The real religion?

[SteveII]

(1) I rather doubt that LFC is actually a 'scientism-ist' (just to increase the clumsy ugliness of your pet word), no matter how desperately you wish to paint her that way. Your claim isn't exclusively supernatural. After all, you (Steve II) are not supernatural, but verifiably natural and fallible. And you, natural and fallible man, are claiming to have had an encounter with a supernatural being in this world, not in some supernatural realm. Oh, and not just any supernatural being, but a specific one who is claimed in your holy book to have done much more than simply encounter believers "in their minds somehow" but to have actually walked the Earth, eaten a meal with a guy, etc. It isn't unreasonable to suppose that such a being might occasionally verifiably affect things in the world by its 'presence' in such a way that these effects could be observed and studied. So far, all you're giving us is, "I just know that this was a supernatural experience!" and when pressed to provide evidence of such an experience you point to the 'a lot of believers who have similar experiences are less dickish than they used to be' gambit.

And you still haven't done a thing to dispel the notion that you believers are indulging in wish fulfillment, errors in discerning the causes for powerful emotional experiences, etc. You seem fairly convinced that the religious experiences of people outside your faith tradition are less reliable but you haven't given us any good reason not to lump you in with them.

She probably doesn't. However, when it comes to debating religions, many atheist fall back to that position as a rebuttal not realizing it comes with baggage. The question being discussed is whether a mind existing in the natural world can have a relationship with a supernatural mind. That is not a question for science--rather a psychological and metaphysical question. I never suggested that God has not interacted with the natural world. He has many many times. The most obvious is in the NT. So, if God has interacted with the world in the NT, the NT describes this relationship, people say this relationship is real, why isn't this further proof that God exists?

Why do I have to dispel anything? We are not arguing about my particular experience. What is more probably, that a billion people are all describing the same delusion or that a billion people all describe the same real relationship? Other religions do not claim this relationship (or even anything similar) so there is nothing to compare. 

(2) No, we don't normally live our lives disbelieving every eye witness report we hear. Most of us assign a degree of significance to what is being claimed. You tell me you saw your neighbor eating sausage for breakfast? I have no good reason to disbelieve you and don't really care. You tell me you have had a personal encounter with the supernatural creator of the universe, you are going to get a different standard of scrutiny -- WLC notwithstanding. In a court of law, where 'reasonable doubt' is the gold standard, we don't uncritically accept eye witness testimony. Why on earth would you expect us to accept a lesser standard when it comes to such claims as you're making -- self-serving claims at that, since I imagine it would be devastating to most believers if they were to learn definitively that their most cherished experiences are based on error and falsehood.

Never said to we should accept uncritically. I just have not heard a coherent reason why a relationship with God is not possible and therefore delusional. Compared to a billion testimonies, what is the basis for your 'reasonable doubt'? On what do you base your determination that such a relationship is "based on error and falsehood"? 

(3) Who, aside from the logical positivists from bygone days, can you name who actually matches this characterization?

Atheist like to slide in and out of that worldview when convenient. I have heard a thousand times a hundred different ways that the notion of God needs scientific proof. Experiential, eyewitness, metaphysical, revealed theology, and natural theology evidence is not enough. That's just nonsense and to say otherwise is scientism/logical positivism and you are stuck with it's baggage. 

(4) What's to account for? So some people convert based on reading the NT. Big fucking deal. People also convert to Islam based on reading the Koran. I'm sure you're about as impressed by that as good evidence for the truth of Islam as I am by people converting to Christianity after reading the NT as being good evidence for the truth of your faith. People come to ridiculous conclusions about all manner of things for bad reasons every single day.

Believing the truth of the NT was not my point. You could believe and still not freely enter into a relationship with God. There is no relationship with God in Islam so there is no comparison. My point was in response to the theory that Christians have some sort of vested interest to further the delusion in others to reinforce their delusion. Since there are many cases where that was not the case, that theory fails.