Atheism is irrational.

[Asmodee]

No, it doesn't.  I quoted the part where you accused atheists of playing with semantics followed by the part I perceived as you playing with semantics.  I was not editing or censoring you, merely pointing out the parts to which I was responding.  You have to admit, there is a bit of irony there.

That's why I said it was on the verge. There is no irony if I did not engage in deceptive wordplay. With respect to the definition of atheism, I have conceded that "simple disbelief" seems to have become a contemporary usage; however, I feel the strong insistence, that the definition be strictly limited to exclude equally valid senses and specifically those with negative connotations, betrays a censorious intent by some vocal atheists to avoid owning up to their obvious incredulity.

In the same way, the broadest sense of the word 'miracle' as any kind of divine intervention could, I suppose could include an uncanny dream. To my mind, that expansive sense didn't apply in the context of the thread. Instead, the discussion revolved around apparent violations of the natural order. I have already explained my position such inexplicable events and the criteria for excepting them as actual divine interventions.

No such criteria would apply to an epiphany, like Paul's encounter with the risen Christ. One defining feature of an epiphany is the certainty it engenders in the person who had the experience. People who have them do not question whether or not they had a divine encounter; they know with absolute certainty that they have. The OP asks if I, or any other believer, upon going back in time and observing purported miraculous events would change our minds about the veracity of those events. The question of the OP only applies to events open to dispute. With respect to an epiphany, there would not even the possibility of doubt.

The real question is whether I could be justified in accepting the veracity of another's epiphany. That could only ever be a personal judgment about the character of the person making the claim and witnessing the affect on their life. To my mind that entails a whole 'nother set of criteria and not really worth either the believer or the skeptic's time to debate. The gulf is too great.

I think you need to ask for a dictionary for Christmas.  First, "deception" is intentional.  I cannot "verge on deception" if I made no attempt to "deceive" in any way.  Omitting text not in the least bit relevant to the reply I am making is not "deceptive".  There was no context omitted as my reply was concerning only those two lines.  Had I quoted the rest it would have added confusion as I was addressing only those two lines.  And your post was still right there, unchanged.  There was no deception.  There was no attempt at deception.  It did not "verge on deception".

Next, irony has nothing to do with deception.  You do not have to actively engage in deception to be ironic.  It's like rain on your wedding day.  It's the free ride when you've already paid.  There's an entire damned song about it and not one deception listed.

Next, the definition of "atheist" as "simple disbelief" is accurate, and here is why.  When you group people together based on a label that label has to describe THE ENTIRE GROUP.  You cannot assign meaning to that label based on what a few, some, half or even most of them are like because IT MUST DESCRIBE ALL of them.  That is how labels work.  I cannot include in the definition of "Christian" the term "snake handler" because only a few Christians are snake handlers.  I cannot include "less intelligent" because that is a generalization and, again, is not true of all Christians.  That is why the definition of atheist is "simple disbelief".  As atheists our beliefs and opinions vary greatly.  While one may say, "I don't believe there are any gods, but I'm not sure" another may say, "There are no gods".  They are both atheists and the ONE thing they have in common, the thing that makes them "atheist", is that they "do not believe".  Any more specific than that and you get into a subset of atheists, such as soft atheist, hard atheist, agnostic atheist, militant atheist, new atheist, etc.

I can understand that next part, but it doesn't make the statement not ironic.  I wasn't saying it was deceptive, I wasn't saying it was in any way wrong, just that it was ironic.

For the last to paragraphs...ok, I guess?  They don't really seem to require a response from me.