To give you a "full" report on any experience, would take many pages of blog and others have already told me I am long winded already.

If you want to do via e-mail - send me a note.  I can only give you my experiences, but as far as Jesus - not in my story.

 

Do you? I ask this honestly, not sarcastically or meanly. I am a very wordy person when I talk/write about things (I inherited this from my mother's side...) I think I've given some honest and full accounts of some of my experiences. But like I said before, they've either been dismissed as coincidence or unacknowledged altogether.

This discussion thread seemed initially to be a request for evidence or proof for the existence of God.
However it seems that it has centered almost exclusively around what is often called the "argument from personal experience." ( I.E. I felt the presence of God, or God spoke to me, or I could tell that God was working in my life therefore God exists because I can feel him interacting with me.)

So I feel compelled given the original topic to play "devil's advocate" and give some reasons people often give for believing these things, just to put them out there and further this discussion.

First it should be noted  that (just as in the field of history) *high probability* is the gold standard.. If psychology isn't a science to you, then I would have grave doubts that religion could provide much for you much that  would count  for "evidence."  So the task of the apologist is for you is to say "don't these arguments make Christianity or at least God's existence seem highly plausible and even probably." If that can be accomplished the rest is faith and will to believe. However if God's existence and Christianity's validity turn out to be moderately to highly implausible, then no such benefit of the doubt nor will to believe is warrented.


Second, one would recommend you to read authors like William Lane Craig  who reportedly gives lots of evidence for both of the above. One would also recommend you to read N.T. Wright as he reportedly gives the best defense for the historicity of the resurrection. And he  has a few books that like "Simply Christian" that give a coherent argument for Christianity.

Third, the arguments.

A) Kalam's Cosmological argument

1) Everything that begins to exist has a cause
2) The universe began to exist
3) therefore universe has a cause
4) the cause of the universe would be expected to be outside of time, space and matter, perhaps even beyond these in some way.
5) God is outside and beyond space time and matter

6) Therefore the best explanation for the universe is that God exists.

There are other versions of this and one could talk about Aquinas' proofs regarding  the unmoved mover the uncaused cause, cosmological arguments and so on, but Kalam?s Cosmo  seems to be everyone's favorite, William Lane Craig loves to center his debate talks around this proof.

B) The Teleological Argument or the argument from design. -

1) Things in the world especially living things appear to have a design (or order, law, sensibility)
2) We  know of nothing in the world that appear to have a design unless it has a designer
3) the world must have a designer
4) that designer is God.

( now.... remember, with this argument let's be careful not to say they E word.)

You could put this more broadly and try to apply it to life in general, not just the universe. You could say something like ?

1)  it is hard to imagine life without a purpose
2) therefore life must have some purpose
3) for it to have a purpose someone must have designed us with a purpose in mind
4) that someone would have to be outside or beyond this mortal realm
5) God is outside/beyond this mortal realm
6) therefore the best explanation for our difficulty in imagining or living in a world without purpose is that God exists and designed us with a purpose

Or you could put this argument a different way,  we have a sense of goodness and a sense of what beauty is, there is no credible account of where this sense of beauty  or goodness comes from, therefore the best explanation for it is the existence of a designer like God.

C) the anthropocentric *cough* that is actually Anthropic Principle

If this universe came into being without a designer and without anyone guiding the process it is ridiculously unlikely that we would have a universe that would have planets like earth which are habitable to life.
So that for instance if the gravitational coupling constant were just ten times larger or smaller we would have only ?blue giant stars, which expend their nuclear fuel so rapidly that  they would not persist long enough for life to evolve? or conversely  red dwarf stars which would also be unlikely to support the arising of life. Or for instance if the strong nuclear force were just slightly different atoms as we know them today would be unlikely to arise, and therefore life as we know it would be unlikely to arise. (see Carl Sagan's varieties of the scientific experience page 55.) Richard Dawkins says in the documentary "the four horsemen" that this is one of his favorite arguments.

D) the high historical probability of the resurrection of Jesus

This is William Lane Craig's other favorite argument.

1) There are four "facts" regarding the death of Jesus that are agreed upon by most scholars" and  are extremely difficult to dispute.
 
Fact 1- After his crucifixion, Jesus was buried  by Joseph of Arimithea in a tomb
Fact 2 - On the Sunday  following the crucifixion, Jesus? tomb was found empty by a group of women followers.
Fact 3- On multiple occasions and under various circumstance, different individuals and groups of people experienced appearances of  Jesus live from the dead.
Fact 4- The disciples believed that Jesus was risen from the dead despite every reason for them not to.

2) the best explanations for these four indisputable facts is that Jesus actually rose from the dead.

Craig elaborated on this at length in his books and in the debate book called Jesus? Resurrection: fact or figment?  Basically  some of these facts are attested as early as Paul ( 1 Corinthians ) only 20 years after Jesus' death. It is unlikely that the disciples would make this up, since the would risk their lives and since the natural conclusion would be that when crucified Jesus was shown to be a ?false messiah?  or perhaps in heaven with other martyrs but not risen from the dead or the son of God.

(Credit should be given to Dan Barker, Richard Dawkins and Carl Sagan for the particular form of these arguments. )

How's that for some evidence to discuss? 

As you pointed out, the support for many of those arguments are contravened by evolution (the E word). There is a tremendous amount of evidence for evolution and I can justify a solid belief in it --so let's focus on the others.

Kalam's argument rests on the presupposition that there was a beginning --there is no scientific model that holds evidence for a starting point of the universe, only what appears to be a period shortly after an assumed beginning.


I'm most interested in the ontological argument for existence of God, because that seems to be how a lot of Christians justify their belief --from personally experiencing and understanding that God exists.

I'm familiar with set theory.

As far as I understood it, it allows for multiples of infinities. Interesting concept.