I’m sure this thread has been made hundreds of times, but I’d like to be able to respond without reading 40 pages of previous posts.
Personal experiences. I’ve had heaps of spiritual experiences including my own father turning up in my room the night he died, three “double whammies” (like a breath going through you in waves from head to foot, each time highlighting a Bible text, a reference to St. Paul and one to CS Lewis), any number of demonic counterfeits and also obvious demonic “scare tactics”, a spiritual push to become Christian and later another one to become Catholic, a very unpleasant feeling that I was going to disintegrate when I got a bit too pally with God, etc.
The first double whammy occurred when I was in a negative frame of mind as a new Christian, and wondering “How do I know all this (Christianity) is true, and not just a psychological prop?”. I also point out that the three “double whammies” took place at least a year apart, and in that time in spatial terms we move billions, probably trillions of miles throught space. ** Yet He still knew where to find me, and how to contact me specifically without anybody else knowing.**
And of course a nagging conscience when I sin, eapecially when the sins didn’t bother me before I became a Christian.
I also had a wise old pastor who was prophetic, so much so that he could only have been told the future events by God eg. “I think you’ll be doing a cleaning job for a while. You won’t like it much, and you wont’ be doing it for long, but I think the Lord will just want you to hear about a ghost.”
He would have said that around 1991, as he died in 1992. In 2006 I did a cleaning job for about four months, didn’t like it much, and heard about a ghost (a former manager who’d committed suicide, for whom I eventually got a mass said.).
So there are a number of reasons I believe in God. Despite that, I don’t always like Him, I think He’s pretty tough, and can be quite unfair. I also realise I am not what might be called a sinless Christian, having my own failings.
I also believe He’s the Christian God, since all these things occurred as a Christian with the exception of my father appearing in my room, when I was an atheist. And even he confirmed the reality when he admtted “I (ie. my father) served the devil. You do too, but you’ll become a Christian.” He died in January 1979, and at that time I was not living an exemplary life. I became a Christian nearly 4 years later around October 1982.
And a Catholic around 1996 or 1997, something my old pastor also predicted.
I’ve got my reasons. Atheists are so far off the beam it’s not funny. But I have to admit that I was once an atheist myself. What this tells me is that mere logic will not change an atheist’s mind. It requires the direct (name removed by moderator)ut of the Holy Spirit. As St. Paul put it,
For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.
We need to bear in mind that when an atheist rebels, it’s God’s responsibility in one way. He the One who set it up that way.
