Yes I see what you are trying to get at. I imagine it would be something like this: if you would just use ?pure? logic and assume the same axioms as me you would come to the same conclusions that I do. Right?

First, I do not think that I limit myself to rationalism (only accepting ideas that can be deduced through the intellect.) Classically the opponent of rationalism would be empiricism (believing that only direct experience and observation can lead to truth.) But, I think that both are necessary and that is why I have taken pains to show that my leaving the faith was not simply a logic deduction exercise but something that came from my personal experiences and the things that I have seen in life.

Perhaps, to be clear I should reiterate. It is not simply the logical inconsistencies that lead to a loss of faith for me, but my experiences and observations while trying to ?keep the faith.? For starters I observed that other non-Christians and even atheists and agnostics lead lives that are just as ethical and just has happy as any orthodox Christian. To put it in Christian terms I observed love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control exhibited among many who have no ties to orthodox belief or specifically reject Christian belief. I observed that even Christians themselves cannot come to agree upon what is true or right, and sometimes even pious people notice troubling inconsistencies with the faith. I could go on, but none of these sort of things should sound terribly unfamiliar. Nor should it seem hard to relate to that people?s living experience of life and not just their logical deductions can lead to doubts about faith.

Second, I should point out again that at one point in time I adopted the same axioms and operators as you, and only abandoned these ideas after years of banging my head against the cognitive dissonance that these ideas create for someone trying to live in the modern world. It?s not that your axioms are incomprehensible or that I have not at one time in my life tried to proceed from the same assumptions as you.

Third, I do not attribute omnipotence to reason. I have tried to be careful to over the years give all of you points due consideration. And when I reject something you say to show why that conclusion seems impossible for me both in terms of reason and personal experience.

 And even now I am not beyond considering your axioms and operators as a starting point, *but* there has to be something to compel one to do this. Which is what the whole dialog is trying to get at. Why should one assume Christian axioms as a starting point when there is so much, both in terms of reasons and in terms of experiences to point against it?

So I am not automatically denigrating other systems of logic offhand before due consideration. I am trying to show how due consideration of your system of logic through reason *and* experience lead over years of careful consideration to their rejection.


Well you have some very difficult and problematic positions to defend. You are a very smart person, but sometimes I think some ideas are very hard to defend even for someone so skillful and intelligent as yourself. 

I am not sure that I would necessarily rule out observations from other?s experience. Perhaps Anxiety might, more so than I, but I would do more to say what is the context, could they have been mistaken or biased, how reliable is the source, how does this fit in the light of others accounts of their experience and how does it fit in with my experience? Questions like that are how I would generally use to decide how much weight to place on the someone?s statement of their experience.

I don?t recall a specific quote from a thread about

Can you recall which thread thats from?  Was it this thread? I think it was on one of the threads anxiety started about how you would know you were being deceived... maybe? If so I will try to read it again. I am especially curious about the ?counter to the counter they were raised in.? Surely you don?t mean foreigners converted by missionaries?

But let me try to respond to that idea in general:
1) Many people say they have had profound and real experiences within the context of their particular religion. So many Muslims have experienced a real relationship with Allah, many hindus have had a real connection with various dieties. I remember I used to talk about my Christian religious experiences with pagan/wiccan friends who would reply something like: ?so what? I know people who swear they have had times of personally encountering the goddess, hearing her advice and feeling her warm feminine love.?
And other religious people say they have had experiences that align with their beliefs like Buddhists seeing the emptiness and impermanence of all existence or satori or something aligning with whatever they believe.

So how do we arbitrate between these different claims? We could say that Christians are really experiencing God, where as everyone else is just deceiving themselves? Does that seem fair? How is the Christian experience more veridical than anyone else?s?

2) Carl Sagan notes in his book  Varieties of the Scientific Experience ( I think I gave you a copy too or may be not) that it is funny how people tend to have revelations that agree with what their culture or with views they already have. Why don?t we have tons of Europeans having visions of a divine elephant with many arms before Europeans encountered Hinduism? Why don?t we have people in India having visions where they talk to some guy in a Jewish robe with pierced hands and a crown of thorns before Christian missionaries came along to tell them that?s what they were supposed to have visions of. Why do most people have profound religious experiences in the terms of only what they have already encountered.


3) Truth is not democratic. It takes more than numbers of people to make something true. You mention ?so many have experienced a real relationship with Christ.? This is interesting, but by itself it is not enough. For instance if Millions and Millions more claimed to have a real relationship with Allah, it would not *automatically* make Islam true. It is a good starting point but not the finish line. So perhaps ?so many? have experienced a ?real relationship with Christ.?  Millions claim to have revelations of a different sort, Allah, Buddha, etc. I mean it is a good starting point. Millions say they have talk to Jesus and have a relationship with him?. Ok wow! What did he say? Does what he said  make sense or agree with what he said to others? What is this relationship like? Do they really know God like a know the guy down the hall or do they just get warm feeling on Sundays and when reading the bible and call that a relationship?


4) I know many people who tell me about their personal real relationship with Christ. But I have also been part of the Christian group too, and heard how when there aren?t unbelievers in earshot, there is a lot more along the lines of  ?Well I think God spoke to me, but I?m not sure.? and ? I have been a Christian for years but I never thought God speaks to us now, he spoke in the bible and that?s it.? Or ?I have been trying to understand what discernment is and when to know if God is speaking to me or not.? Things along these lines. I remember watching friends struggle and struggle to really feel that they knew what God wanted to say to them and still be very if not totally uncertain what God wanted them to do. In fact I remember one friend telling me that after a long time struggling to understand God?s will a pastor of some church (not you Bruce btw) told him not to worry about it, but to just try to make mature decisions and you?ll be doing God?s will. Well I could do that without God I thought when he told me that. It seems when you are joining the recruitment is very clear God speaks to you and you have a personal relationship, but when you actually join the club, the lines are much more fuzzy if they are there at all. You know that these and similar struggles and questions were very troublesome for me personally as well and not just others who volunteered their experience to me as a Christian brother at the time.

You know some people even go so far as to interpret it as God speaking to them if they catch a break in traffic or catch a bit of good luck. ?God is speaking to me, I really feel like he is telling me he loves me.? They say. Or a bit of bad fortune comes along ?God is trying to teach me a lesson.,? they say. No matter what happens there is some interpretation to make a concrete experience become a personal message from God. But really there was just the experience and the interpretive framework.

There are a couple of things here. 1) It sounds like to me that the vast majority of Muslims are converting after at least viewing some materials about basic Christian beliefs and in some cases talking to missionaries. This to me is essentially not terribly surprising. Christianity and Islam are very similar in many beliefs and I can see how if I was a Muslim in Iran under a oppressive political situation, if some foreigners told me about a God that was more loving and accepting than my personal experience of Islam how it could be persuasive.  So that part, people converting to Christianity is not that surprising to me especially given the hard work of missionaries.

2) The part about being persuaded by dreams and visions is a bit more interesting. Now I can imagine having dreams about Christianity after having encountered a missionary. (After I left karate years ago I would have dreams where I was talking with my dojo teacher about coming back to karate for years. May be that was a sign too that I should have gone back to karate. But I always interpreted it as that I truly missed my friends there and all the cool toys. J )  However, this sounds like the book is claiming more than that. Claiming that their dreams predicted something. That is very interesting.  So.....

3) The issue with #2 is what to make of it. I have heard other similar stories and claims, but how do I decide if these ones are from people telling the truth and not getting caught up in rumors, or that the story has not gotten changed and exaggerated in the repeated tellings or that the author is not so motivated by his love for evangelizing Muslims that he has allowed himself to be deceived or use exaggerated versions to try to persuade others of the truth of Christianity.

So did you write the one sentence there about knowing these people directly or knowing the person who knows them? That would be more convincing if you knew these people personally. And not ? I know someone, who knows someone, who has an uncle, whose sister?s brother?s cousins knows someone who heard that?.?  Do you see what I mean? The more removed from the person you are and the more removed from the actually being there, the more likely these things are subject to possibly being heresay or rumor or exaggeration as it goes down the like of the game of telephone. How do we know it?s not something like that going on?

4) But, I don?t want to be too hasty in judgment. I suppose I would like to know more background about these dreams and visions. And if I can find the book at the bookstore I suppose I will take a look at it.