What is an "Ex Believer", anyway?

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I maintain that those who used to believe in God never actually experienced meeting Him. If they had, they would know it!

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How would I know it?

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My point is that once you meet someone, you can never deny their reality.

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But what if someone told me they met Elvis last week?

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What if you experienced what I claim to have experienced. Would you stick to your rational mind and attempt every way to explain your experience within a empiracal framework?
In other words, do you refuse to consider belief because it is uncomfortable, impossible, or merely threatening to your own sense of control over what you allow to influence you?

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How do I tell the difference between talking with God and talking with myself?How do I tell the difference between feelings I get from a divine presence and similar feelings I self induce?(remember, people have had deep religious experiences induced by a neuroscientist tweaking a certain part of their brain while they were undergoing brain surgery)How do YOU know that the feelings you are getting aren't from Krishna or Thor, amused that you keep praying to a different god but going ahead and communing with you anyway?

Phat, do you want to know what it is like for the ex-believer?Here's what it's like, and you yourself probably know exactly what it's like.Remember when you were a child and believed wholeheartedly in the existence of Santa Claus?Now that you are an adult you don't believe in Santa Claus anymore, right?Would you say that you never really believed in Santa Claus as a child, or would that be inaccurate?

I have a friend who has a bumper sticker that says;"Militant Agnostic: I don't know and you don't either".It's conversations like this one with Phat that confirm my Agnosticism more and more.

I still think my example is very simple and very apt.I can give you a perfect case of what ex-belief is like.Remember when you were a child and used to believe in Danta Claus with all of your heart?I do. I even remember trying really hard to stay awake to listen for the reindeer hoofs stomping on the roof.Now that you are an adult, you don't believe in Santa anymore.That's what it's like to be an ex-believer.Now, would you now say that you never really "actually, truly" believed in Santa?

[quote]Meeting God was as real as meeting you...I know how neither of you appear, and yet I could never deny that there was an online female known as Schraff.Huh.Well, then can you get God to start posting here?Or maybe just get him to post a jpg of Himself in the thread where my picture is.

Hear what?