Quote:Lek Wrote: [url=https://atheistforums.org/post-1951060.html#pid1951060][/url]If I'm hungry and see an apple hanging on a tree and I see other people picking and eating the apples and walking away fine, I'll go pick an apple and eat it. I do this because I truly believe that those are really apples hanging on the tree and it's been reinforced by others eating them and being okay. I'm not going to say that there may really not be an apple tree there because sometimes people think they see and touch something, but it's not real, but a hallucination. Then I'm not going to walk away because it might not be real, even though I really believe that it is real.
I was hiking last September in an area of the Boston Mountains with no trails, just the overgrown roads of loggers and settlers. I saw a tree with an odd fruit, which had the size and color of a cherry but the pit of a plum. I ate one and decided it was a wild plum, often called a sand plum. It grew on an east facing slope beneath oak, hickory and other 50-100 year old hardwoods. It had to be a remnant of agricultural activity, like many of the disappearing roads. It was hard to believe the animals hadn't cleared it of fruit before I found it.
I didn't need to watch other people's experience because I already knew what a fruit tree looks like. I ate a few more and filled an empty thermos with the them. Later, I used them to make plum infused vodka. Though finding the tree was out of the ordinary, I don't think it was a result of divine guidance. I could see the natural processes at work. It never entered my mind that the tree wasn't real.
