I was not implying that Howad was not mentally sound, just that an experience of what one can consider the surpernatural, comes from inside their own brain. One tends to go with one’s desires and he may well have wanted something to bring him to belief
.I don’t believe his experiences are any more valid than if an athiest was religious and then saw the contradictions in the Bible that led them to no longer believe, and maybe because it is the athiests I know were religious, and then found they no longer believed. I also know of a man who thought Jesus was living in him and even though he was a very good man was sent to a mental hospital because he got too involved in his thinking. and also a relative that also spent time in a mental hospital for visions etc. she was fasting etc. to save the world and atone for her and the sins of others, it was her lack of proper diet that caused her to have illusions, just as an alcholic can have visions of rats etc. The human mind is very complex.
Actually his family members and former colleagues have validated Howard Storm’s atheism prior to his experience. I don’t notice that you gave any link but I will go back and check (I actually need to leave for work in a few minutes so I apologize for the too quick response here). I will also check to see if he has an e-mail where you can ask him questions. FYI–I know that many believers just want to believe even though the testimony may be questionable (2 infamous examples of this would be the author of “23 Minutes In Hell” and Michael Warnke’s “The Satan Seller”) nonetheless I don’t think Howard Storm’s story can be that easily invalidated. If I can find Howard Storm’s e-mail address, I will certainly add it here in a future post. However, I ask again: would it have made a difference to you if for example instead of Howard Storm that the experience would have happened to Penn Jillette, Bill Maher, Christopher Hitchens, or Richard Dawkins or somebody else that was more famous for their non-belief and contempt of religion?
I’m not likely to want to prove the existence of God in court, nor would I try.
But “I saw…,” "I heard…, " “I felt…” is evidence of a kind used used in court all the time. And if humans are testifying it is always subject to interpretation and error. The fact remains that people are convicted of crimes and deprived of their liberty based on testimonial evidence alone all the time. Juries accept it (when they do) presumably because they find it plausible and in accord with their experience and knowledge of what happened, and the witness believable.
You can put my experience in whatever category you like of course and I didn’t ask you to give me any credence at all. But it isn’t logical to assume that anyone who has had such an experience is a liar or crazy–without any “evidence” to support that assumption.
There have been unbelievers that were similarly thought dead on the operating table or elsewhere, and nothing happened to them. Some do experience the light and tunnel, see other loved ones that have passed, and other things, but they didn’t think it was an actual event going on and remained unbelievers and no desire to all of a sudden join a church.
Sorry, I only have it in book form, but did find a link for you here. Scroll down a little past half until you get to his Miracle section: Part I page 86.
Thanks for offering his address, but honestly my interest in talking to such people has kind of faded over the years. Having culled over hundreds of claimants from the James Randi Foundation, and also the CSCIOP journals, and meeting a few in person, I still find some of the characters interesting, but don’t consider the stories as actually factual the way they present it, and I certainly don’t consider it supernatural.
You are that far into their heads? Mine was unlike anything I had experienced before. But, again, I didn’t see or speak to a deity. It was not like anything I had ever even dreamed of. When I learned just a little bit about string theory, some of it made a little sense in relation to my experience. But I know so little.
Maybe you have two sides to your brain for a reason. (And I have no quarrel with these experiences being brain-based. That doesn’t logically mean wrong, now, does it?)
I took one of those right-brain, left-brain tests. I wasn’t all that surprised when both sides were equally balanced. I don’t know if all of that has been discredited now or not. It was a big “brain science” theory many years ago. And sometimes even scientists “misunderstand” or “misinterpret.” Could be there was a little confirmation bias on the part of the scientists.
And scientists do seem to “contradict” each other now and then. When more detailed information came in about the rings of Saturn fifteen or twenty years ago, Carl Sagan said that what had been learned might be in contradiction to known physical laws. I think he later backed down. I don’t have any less respect for him because of it. I like my scientists to be open-minded. The same with skeptics.
[quoterazncane:: Unbelievers tend to put more credence in nature, and trying to understand how it works, and doing what Hume did, and wait for the extraordinary evidence to match the extraordinary claim.[/quote]
Some spiritual people put a lot of credence in nature, yes. Don’t scientists? I don’t believe in the supernatural; I just think of “it” as natural.
Still can’t tell if you are talking about a court room or those who talk about their personal experiences. They are not exact metaphors for each other. Testimony in a court room can be very contradictory. So people throw it all out? Nyah. Also, when people are talking about their varying personal experiences, they may be different, but not necessarily contradictory.
Over time I’ve learned to notice certain specific parts of many, many personal experiences that are unusual and would seem strange and unbelievable to atheists. But they are described over and over again. I’m to the point where I tend not to believe people now who don’t mention them when they describe their experiences. (That’s a bias of mine and is may not be accurate at all.) And I’m not saying that atheists don’t have these experiences and remain atheists.
Trees in an uncut forest all seem to follow a certain physical pattern. That’s part of fractal knowledge. But what wipes me out is that the arrangement of all the trees in relation to each other is in the same pattern. “How do it know”? (Just curious.)
The belief in Jesus,God etc. comes from what was written from a human being who told of his thoughts and people believed him. But if it hadn’t been for the people believeing the Bible is the word of God or inspired by him, they may not be believers at all, their beliefs are based on the belief of other human beings who have no more knowledge of a God than an athiest.Strong belief is still belief, fact is another thing!
Because a group of men got together in the 300’s and declared it was the word of God or inspired by him, doesn’t make it fact.
I’m not sure why you quoted me. I didn’t say anything about the bible. Do you mean that those who have had visions of God would not have had them but for knowledge of the bible?
I think it is from the Bible or the teachings of some other person. There are people who believe in a different God, but most who believe in an Abrahamic God, either heard, read, or was taught, about the Biblical God. No one knows anything about a God just what they got from others, or some decided on their own, there is no proof for a God and must be taken on belief.
I think visions of a God come from the desire for there to be one. Since no one knows if a thought ,experience etc. that comes from a God, or their own mind, based on what they have heard that appeals to them, or the desire for one
One can just as well accept the Muslim God spoke to Muhammad through an angel, as any of the Biblical people I don’t believe God would be telling different people, different( and even contradictory things), or Howard!
Certainly that makes sense. I would say people in general would like to feel that they would continue to exist in some form after they die. Also, for people facing extreme pressure or challenges, they would like to believe that there’s a reward for persevering. Otherwise, they would simply give up. Also, if people need to make a tough ethical decision, they would probably like the idea of a Heavenly Father helping them make the decision.
Yes, I’ve read the New Testament and certainly it may be true that some inner need or desire for God to exist underlies my belief. But, respectfully, so what? Anyone’s testimony about anything is filtered through that person’s knowledge and experience. You are free to judge my account however you choose of course, but you can’t know that it is not genuine, or even reasonably conclude it isn’t, without knowing something about me and the circumstances.
And as for evidence being contradictory–if 12 people say 12 different things bout a car crash or a crime, you can’t reasonably assume they are all crazy or lying.
As I see it death is a change, one’s atoms etc. go back to where they came, Just as a flower or animal. We were a part of our ancestors and the circle of life goes on. If some one believes in a better place after they have died and it helps them to live a better life I see no harm in it. It is a personal belief and for many belief is hope, and one way to make one’s life better for them.But if one just lives to die they miss out on a lot of things. I believe I was born to live now, in the best way I can. I know some day I will die but I also believe that I may not know anything because I am dead. Perhaps I will just be part of the universe again. I realize it is also just my belief, and there are people who do know a lot more than I do.
Or mistaken.
If twelve different people say twelve different(and most often contradictory) things, what is done next is that the testimony is compared to any hard evidence to see what matches. The problem here is that there is no hard evidence to compare the testimony to, so there is absolutely no way to see which testimony is the most accurate.
Let’s say that there is a 10ftx10ft cube of an unknown material that cannot be opened or x-rayed. Twelve different people claim that they know the cube is hollow and that they know what is in the box because a voice told them, but they describe twelve different things. What are the chances that any of them are correct, when you don’t even know if the cube is hollow or not?
Of all things, Michael Sahaara’s book Killer Angels got me interested in religion again. It’s a novel about the Battle of Gettysburg and he tried to find the religious historical Gen. Robert E. Lee at Gettysburg. Gen. Lee was a southern gentleman that happened to represent the southern forces at Gettysburg.
It was clearly a losing proposition for him.
No matter what happened at the battle, plenty of young men were going to die at Gettysburg and he knew it.
He always treated his slaves decently, so he had few qualms about slavery.
When his home state Virginia pulled out of the union, he felt he had no choice but to command the Army of Virginia.
At Gettysburg, he knew that he was sending men to their deaths. On the night before Pickett’s Charge. He was praying to God, and basically said what you did. He thought that Gettysburg might be the South’s last chance to win the war. Finally, after much prayer he realized that he was just a servant of God. He realized that he would never fully understand God’s grand plan, his job was to merely act on behalf of God.
So what.
If your god gives contradictory facts to two different people, how do you determine which(if any) is correct, and how do you account for the fact that(if there is a god) he lied to one of them?
I dare any of the active religions in this world to tell me how tall God is. Or whether He is a Man or a Woman. What I’m trying to say is that we, none of us know the basic facts about God.
However, there are some people who believe that they know what God values. Values are far more abstract than God’s height.
All I’m saying is personally, I do not believe any religion fully knows the nature of God.
My Christian Church actually asked a Jewish Rabbi to give a mass to our Christian congregation. To me my church was doing the right thing. The church needs to be open-minded if they are going to make progress.
Non sequitur.
If your god gives contradictory facts to two different people, how do you determine which(if any) is correct, and how do you account for the fact that(if there is a god) he lied to one of them?
Again, let’s go back to the idea of a rational argument. I suppose to most scientists, rational means that you can have only one conclusion.
I disagree. If people are starting at different premises, even if a rational argument is being made, the people will be going different directions. So inevitably their conclusions will be different.
One of the clearest examples is Christianity. The premise is Jesus is the Messiah, so the Christian God ends up being different than the Jewish God.