all religions (and atheists) what do you think of this?

Question

A two-year-old boy was once staring at a heater, fascinated by its bright orange glow. His father saw him and warned, "Don’t touch that heater, son. It may look pretty, but it’s hot." The little boy believed him, and moved away from the heater. Some time later, after his father had left the room, the boy thought, "I wonder if it really is hot." He then reached out to touch it and see for himself. The second his flesh burned, he stopped believing it was hot; he now knew it was hot! He had moved out of the realm of belief into the realm of experience.

Christians believed in God’s existence before their conversion. However, when they obeyed the Word of God, turned from their sins, and embraced Jesus Christ, they stopped merely believing. The moment they reached out and touched the heater bar of God’s mercy, they moved out of belief into the realm of experience. This experience is so radical, Jesus referred to it as being "born again." The Bible says that those who don’t know God are spiritually dead (Ephesians 2:1; 4:18). We are born with physical life, but not spiritual life. Picture unbelievers as corpses walking around who, by repenting and placing their faith in Christ, receive His very life. There is a radical difference between a corpse and a living, breathing human, just as there is when sinners pass from spiritual death to life. The apostle Paul said if you are "in Christ," you are a brand new creature (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Those who now have God’s Spirit living in them will love what He loves and desire to do His will; they will have a hunger for His Word, a love for other believers, and a burden for the lost. The Holy Spirit also confirms in their spirit that they are now children of God (Romans 8:16). Those who believe on the name of the Son of God can know that they have eternal life (1 John 5:12,13).

Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, "My speech and my preaching were not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God" (1 Corinthians 2:4,5). What Paul was saying was, "I deliberately didn’t talk you into your faith, but I let God’s power transform you." He didn’t reach them through an intellectual assent, but through the realm of personal experience.

Suppose two people—a heater manufacturer and a skin specialist—walked into the room just after that child had burned his hand on the heater. Both assured the boy that he couldn’t possibly have been burned. But all the experts, theories, and arguments in the world will not dissuade that boy, because of his experience. Those who have been transformed by God’s power need never fear scientific or other arguments, because the man with an experience is not at the mercy of a man with an argument. "For our gospel came not to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance . . ." (1 Thessalonians 1:5).

Answer 1

finaly someone in this section is making sence.

o and to all you atheists when ur on ur death bed you wont be an atheist i can guarentee that. dont believe me? ask darwin he rejected his religion (evolution) on his deathbed

Answer 2

Well, it's basically drivel.

I am right in the middle of writing an invited book chapter on this very topic, though. The focus is on how people use their personal experiences to argue for false beliefs. This is extremely common, and it's a major problem for critical thinking education, as people wrongly assume that "I personally experienced it!" trumps any real evidence.

In reality, arguments from personal experience are almost always nothing more than question-begging.
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Wow. Zarathustra gave you a really great answer. I'm a bit surprised there's someone here who knows about "justified true belief", and even more surprised that he knows about the "Gettier problem". Congratulations, Z.

Answer 3

One does not need experinece to know something. The epistomolgical definition of knowledge is justified, true, belief ( minus the Gettier problem) . X is true, you believe that it is true, and you are justified in believing it is true.
In the example given the fact that the heater was hot is true, the child was justified in believing it was true ( unless he had reason to think his father untruthful), yet he apparently failed to believe it was true ( or perhaps he didn't believe he could be hurt, there are other possibilities) .
The problem with believing in God this way is the issue of Faith. Faith is believing something without justificaiton. It may be true ( who knows) you may believe it is true, But you do not have justificaiton to believe it is true.
If you are correct, you have a true faith, despite lack of justification. Faith is the heart of Christianity. It seems that you are argueing that some experience you have in your conversion justifies you in believing it is true. Hence you are faithless.

Answer 4

It still sounds like nothing but delusion to me. "Touching God's heater bar" has nothing to do with ACTUAL experience, the way that touching the REAL heating bar on a space heater is. In fact, one of atheists biggest concerns about religion is that it seems that believers sometimes can't tell the difference between reality and illusion. God's space heater" is imaginary, and what you "feel" is in your head.

Answer 5

If you had left out the '[and atheists]', they couldn't have been justified in giving so many negative responses. You KNOW they would have looked, but if they're not invited to answer, they have no business here.
That said, your analogy falls apart with the experts. No reasonable skin specialist can look at a 3rd degree burn and say there was nothing wrong. And for the heater specialist to say that would be actionably irresponsible.

Answer 6

you analogy doesn't work because a burn is a physical transformation that occurs on a persons skin, one that damages skin cells and alters local skin chemistry, while the type of transformation you describe about Jesus is purely spiritual and exists only in the mind. there is proof for the physical change and no outsider could ever observe the type of transformation you describe towards belief in Jesus.

Answer 7

How likely is it that the entire universe, complete with stars and galaxies and planets and countless millions of species of life on Earth, could just exist spontanously, fully formed, from nothing, from nowhere? Clearly, such an idea is a nonsense - it's inconceivably improbable. Nevertheless, some people want us to believe that something infinitely more improbable still - an intelligent entity capable of designing and creating such a universe - does indeed just exist fully formed, from nothing, from nowhere. This is so obviously, jaw-droppingly ridiculous that it's scarcely credible that anyone would admit to believing it, even for a moment. The whole idea of a god existing is simply barmy.

Answer 8

And yet, there are some who believed, walked it and lived it and then realized the heater was broken and never worked in the first place.
They woke up and realized they could go elsewhere for warmth and found peace and happiness without living in a delusion. AMAZING!

Answer 9

There was a gas leak in their furnace, and they imagined the heater. It never existed.

I could just as easily use the heater story to prove the existence of the tooth fairy.

Answer 10

If all the specialists said he didn't burn his hand he must have touched something so cold it felt like a heating sensation. Like a Popsicle so cold your mouth attaches to it and it burns!

Answer 11

Just imagine what the world would be like if all the brain power that went into thinking up crappy little analogies like this was used doing something useful.

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