No Proof = No Knowledge

[pocaracas]

I haven't seen anything yet beyond the suggestion that St Paul had an epileptic fit. It's possible he did but that doesn't negate a genuine mystical experience.

No, but opens the door to the possibilities of what we actually observe, today.
How many people around the world suffer from epileptic seizures?
How many have revelations?

Oh... so... evolution from australopithecus with no concept whatsoever of any divinity... at some point, the concept appears...

The concept appeared due to our heightened intellect and awareness, the rational mind, the knowledge of the world beyond the limits of the physical senses and the ultimate source behind all things. You begin with some kind primitive animism or shamanism but that's the root of all religion.

If that's the case, it sure looks like god is trying to stay away from us.
I suggest we return the gesture.

So, from the origins... from the stand point of no one even considering the existence of any god, "why should I suppose it is?"

Because you represent a fully self aware advanced and rational mind, capable of your own freedom of will, the knowledge of good and evil, fully constant of you're existence within the context of the universe and the greater eternal reality of which you are a part? Is that a good enough reason to suppose it is?

To suppose that mystical experiences and NDEs are evidence of the divine?
Sorry to disappoint, but no.
Good and evil are social constructs.
Freedom of will is, as it seems, an illusion.
NDEs are not DEs. They're the product of a brain still working, but not fully.

I have first hand evidence that it doesn't... I do have a pretty good notion of what my mind does and no such experience has ever manifested.

Perhaps you need to be spiritually awakened to the truth of the reality of God then. Most people do get this experience even Richard Dawkins gets this though he will explain it away as misfiring neurons rather than the God, he thinks he's some kind machine.

Spiritually awakened to the truth?
Oh, man... -.-'
I'm fully aware that all spirituality is in the mind, and the mind alone. I'm aware that this mind is way too easy to trick, so I do my best to identify all trickery and prevent it from taking any foothold. Thus far, it has worked flawlessly.
I am, as far as I'm aware, impossible to convince that a god exists by means of another human being's conversation.
I require god itself to show up... but you said up above that man arrived at the concept through some rationalization... perhaps some self-inflicted delusion. And the concept stuck. It's easy to understand why it stuck, but not so easy to see how it would stick to me.

Plus, if it happened to everyone, we'd hear about on the news, twitter, facebook.... everywhere at the same time!

We can say it happens to the vast majority of billions, what do you think religion and spirituality is?

About 99% of it is indoctrination.
Remove that and you're left with a very tiny minority of people who would rationalize themselves into it... the freaks.

What the fuck is the theists' fetish for equating atheism with materialism (and even naturalism, for that matter)? Why do I feel you are parroting what your pastor claims about atheists without ever thinking for yourself or doing your own research?

If you don't believe in God, a higher power, the supernatural/transcendent reality or whatever else you want to call it just the physical universe as it is that we can see and nothing else then what the fuck else are you meant to be than a materialist? You would be the definition of materialism if you reject or don't accept the existence of anything that is beyond the material and the natural world. As a belief it's possible but if it's actually true that's as big a deal as the alternative/s.