A practical definition for "God"

[MTL]

If 10 people said they saw an angel, why do the circumstances need to be the same and the angels look alike?  Your assertion that when supernatural occurrences are seriously investigated thy always fail isn't correct.  What is correct is that supernatural occurrences cannot be proven when investigated.  Often they are proven to be fraud or imagination, but very often there is nothing to disprove them.  That's because science is not equipped to test the supernatural.  You are right that saying that believing something like christainity requires faith, but it's not an unfounded belief.  Also, if I and many others have a supernatural experience, I'm going to believe it, especially if I don't have a history of seeing pink elephants, because I'm the who had the experience.

Ok Lek,

My own Christian grandfather was an easygoing man, generally,
but he got quite heated whenever he encountered Atheism,
or anything that challenged HIS belief structure.

One of his favourite things to vehemently say was:

" I don't BELIEVE there's a God, I KNOW there's a God!!! "

Now, I've always acknowledged that I cannot presume
to automatically dismiss the experiences that others claim to have had, as untruths,
simply because they cannot be documented, reproduced, or proven for my satisfaction.

But what bugs me is this:

The Bible tells us Ask, Seek, Knock.

And I did.

I am not going to waste time trying to impress Theists with the sincerity of my search.

I KNOW that I searched with every fiber of my being.  I KNOW what I went through.

However, no matter how badly I needed to find what I was looking for,
I refused to lie to myself.

Either God would really speak to me,
....or I would hear only silence.

I wanted to find God.

But only if He was truly there to find.

I refused to give myself false comfort
by choosing to see miracles where there weren't any.

False comfort is no comfort at all.

What I found was not only disappointment....
but exactly the opposite of what YOU claim to have experienced.

So,

If the Bible is really the Word of God

And it can be trusted when it says "Ask, Seek, Knock" and numerous other promises,

and I know how hard I sought
(even if Theists want to insensitively, arrogantly,
and presumptuously trivialize the earnestness of my search, as they often have)

and I know that I was refusing to kid myself,

then, Lek,

WHY should I believe that my Grandfather actually had a personal experience of God's Love,

...and yet I had THE EXACT OPPOSITE???

Now, by having "the exact opposite"....I do not merely mean that I failed to find anything.

I DID have what you might call a very visceral, very unsettling, very specific supernatural experience.

But it was anything but comforting.

(I've already written about it in other threads, and I don't know if you've already read it or not).