David B

I think that far too many atheists ignore the power of the sort of powerful experiences you describe.

Not me! I've had then myself, and so I can understand how such an experience can seem so real.

Once you have had that sort of deep experience, it is bloody hard to escape from the consequences of it.

Took me years!!!

Perhaps I'm still coming to terms with how such an experience fooled me. I don't think so, though some (in NARP) have suggested so.

Reality checks are a good idea, though.

I forget exactly what your views are, Nuwanda.

But if your experience has led you to a position where you reject evolution and an old earth, then your experience has clearly led you astray.

Maybe in another thread, which you could start to avoid me falling foul of the 'calling out' rule, you could describe your experience, and then I could endeavour to explain why your experience might not be trustworthy.

Mine wasn't, in retrospect.

But while a lot of religious views can be put down to upbringing, I feel sure that a pretty significant proportion can be put down largely to conversion experiences, such as you describe.

I don't think enough atheists understand that.

David B

Carl LaFong

Because they're in a rational mindset where they honestly want evidence for the existence of gods, miracles, etc. It seems to be a stage that people go through. There's no definite pattern I'm sure but for me it started at around age 20 or a little sooner.

alienward

Sometimes people think they've discovered a God and will join a religion, or switch from one religion to another, but it looks like most often people are brought up and stay in the religion of their parents. A lot of Chatholics dissagree with things like the church's position that condoms shouldn't be used to protect against AIDS, but that's not enought to make Catholics switch to Islam. Likewise, I live in the USA and dissagree with my government's invasion and occupation of Iraq, but I'm not about to move to Cuba.

wordy

Nuwanda could you expand on what you say here?
I thought they would love such a person. Are you trying to tell them they are not sincere enough and you act like a teacher to them? You compete with their Pastor? You should start your own Church maybe?

The Real Relation with God Church.

It looks like me teasing you but I mean it sincerely. What Churches have you tried out up to now? As a strong atheist I tested very many Churches here locally to see how they treat an atheist that wants to learn how it feels to be religious. Very differently. some actually thought me was possessed by Satan.

All of them very skeptical to what I told them I was up to. But some allowed me to come very close to them personally. I was active in prayer groups and shared their feeling. that is kind of generous of them. I am skeptic to that we atheists would accept a true believer in our pray... oh I mean internal debate groups. I had to stop going to them cause I almost got converted.

so I agree with David, such experiences are very strong. I think many atheists dismiss them too easily. So tell us more? Or should I join your thread maybe if this is too OT here?

Gawen

More would be found here:

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=218793

Gandhi the Hun

Both my sister and brother claim to have had expieriences with God and talk about their friends having experiences and stuff--Here is my cynical conclusion to this. They are lying, and they know it, but they want their lives to be more interesting, eventful, and meaningful so they drive themselves into denial to the point where they will never admit they are lying. I think it goes like this: Other people are having miraculous God experiences and I want to have one to, so im going to lie about it and never admit to be lying because i dont want to be the only person to not have had an experience like this yet. Of course I have no proof of this besides a "gut-feeling".

David B

Do you think that they are aware that they are lying, GtH?

A quick look at 'hidden persuaders' http://skepdic.com/hiddenpersuaders.html
gives grounds, I think, for a presumption of innocence, until proved guilty, for those claiming such experiences to be consciously lying.

I wasn't lying, when I was trying to persuade all my friends and family, to learn Transcendental Meditation.

David B (was mistaken)

Gandhi the Hun

Yeah but there is no way to prove this, and then again, even if you said "yeah i was lying" then there is no way to determine whether that statement was a lie as well..

David B

If you are going to be over pedantic, then you cannot disprove solipsism.

That people get into bizarre belief systems is not an extraordinary claim. There's evidence for that all over the place.

David B (advises refraining from being silly)

wordy

Gandhi, how do you prove to us you are not lying to us now? I trust David cause it is the most likely scenario. He has no reason to lie about his former and current views on the merits of TM.

I hated Christians for some twenty years and during all those years I was very sure of that I had no religious feelings and I hated expressions of religious feelings in the Christians but after an emotional awakening, a kind of conversion from one version of atheism to another version of atheism I knew me had had religious feelings from me about 4 years old but that the religious Kindergarten ladies had overwhelmed my religious feelings, a kind of emotional abuse, they had overloaded me in their enthusiasm over getting positive response from a child. Them starting to preach to me not knowing how vulnerable I was emotionally so my body had felt scared about the whole thing and shut down but none of this was consciously known to me, just my hate for them was known to my conscious self.

Luckily for me I managed to stay within atheism and direct my positive feelings to physical life itself and all things alive and nature.

I can confirm David's experience, I didn't lie to myself. I did what was true to me. Preach my love of life as an atheist.

Re Cold reading, I have done one such. I could say things about someone not known to me what he did besides going to a school. Criminal things. One could do such things without knowing it is cold reading one does. That is because evolution gave us the ability to read the body language of others. Theory of Mind and Mirroring of body language. We pace the body language of what others do and that way we feel somewhat like them. Not always 100% correct but correct enough many times to baffle the other. they do such seances every Sunday and the believers seems to not be aware they do cold reading unless they are doing fraud. Such persons exists too. but many of the more naive ones are innocent about what they do.

To say that David or I lie about our experiences is a kind of accusation. Are you really meaning what you say? How do I know that you just don't lie here now to test us? Do you do it on purpose or is it a blind faith you have?