Yesterday I had a conversation with a family member (I'll call him Tom here) who was trying to persuade me that my disbelief in the Christian god is mistaken. "Tom" offered three stories from his life that have convinced him that his belief that Jesus is god and the Bible is true.
1. He had a vivid vision of a church that he encountered some time later and eventually attended a service where he feels the Christian god introduced him to his future wife and proper doctrine (because it was a Pentecostal church and up till that time, he was Baptist).
2. When another person revealed to Tom that he did not believe the Bible was the perfect inspired word of the one true god, Tom told that person something like "If I ever came to believe that there was no god, there would be nothing to live for [mimed putting a gun to his head and pulled the trigger]." The next day, that person's good friend committed suicide. "The odds are too great for this to be a coincidence."
3. Tom's daughter's engagement ring went missing when they were visiting the zoo together with Tom, his daughter, and her new husband. They prayed, and while they were searching, a mentally handicapped person spotted the ring somewhere in the grass near the walking path.
So, are these good reasons to believe that the Christian god is real? I would say no, certainly not. Each of these taken individually offer nothing extraordinary. Psychology offers an explanation for the first instance. Memories are malleable. We unconsciously change the arrangements and details and even substantive core features of our memories. We are not good judges of our own memory. It is possible that Tom had a dream or vision of some kind that had some resemblance to the church building. Here is a link to a good video that demonstrates this phenomenon.
When Tom stumbled on the church he thinks was the one from his vision, perhaps he had seen it before, perhaps it was a close enough resemblance to give him the sensation that it was the exact one from his vision and his brain altered the memory from the vision after the fact to fit the real church. He didn't sit down and draw out a blueprint of the building or paint a picture of the church after he had the vision. Why doesn't Yahweh give all Baptists visions or messages that guide them to Pentecostal churches? If the Christian god wanted him to go there, why give him a vision that we can't validate? Why not just beam Tom to the church? Yahweh could make an appearance there himself and announce that he wanted Tom to be there. Instead, Yahweh gave him a vision... maybe. Tom would be annoyed at this characterization and say "It was clear as a bell. No mistaking it." Again, psychology tells us that most often when people are the most confident that they could not be mistaken about a recollection, they are more likely to be mistaken about it. People are also biased and misrepresent things when something important is tied to a memory and they believe the memory validates some important facet of their life or identity. Tom's identity is closely tied to his belief that the Christian god is real and involved in his life. This memory validates that belief and Tom's identity. Each time he recounts the event, I suspect his memory becomes clearer and the vision becomes more vivid in his mind.
When Tom stumbled on the church he thinks was the one from his vision, perhaps he had seen it before, perhaps it was a close enough resemblance to give him the sensation that it was the exact one from his vision and his brain altered the memory from the vision after the fact to fit the real church. He didn't sit down and draw out a blueprint of the building or paint a picture of the church after he had the vision. Why doesn't Yahweh give all Baptists visions or messages that guide them to Pentecostal churches? If the Christian god wanted him to go there, why give him a vision that we can't validate? Why not just beam Tom to the church? Yahweh could make an appearance there himself and announce that he wanted Tom to be there. Instead, Yahweh gave him a vision... maybe. Tom would be annoyed at this characterization and say "It was clear as a bell. No mistaking it." Again, psychology tells us that most often when people are the most confident that they could not be mistaken about a recollection, they are more likely to be mistaken about it. People are also biased and misrepresent things when something important is tied to a memory and they believe the memory validates some important facet of their life or identity. Tom's identity is closely tied to his belief that the Christian god is real and involved in his life. This memory validates that belief and Tom's identity. Each time he recounts the event, I suspect his memory becomes clearer and the vision becomes more vivid in his mind.
In the second example Tom gave, talking about suicide just before a suicide occurred, Tom suggests that he has never talked about suicide like the second account before. I have serious doubts about that claim. I have known Tom for years. He doesn't often talk about suicide, but it's the kind of thing he would say in that situation. It didn't surprise me at all to hear that he said something like that. And if I were Tom and had said something like that, I would be embarrassed and horrified that I had said something so insensitive and absurd just before the person I said them to suffered a tragic loss of his friend in that same way. Putting all of that aside, how does this establish the existence of the Christian god? Tom argued that it could not be a coincidence. Why not? And if it wasn't a coincidence and there was purpose, what was the purpose? Did Yahweh have this person's friend kill himself to teach him that the Bible is right? This seems rather callus. What was the point?
The third example Tom related to me was likely the weakest. People lose things and find things of value every day going back for as long as people have owned things of value. Was this answered prayer? I don't see why anyone would think that. And if this counts as proof of the existence of Yahweh/Jesus, does it count as evidence against the existence of that god when they pray and the thing they prayed would happen does not come true? Do prayers offered by people who believe in other gods that come true count as evidence that those gods exist? This point brings me to the final point.
I asked Tom the following question. If I had a Muslim or Hindu friend who had 3 similar personal stories that he believed served as evidence that his god was real, would Tom accept that as evidence that those gods were real? Tom shuffled and said he didn't like hypotheticals. Well, this was a dodge. It's also funny because the whole concept of probability to which Tom appealed multiple times in the conversation is all about hypotheticals. Given the same events occurred any number of times, how often might this given outcome be expected? That's what odds are. Tom said he didn't have to answer my question. He's right that he doesn't have to answer my question, but his refusal to answer is an answer. Tom would not accept the same evidence he offered for the existence of his god as evidence for the existence of other gods. He is using bad evidence to support a belief he wants to be true.
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