desire. Otherwise I don't get what you're unhappy about, you'll have to rephrase. Banedon (talk) 11:21, 30 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't know if it's you who edited the current section but I must say it's barely readable right now. The sentences are long and awkward, abstract, and plain difficult to understand. Can you (or anyone) tidy it up? Banedon (talk) 13:46, 23 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I've gone ahead and done it. It was way too long. The edited form should still retain the essence. Banedon (talk) 02:20, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Kinda funny, is all.
Per https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Conversations_with_God&type=revision&diff=585240750&oldid=582996284, in anonymous Wikipedia user 64.110.231.136's only-ever contribution to Wikipedia, he/she simply added "Sikhism" to 11 of the then-13 bullet points under the heading "Parallels in other belief systems", and to this day, almost three years later, said revisions remain standing. Nemodomi (talk) 05:21, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

See also section
An ip wanted to remove it, and I’m not clear on how what’s there now fits. Hyperbolick (talk) 09:59, 14 January 2023 (UTC)