How does one come to believe something?

[Arsenios]

Encountering God WITHIN you is a first-hand encounter...

No it isn't.

My Dear - It IS so by definition, because it ONLY happens WITHIN you...

That is the quintessential ostensive definition of FIRST-HAND experience...

If you have no way to test it, you have no way to tell what really causes it.

I agree, and YOU have NO WAY to test it...

Quid, Erat, Splat!

No. You can also create something yourself that you believe is an encounter with God.

Yup - You can do the same with love... And end up married... Then divorced...

Happens all the time...

If that is the criteria for determining what is real, then the people in Heaven's Gate really did go for a ride on a comet.

What is real is that they castrated themselves and committed suicide...

You are only presenting something that you claim is first hand evidence because you can't believe it is anything else.

There is other evidence, but a personal encounter with God is just that: Personal... The evidence will be found externally in a revised life that proceeds from that encounter...

I think you mean TESTABLE. If we can't test it, how do we know it is accurate?

You have to have the encounter to know...
Until you do, you cannot know...
You can only believe or not...

No, they have evidence, not faith. EVIDENCE.

I have no faith...

Do not try to claim that a scientist accepting evolution as real is on the same level as a believer thinking God is real.

Show me just ONE example of an acquired physical characteristic being genetically passed on...

Have you read Koestler's "The Case of the Mid-Wife Toad"? It addresses this issue, and the one time that it seemed to have happened, and what the actual evidence was - K. was a Soviet Atheist, btw... An Apparatchik..

You don't actually know much (or anything) about evolution, do you?

Not as much as Arthur Koestler...

The mechanism behind evolution is understood. There's no such thing as a "higher" species. Every claimed example of intelligent design has been shown to be perfectly explainable by evolution.

We used to explain everything by material development... The mechanism is NOT understood, irreligious of its higher theoretical accountings...

And only one side with actual evidence.

Billiard BALLS I say!!

REAL evidence!!

No. One side relying on testable and repeatable evidence from reality, the other side relying on gut instinct and emotional conclusions that are different for each person.

You are but defining your own limits...

Funny how there are so many different sects of believers, though, isn't it? Almost like there was only a subjective God, not an objective one.

Well, we ARE behind enemy lines and we ARE conducting operations...
So there ARE going to be counter-offensives...

Only if you put testable evidence on the same level as untestable feelings.

I share your scorn for untestable feelings...

And secondly, argument from popularity is not going to convince me, or anyone else with a degree of rationality.

Widen your perception: It is not popularity, but historical pervasiveness that is being proffered...

Science relies on social verification? What in the world do you mean by this?

It is a fallacious doctrine - Social Metaphysics - Groups assemble themselves and proclaim and enforce their version of truth... The Roman Catholic Church did it in the west... Gallileo can attest... Environmentalists do it now... So do evolutionists... Enforcement is less painful than burning at the stake, but more pernicious and pervasive...

Science relies on evidence.

Evidence of SELF?

And yet, you have never provided any argument for God EXCEPT non-material stuff.

Yes, God is NOT material, so what evidence would you prefer?

This does not help your argument. You seem to be claiming that there is no objective God, only a subjective God, which is exactly what we would expect if God was a gut feeling.

That is your limitation of understanding. God is not an OBJECT, so encountering Him will not be an objectively provable event... No video-cams...

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

Well lets see what others think.

OK - But I never have had much success in other people's thoughts...
I don't do all that well, to be truthful, with my own...

Arsenios

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Did you remember that memory is pretty unreliable?
Or did you have to write it down somewhere?
Or did you look it up on the internet?
Or did your neighbor remind you?

Lol, very droll...

Yes, I was pretty surprised when I learned about memory. But it only needs to be 'good enough', and for most of human evolution it wasn't a particularly rigorous requirement; and where it was important to remember complex information, a narrative could be associated - we're pretty good at narrative recall, pretty bad at autobiographical and episodic memory. Episodic memories aren't stored like videotape, but as a few items of information and perhaps an image or two, with a number of associations to other items. Recall is a process of plausible reconstruction, and changes or embellishments are common. Even those 'flashbulb' memories of shocking events where everyone remembers where they were, what they were doing, and how they felt, are unreliable - the day after 9/11 psychologists asked such questions of people, then asked them again after a couple of days, then repeated the questions a year later. After 1 year, the accuracy rate for facts was about 63% (and after 3 years 57%), compared with 1 or 2 days after. For their remembered emotions, the accuracy was about 40%, and biased towards current emotions (i.e. at the time the questions were asked).

Just for interest (yours or anyone else who may be interested), here are some links about memory and its fallibility:

List of Memory Biases
How Much of Your Memory is True?
Memory Distortion & Invention
False Autobiographical Memories
Seven Sins of Memory
The Memory Doctor
How accurate are Memories of 9/11?

So more directly to your point, IF you are right, then WHERE in human experience can one FIND in human existence a state of mentation wherein your oh-so-unreliable-memory is not foundational?

I'm not sure what you mean by this - can you rephrase it?

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I love your avatar-name and your rugged joyfulness!

Jes' sayin'!

Glad to bring good cheer!

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Is SELF a FACT?

If by 'self' you mean feeling we have of being a particular conscious individual in a body, then yes, the concept of self is a fact, and we do have a sense of self, so it exists as a concept and a reflective perception.

However it is not a unitary thing - our sense of self is the construct of a number of processes working together; in summary, a perspective or viewpoint (i.e. as a body with certain senses), sense of ownership (of mental content), a sense of agency (that the conscious mind commands the body), and fundamental or primordial feelings (internal physical and mental sensations). Some of these are themselves compound (e.g. the perspective involves a sense of location in the body and in space, orientation, boundary [normally the physical body], etc). Each of these is contributed by specific areas of the brain, and damage or disturbance to these areas (by accident, disease, drugs, or unusual mental states) can result in specific deficits or changes in the corresponding aspect of the sense of self, some of them resulting in very odd states of mind indeed.

I recommend Antonio Damasio's book, 'Self Comes To Mind' for full details.

What are your CORRESPONDENCES of self with self? Or with your "states of affairs in the world"?

Because it is the SELF that ESTABLISHES your CORRESPONDENCES...

And THAT correspondence has NO worldly referent...

Irreligious of the fact of mental illness...

I don't know what you're asking here.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Show me just ONE example of an acquired physical characteristic being genetically passed on...

There is a mechanism by which certain acquired characteristics can be passed on genetically - epigenetics. Some physiological changes, such as severe stresses (traumatic shock, starvation, etc) can cause 'tags' to be attached to genes and/or regulatory areas in the genome, and these change the way genes are regulated or expressed in that individual.

Most of these tags are removed in the production of eggs & sperm, but some remain and are inherited by the offspring, so they may exhibit similar physiological effects to the parent.

So the DNA in the genome isn't changed, but the way it is expressed can be changed in subsequent generations. It's somewhat similar to, but not the same as Lamarckism. See Transgenerational Epigenetic Inheritance.

 

[TreasureHunter12]

I think you know that within YOU exists both good and evil...

1 Die to all that is evil...

2 Embrace all that is good...

Ask the God in Whom you do not believe to help you...
Do so every time to do either 1 or 2...

Then pay attention to inner and outer events...

There! Now you have something to work with...

Arsenios

This is a pretty good way to explain it. I'm curious where you got this from or is it your personal interpretation?

 

[Near]

A discussion thread probably isn't the place if you just want to come in here and state what you believe without actually discussing why you believe it.



Might makes right, is that it? The motto of the tyrannical, the dictators. If my daughter is being bullied and beaten up, do I tell her that since the bully has more brute force than they have the right to do it? You want to tell a rape victim this?



But I could CLAIM I was there, even if I wasn't. And how would you know I wasn't? So you would end up thinking that a bunch of nonsense I wrote down was valid as a primary source. And it would lead you to very wrong conclusions.



Reading your reasons again won't make them any more convincing to me.

Besides, you freely admit that you believe in something without evidence for it.



I have a problem trusting people when they make extraordinary claims and don't provide sufficient evidence to support those claims.



Sounds like God just makes arbitrary decisions. And I'm sure that every believer is convinced that they are going to heaven. I doubt there are many believers you believe that they are going to hell. It's just another advertisement. You buy something (hold the belief) and you get a result (believe that you are going to Heaven). It's not really that different from someone buying skin cream and believing that they are going to get rid of the wrinkles under their eyes



I'm sorry, but I don't see how you can claim that there is NOTHING that will change your mind and still say it is reasonable.



It is a double standard to believe an argument applies in one case, but that same argument does not apply in another case.

You claim that you have no evidence that Jesus wasn't real, so you believe in him. You claim that you have no evidence that Harry Potter wasn't real, but you DON'T believe in him.



That's why you cross check. See if there is evidence about it from other sources. I could read a book about New York, and if what I read matches what I see in videos made in New York, newspapers printed in New York, etc, then I can conclude that the book is accurate.



So God plays favorites? Does that mean that if God doesn't love you enough, then you are going to hell, no matter what?



*Sigh* I fear you missed my point.



It's almost like a literary device, isn't it...?



Interesting, but I wouldn't say that is evidence of a cultural tendency towards memory use. It's not much different than when salesmen are trained in how to sell their products.



Given that you said earlier that nothing will change your mind about Jesus, I suspect you also dismiss arguments because they go against what you have already concluded is true. That seems to me like dismissing an argument simply because you don't like what it says.



And if God exists, but it's a different God, then by believing in the wrong god, you're just making God madder and madder. And if God doesn't exist, then you are losing Pascal's wager by not striving for the truth always.



Yes, but let's say it was because your brain chemistry was off. You'd still feel confident that your beliefs about God were correct.

So, you can't conclude that you are right just because you are confident you are right.

A sentient creator being exists, or does not exist. We can imagine both, no one is saying that imagining things makes them real.
As for questions dealing with knowing whether or not anything is certain, trusting evidence, convincing you personally or others, divine psychology, being reasonable, believing in the wrong God, and myself being conclusive and actually right... I think those are side questions that don't really have any bearing on whether or not God actually exists.
I don't get the point you're trying to make. You're saying a lot of things which seem to go in different directions, and I'm wondering... so what? Where is this leading?

Given that you said earlier that nothing will change your mind about Jesus, I suspect you also dismiss arguments because they go against what you have already concluded is true. That seems to me like dismissing an argument simply because you don't like what it says.

Why do I bother. I give up on the discussion. Have a good one.

 

[Freodin]

The demonstration of God is only found in the lives that bear Him witness in DEEDS...
The demonstration is not in words...
It is found in sincerity and love and joy and utter disregard for self and total engagement with others according to God's Holy Will, (which you will not be able to discern). When you ENCOUNTER God-bearing Holy Ones of God, then you will see for yourself the quality of life of which we speak... You will not find it on the internet, and if you are avoiding God, it is pretty hard to find in the world...

So... the last 36 years of your life... they don't count, because you are on the internet? Usually, you are sincere, loving, joyfull, disregarding self and in total engagement with others according to God's Holy Will... but as soon as you get online, you drop all this?

We had a Bishop [a holy man, this one] go alone through Airport security one day carrying his Bishop's Crown in a largish box, wearing his black cassock and a monk's cap... The man examining his baggage wanted to see in the box, so he pulled out the crown, to the astonishment of the employee, who asked "Are all those jewels REAL???" The Bishop replied "I wish..." And he asked: "Are you some kind of Royalty?" The Bishop replied "Higher..." (raising both hands, palm upwards, a few inches a couple of times)... "Are you a prince?" The Bishop replied again: "Higher..." The man asked incredibly: "You're not a King, are you???" The Bishop replied: "Higher..." "Well WHAT then??"

"A Servant of the Most High God..."

He was passed through...

Cute little anecdote... which has all the trappings of a fictional account. Which does a lot to support your claims of sincerity.

God is encountered in His Holy Ones...

They normally avoid public encounters...

So your chances are pretty slim...

Which for many is seen as good news...

Arsenios

So, in contrast to those who tell us that God all around us and the evidence can clearly be seen, you tell us that God hides himself in "His Holy Ones" and is rarely be seen in "public encounters".

Are you one of those - as Scott would call them - who spread false claims and lies about Christianity?

 

[Arsenios]

So... the last 36 years of your life... they don't count, because you are on the internet?

Everything "counts"... What one does matters... Where one does it not so much...

Usually, you are sincere, loving, joyfull, disregarding self and in total engagement with others according to God's Holy Will... but as soon as you get online, you drop all this?

I hope not...

Cute little anecdote... which has all the trappings of a fictional account. Which does a lot to support your claims of sincerity.

I heard the account twice, so I assume it is true...

So, in contrast to those who tell us that God all around us and the evidence can clearly be seen, you tell us that God hides himself in "His Holy Ones" and is rarely be seen in "public encounters".

For those who fail to receive the argument from intelligent design, or the simple wonder of all creation, and need to encounter God in the flesh in order to believe, meeting a Saint can be helpful... Saints have a long history of getting killed - We call it martyrdom... Marines who fall on a grenade to save their buddies in the room is one military version of this... Few of these are atheists...

btw - I was so hardened as an atheist that I would not accept ANY person-encounter as God-engendered. So that for me, Nature was all rational, and people who believed in God were at best deluded, and were normally just a bunch of judgemental hypocrites and I wanted nothing to do with either... For such a hard case as I was, the direct encounter with God directly went WAY beyond mere persuasion by premises and conclusions... Infinitely beyond, actually!

Are you one of those - as Scott would call them - who spread false claims and lies about Christianity?

I hope not, but at my age, who knows?

God knows...

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

This is a pretty good way to explain it.
I'm curious where you got this from or is it your personal interpretation?

It is pretty much Eastern Orthodox Christianity 101...

Fully documented in every human life...

My own Church, the Church at Antioch, is one of the great Apostolic Sees...

Acts 11:26 ...Where the followers of Christ, previously known as the followers of the Way, were first called Christians... It is a Church that Paul himself founded...

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

There is a mechanism by which certain acquired characteristics can be passed on genetically - epigenetics. Some physiological changes, such as severe stresses (traumatic shock, starvation, etc) can cause 'tags' to be attached to genes and/or regulatory areas in the genome, and these change the way genes are regulated or expressed in that individual.

Most of these tags are removed in the production of eggs & sperm, but some remain and are inherited by the offspring, so they may exhibit similar physiological effects to the parent.

So the DNA in the genome isn't changed, but the way it is expressed can be changed in subsequent generations. It's somewhat similar to, but not the same as Lamarckism. See Transgenerational Epigenetic Inheritance.

Well, as you know, such transmission does not account for the generation of new species, but only for variations in the same species,: which is the essential claim of the theory of evolution. Perhaps a better question would be: "How many new species has science documented and repeated as evolving from an originating species?" eg Not EPI-genetic, but genetic... All species traits will be associated with the genetics of that species... But what the epi means is an accounting for selective-trait breeding or horticulture... Blue not red - That sort of thing...

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

Lol, very droll...

Yes, I was pretty surprised when I learned about memory. But it only needs to be 'good enough', and for most of human evolution it wasn't a particularly rigorous requirement; and where it was important to remember complex information, a narrative could be associated - we're pretty good at narrative recall, pretty bad at autobiographical and episodic memory. Episodic memories aren't stored like videotape, but as a few items of information and perhaps an image or two, with a number of associations to other items. Recall is a process of plausible reconstruction, and changes or embellishments are common. Even those 'flashbulb' memories of shocking events where everyone remembers where they were, what they were doing, and how they felt, are unreliable - the day after 9/11 psychologists asked such questions of people, then asked them again after a couple of days, then repeated the questions a year later. After 1 year, the accuracy rate for facts was about 63% (and after 3 years 57%), compared with 1 or 2 days after. For their remembered emotions, the accuracy was about 40%, and biased towards current emotions (i.e. at the time the questions were asked).

Just for interest (yours or anyone else who may be interested), here are some links about memory and its fallibility:

List of Memory Biases
How Much of Your Memory is True?
Memory Distortion & Invention
False Autobiographical Memories
Seven Sins of Memory
The Memory Doctor
How accurate are Memories of 9/11?

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/911-memory-accuracy

That pretty much completes your indictment...

Our Church uses a great deal of repetition - Both for retention, but more to the point, for the gradual acquisition of the meaning of that which is repeated to the point of memorization and then continued in memorized repetition that lays a foundation of deeper and ever deeper understanding... It is simply amazing how expansion of meaning and indeed the emergence of revolutionary new meaning can come forth from sacred writings across the years by repetition...

I'm not sure what you mean by this - can you rephrase it?

Maybe....

IF memory suffers your indictment justly, as I agree that it does - I need look no further than within myself, but you have widened the scope of proof elegantly - Then WHERE does epistemic knowing that does NOT rely on ANY memory actually EXIST??

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

Glad to bring good cheer!

Well you bring a bunch!

A.

 

[Freodin]

Everything "counts"... What one does matters... Where one does it not so much...

So, if you are sincere and loving and all that... why can't these things be found on the internet?

I hope not...

You asserted as much. After all, you are on the internet right now. (Smile, there might be a camera!)

I heard the account twice, so I assume it is true...

If this is all it takes...

For those who fail to receive the argument from intelligent design, or the simple wonder of all creation, and need to encounter God in the flesh in order to believe, meeting a Saint can be helpful... Saints have a long history of getting killed - We call it martyrdom... Marines who fall on a grenade to save their buddies in the room is one military version of this... Few of these are atheists...

Absolutely few. But not proportionally. (After all, there are only few humans who fall on grenades.)

btw - I was so hardened as an atheist that I would not accept ANY person-encounter as God-engendered.

By your own account, you were an Any Randian atheist.
One thing that still continues to baffle me with Christian argumentation: "atheist" is an all-encompassing denominator. "Atheists have killed millions in the 20th century. Atheists do this evil, and atheists do that evil!"

If we were to turn that around... theists right now created a terror regime and kill hundreds of people! Theists baaaaaad!

So that for me, Nature was all rational, and people who believed in God were at best deluded, and were normally just a bunch of judgemental hypocrites and I wanted nothing to do with either... For such a hard case as I was, the direct encounter with God directly went WAY beyond mere persuasion by premises and conclusions... Infinitely beyond, actually!

Well, I didn't get that. And I am not even asking for that. I have a perfectly reasonable standard for a God-engendered encounter I would accept... even via the internet!

But somehow no one wants to take the chance... ***sad panda***

I hope not, but at my age, who knows?

God knows...

Arsenios

Statistically, you most certainly are... But one can hope.

 

[Arsenios]

If by 'self' you mean feeling we have of being a particular conscious individual in a body, then yes, the concept of self is a fact, and we do have a sense of self, so it exists as a concept and a reflective perception.

However it is not a unitary thing - our sense of self is the construct of a number of processes working together; in summary, a perspective or viewpoint (i.e. as a body with certain senses), sense of ownership (of mental content), a sense of agency (that the conscious mind commands the body), and fundamental or primordial feelings (internal physical and mental sensations). Some of these are themselves compound (e.g. the perspective involves a sense of location in the body and in space, orientation, boundary [normally the physical body], etc). Each of these is contributed by specific areas of the brain, and damage or disturbance to these areas (by accident, disease, drugs, or unusual mental states) can result in specific deficits or changes in the corresponding aspect of the sense of self, some of them resulting in very odd states of mind indeed.

I recommend Antonio Damasio's book, 'Self Comes To Mind' for full details.

So you think multiple personalities are the norm?

And that they are not unified (a unitary thing) and should not be understood as such?

I pretty much understand the SELF as that which IS the unifyer of ALL experience in a person... That when the parts of the self are disparate from one another we have a condition of dys-function...

I don't know what you're asking here.

The absence of physical objects as referents for understanding of self...

Your understanding seems to require that all understanding be reduced to materiality in one way or another...
The question was how that applies to understanding of the self...
Or the grasp that understanding has OF materiality...

I do not reduce consciousness of self to perception of materiality...

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

So, if you are sincere and loving and all that... why can't these things be found on the internet?

They can even be found in the grocery store and on the free-way...

By your own account, you were an Any Randian atheist.

I taught the Philosophy of Objectivism...

One thing that still continues to baffle me with Christian argumentation: "atheist" is an all-encompassing denominator. "Atheists have killed millions in the 20th century. Atheists do this evil, and atheists do that evil!"

The Russian atheists of the USSR killed some 60 million people horribly in the 20th century...

If we were to turn that around... theists right now created a terror regime and kill hundreds of people! Theists baaaaaad!

Theism is a mixed bag of regimes - The Roman Empire in Constantinople ruled wisely and well for a thousand years, and ISIS rules a few years making the world a nightmare under their rule...

There have not been many atheist regimes - The USSR is the only one of which I am aware...

I have a perfectly reasonable standard for a God-engendered encounter I would accept... even via the internet!

Keep your integrity and pursue truth and love - The God-path is not for everyone, but it CAN be for ANY one...

But somehow no one wants to take the chance... ***sad panda***

How risky could it be?

Statistically, you most certainly are... But one can hope.

My hope is in prayer...

Your hope IS your prayer...

We are not that far apart...

Arsenios

 

[Freodin]

I taught the Philosophy of Objectivism...

Then perhaps you might have a decent chance at convincing a guy like Eudaimonist of your perspective.

But I - and most atheists I know of - do not adhere to "The Philosophy of Objectivism".

The Russian atheists of the USSR killed some 60 million people horribly in the 20th century...

Theism is a mixed bag of regimes - The Roman Empire in Constantinople ruled wisely and well for a thousand years, and ISIS rules a few years making the world a nightmare under their rule...

There have not been many atheist regimes - The USSR is the only one of which I am aware...

Ah.... Theism is a mixed bag of regimes... but all atheists are the same.. And you don't see any problems with this kind of reasoning?

Keep your integrity and pursue truth and love - The God-path is not for everyone, but it CAN be for ANY one...

Nor is the atheistic path. Still, it can be for anyone... and you don't even need to kill millions of people to be one!

How risky could it be?

For me? I don't know what kind of evils some people might assume will haunt me if I solve this riddle.
For you? As an adherent of a philosophy that can explain away every instance of failure... not at all.

Willing to have a go?

 

[Arsenios]

Then perhaps you might have a decent chance at convincing a guy like Eudaimonist of your perspective.

Which is neither hare nor here...

But I - and most atheists I know of - do not adhere to "The Philosophy of Objectivism".

A new proof of the existence of God??

Ah.... Theism is a mixed bag of regimes... but all atheists are the same..

Ya gots ta pae'tension! I said there was only one atheist regime of which I am aware... USSR

Your hoarse ain't got no reins!

And you don't see any problems with this kind of reasoning?

The same ones you do, which is why I don't use it...

Nor is the atheistic path. Still, it can be for anyone...
and you don't even need to kill millions of people to be one!

IKNEWTHAT!

For me? I don't know what kind of evils some people might assume will haunt me if I solve this riddle.

'Tizza riddle??

For you? As an adherent of a philosophy that can explain away every instance of failure... not at all.

I scorn philosophy these days... I am not a philosopher...
Nor do I adhere to one... Not an adherent...

Willing to have a go?

What's y'er riddle?

Arsenios

 

[Freodin]

Which is neither hare nor here...

He's the only one I know who adheres to objectivism. The only atheist I know. Doesn't that tell you something?

A new proof of the existence of God??

Or a proof that you don't know everything about atheists because you have been one.

Ya gots ta pae'tension! I said there was only one atheist regime of which I am aware... USSR

Your hoarse ain't got no reins!



The same ones you do, which is why I don't use it...

Really? So why do you tout your having been an Any Randian as... well, why do you think it has any relevance for being an atheist?

IKNEWTHAT!

You didn't show it.

'Tizza riddle??

Tizza! Kinda!

I scorn philosophy these days... I am not a philosopher...
Nor do I adhere to one... Not an adherent...

Philosophy here in the sense of "a way of thinking".

What's y'er riddle?

Oh, it is quite simple, really.

Some time ago... 35 years or thatabout... something weird happened to me. Something really weird... in fact the only thing in my life that I could come to consider "supernatural". Or perhaps not. I don't know. I cannot say, I have no way of knowing. At that point, I really tried to find all kinds of explanations, which, as far as I remember, failed completely.

It is a "riddle" that I have no answer for, and that keeps bothering me. Some people, maybe most, might consider the event trivial... but I cannot do that until I find a trivial answer for it.

So I do not know the answer. But God does, alledgedly.

Now some may say: "God doesn't do party tricks!". This isn't a request for a trick. It is a quest for a serious answer.
Some may say: "Sincerely pray, and God will show you the answer!". But I don't believe in God. God doesn't answer my prayers, and even if he did... how would I know it was not a figment of my imagination? I cannot, and I want to be sure.
Some may say: "God will give you the answer when you are ready!". Fine, but this leads to the same problem as above... even if at some point I convert and have "faith"... I won't be getting an objective answer. Just one I have faith in.
And some may say: "It doesn't work this way!" Well, as someone who believes in the effectivity of prayer... you should believe it works this way, shouldn't you?

So what I am asking you for is to get down, pray to God for an answer. Ask him to explain to you what really happened at this event that bothers me for three quarters of my life now.

You need to tell me what happened: this is my security so that I know you really have access to a being that possesses knowledge beyond any human being.
And you need to tell me the explanation for what happened: this is the answer I am looking for.

Of course, you will have to trust me to accept the correct answer, and to only reject false answers. You would also be free to accuse me of cheating, should I reject your answer that you are sure is correct. But these are details.

So, you still willing to try?