Ask the Atheist

"Brain glitch" is unsatisfying because it's as vague as possible, and really, it doesn't explain anything. If you're going to find real neurological or psychological explanations, you need them to be more specific than that.

Case in point: the supposed exorcism John Safran went through was most likely a form of hypnosis. That explains the blackout, the collapse and the fact that it worked on an atheist. Safran himself has probably come to the same conclusion, because he's still an atheist. Still, he was a brave man to submit himself to it.

The pastor's story is again a case of not-enough-information. Did he and his father communicate anything specific enough to make sure they weren't just thinking the same thing at the same time? And I'm thinking the same as you, how did he know it was demonic as opposed to a gift from God? He's a pastor! It's not like he would have performed a demonic ritual on the off chance that it would get him something.

That brings us to your friend. If he's so worried about tempting evil with his dark powers, what the heck was he thinking when he performed the rituals in the first place? How did he even learn them?

We both knew he would give a good reason for not giving you a demonstration. The thing is, just because a person has a GOOD reason for doing something, or not doing something, doesn't mean it's the REAL reason.

For another example, think of the separate evangelist and Roman Catholic propaganda against condoms. They claim that condoms are ineffective, or even that they help spread disease. Both would be good reasons, if true. The REAL reason, however, is that condoms make people less afraid of sex and more likely to "sin". Anything else is just rationalisation, and in this case false.

The God Delusion is not good at converting believers directly into non-believers. Richard Dawkins admitted as much after gauging reactions to the book. It's better at convincing agnostics to get off the fence and come out as atheists.

It does claim that belief in gods is illogical. Some Christians are happy to accept that belief contradicts and trumps logic and reason (that's called fideism), but most believers would rather think that belief is logical and defensible. That's why the book has got so many people steamed, and prompted so many response books (God is No Delusion, Deluded by Dawkins, etc.)

I didn't say that there's absolutely no chance that any of it is real. I can't say that, I'm not omniscient. I just think that the countless ways in which phenomena like this can be faked or mistakenly identified make it very, very unlikely that a given incident has to somehow involve the supernatural.

Not knowing your friend, I don't understand why he would lie or not examine his "abilities" critically either. But this is another big point, which comes up often in the creation/evolution debate: just because you or I don't know how something might have happened doesn't mean it DIDN'T happen. There may be possibilities we just haven't considered yet.

Here are a few examples. Maybe having unique powers makes him feel good about himself, and he relies on this in the absence of self-esteem. Since his mother also claims to have powers, maybe he subconsciously doesn't want her to be lying (or just wrong) and therefore he convinces himself that he has inherited them. Maybe he talked in a dream with lost beloved relatives, and doesn't want to think that he can never talk to them again.

I could go on, but you get the idea. Think of all the ways in which he could justify lying to you, or subconsciously lie to himself, or be honestly but mistakenly convinced. Then compare all of these possibilities with the alternative: that he, his mother and a few of his friends have been uniquely gifted with supernatural powers, but not given any instructions for their use so that they now lie unused and entirely pointless. Now, perhaps, you see why I think that last one's unlikely.

My first question related to your other friend's mother is, how soon before the operation was the last X-ray taken? Cancers can occasionally lose out to the body and be absorbed. That's what remission is. Was going into the operating theatre the only time she had prayed, and if not, why did it only work at the last minute? If it's a medical phenomenon, is the doctor's file someplace the public could access it, maybe in an online database? If the doctor really thought he had something extraordinary on his hands, he'd want to share it with the medical community.

I've gone into predictions in depth, Biblical and otherwise, after being bombarded with them by one particular evangelist. Here's what I wrote.

It does take time to digest this stuff, so go ahead and see how you feel later. Just going from agnosticism to atheism took me 15 years, although from Christianity to agnosticism was almost instantaneous.

One day you may well think you've experienced something supernatural. Don't immediately fall to your knees in the absence of another explanation. Eliminate the alternatives. That way you can be more secure in whatever you end up believing, or not believing.