Still, it strikes me as arrogant that someone who wasn't there assumes that they know better than I do what happened that night.

This is akin to the following situation. A peasant in the middle ages witnesses a church's steeple get struck by lightning and destruction ensues. Our peasant concludes that it was God's expression of anger with that particular congregation. Later, a person knowlegeable about electricity later comes along, they might helpfully explain what gives rise to lightning, that it was doubtfully God's wrath and suggest the implementation of a lightning rod, at which point they get rebuked by the peasant because 'they weren't there'.

I believe you will find the posters here quite gentlemanly and sincere. Most are far better writers than me.

I know in your post that you have searched for some meaning in your life - reply here and I'll give you some info to get you started. You do need an open mind and a very strong desire to know Him. No money is invlolved. That is all, I do not wish to intrude on this group of people with Christian talk.

Many of them from posts elsewhere know what I know(believe).

Nice to see all of you in here, I am almost finished reading the current article area of this website. I had no idea that those terrible things are going on in Africa, whitch hunts - how medieval.

Happy New Year to all, Dutch

I'm not saying that everyone who believes in God has a healthy relationship with the divine.

I'm at a loss as to why this would be, if god is omni-max as described in the Xian myth. How can one have a relationship with god that is toxic if god is omni-benevolent and omniscient and/or if god is supposedly perfect? This seems contradictory to me.

If we lived in a world goverened by reason alone

Proposition: That we do, in fact, live in a world governed by reason alone. It is mankind which acts irrationally, and it is our responsibility to correct our irrational behavior whenever necessary.

Great art can bypass our reason and touch our emotions, perhaps leading us to actions that we might not otherwise take.

I, for one, do not deny the emotional power of religion, any more than I deny the emotional power of Michelangelo's "David" or da Vinci's "The Last Supper". But emotional power isn't the question for atheists: it's truth. We do not believe that David (if he existed) was 14 feet tall and fought Goliath in the nude; we do not believe that Jesus and his disciples (if they existed) all sat on one side of an extremely long table; and we who are atheists do not believe that religious claims about the divine are true.

I'm not saying that everyone who believes in God has a healthy relationship with the divine.

Well, I think we can all agree about that.

I'm struck by some similarities between your story and mine. We're about the same age. I had a mostly non-religous up-bringing, although my parents were both believers and my mom was a major fan of Robert Schuhler. I accepted Christ into my heart my senior year at an independant Baptist church, not as the result of a vivid experiece, like you, but as the result of some quiet assurance from the Holy Spirit that the Bible is true as it claims to be.

What struck me most in your blog entry is that you see that moment as the start of a journey which has led you places you never expected. (Quoting from memory here.) In many ways, I look at my salvation experience much the same way. I spent the next several years learning to be comfortable with how God made me. I learned to move away from the isolation and rejection I felt as a high school student. I even (in constrast to what is often suggested here) read the Bible from cover to cover and actively encouraged others to do the same. There wasn't a church like the one I was used to in my college town, so I paricipated in many different groups, and became very familiar with different Christian denominations and movements.

Then, in the early 90's, I realised (somewhat suddenly) that I don't believe in God. The years of routine and sticking my neck out made this difficult to confess - especially to myself. Odly enough, though, the "journey" continued into even more places that I never expected.

I think the "journey" is called life, and what you and I both experienced is called "growing up". I'm glad that I had the Christian experience through my major growing up years, but I'm also glad that it isn't the end of the story.

My best to you.

Tomaso

First, Ebonmuse:

Anyone who makes a positive assertion which they wish others to believe has the duty to support that claim with evidence.

I understand falsifiability and burden of proof. I understand that when I talk about my own experience, which I believe to be an encounter with God, I am not making a falsifiable statement. I don't expect anyone to take my word for it that I've interpreted the event correctly. I don't expect anyone to be convinced that God exists on the basis of my experience. Still, it strikes me as arrogant that someone who wasn't there assumes that they know better than I do what happened that night.

If we lived in a world goverened by reason alone, I'd grant that the simplest explanation is always the best one. William of Ockham, who gave his name to this principle, rejected (as I do) all so-called proofs of God's existence. Ochkam also believed that God exists nevertheless. When using reason, Ockham's razor is a valuable tool, but faith is not grounded in reason.

I can't make a rational case for faith, and I'm not going to try. I will try to suggest by analogy that we have multiple ways of interacting with the world, of which reason is only one. Another is art. I suppose one could make the case that a painting, a sculpture, a musical composition, or a dance is meaningful only to the extent it can be rationally analyzed, but I disagree: Great art can bypass our reason and touch our emotions, perhaps leading us to actions that we might not otherwise take. (I'm not arguing that we should always act on our emotions without using reason, BTW.)

I would say that faith is more like art than like reason. And so, to those who say, as Matt R says above:

While the ubiquity of religious experience does not necessarily call into question the existence of God, it does call into question the claims of any specific religion that claims to be "the true religion".

I'd have to say I agree. I don't think any religion has everything right. All religions are merely grasping for ultimate truth, with varying degrees of success. Though I call myself a Christian, I don't believe I have found all the answers, and I certainly don't believe Christianity as a whole has.

Faith is often described as a relationship. Relationships, are by their very nature, subjective. You don't have the same relationship with your spouse that you have with your raquetball partner (unless you play raquetball with your spouse). You have a different relationship with your parents than with your children. If faith is a relationship, different people are going to have differnet experiences of the divine. To extend the analogy a bit: some relationships are toxic or abusive. I'm not saying that everyone who believes in God has a healthy relationship with the divine.

Those who rely primarily on a holy book as a mediator between themselves and the ultimate are essentially letting themselves be guided by others' experiences. They are no better off than someone who might decide to believe in God because they read a story on my blog about an experience I had when I was 17. While I believe the Bible is important for Christians to study, I don't think it is wise to simply take a single verse and proclaim it to be The Truth.

I've probably rambled enough for one comment. I'll have more to say later.

No religion isn't hereditary, it is learned. Children learn it from their parents. Also, it doesn't follow that the idea is wrong simply because theists "detest and disbelieve" the idea. Many theists also detest and disbelieve evolution, but it doesn't make it wrong.