Atheists, have you ever experienced something that made you reconsider, even if only for a moment?

Question

I am just curious. Obviously, if you know me, you know I am not trying to convert anyone. I am a borderline atheist myself. :o) I am just wondering if anything has ever happened to you that doesn't support your usual atheistic reasoning. Maybe some weird incident that doesn't really have an explanation? Maybe a weird feeling? A ghost sighting? hehe.. you get the idea.

Let's hear it..

Answer 1

I've seen plenty of things that I can't explain.

I'm not so arrogant as to believe that makes those things inexplicable.

Answer 2

Nothing has ever made me reconsider my opinion that there's no God. And that position is regularly reinforced by the hypocritical behavior of many Christians and their complete inability to logically support their belief.
That being said, I do think that there are plenty of things in life that one could define as spiritual. Using your example, I do tend to think there are ghosts as I've seen, heard and read compelling evidence from credible people. But the existence of ghosts in no way necessitates the existence of God. In fact, scripture doesn't allow for such a phenomenon, so one could take that as further evidence against the legitimacy of religion.

Answer 3

Not since I deconverted.

Once I realized the superstition for what it was, everything else I experienced fell into place. There are many things that happen for which I don't know the cause, because I don't know everything about everything. But I don't now just jump the conclusion that it must be some kind of "supernatural" phenomenon. And I haven't heard any stories that even come close to being convincing. I can always come up with half a dozen better possibilities for something than the fanciful conclusion.

Answer 4

I have a houseplant that comes from a cutting made from a rubber plant which grew on the side of my great parents home in Sicily. When they immigrated here, 100 years ago, my great grandmother hid a clipping of the plant and snuck through Ellis Island with it. Every one of her decendents has a cutting from it. It produces a beautiful and extremely sweet smelling flower but very rarely blooms. I've had mine for 25 years and it has never bloomed.

This summer my wife was suddenly hospitalized with a very serious illness. It was very frightening but she got over it. On the day she came home from the hospital I noticed that for the first time in 25 years, my plant had two blossoms on it!

I somehow thought that this was a sign to from my deceased grandmother telling me that everything was going to be alright. She was very religious and often had visions of deceased relatives and often had premonitions of people dying or of sick family members recovering. I really thought that she was now sending me a signal from beyond the grave.

As things settled down and I thought about it more and more and realized that coincidences happened. The plant bloomed at a particular time and it made me feel good because it reminded me of strong family ties that had gotten me through tough times in the past. It reminded me that no matter what happened to me, I would always have the love and support of family and friends. And that support for my wife was going to be crucial in helping her get through her crisis.

Since then, two more sets of blooms have been produced and I realize that it takes several weeks for them to get to the state they were in when I first noticed them. So they were starting to bloom before my wife got ill but I didn't notice them.

Why did I associate the flowers with my wife's recovery and not with her getting sick in the first place?

It was just a matter of timing and my own obliviousness. And also my own mindset towards the importance of family and the significance of that house plant. No miracles. Just mind.

Things just happen and our imaginations put meaning to them. We create our own miracles and curses out of random events. We have very powerful minds.

Answer 5

I just lost someone very close to me.

As I stayed with his dead body in the hospital, I was overcome with sadness and loss, and felt that that was absolutely it. That's all he gets. We've had him cremated, and now we have a box of ashes. That's all that's left.

It would be all storybook to imagine him up floating someplace peacefully, meeting loved ones from his past. I dare say that's not the case, any more than it is for my past pets.

Answer 6

I've had instances of prayers seemingly being answered, one or two, in an incredible way. But then I remember that at that time, I was praying several times a day, and while 99 "misses" are easily forgotten, 1 "hit" stays in the mind.

Answer 7

You seem to having complication defining hallucinations. as quickly as you have honestly hallucinated, you comprehend............... the 1st time I hallucinated employing a efficient entheogen, i began out to question each and every thing no longer basically an afterlife. That first trip even have been given me over any concern of hallucinating. The hallucinations I had going into and out of my ten day coma have been astounding and unique, no ask your self people affiliate NDE's with unknowns like loss of existence.

Answer 8

Yeah my dad is dead and my uncle makes music right. On my dad's birthday I'm just playing video gams in the basement and all the sudden my ipod turns on full volume playing my uncle's song. I was freaked out and tolld everybody, but the net night it did it again and I realized that it was just the Ipod's alarm.

Answer 9

Every time someone refers to the aesthetically challenged Nolte as "attractive", I have to wonder if there really is a God. That, or whether the person paying the compliment is heavily medicated.

Answer 10

When I see how low in the polls Bush is I do start to surmise there could be a higher,beneficial power at work here....