(March 19, 2013 at 10:08 pm)jstrodel Wrote: You don't have any reason to believe I am suffering from any illness.
People who claim to see or hear things that no one else can see are typically considered to be suffering from hallucinations, and these are often brought on by illness. Therefore, there is reason for a person reading your claims to believe that you are suffering from illness, or using substances that may be causing your hallucinogenic state.
On the other hand, few people (even theists) believe that other people regularly receive visions or visits from god or his representatives. Thus, even a believer would have reason to doubt that you are seeing and talking to god. An atheist doesn't have any reason to think that your experiences are supernatural, and I suspect that you will never provide verifiable proof of your experiences.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
