Personal relationships with deities

[drfuzzy]

I too appreciate the candor, the willingness to admit that you have no proof and aren't here to convince folks.  But I doubt that an experience of actually hearing god's voice would be something that would make someone feel alone.  Every American city has churches on every corner with people that say they have heard god's voice.  All you have to do to find people with that same delusion is walk into a church.
      And that "when it happens to you" is a pretty questionable statement.  Most of us here are ex-christians.  Many were VERY devout indeed.  Many share my experience of praying intensely for decades, and having no such experience - ever.  I was put down and mocked when I admitted that I never heard a response to my prayers, by people who pridefully claimed that they heard it daily.  I tend to believe they were all lying, in "gods house", about hearing "god's voice", just to make themselves feel superior.
      We can already, through the use of machines, "watch" the human brain think, and respond to stimuli.  The day is coming soon when it will be easy to prove whether a "response from god" is emanating from an outside source or not.  And then I will have my evidence.  Until then, this is one of the few "beliefs" that I hold:  everybody who says they have heard the voice of gawd is either a liar or in need of psychiatric intervention.

in my experience christians do not really believe in a back and forth two way communication with God while they pray to God its more of a one way experience and events that happen they attribute to God as a "response" .  yes that would be amazing if machines and human tech advanced to be able to do that i just dont think anything but personal experience will convince anyone but i could be wrong people have a lot of respect for science so a scientific discovery could convince some people but i think they will rationalize that its something other than God .

I must confess that I mostly wrote that to gauge your response.  -- Not that I wrote anything I don't believe.  I just wanted to check out this person coming in who said she believed in god and prayer but not religion.   It is rare for such a person to receive a challenge to their position and reply in a calm manner, as you have done.  

I'm impressed.   And I agree with a lot of your description.  From my own experience, a lot of folks will pray, and then describe it the next day as:  "when I was driving to work, the clouds parted, and there was this beautiful, brilliant ray of sunlight.  At that point I KNEW that god had heard me!"  

I think that we could get along fine, but on the subject of prayer . . . I'm going to need a lot more concrete evidence than that.  ^  

Welcome to AF, Jenny.  There are other theists here that are well-loved and respected.  I hope you become one of them.