Calling it into question...

[Redbeard The Pink]

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Considering the huge reply you did to someone else in this thread.... maybe you could repeat your description of the experience, here?

The lack of proper backstory and emotion will no doubt be cause for a lacking explanation, but I will try to give the quick versions. I will attempt to describe my two most influential accounts.

1) I was lost and in extreme despair. I was fighting on many fronts both internally and with outer things. I was literally full to the top with rage and hatred toward myself and others. I was about to go to prison for a long time because I was physically and mentally very close to ending another human life. Anyway, so right to it.

I was driving home after work one day, enraged and at the breaking point and really quite comfortable, all things considered. I had gotten very used to my way of being and even used it as motivation. I remember the radio on my truck faded out to near silence. I changed the channel to more silence. I adjusted the volume, still silence. At this moment a great relief washed over me. All the weight and burden and anger that I had hoisted onto my shoulders was instantly and miraculously lifted from me. I was filled with a joy I had never witnessed and tears of joy flowed freely down my face. This instant undeniable truth hit me with such force that I was literally laughing out loud and crying my eyes out at The same time while driving down the road. I thought roughly about all my pain and all my times that I knew there was no God. Before being able to complete this thought the Lord broke down all parts of my life. Things I didn't even remember until that time. He showed me that he was there beside me through all my hardship and doubt. He showed me that he indeed knew me and the path he intended for me before I was even conceived. He showed that I was not only wrong in my disbelief but that he indeed had a purpose for me.  my radio came back on. When I got home I attempted to write down the already fading events that took place. All I managed was some ideas related to what the Lord showed me. Ever since I have been much more at peace, have direction, am decisive, free of worldly burdens in the form of stress, am patient, and exhibit a completely different view from the one I knew through my turmoil. That was about 4-5 years ago.

About a month ago I told myself I was no longer going to partake in something. Well I did it anyway and instantly got violently nauseous. Went outside began violently vomiting at which time I could think of nothing more than how I had lied to myself and the Lord. I thought to ask for whole hearted forgiveness. Before I completed the thought I was completely forgiven. I was instantly 100% no longer sick. His presents was so overwhelming that again tears of joy rolled down. All I could do was look to the sky and thank and praise the Lord for his mercy and guidance. It was so enlivening that I began to spout praise aloud and at one point at the top of my lungs. This was in the early morning. A man was there and witnessed all of it. He was scared and didn't understand. He asked what was happening and I told him. He believed and confessed that he felt our very meeting was preordained and beneficial for us both. He asked questions of the Lord and the Lord answered him through me. Eventually he asked of evil. At this time I was taken by the unspeakable and answered his questions quite disturbingly. It was very difficult to get back to the right state of mind once evil had snuck in. There was great internal and physical turmoil and great effort on my part to subdue and restrain the very real evil that attempted to stay at the front. Thought the Lord and his loaned strength I was able to push the evil down and lock it away. Upon doing so I stood straight and was once again joyous. The witness slowly became unafraid. We both agreed that we were supposed to meet and it was my responsibility to help him anyway I could for he was lost and knew from the first time he met me that I was good and could afford him the change he so desperately needed. Today I try to set things on my side in order to assist this individual for I believe it is my duty shown to me by the Lord. I praise the Lord and tell him that I will never forget how he came to my aid in my time of desperate need. I have told him for years that I was indeed a true believer and would pass the word. I ask only of him to guide me down the path he has chosen and to walk along side me down that path. It isn't all peaches and cream. But if I look, the Lord never leads astray. For that I praise him.

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Pops, what you're describing is a narrative in your head that consists mostly of your feelings. While it might seem very real to you, there are very good reasons why science doesn't generally use that kind of anecdotal experience to form the basis of their claims. Your thoughts, feelings, and happenings during your experiences can all easily be given other explanations, and unlike yours, some of those explanations might actually have some evidence.

In fact, it seems to me that you've fallen to the same narrative that many theists accuse atheists of. It's very common for a theist, upon finding out someone is an atheist, to ask "Oh, what happened to you?" This is an indirect insult and implies something bad must have happened to you for you to be so damaged as to not believe there's a god.

Looking at your story, that's what caused you to run toward god, not away. In fact, many religious people seem to have some traumatic catalyst or shitty general world view that eventually drives them to faith; that narrative seems to apply to theists more-so than atheists, in my observation.