Can one "receive a revelation from God" and yet still not believe in such a thing?

Question

Lots of christians seem to have come about or been that way because they have these brief moments of extremely religious experience (that the rest of us would probably chalk down to brain-malfunction or hard drugs)....
..... And furthermore, I have noticed quite a few around here comment that those of us who still don't believe in a god are only that way because we haven't had one of these religious experiences....

So..... do we have any evidence to the contrary?
I mean to say... do we have people who have had such a thing somehow and yet do not believe in any god?

djmantx :~ And therein lies the very root of the problem.... doesn't it?

If you're basically saying that accepting god is THE prerequisite for believing in god, you're running into a serious problem.... because believing in god is also the prerequisite for accepting god. Thus if they both require each other then neither is technically possible.

To have as necessity that one be biased toward something in the first place in order to witness it is fallacy, as subjective bias is only capable of leading one further from objectivity.

Answer 1

You cannot receive a revelation from God.
You can only experience things you don't understand and might instead mistake to be some sort of divine intervention.

So if you don't believe it to be divine intervention at all, then there is no problem, is there?

Answer 2

A Simple Question Is Why Don't You Believe?
Are You Someone Who Thinks All Those Who Do Believe Must Be Off Their Heads Or Something.
I Don't Have To Have Stuck My Fingers In A Gaping Wound To Believe In A Risen Lord!
I'm A Scientist With A Very Open Mind. I Used To Question Everything And Look For Another Explanation But I Could Never Shake The Feeling And Belief That There Is More To Life Than Mathematical Equations And Scientific Theories. I'm Now An Adherent With The Salvation Army And A Street Angel Ministering To Those Who Need Help In My Community.

Answer 3

Good question: If God gives you a revelation he is going to make sure you get the point, and if you didn't believe in him before he will make sure you believe in him afterwards.
A good example of that is the Apostle Paul and the way Christ got his point across to Paul.
Paul was a Christian hater and Chirstian hunter. His job was to hunt down Christians so they could be executed.
Borrow someone's Bible and read about how Chirst give Paul a revelation. Even if you don't believe it is good interesting reading.

Answer 4

I'm not sure I understand how someone could personally experience God, and think that they were instead mentally ill or under the influence. I'll resist the temptation to engage in easy ad hominem, and just say that every body has their own path to walk in this world, and some places you go don't provide brochures and guides beyond what you had when you first got here.

Answer 5

I suppose if you believe that someone has in the past not believed, then had a revelation and came to believe it stands to reason that there were some other people who didn't come to believe after revelation. Also stands to reason you wouldn't hear much about it, since they didn't come to believe they probably wouldn't go round discussing it and if they did they probably didn't lend the experience to a revelation from god so it wouldn't track.

Answer 6

I've had one experience which was extremely spiritual as well as religious, yet I'm not sure what to believe as far as a higher power. My mother is a Christian, my father a Muslim. I'd rather both of them be wrong, than one right and the other not.

Answer 7

Absolutely.

People visited by dead relatives. (Imagination)
Near death experiences when the soul leaves the body. (Brain hallucinations)
Experiencing sensations that spirits are watching you. (Electric magnetic radiation)

I think it is irrelevant as to whether a person believes in God to have these mysterious experiences. What is relevant is that these experiences are not religious after all, but are as you stated brain malfunctions.

Answer 8

it is less uncommon than you'd think(that is, it happens more often than one would think) for people to have experiences which are not rationally explainable other than being a metaphysical or other scientifically unprovable and inexplicable thing, and still deny it.

for example, people seeing ghosts... and admitting they do, yet denying belief in them.

it doesn't sound very sensical, but it does happen.

others, have a similar thing, but to avoid the mental discontinuity, simply attach the experience to something that is more "rational" even if, in some cases, that "more rational" explanation is infinitely more circuitous and bizzare than simply accepting "its a ghost" .

Answer 9

Knowledge about anything can be obtained by historical evidence, experience, experiment and reason. But we also achieve some knowledge from other sources, which is only through believe or faith. It may be in the form of intuition, speculation, inference, superstition, dream or through deep intensive meditations.

Answer 10

Pagans did the same thing with jupiter and sacrificial virgins were believed in before that with the same fervor as the so called religious experiences of this day .. so go figure I want more than that before I have to go burning witches in the name of religion. What's wrong with common sense ?