I found these additional links/posts from here on Peaceful Science describing other similar experiences that others have had leading them to become born again:
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By the way, I will be skeptically criticizing your account if you choose to share, but Iāll try to be polite and respectful about it. So decide accordingly.
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Thatās a good example of what I am talking about. What is he actually describing? He forgot something he had read and then, when he re-read the passage he had forgotten, he felt sad about forgetting. Thatās it. Then he attributes this to the particular god in which he believes, for no good reason that I can see, and has a bunch of warm and gushy feelings because his god, so he believes, it ātalkingā directly to him.
Not very impressive.
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God gives each person what they need, so Godās speaking is specific and personal to each individual, That is part of why the relationship/experience aspect if the faith is hard to explain. Perhaps those stories do not resonate with you, because they are not your story. However I enjoy reading those stories of God acting in specific ways in peopleās lives, because I have my own story. That is what I find so beautiful about these types of testimonies: how specific they are to each individual. God reveals Himself and shows His love in such personal ways.
Also God speaks to the whole person: to our emotions and to our intellect. I find that the Cross speaks the truth of my lived experience about what the world needs: Justice, Love and Grace
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@Faizal_Ali, watching this conversation unfold, I honestly wonder if it is one of those things you just have to see for yourself. Sometimes seeing is believing. Is that something to which you are open? (not that I can produce it for you on demand 
)
Not really. People are describing things that, seem to me, are quite familiar to all people, whether or not Christian, and then asserting that can only be explained by the Christian god, without saying why this is.
Itās as if there were a bunch of people saying they have seen a unicorn, and when I ask them to describe it they say, āWell, itās a about the size of a chicken, is covered with feathers, swims, flies and says āQuack.āā
When I reply they say this sounds just like a duck, they say āYes, we realize that. But if you actually saw it for yourself, youāll realize itās actually a unicorn.ā
Why would I expect to see anything other than a duck when I see this alleged unicorn?
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Iām with @swamidass on thisā¦
As a chef, people often ask me about a food they have never triedā¦āwhat does it taste likeā. To which I have no choice but to say, āhere, try it.ā There is no other response that would adequately describe the flavor of X dish. You have to experience it. Then someone comes along and says, āI donāt like X dish.ā or I donāt like X component of X dish, can I get it without X? Mostly I just say, āNoā because then it is not representative of the truth. If I do accommodate a change, it is with the understanding that the dish is no longer X. But if they donāt try it, they will never know.
Duck is a great exampleā¦a lot of people say they donāt like duck, then I make them some awesome Confit, make them take a bite, and they go, OH! is that what its supposed to taste like?
Anyway, the point is that there are three people here that have never met saying exactly the same thing, in the same wayā¦and there are millions that would agreeā¦so it is either mass hysteria or truthā¦the duck doesnāt taste like chicken (or unicorn), but you wonāt know until you take a bite.
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Where your unicorn analogy breaks down is that people are not claiming to have only seen a strange phenomenon one-time. The way they are describing their experience with God is as an ongoing life-changing relationship. After I met my husband my life changed and my life would not be the way it is today and I would not have the family I have now if I had never met him. After I understood the Cross, I now see myself and the world differently. I also continue to want to nurture my relationship with God through reading Bible, through prayer, worship, thankfulness, church community, and by living my life differently than I would have before.
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Not at all. I had in mind a situation in which people believe they are constantly seeing these āunicornsā, throughout their lives.
And, of course, your husband is a real person. But surely you appreciate that such life changes are not only the result of personal relationships. Other people might consider their lives similarly changed by reading the works of a philosopher like Aristotle or Aqunas or Kant or whomever. That does not mean they have an active, personal relationship with these long-dead people. But, in a sense, they do have a relationship with these people in the form of continuing to engage with them thru their words and ideas, which live on.
Jesus did not stay dead, but rose again and still lives, which is one reason why Christians can talk about having an ongoing relationship with Jesus in a way someone would not speak about having a relationship with a long dead philosopher
As @swamidass pointed out further up in this thread, people also donāt talk about having ongoing relationships with Mohammed or Buddha, likely because they were not resurrected either.
But the resurrection was already the topic of debate on another long thread, so Iām not suggesting that be hashed out again now.
Correction: Belief in the resurrection of Mohammed or Buddha is not part of the Islamic or Buddhist faith. Maybe they were also resurrected, but didnāt tell anyone. How would you know?
They werenāt. Thatās the point, they did not have power over death, they were not God, they were just men. There were hundreds of witnesses to Jesusā death and resurrection. If Mohammed or Buddha had power over death, it would have been shouted from the rooftops.
Thatās actually the entire point of the bibleā¦if you put your faith and trust in men you will dieā¦if you put your faith and trust in God, you will have eternal life. Itās a choice (but not an easy choice to make).
How do you know that?
That is an unsubstantiated claim. We do not have a single, solitary account from someone who so much as claims to have witnessed the alleged event. What we do have are stories, written decades after the date of Jesusās death, about people who are supposed to have witnessed this. Not nearly the same thing.
We do have hundreds of documented accounts from people who insist they have seen Bigfoot. But I suspect you do not accept the existence of Bigfoot as a fact. If so can you explain why you deny the existence of something with orders of magnitude better evidence than the resurrection of Jesus which, in addition, does not involve the violation of any natural laws?
Yes, I know that. Other religious texts make different points.
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@moderators Just curious, should the discussion about the validity of Christian experience be split into a different thread? It is interesting as a topic in its own right, but doesnāt seem relevant to the post topic
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Regarding no one having power over death except Jesus:
Ecclesiastes 8, Revelation 20-22, Psalm 89, Hosea 13, Romans 8, Phillipians 3, Hebrews 2
Regarding Jesus being the way to eternal life:
The Gospels, Matthew/Mark/Luke/John - The entire New Testament
And I know in my heartā¦that is to say, I believe every word of the bible. I donāt expect to sway you, but I know.
OK, so long as you donāt expect me to be persuaded by, or even respect, your way of thinking.
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I really donāt know if this will help but this video describes one of the craziest conversion experiences Iāve ever heard and what his personal relationship with Jesus meant practically in his life. Since he has a mental disorder (I donāt want to ruin the video or the ending by saying more 
; itās very gripping), it might be interesting to you as a psychiatrist. https://youtu.be/DakEcY7Z5GU
I also find it interesting I resonate with every one of these Christian testimonies. I think thatās also relevant as we believe the Holy Spirit unites us: We can all tell we have the same relationship with the person of Jesus or the person of the Holy Spirit, without knowing much else about each other. I believe that would distinguish it from other experiences. If we all had a mutual friend, and one of us was describing that friend without mentioning a name, the other person would say, āwait, are you talking about so and so?ā By the description of the person and the relationship, we would recognize that person has to be the same friend.
The other reason Christians talk about the relationship-nature of their faith is the change that happens when they go from not knowing God to wanted to spend more and more time with God: reading the Bible and listening to good preaching to learn more about God, spending time in worship, praying about various things that come up in their lives throughout the day, spending time in fellowship with other believers who have the same love for Jesus. I did not do those things for the 1st 20 years of my life before becoming a Christian and thought they would have been a waste of time. Now those activities are essential to my sense of well-being and bring joy and a sense of purpose to my life.
To summarize some of the points in this thread about why born again Christianās describe their faith as being a relationship with God:
- When born again Christians come to an understanding of what Jesus accomplished on the Cross (demonstrating His ability to conquer Evil through Love, Justice and Grace), they have a change in perspective that changes how they see the world and how they live going forward.
- Christians have personal experiences in which they sense God reaching them in specific ways that are unique, individual and personal to themselves
- Jesus did not stay dead but was resurrected, so He is still alive. It is valid to discuss having an ongoing relationship with someone who is still living.
- An ongoing relationship accurately describes the Christian desire to spend time with God in Bible reading, prayer, worship and fellowship with other believers
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Isnāt what you are describing just learning more about oneās self? It is all introspective. As an atheist, I do all the activities that you describe without any God, nor the Bible, and without prayer. Yet introspective thought is essential to my sense of well being and brings joy and a sense of purpose to my life. How do you explain that atheists can achieve the same joy and sense of purpose in their lives without God?
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