Perhaps it would help if I elaborated further. I don’t know if you are familiar with the story, but it states that Pharaoh was willing to let them go, so God “hardened his heart”, he refused to let them go, God punishes him with another plague, repeat. This seemed to me completely unfair and unjust, and I was feeling quite indignant about it. Why would this God character do this? Then I got to the start of chapter 10.
Its really hard to find words for what happened next. A voice said sadly “but you forgot”. Not angry or condeming, just incredible sadness. I don’t know if I heard it or it was just in my head, but it kept reverberating around in my mind, worse than an annoying catchy radio jingle. I have a fear of heights, and I felt a feeling of vertigo, similar but far more then when I crawled as close to the edge of Castle Point Hill as I could. I also felt a feeling of wonder and awe, similar but far more than the first time I saw Saturn and its rings through the Thomas Cooke Telescope at Carter Observatory as a boy. Then I experienced a paradigm shift. Nothing changed but everything changed. Figuratively speaking, I could still see the two black faces the same as before, but now I could also see the white candlestick. For example I loved a song by Depeche Mode called “Blasphemous Rumours” which mocked the idea of faith in a good God. I still love that song, but now when I listen it I hear it also talking about God’s grace.
Was my experience connected to Exodus? Well yes, kind of. But since then I’ve met many others who have had very similar experiences and so far the ones I’ve met were all reading the New Testament when it happened, they were surprised when I said mine happened in Exodus.
Causes? Well I’ve never done drugs, I’ve never even smoked a cigarette. They all seemed completely illogical and I couldn’t see the point. A minor stroke? A brain aneurysm? I felt fine afterwards, in fact I felt better than ever before. Like I said, I’m not trying to “prove” anything. I don’t have a problem with other people being atheists. If thats what you see then be honest about it. I still think its a beautiful hypothesis. But as Huxley said, The great tragedy of Science — the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact. I can’t call myself an atheist anymore because I no longer consider atheism to be the best explanation of what I have experienced.