RE: If god can't lie, does that mean he can't do everything?
September 25, 2020 at 1:16 pm
(This post was last modified: September 25, 2020 at 1:17 pm by HappySkeptic.)
(September 24, 2020 at 6:04 pm)Sal Wrote: "black man", Drich? You're a riot.
And before you start accusing me of racism or some other shit - examine what you're saying.
Some rando approached you, and you believed him straight away?
I'd like to hear more of this encounter.
What I would be interested in knowing, is if someone found this black guy in a mental institution or a retirement home, and it didn't seem like he was Jesus, would Drich change his mind?
I believe that he would not.
The value of the religious experience is that emotion that it imparts within the person, not on the validity of it. Even if the black guy was off his meds, Drich's experience still exists. Drich might even alter his view to say that the guy wasn't crazy, but was just acting as a conduit for God (I believe it was common in the past to consider crazy people as touched by either the a devil or one of the gods).
I know someone who has had a meditative experience of "being one with everything". That one experience has shaped the person's religious views for 20 years, despite never being able to repeat it. I wouldn't want to take away their experience, and yet I think the new-age philosophy that the person now espouses is completely without reality.
As atheists, we will always lose our arguments if we try to tell theists that their religious or "peak" experiences aren't real. They are real, and they are important to that person. All we can do is offer alternate, more rational explanations.
