Atheism

[SteveII]

False analogy. Lightening is a natural phenomenon. Religious experiences are a supernatural phenomenon.

You don't know that.

How about I state:

'Lightening is a natural phenomenon. Religious experiences are also a natural phenomenon.'

How do we determine who is correct? I already have an advantage because you don't even know what supernatural means yet we know what natural means. And this enables us to test whether there are natural and scientifically rigorous explanations for religious like experiences (there are).

So your going with "billions of Christians had and continue to have epilepsy" and further, the manifestation of this epilepsy is directly dependent on the worldview one ascribes to--changing if one changes their worldview". I can't argue with that logic. 

And here you are talking about begging the question while making unwarranted assumptions that the supernatural exists when there is no evidence for it (and can't be if you don't even accept natural evidence to determine if it exists or not). So your whole argument is begging the question. No wonder you are so keen to project your own failings onto others.

I said that self-reported experiences with the supernatural are reported by billions for millennium and is therefore evidence of the supernatural. You come back with That is not evidence of the supernatural because there is no evidence of the supernatural. Do I need to say what that is? Additionally, there are several other categories of evidence for the supernatural that you are ignoring: 

1. The entire contents of the NT

2. The first century church (independent of the NT)
3. Personal miracles (private, specific events that seemed to have a purpose against all odds)
4. Natural theology arguments

I am aware of no progress on the mind/body dualism question. In fact, I think that stating that we are purely mechanistic is a belief that stems from metaphysical naturalism (philosophy) rather than actual science.

Your ignorance does not determine reality. I stated that the more scientific evidence we have, the more it looks like the brain works in a purely mechanistic way. And as I keep repeating, at no point have we found anything to suggest otherwise.

OF COURSE the brain is mechanistic. The emergent property of consciousness and why many mental events seem to be non-physical is a complete mystery. Your belief that the brain=mind is a philosophical position, not a scientific one.

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There are. We don't have access to them--being limited in our abilities to examine anything outside the natural world.

If an effect has a natural cause then why isn't it also a natural effect? What makes it supernatural?

God is supernatural. If something that happens in the natural world affects him at all, you have an example of the natural world having an effect on the supernatural. By definition, any effect on the supernatural is not physical.

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This is the part I am challenging. If you take the step of saying that the person's experiences are not a result of the supernatural, that is a simple assertion. Any attempt to justify that assertion becomes question begging. Your attempt to introduce a null hypothesis is simply an attempt to sneak in the assertion; since the only way to know of a person's inner experience is to ask them, the concept does not apply. 

If you are able to overcome the null hypothesis (that neuro-cultural factors that we have at least a basic understanding of are sufficient to explain the phenomenon, and incidentally, explain it better), by all means do so. If not, I should hardly take it on faith that you're on to something rather than motivated to insert the Christian God wherever you think it will fit.

All it would take is a group of people each year that became Christians from other cultures. The tremendous growth of Christianity in China is a single example that wipes out this theory.