Debate me one on one

[Swami]

My view is that argumentation convinces very few and that is because debate tends to be about "ego" instead of truth.

There are many documented cases of atheists converting to theism after a religious experience, like NDEs (Dr. Eben Alexander? I have others cases also!). So why do atheists, especially the ones who have never experienced, doubt me on this?

I challenge anyone to debate me on this issue. One on one. Head to head section. The topic..

Can a religious or extraordinary experience convince an atheist to become spiritual, religious, or a theist? I will argue the affirmative.

[benchwarmer]

My view is that argumentation convinces very few and that is because debate tends to be about "ego" instead of truth.

There are many documented cases of atheists converting to theism after a religious experience, like NDEs (Dr. Eben Alexander? I have others cases also!). So why do atheists, especially the ones who have never experienced, doubt me on this?

I challenge anyone to debate me on this issue. One on one. Head to head section. The topic..

Can a religious or extraordinary experience convince an atheist to become spiritual, religious, or a theist? I will argue the affirmative.

I'm not sure what the point of the debate would be. Everyone starts life as an atheist i.e. with no beliefs in gods. Every single theist became a theist because of an experience or acceptance of other peoples experiences.

Before anyone jumps on this, I'm talking about a conscious expression of belief. In other words, we can't express a belief in a god if we don't have any clue what a god even is and this is learned through language acquisition etc. I'm not talking about any theories of innate connections to the mother of all creation or such things.

This is like debating whether people who don't know about the actual existence of chocolate become chocolate lovers after tasting chocolate. Well no kidding!

[Divine Insight]

Can a religious or extraordinary experience convince an atheist to become spiritual, religious, or a theist? I will argue the affirmative.

Who would argue against that?

More importantly why would you think that the behavior of individuals would be evidence for anything?

How many devote Christians have converted to Islam? Plenty. Does this then mean that Islam has more credibility than Christianity?

How many Abrahamic theists have converted to Buddhism? Plenty. Does this mean that Buddhism is true and the Abrahamic religions are false?

How many Christians have converted to Wiccans? Plenty. So what?

How many Christians have converted to Atheism? Plenty.

People change their views on things all the time.

Moreover, what about the atheists who had an experience, became theists, and then later realized that they had apparently made a bad mistake based on poor reasoning and unwarranted emotions and returned to being atheists again?

The question isn't whether people are sometimes convinced in an emotional moment to convert to a specific theology. We know that happens. There's nothing to debate there. The real question is how well does it stick overall?

Apparently not very well.

We don't see one-way conversions to any specific religion or worldview. People are changing their minds all the time. Sure, some individuals stick with their individual choices. But that doesn't help the overall picture because this happens in all religions and worldviews.

So there's no evidence pointing in one specific direction.

Look at Mother Teresa, a life-long theist only to become an atheist near the end of her life. So much for the credibility of becoming a theist.

[Willum]

[Replying to post 1 by Swami]

I think, and this is supported by science, that NDE are simply the brain re-booting itself.
The experience is something like a dream, with endorphins involved providing a positive experience...
Some people experience nothing.

[Divine Insight]

Dr. Eben Alexander?

The claims of Dr. Alexander have been covered in quite some detail. Other neuroscientists are not in agreement with Dr. Alexander's arguments.

To being with Dr. Alexander isn't arguing that he has has such a profound religious experience that it cannot be denied. Instead he's trying to make a purely scientific argument that it could not be scientifically possible for his brain to have functioned during the time he had his dreams. But there are huge problems with that argument.

To begin with other neuroscientists are not in agreement with Dr. Alexander's claim that the brain could not have had these experiences during this time. So now we're down to just a difference of opinions between people knowledgeable in the field.

Secondly, and far more importantly from my perspective, Dr. Alexander cannot say precisely when he had these dreams. He claims that he had them when his brain was supposedly totally out of commission. But the problem is that he eventually recovered and apparently his brain was ultimately damaged as much as he had thought, otherwise he wouldn't have fully recovered.

Also, there is absolutely no way that he could possibly know if he had these dreams in the recovery room right before waking up and talking with people. If that's the case then his claim that his brain could not have created these dreams simply doesn't work.

So his claims are not that he simply had such a profound religious experience that it cannot be denied. Instead he's trying to make a physical argument that his brain was incapable of having these dreams. That's his argument.

So his argument doesn't hold water. Nor does it support you claim that his religious experience was simply too profound to ignore. His entire argument appears to be based on his assumption that his physical brain simply couldn't have caused these visions. But that argument doesn't hold water.

So his story simply isn't compelling. He's simply jumping to unwarranted conclusions and refuses to acknowledge that his reasoning doesn't stand up to fair scrutiny. It's highly unlikely that he'll ever change his tune now that he's been recognized for this and is making huge profits from it. Better off standing his ground at this point, if only from a fame and financial perspective. He has nothing to gain by acknowledging that his conclusions were wrong, and everything to gain from claiming that he can't be wrong. So he'll most likely maintain his position to his grave. Even though his very own colleagues aren't buying his arguments.