What Would It Take To Be Convinced?

[John V]

Was the guy who converted new to Christianity or an ex-believer?

New. His blog's still up. Here's his first post on conversion:

http://hittingbedrock.blogspot.com/2006/...ut_17.html

He was possibly the smartest atheist I've come across in 15 years of doing this.

Cos that would be my first hurdle in becoming a Christian - I've already been there. I was a Christian up until I was eighteen - my intro thread explains it all. It was my homosexuality that made me question my faith in the first place. Now as time has passed I've built up a lot of skeptical knowledge that I can't just unlearn and which serves to make it even harder for me to believe again and I am certain that the Bible cannot be taken literally - that belief will not change, ever.

I'll bet I've come across most every bit of "skeptical knowledge" that you have and then some, yet I still believe.

By 'commitment to belief' I presume you mean something along the lines of if you tell yourself something long enough you'll come to believe it? I don't know about that - not in my own personal experience. That's the basis of self-hypnosis but I could never do that either. Just can't let go, at all, of my doubt.

I believe. I'm not sure exactly how to explain his commitment. Neither was he.

---

The first problem with your idea can be explained quite simply.  Imagine the world, exactly as it is, but with this difference:  One man, who lives forever, goes around healing people with lost limbs.  He just touches the stump and it instantly grows back, perfectly recovered.  He does this publicly, and lets scientists and others examine everything carefully beforehand and while he is doing it.  This man tells you he is god.

Well, we would certainly know that something was very special about this man, even though him healing people was an everyday occurrence.  So your idea that miracles have to be rare to be recognized as miracles is just wrong.

One man out of all of humanity is indeed rare. You haven't removed rarity, you've just changed the nature of it.