{"id":394,"date":"2010-07-12T18:19:00","date_gmt":"2010-07-12T18:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2010\/07\/the-handy-dandy-guide-to-converting-me\/"},"modified":"2012-04-02T23:08:32","modified_gmt":"2012-04-03T03:08:32","slug":"the-handy-dandy-guide-to-converting-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2010\/07\/the-handy-dandy-guide-to-converting-me.html","title":{"rendered":"The handy dandy guide to converting me"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Thanks to all the theists who spoke up on last week\u2019s post<\/a> and told what evidence might convince them that their religion was false. \u00a0As promised, this week\u2019s challenge takes the opposite tack, asking what could convince atheists that a particular religion was true. \u00a0As always, if you\u2019d like to respond to a Monday Call to Arms in longer form as a guest blogger, please email me at leah (dot) libresco (at) yale (dot) edu.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014<\/div>\n

While kneeling in the pew at Mass one week, I tried to imagine what I would require to be converted to Catholicism. I imagined Jesus (or God, I wasn\u2019t picky) appearing in church and magically fusing my knees to the kneelers, refusing to let me rise until I acknowledged him as Lord (I was cribbing liberally from the story of Zacharia being struck dumb<\/a> in Luke chapter one).<\/p>\n

Most of my first thoughts about being converted followed this pattern. The time I got hit with a few drops of holy water while the priest was sprinkling the congregation during Easter Mass and I discreetly checked (in a spirit of scientific investigation) whether I had been burned or marked in any way.<\/p>\n

My heightened attention during services for Pentecost and the week when the readings featured Doubting Thomas, both of which seemed like appropriate weeks for any kind of God with a flair for the dramatic to make a personal appearance. The trouble was, when I thought about my reaction in any of these circumstances, it didn\u2019t feel at all like joyful submission.<\/p>\n

Every example I thought of was of a god (or any supernatural being) demonstrating puissance, not love. If confronted by these paranormal proofs I would willingly concede that there were more things in heaven and earth than were dreamt of in my philosophy. If the pyrotechnics display were good enough, there were pretty good odds that I would knuckle under and follow what precepts I was given.<\/p>\n

In this case, my conversion would be an act of obedience, not fealty. Any relationship with God I would have would be shaped by fear, not trust. I would not be confident of God\u2019s goodness, merely convinced that he was an awful lot bigger than me and was holding all the thunderbolts. This picture of religion is exactly the type that deserves Lucifer\u2019s contemptuous Non serviam<\/em>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard for me to imagine a single, spectacular event that could compell me to convert, particularly as I\u2019ve done so much reading on pervasive biases<\/a> and unreliable witnesses<\/a> to trust myself that far. \u00a0After all, famed skeptic Michael Shermer had his own alien abduction experience<\/a> during a long distance cycling race. \u00a0In the moment, his hallucinations felt just as real as any other part of his experience. So for the most part, personal experience ranks as very weak proof, if it counts at all.<\/p>\n

Part of the trouble is that a proof of God\u2019s existence must carry with it proofs of God\u2019s character. \u00a0To prove that unicorns exist, I need simply trot one out and let you examine it closely enough to satisfy yourself that the horn was naturally affixed. \u00a0A God\u2019s defining properties are not nearly so easily observed. \u00a0I\u2019m not really offering possible disproofs of atheism here so much as evidence that would be less likely to occur in an atheistic world. After some consideration, I decided that the following events, if they occured, would make me feel more than a little agnostic:<\/p>\n