Atheism liberated me from pointless thinking,and made my life enjoyable.

[Lek]

This, by the way, is the same logic that we use to identify mental illness; the mentally ill are another group of people who believe things based on personal experience that are not demonstrable too. You're just lucky that your specific claim has a shield of cultural acceptability around it, Lek.

So you believe that all theists are mentally ill? Presidents, doctors, lawyers, teachers, businessmen, etc - all productive members of society, not patients in a mental facility or unable to cope in a normal society. If a person is hopelessly living in a world of drugs and alcohol, and then turns around his life and credits it to his experience with God, that's not evidence of God? If I hear person after person telling me about God has changed their lives, I guess I can't believe them unless I do an experiment in a controlled environment. Even though I'm the one experiencing God, I really can't believe myself. You can refuse to believe because you see no evidence, but you're going too far in trying to discredit the testimonies, off hand, of rational, functioning, honest people about their own experiences.

[Surgenator]

This, by the way, is the same logic that we use to identify mental illness; the mentally ill are another group of people who believe things based on personal experience that are not demonstrable too. You're just lucky that your specific claim has a shield of cultural acceptability around it, Lek.

So you believe that all theists are mentally ill? Presidents, doctors, lawyers, teachers, businessmen, etc - all productive members of society, not patients in a mental facility or unable to cope in a normal society. If a person is hopelessly living in a world of drugs and alcohol, and then turns around his life and credits it to his experience with God, that's not evidence of God? If I hear person after person telling me about God has changed their lives, I guess I can't believe them unless I do an experiment in a controlled environment. Even though I'm the one experiencing God, I really can't believe myself. You can refuse to believe because you see no evidence, but you're going too far in trying to discredit the testimonies, off hand, of rational, functioning, honest people about their own experiences.

STRAWMAN!

[Esquilax]

So you believe that all theists are mentally ill?

I think you're indoctrinated, which might be considered a form of mental illness I suppose. I don't have particularly strong feelings on the matter one way or another, but that also wasn't the point I was making: you were going on about spirituality and relationships with god, and I pointed out that in a different context, the same logic you were using would identify mental illness in the claimant.

The conclusion wasn't "theists are all mentally ill," it was "the justifications you are using to support your claim are indistinguishable from those that would mark a person as mentally ill in any other context. Therefore, they are not reasonable justifications."

Presidents, doctors, lawyers, teachers, businessmen, etc - all productive members of society, not patients in a mental facility or unable to cope in a normal society.

I don't think you know very much about mental illness, if this is the picture you actually hold of it, and not a strawman you've concocted. Mental disorders exist on a continuum, not all of them are debilitating.

For example, I am mentally ill. I have a severe phobia of bodies of water and being submerged, in addition to a laundry list of other symptoms and causes that won't be discussed here. Am I in a mental facility, or unable to cope with normal society? No, neither of those things. I just had to go through therapy to reduce my reaction to certain stimuli.

On the flipside, you believe that a magic man is watching your every move. If you called that magic man James instead of God, people would think you had something wrong with you. You are still a productive member of society, but the content of this belief you hold isn't so far removed from a delusional state as you'd like to think.

If a person is hopelessly living in a world of drugs and alcohol, and then turns around his life and credits it to his experience with God, that's not evidence of God?

No, that's evidence of the inspirational power of ideas. If a person is in the exact situation you describe and turns his life around due to his experience with Henry the flying space dildo, does that mean such a being must exist too?

Are the experiences of other religions evidence for their gods too, or is it only the purported results of your religion that carry any weight with you?

If I hear person after person telling me about God has changed their lives, I guess I can't believe them unless I do an experiment in a controlled environment.

Since when has proclaimed causation based on no evidence at all ever been rational? What you're doing is mistaking the effect as evidence of its own cause, and that's circular reasoning: what causes X event? God does. Has X event happened to thousands of people? I guess god must be real!

But you haven't justified the answer you've given to the first question, so how on earth would the rest follow, sight unseen?

Even though I'm the one experiencing God, I really can't believe myself.

Keep telling yourself that everything you experience must necessarily true, and then go ahead and dose yourself up with hallucinogens, and we'll see how accurate that belief really is.

I had a very vivid fever dream in childhood that stuck with me, where the physical dimensions of my bedroom shifted in multiple contradicting ways simultaneously: my closet was both right next to me and miles away at the same time. Did that literally happen, just because I experienced it? Or can we both just acknowledge that sometimes our brains flip out and do weird stuff that doesn't align with reality?

You can refuse to believe because you see no evidence, but you're going too far in trying to discredit the testimonies, off hand, of rational, functioning, honest people about their own experiences.

Testimony is a notoriously fickle and unreliable thing. Additionally, you're playing a little equivocation game here, because the testimony you're talking about isn't quite as consistent or overarching as you want us to believe, is it? How many denominations of christianity are there? And how many individual slight variations on what god wants are there, even within those main branches? How many theists later became atheists?

You're trying to fake a broad, singular trend, using crisscrossing and conflicting, constantly varying accounts to do so. It's ludicrous.

[Whateverist]

But if there was nothing in human experience to answer to 'spiritual' I don't think it would be so popular. I think Tonus is right that it is emotional or perhaps a feeling/intuitive matter. Certainly it has not got much to do with reason.

I can agree that what the word signifies has no attraction for me either without insisting dogmatically that it can have no value for anyone as an objective fact. I wonder if you have the same reaction to the word "mystery"?

Because you don't posses spirituality, you've decided there's no such thing. Billions of people are spiritual, but to you they're either lying or misinterpreting the experience. It goes like this: "Yes. I am spiritual." "No, your not spiritual, liar." "Yes, I experience it daily." "No. Sorry, but what you're experiencing is not spirituality." "But I have a relationship with God." "No you don't. There is no God, so you can't have a relationship with someone who doesn't exist."

You've misunderstood. I've argued that there is something within or about people which leaves room for 'spirituality'. But I still think it is usually not well understood by those most enthusiastic about it.

[Dorian Gray]

So you believe that all theists are mentally ill? Presidents, doctors, lawyers, teachers, businessmen, etc - all productive members of society, not patients in a mental facility or unable to cope in a normal society. If a person is hopelessly living in a world of drugs and alcohol, and then turns around his life and credits it to his experience with God, that's not evidence of God? If I hear person after person telling me about God has changed their lives, I guess I can't believe them unless I do an experiment in a controlled environment. Even though I'm the one experiencing God, I really can't believe myself. You can refuse to believe because you see no evidence, but you're going too far in trying to discredit the testimonies, off hand, of rational, functioning, honest people about their own experiences.

People of no less faith have attributed turning away from drugs because of Allah, Zeus, animal sacrifice, total eclipses, and all kinds of Things. It can't be all of them could it? Are these people irrational to a Christian? Looking at this from a neutral point of view, it would seem to logically suggest that since so many "spiritual awakenings" result from such a wide and conflicting variety of "causes" it is more likely the case that people are assigning an agent to something that they find inexplicable.

[Lek]

Testimony is a notoriously fickle and unreliable thing. Additionally, you're playing a little equivocation game here, because the testimony you're talking about isn't quite as consistent or overarching as you want us to believe, is it? How many denominations of christianity are there? And how many individual slight variations on what god wants are there, even within those main branches? How many theists later became atheists?

You're trying to fake a broad, singular trend, using crisscrossing and conflicting, constantly varying accounts to do so. It's ludicrous.

When many people testify to something it causes others to think that there might be something to it. If I get the testimony of 100 people that the food at a particular restaurant is delicious and the price was right, I'd be led to try that restaurant. If I then discovered for myself that the food was delicious, then I'd most likely go back.

I believe that people of all faiths can have real experiences with God, even though their doctrines may be incorrect. God calls us all to him and will not reject anyone who faithfully seeks him. It's my belief that if you truly seek God you will find him.

Matthew 7:7-8New International Version (NIV)
7 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

[Surgenator]

I tried your ask-seek-find and it produced nothing, as a lot of ex-christians here. So does this disprove your bible?

[Lek]

I tried your ask-seek-find and it produced nothing, as a lot of ex-christians here. So does this disprove your bible?

Neither my testimony or yours proves or disproves the bible. Testimony can cause you to seek God, but it doesn't prove anything in itself. My thought is that you weren't really willing to give your life over to him, but then, maybe you were, which would prove me wrong, but not that the bible is wrong.

[Dorian Gray]

I believe that people of all faiths can have real experiences with God, even though their doctrines may be incorrect. God calls us all to him and will not reject anyone who faithfully seeks him. It's my belief that if you truly seek God you will find him.

But again I would have to ask which god? The doctrines of say, Islam and Christianity have specific differences about their particular deity. If you say Muslims had a real experience with "god" then you would be a theist, not a Christian, for Muslims would be worshiping a false idol. But they are no less zealous and fervent in their beliefs than Christians are, and attribute "miraculous" occurrences to their god just as Christians do.

This disparity in all kinds of religious beliefs (not just Christian and Islam) should logically lead to the conclusion that it's not the actual gods that are doing anything, but people who assign a supernatural intervention based on cultural beliefs to explain the unknown.

[Lek]

But again I would have to ask which god? The doctrines of say, Islam and Christianity have specific differences about their particular deity. If you say Muslims had a real experience with "god" then you would be a theist, not a Christian, for Muslims would be worshiping a false idol. But they are no less zealous and fervent in their beliefs than Christians are, and attribute "miraculous" occurrences to their god just as Christians do.

This disparity in all kinds of religious beliefs (not just Christian and Islam) should logically lead to the conclusion that it's not the actual gods that are doing anything, but people who assign a supernatural intervention based on cultural beliefs to explain the unknown.

There is only one God, so somebody is wrong. That one God knows when someone is truly seeking him.