To Atheists... Why do you not acknowledge personal testimony

[Wolfbitn]

This is the debate that some Atheists refuse to accept as legitimate. Note too that I certainly do not charge every Atheist with this... but we see that some obviously reject personal testimony as evidence of God.

Why is it unfair to use eyewitness testimony from believers who have had explainable spiritual experiences?

Do these people assume any Christian with testimony of the supernatural, is simply either deluded or liars? I see a lot of scientific discussion going on here... i see science used to try to knock the bible down, but when it is used to verify the bible you also cry foul...

What do we have then? We have a courtroom where eyewitness testimony is disregarded and even not allowed... we have a lab that slants it's experiments in that it refuses to examine statements in scripture that science can actually verify.

So... Why do you reject personal testimony, and why do you tell Christians they cannot "theorize" in regards to scripture and then go on to verify or falsify their theory through science? To me this seems more like an unreasonable fearful knee-jerk reaction than anything resembling objective science or blind justice.

Eyewitness... or personal testimony is a very powerful thing that is used to send men and women to prison or it is used to clear them of guilt. It should also certainly hold weight when considering "God". In a lab it is called "observation". So how can anyone say they are honestly testing the veracity of religion, when at the very same time they are disallowing ALL the evidence to be both presented and acknowledged?

Does observation, science, and objectivity belong to everything BUT religion? Or do you agree that to not allow these things is obvious bias?

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[jmiller61193]

I feel like no one should be mentioning dark matter or dark energy to support anything in this argument. Even the scientists who study it don't really understand it, so anyone on here surely doesn't understand it.

As for the OP, the reason atheists don't trust eye witness testimony is because it is pretty much the most unreliable source of information when it comes to real science.

Just because someone says they saw God or God spoke to them does not give them credibility.

This is not to say that they didn't have an experience but it is not evidence of God.

1/100 or 1% of people are schizophrenic. Think about that. How likely is it that a lot of these people who see God are schizos who are misinterpreting what is happening to them.

Or people who do hallucinogens and think that what is happening to them implies there is a spiritual world. In both these cases it is simply your brain 'failing' to do what it is suppose to do.

Again, this is not to say that they are not actually experiencing it. It is happening to them physically in their head. It is just not evidence of a God somewhere outside the universe.

Also you do not need drugs to experience hallucinations. If you are dehydrated or starving, in the wilderness, in intense heat, many things can cause you to see or hear something that is not there. It is funny how people mentioned in the Bible were subject to one or all of these.

Picture a prophet sitting in a cave for weeks, or Moses wandering in the desert. Not unlikely that they may have had an experience similar to what I mentioned above.

So yes, personal testimonies can be honest and truthful. They just don't have serious merit because they person usually misinterprets what has happened to them, and they can not repeat the circumstances.

[Clownboat]

[Replying to post 1 by Wolfbitn]

A lot of broad generalizations here. The first and most obvious question is, "What kind of testimony?"

Are we to take ALL personal-experience testimony seriously? We had a member HERE, just last week, who claimed, in all seriousness and sincerity, that God spoke to him personally -- or, perhaps more accurately, that he himself was the voice of God; that God spoke directly through him, that he had "an infinite amount of knowledge," was "the last saint," was the only man on Earth who understood the Bible or God, and further, that he knew all the details of our future and of the Next World as well. None of this, by the way, had anything whatever to do with the teachings of ANY religion of which I have ever heard.

Shall we all take those claims seriously? (If the answer isn't totally obvious, we have nothing to talk about.)

I saw that yes. You are correct that things like this bring ridicule on religion. Now we obviously have however, had supernatural occurrences within the history of our religions. Also just because someone claims miraculous occurrences, we cannot just simply write this off. I myself am alive today, only because of a few actual miracles I have seen in my life. I wont go into them here, they are deeply personal, and I wouldnt have these occurrences mocked here. I certainly can say though that things happen.

We also have testimony of answered prayer. We have testimony of healings. We have testimony of unexplained phenomena that may have worked to protect or ave someone's life.

I do know I could go on for hours discussing just the prayers I have seen answered in such strange and miraculous ways.

If not, where shall we draw the line? Who draws it? By what standards are "paranormal" experiences to be judged?

I would say that if one seems otherwise rational, productive, positive, etc, then we should obviously consider what they have to say. Remember that it is likely that nearly the entire world would believe that God interacts with people in one measure or another. This makes the view the EXCEEDINGLY prominent view in the world, so why should the average person's testimony not carry weight?

I have had at least one; and as I have said, it was probative only to me. I would not expect anyone else to accept it as "evidence" for anything, and have never claimed it to be such. If something happens to oneself, one certainly has the right to accept that in whatever way one chooses; but to expect someone ELSE to do so -- well, there's a good place to draw that line, if you like.

I agree we should not "force" anyone to believe us. But at the same time, I believe to be fair and give an honest critique, the non religious should realize that most of the world can give some sort of testimony of these sorts of experiences you and I are talking about. It is entirely unfair to view nearly the entire world as uneducated backward superstitious and etc. I feel the non religious would do themselves a better service by acknowledging that the entire world is not insane... at least not yet

As a matter of legal fact, it has been well known for some decades now that "eyewitness testimony" is the LEAST reliable kind in criminal trials. "Hard evidence" -- forensic evidence, physical traces, fingerprints, DNA, photographic, medical, chemical, or other incontrovertible evidence, independent of any individual person's impressions or memories -- THOSE can be trusted. Consider the huge number of men, found guilty and sentenced to death here in Texas alone, who have been exonerated by DNA evidence since. No, "eyewitness" testimony is NOT reliable, not even in mundane matters.

And yet, people go to prison every day because of eyewitness testimony. It has weight in court... also we consider "observation" in any lab... very reputable people are observed to have these experiences. This cannot fairly just be written off I dont believe.

In the 70s, I personally knew a girl who SWORE, sincerely and without a scintilla of doubt, that she herself had seen Jim Morrison (lead singer of the Doors, for the young'uns here) -- in person, at arm's length, some three weeks AFTER his death. It was probably no coincidence that she was a HUGE fan, and had been devastated by his death. So are we to conclude that Jim rose from the dead? I think not. And that was someone I personally knew, and whose testimony I have no doubt was wholly sincere and, in her mind, wholly truthful.

Even so, I'm not buying it.

There's no "conspiracy" here to deny good evidence. The problem is that it's not often really "good evidence."

Oh, yeah: and I'm not an atheist....

I think this is often subjective. For instance an atheist may bias himself simply because he is atheist. It may not even be an intentional or a malicious dishonest thing at all. I think when we just completely rule out the super natural we are being unwise, because the universe is obviously bigger than our finest mathematicians.

From post #2 - Master Spade

The same reason that YOU don't acknowledge personal testimony of people of OTHER religions!

When you someone say they speak with Allah, do YOU believe them? If yes, then why are you not a worshiper of Allah?
If no, then why make this thread?

How about if someone tells you they were "Saved" in an accident or shooting by god himself, Hanuman? Will you then believe in that deity?


I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.