As a person that has never had one, I am curious what kind of brushes with the divine, miracles, or revelations there are that truly turn a skeptics into believers. I’m told they are life changing events:
Often however when I ask people for details they refuse to answer, or describe events that are relatively ordinary. So what gives? Do real skeptics ever witness things sufficient to trust in a particular deity? Or is it more so just something Christians say at the end of a discussion to save face when they know facts are not on their side of an argument?
Francis Collins took a frozen waterfall as proof of Christianity:
As he says himself, he had already “decided” to believe in God, rather than literally being converted by the sight of this frozen waterfall. I suspect this is how it works for many people. We’re brought up to learn about religion long before we hear about reason, and even longer before we might understand confirmation bias. When you look at the world already expecting to find a certain conclusion in the evidence, you tend to find it. Presumably if Collins had grown up somewhere else this frozen waterfall wouldn’t cause him to give himself to Jesus but Allah or Brahma. The fact that the events people describe that they take as a “brush with the divine” are often rather ordinary doesn’t surprise me at all. Even with the extraordinary, there is significant confirmation bias and “hyperactive agent detection”. When there is a disaster that kills tens, hundreds or thousands of people, it’s an unfortunately tragedy. When one or two people survive it unexpectedly, that is a miracle. The reasoning involved is exactly zero, but unfortunately it’s how our brains seem to work. As we were evolving into the forms we have now, it would make perfect sense that we assume agency behind things. If a tree moves, it might a leopard or it might be the wind. Those that assume it’s a leopard tend to survive better than those that assume it’s the wind, even if 90% of the time they’re actually right and it really is just the wind. Combine this with our pre-existing assumptions (and hopes) that there is a benevolent guy with a beard in the clouds looking after us and suddenly these events that may be ordinary or extraordinary, but rarely surprising, become evidence of something metaphysical.
A few years back I met a nice young gal who had somewhat recently converted to an evangelical, young earth, anti-Obama flavor of Christianity. She was more forthcoming than most about her moment of conversion. I believe she had previously been Christian, but not particularly religious, as she was raised to be by her family. The moment that changed her life: she fell off a horse and landed with her head a mere few inches from a rock that she believes would have killed her.
She interpreted this experience as being clear evidence of divine providence, and from then on devoted her life to her particular flavor of Christianity. I had many questions, as you would, but a combination of politeness and being overwhelmed by the sheer number of questions - in the face of her perspective that her experience was self-explanatory - left me unable to get much further in the conversation.
Why not just interpret this as a coincidence or chance? What does this say about all of the instances where some hapless person failed to miss their doom by inches? Why decide that a moment of apparent divine providence was a sign to follow not only Christianity, but a political, evangelical version of it? And finally, if you believe that a particular God has given you a direct experience of His power and will, why would you then rely on pastors whom you barely know to subsequently direct you in your spiritual life rather than seeking information direct from the source, which you (believe to) know to be possible?
Finally, her life-changing moment of chance was so singular and so shallow, it absolutely paled in comparison with even some of the milder strange coincidences and synchronicity I have experienced, that I found it difficult to respect her experience at all (I did however, respect very much that she wasn’t - yet - arrogant or cruel in her convictions). I’m sure many people, if they had had the sorts of experiences I have had, would call them brushes with the divine. But for me, I felt as if I wasn’t given any spiritual answers or set pathways to adhere to. I was only left to wonder.
I freely admit that I’ve never had any unambiguously divine experiences.
I have, occasionally, seen or experienced things that filled me with a sense of reverence or wonder or thankfulness to God, but if I didn’t already believe in God they wouldn’t have made me believe.
I have, rarely, been “told” things, possibly by God, or possibly by my own (subconscious?) mind (or possibly both: my own mind was the medium through which God was communicating with me; but nothing to convince a skeptic that divine involvement was necessary).
I can look back on my life and see, in particular instances or general circumstances, divine providence or protection—but nothing that couldn’t have been random chance: what just happened to happen.
When I was quite young (maybe 8 or so), I was in my room at home, and went looking for my parents. When I didn’t find them, I looked outside, and still didn’t find them. Since I both love my parents and knew I was relatively helpless without them, I started to panic. Since I was still a believer, I figured the right thing to do was pray for God to give me my parents back. Which is when I heard them outside. My prayers were answered!
When I went outside, I asked where they had been. I dunno what I was expecting, maybe a harrowing take of them being saved from the afterlife by my prayer. The response I got was they had gone next door to borrow a chainsaw. Even as an 8 year old, I felt silly. Here I was worried my parents had abandoned me, when really they had just gone outside my usual search area. I had panicked and turned to prayer instead of thinking my way through a non-existant problem.
I didn’t actually stop believing for another 5-6 years, but it was a lot of “this doesn’t make sense” and “a prayer wouldn’t have changed anything” to get me to think about the whole idea of a god more critically.
Even now, sometimes I’ll go hiking and see another person checking out a particularly good view “Gorgeous, huh?” “Yea, I dunno how anyone can see this and not think god exists” A conversation like that is always jarring to me - just because the mountains are pretty doesn’t imply a god exists, but if that’s what it takes for evidence that you should follow a particular religion, then that is a pretty weak faith.
Same with a person that ascribes their survival of a car wreck or other catastrophe to divine intervention. Surely a loving god would simply have prevented the accident instead of allowing the accident to happen and saving you? But the human mind is bad at probability, so instead of allowing that we were lucky we attribute low probability occurrences to a deity.
While I can’t narrow down my “divine” experiences to any single life-changing event, I have experienced numerous moments which convinced me that there is an underlying order to everything, on a level which science is unable or unwilling to properly explain. HOWEVER…this does NOT mean that I’ve suddenly become a believer in God (which is what the OP is apparently asking about) – on the contrary, these events have convinced me that God does NOT exist, simply because there is no need for God.
The way I see it, conversion experiences such as those described by Bozuit and Orr, G. are, at best, examples of the anthropic principle taken to its most obscene extreme; at worst, they are the height of vanity. What makes one so special that God will single you out, while allowing countless others to suffer and perish? (Naturally, I’m aware that the aforementioned posters are themselves skeptical of these accounts…just want to be sure that’s clear.) I’ll grant that these stories may indeed have been triggered by a genuine encounter with Divine Order, but as happens so often, they were grossly misinterpreted. Divine Order can be immensely astounding when you face it up close, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s really nothing special – it is the basic nature of the Universe, after all.
“As mundane as childbirth,” is the way I like to describe it.
I think there may be more people than you imagine who have had such an experience, and that they may decline to share those experiences for reasons other than the ones you suggest.
I am a Christian who has no interest in “arguing” with you about faith, and no particular interest in describing what made me return to the RC Church in my mid-20s and last year become an Episcopalian after years of struggling with certain teachings and actions of the RCs.
I don’t attempt to describe what happened, never have and likely never will.
For one thing, what happened to me is not something that will convince you, nor would I expect or desire that to happen. For another, those so inclined would dismiss it as a delusion at best or use it as another excuse to proclaim that all theists are stupid and malignant.
It convinced me, despite my inclinations, and acting on that conviction has been very positive for me, but it isn’t proof for anyone else.
Whatever my sins of pride, I find it hard to imagine I’m unique or even all that rare.
Were you ever really a skeptic, or were you just apathetic about your religion for a while? Do you think it mere coincidence that you returned to the religion you were brought up in?
Do you trust in the Bible? Does the Bible teach you not to witness?
Why not just say? If something remarkable happened to me I would share it. Everyone is anonymous here so what have you to lose? Or was it just something along the lines of what others have mentioned?
Also you made it clear that you would be an atheist if not for your unique experiences. So you must think atheism a reasonable default position. Does it bother you that people denied your divine experiences will go to hell?
I don’t believe people go to hell simply because they have not had a divine experience, but then I don’t believe anyone goes to hell, so…
Here’s an example of an experience that changed things for me, but will probably seem small and silly and meaningless to every other person on the planet:
I gave up my job and my car and most of my friends to move to a new city. I had several good job interviews lined up, but one job that I especially wanted. One of the reasons I wanted it was the absolutely beautiful work environment (an arboretum). A few days after my interview I was sitting in that beautiful space and became deeply, inexplicably sad. The feelings were so uncomfortable that I had to leave and go back to my hotel. After pulling myself together I went for a coffee, taking the same route through a kind of boring downtown area to the coffee shop that I had every morning since I’d arrived in town several weeks earlier. During the walk my mood shifted completely and I felt fine, happy, joyful.
Ok, then whatever, I went on about my life, got the arboretum job and…it sucked. I hated it and spent a good deal of my work hours trying not to break down and cry about how awful it was.
So I got another job, a job that makes me feel fine, happy, joyful. And the new job is right along that walk between the hotel and the coffee shop.
Now, for most people that little story means nothing, and rightly so, but for me it was a reminder that there are bigger forces at work. Lately I had convinced myself that that wasn’t true, and that we’re all in this alone more or less, so for me it was a sort of revelation. On some level I knew something about an experience that I hadn’t yet had, and for me that doesn’t happen in a universe without some type of higher authority keeping track and watching over me.
So, that’s my jesus story and I hope it illustrates why most people don’t tell theirs. What was so powerful for me in that experience has no emotional or religious effect on any other person. If you want a story that will convince you, you’ll have to come up with your own.
Can you share any examples?
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Well, since you ask:
It was a time (many years ago) when I was miserable and struggling and doubting God and wondering what if anything my life was good for. And when I felt like I was at the end of my rope, the words God “spoke” to me (if they were really from God—but if I ever have “heard” directly from God I did then) were: “I’m not going to make it easy for you.” (Along with a nudge to remember the things I did have to be thankful for.) These words were what I needed to hear at the time, although they weren’t the words I wanted or expected to hear. I took them as a challenge (that I would have to do some work toward figuring out how to solve my own problems, rather than hoping that God would step in and fix things), a warning (that it wouldn’t be quick or easy), and a profound encouragement (that things could get better; and that my present struggles were not evidence of God’s being nonexistent or uncaring or sadistic).
I’m a staunch atheist but I do recall a time when I was praying to god. I had an infection in my arm and the doctor said, “It may need to be amputated.”
I was so incredibly scared that I found myself praying to god to save my arm. At the same time, I felt perplexed thinking, “I can’t pray now. I’m an atheist.” It was a moment of confusion and fear.
Shortly after, they drained the fluid out of the infection and my arm would be okay. I wonder how common the situation I have described is. Logically, it’s easy to come to the conclusion that religion is false. But, when you feel helpless and your life is hanging by a thread, I wonder how many people start to pray. Since many people face with these situations end up dying we may never know.
Did you actually hear an external voice, or did it sound more like your internal voice talking to yourself? Did the voice identify itself as the Christian god?
You said you “dislike woo, mistrust miracles, and am skeptical of spirituality in all its forms” but now you make it seem like you were convinced by the mundane that really would not convince a skeptic. Which is it?
No hell? Are you a believer in heaven? Do atheists/agnostics/other non-Christians go to heaven too? You don’t think one has to believe in Jesus to go to heaven?
Seems you not only cherry pick the Bible but you like to cherry pick the words of Jesus contained therein. More “eisegesis” on your part?
