Here's how it went down:

I was camping with a colony near a church. It was nighttime and 3 of us were walking by a church. There was a Christian girl with us and she told us that the holy ground around the church is safe, but you can be made even safer by praying to Jesus Christ. She put a hand on the holy ground and prayed. The white sand to the left and right of her started to glow as she did that. When she was done, she just smiled at us.

We then went beyond the walls and stalked the graveyards on the unholy ground, for some reason. We also spread out, because that's always a good idea. Then, a bunch of vicious ghosts started to chase me.

I ran to the holy ground and that's when my conversion happened. I kneeled down, put my hand on the ground and started to pray (I kind of butchered it since I don't know the exact words of the prayer, but that wasn't important). The sand to the left and right of me glowed brightly, and there were no more ghosts in the vicinity.

Then my two friends came around and said we should get back to the hotel rooms (It was a luxurious camping, I guess). They ran around the church, and I followed them. There were a bunch of dark tunnels there and I didn't know which one was the right one. Then I heard ghost voices coming from the tunnels. I cursed 'my friends' considered praying on the holy ground until the morning. Luckily, that wasn't needed because I woke up. Realizing it was all just a dream made me quickly abandon the newly gain faith, but for one unconscious minute, I had been a Christian.

I'm not as sane in dreams as I am in the waking world, but I still believe much of my personality remains intact in that realm, so the conversion was valid to some extent.

It seems that being chased by ghosts, but then getting protected by a patch of holy ground and a prayer that produces visual effects would do it for me.

So, what would it take for you to convert to a religion?

5728520

So, what would it take for you to convert to a religion?

Evidence.

5728520
The only time I'd start worshiping a god other than Sithis is if I could trade my eternal afterlife for an eternal mortal life.
I'm not too keen on having my brain chemistry rewired so that I am always content making sitting in a wooden chair staring off into the void being enough to qualify as "heaven"

Sounds like you've truly been touched.

Was it a priest?

5728520 Nothing could convince except for evidence.

5728520

So, what would it take for you to convert to a religion?

Silly, I'd just create one and appoint myself God-Queen.

Other than that, nothing. I've spent most of my life religious, and I'm not going back.

5728520
Frankly, I can't think of anything that would convert me. People make a big deal about being ‘open’, and how you're ‘dogmatic’ if you can't come up with something that could convince you that you're wrong, but… that just doesn't ring true in all cases. Sure, some of my positions could be swayed by new evidence; but there are other things that no amount of evidence would ever convince me of. 2 + 2 is not 5. Religion does not reflect reality. Every religion I've ever looked into has blatant logical contradictions embedded in it; you can't just wave those away with evidence.

I would also contest the idea that a conversion inside a dream is valid. Last night, I had a long conversation with a house, one with a visible face on the chimney; the conversation involved convincing the house not to fall over (which I succeeded in doing, by the way). I would not have considered this a valid or rational course of action if I was awake. If I was religiously converted in a dream, it would fall into the same category: An entertaining charade based on false premises which I would not hold if I was not asleep.

5729100

but there are other things that no amount of evidence would ever convince me of. 2 + 2 is not 5. Religion does not reflect reality

It's impossible to give absolute proof for something that isn't true. No one will ever come up with undeniable evidence that 2 + 2 = 5. The statement "Religion does not reflect reality" has to be accompanied with the conclusion that there's never going to be evidence to prove a religion true, because absolute proof only reflects reality.

So, wouldn't it be more accurate to say that the amount of evidence doesn't exist, rather than that evidence can't convince you?

5729246

The statement "Religion does not reflect reality" has to be accompanied with the conclusion that there's never going to be evidence to prove a religion true, because absolute proof only reflects reality.

You missed my next sentence, I think:
“Every religion I've ever looked into has blatant logical contradictions embedded in it; you can't just wave those away with evidence.”

And I'm assuming you don't actually mean ‘absolute’ in your phrase ‘absolute proof’. Absolute proof is impossible, period, because all knowledge is predicated on basic unprovable assumptions, sometimes called presuppositions.

5728520

So, what would it take for you to convert to a religion?

Evidence that the claims made by that religion are true. So basically, what 5728525 said.

5729309

And I'm assuming you don't actually mean ‘absolute’ in your phrase ‘absolute proof’. Absolute proof is impossible, period, because all knowledge is predicated on basic unprovable assumptions, sometimes called presuppositions.

I did mean it, but I guess I won't be doing that in the future.

5728520 I'd do it for money.

5728520
I'd be so disappointed. Of all the religions it's the one that proves terrible white people right.

5729100

2 + 2 is not 5.

It might in a weird alternate universe.

5728520

So, what would it take for you to convert to a religion?

I don't know.

Since that isn't a very interesting conversation to have, particularly for anyone else reading, allow me to expand.

What you described above was a dream. You know it, I knew it from pretty early on in the body of text, and I imagine some others knew it too. Still others might have needed the ending where you do explicitly say it was a dream, while still others (perhaps theists) would argue that it wasn't a dream at all, and that it was literally God/Jesus/Allah/Bast speaking to you.

It would be tempting to say that "evidence" would convert me. I think we both can see how a first-person experience would not really be evidence, though some might be tempted to describe your dream as evidence they'd expect. Only for them, it wouldn't be a dream. It would be real. Somehow.

I look at it this way. God, as described in the Bible/Koran/Torah might be real. Every dot and tiddle. A being sufficiently powerful to be described accurately as described in those books would have more than enough power to create a reality as we see around us while remaining as hidden as he/she/it is. If that powerful being truly wanted me to believe, he/she/it could do so. It is within the scale of power we're talking about. Similarly, the gods described in various other myths and faiths also could be real, and powerful enough to convince me. Some being entirely unlike anything ever described or imagined by any person ever might be real, and may or may not have the ability to convince me.

Or, as seems to be the most likely case, none of them are real. None of them exist, and I remain properly convinced. It's on them to convince me, not for me to imagine how they might do so. Especially those hypothetical deities that are powerful enough to have made me. They already know how to do it.

When this question is asked by Christians/other theists, it simply exresses the utter bias they seem to have. Jesus is so important to a fan of Jesus that they assume everyone is a fan. We atheists do believe in our heart of hearts in Jesus, but have decided to (sadly) say these bad things like not believing. It is less "what would it take to convince me" and more "what would it take to get you to admit you were just lying, and go ahead and join the hugbox? We may tease you a little, but we won't hold it against you for eternity."

Replace Jesus with whomever the speaker is a big fan of.

What would it take to convince me that Rainbow Dash is real? Nobody ascribes to Rainbow Dash the all-encompassing power of omnipotence. Simply meeting Rainbow Dash in person, talking to her, and her sticking around and being a pal would be enough to convince me. Maybe letting me go visit Equestria with her by whatever means she made it to our distinctly non-magical, Rainbow Dash-lacking reality. But then, that could just be a dream. Maybe if several people all got to hang out with her and see how awesome she is.

But Jesus-fans say that Jesus is all powerful. Yet they seem to be the quickest to assume limits on his omnipotence.

Certainly not a damned dream I'll tell you that much. I'd have been worshipping Jim the 40 ft gummy bear years ago if that were the case. I'm glad you aren't an atheist any more, because if you were convinced otherwise by a dream than you didn't have the correct motives for taking that school of thought in the first place.
Once I had a psychotic episode during which I had somehow convinced myself everyone but me was a robot. It made perfect sense, no flaws with my internal logic, but I was still wrong. To this day I still somehow have a hard time detaching myself from that silly fantasy, the thing that keeps me grounded is the realization that I'm not the center of the bloody universe and such absurd thoughts are brought about by my massively flawed chimp brain.

5730057
I don't believe that. Number theory is based on pure logical extrapolation from a few beginning rules. A universe that didn't obey 2 + 2 = 4 would be inconsistent, and so could not exist.

5728520

5728525 5728530 5729433 What happened to me was evidence enough to convince me. If you witnessed something like that in your real life, would you rather go down on your knees and pray to Jesus or face the angry mob of ghosts?

5728528 You have a very specific head-canon about the after-life.

5729778 There have actually been cases of atheists becoming pop preachers. When they gained enough money from gullible Christians, they retired and revealed they were fake all along.

5729100 The dream you had is a testimony that you care about those around you. If you were put into a similar situation in RL, you'd probably react with kindness, also.

5730032 Jesus wasn't white, you know?

5730257

If that powerful being truly wanted me to believe, he/she/it could do so.

Why is it so hard to provide examples of how that might have happened if it were really so easy?

5730568 I didn't know it was a dream while I was dreaming it. It was only when I wake up that I found the evidence lacking. If what happened to me in a dream happened in RL, I'd be pretty convinced.

PS. You do know by now that we're all just designed to test and study your reactions, right?

5731042
I didn't imply that~

5730614 Firstly: it was a joke.

Secondly: the multiverse hypothesis (often incorrectly called a theory) also supports the possibility of universes with vastly differing laws of physics, in which mathematical theorems of ours may very well not apply. (At least, IIRC)

At least, so the hypothesis goes, however as an hypothesis it can be freely dismissed at one's digression. But it does make for some interesting, and horrific, ways to die in sci-fi.

5731042
So if some sand glowed in the waking world and a bunch of frightening things with unclear origin stopped chasing you, that would be enough for you to not only believe that the effect was caused by a specific deity described by one of the extant religions (the right one of which you can somehow determine?), but it would also be enough for you to join the ranks and worship said deity, even though he would be evil by any human standards? The Problem of Evil doesn't hold much weight as a proof that God can't exist, but it certainly would persuade me not to worship such a being if I became convinced he did exist.

5731042 I'd assume a more logical explanation than a 2,016-Year-Old Zombie Jew.

5731229
I think you're misunderstanding the multiverse hypothesis. Physicists can model these hypothetical ‘vastly different laws of physics’; in fact, the multiverse hypothesis stems in part from how a number of models for the observed laws of physics are actually models for a much broader range of possibilities that give no mechanism of selection that would inevitably lead to the ones we observe. The point? These alternate physics can be modeled, with math.
Mathematics is, as I said, a logical extrapolation from a set of first principles: It is always valid. Any universe, including ones with wildly different physical laws, would still obey math, because they would need to be consistent, and math is, at the most basic, just a way of describing how consistent things behave.

5731042 I made a new years resolution to stop TL;DRing everything I respond to, and I haven't quite gotten the hang o' that yet. You can disregard my first tangent.

5731254

I think you're misunderstanding the multiverse hypothesis.

Prolly.

5731042

5732031

That book has the best depiction of heaven and hell of all time IMHO.

5729246

It's impossible to give absolute proof for something that isn't true.

It's difficult, but not impossible. And the difficulty increases with the size of the system you're talking about.

I can quite easily prove that there aren't any visible rocks inside my teacup.
I can -- with a little effort -- prove that there are no visible, full-grown elephants in my house.
But proving that there is no god in the universe ... that gets tricky because you'd have to know the whole universe and have a foolproof way of detecting gods in it.

5731233 If a prayer to Jesus Christ managed to save my life then I would pray to Jesus Christ. When I'd be out of danger, I'd also test if a prayer to Zeus produced the glowing sand. If only a prayer to Jesus Christ produced the effect, it would be a tidbit of evidence that Jesus Christ is the correct one to worship.

5731267 Mmm, the Flashy adapts his behavior. Interesting.

5732031 I think I may be missing on a meme or something because I have no idea what you're implying.

5732041

It's a comic called Johnny the Homicidal Maniac - made by the same guy who did Invader Zim. In it the main character goes to heaven (which is you just sit in a chair for all eternity, just content enough to never get up) and Hell (which is exactly the same as Earth but you never die). It's what his first post was referring to.

5731042
Okay, that's nowhere close to enough for me and I prefer to look for more logical reasons to explain things I don't understand before accepting that I do not have an answer instead of bending my knees to a fictional tyrant or believing superstitious nonsense.

5728520

Also I dunno if that would convince me. Cause it's like, my whole life prayers and christians have no magical powers whatsover and then I run into this one girl who (let's say she can do it consitently and when the camera is on) clearly has magical powers, or at least her sand does. My first instinct wouldn't be 'wow, Christians really do have magic powers!' it'd be 'wow, some magic sand!'. You know? Cause if it came from Jesus then all Christians would have the Sandglow ability, right?

5732060 I used to be exactly like you, but then I had a dream that proved me wrong. It seems I'd expect much less evidence than I had used to think would be needed.

The problem with Christianity, I find, is not that there is too little evidence for it, but that there is none.

5732076 But what if the sand only reacted to Jesus Christ, and everyone could test it?

5732078

I'd still just think it was magic sand (or at least some kind of special sand with properties I don't understand). It'd be harder to conclude that Jesus was powering it.

5732090 But what if angry ghosts were chasing you, and you felt threatened by them? Would you not make the leap of faith and attempt to save your life by praying to Jesus Christ?

5732096

Well it wouldn't be a leap of faith at that point. I've already seen that invoking Jesus' name on the sand causes it to glow and repel ghosts. Using the sand after that would be no more a leap of faith than using a gun to kill something or using any piece of technology you've seen used.

Furthermore, it wouldn't necessarily mean Jesus is causing the sand to glow just because praying to him activates it. You could probably build a device that glows whenever someone prays to Jesus, for example - doesn't mean Jesus is making it glow. And like I said, the Bible never said anything about glowing sand and prayers and christianity never seemed to have any magical powers before. It'd be hard for this one example of Christian magic to counteract the deafening lack of it everywhere else in the world. Why would Jesus enchant this one patch of sand and only listen to prayers for that exact spot of sand to glow while ignoring every other prayer?

5732041
Correct in the sense of ‘saves your skin’ perhaps, but that doesn't address the Problem of Evil.

5732078

I used to be exactly like you, but then I had a dream that proved me wrong. It seems I'd expect much less evidence than I had used to think would be needed.

Or, and this might be difficult to believe; you're taking a dream far too seriously. You yourself said that “I'm not as sane in dreams as I am in the waking world,” which means, given the standard definition of ‘sane’, that your decisions in a dream would be different from the ones you would make when awake, and so the dream conversion, being a decision, is not indicative of what would happen if you encountered a similar situation when awake.

5732114 Still, would praying to Jesus Christ not make you a Christian?

5732116 The thing is, if what happened in my dream happened in RL, I would pray to Jesus Christ.

5732117
Would playing Pope Paul in a play make you a Christian?

5732117

No? I mean in that scenario I'd only be saying it to activate the sand, not because I actually believed.

5732119 In the dream I wasn't playing or pretending. I was actually praying to Jesus Christ. And if praying to Jesus Christ is not enough to be considered a Christian, then what is?

5732122

Believing he exists.

5732125 Isn't praying to Jesus Christ a confirmation that you believe in Jesus Christ?

5732133
We can return to the play for that. Would praying in a play count as a confirmation of belief? If not, then clearly it is possible to pray without confirming belief.

5731042
I am not omnipotent.

I am not capable of determining what sort of evidence could exist for a being that, so far, appears to have zero evidence to compel belief in it's existance. However, an omnipotent being is capable of compelling belief because there is no such thing as easy, hard, or impossible to a being that is omnipotent. I assume that a being that falls short of omnipotance, but is "really powerful" could have the ability to compel belief in me, and admit that a being capable of creating the universe is a likely candidate for being sufficiently powerful to compel belief in me. This is again not a statement of ease; it is a statement that I do not know for sure a being this powerful doesn't exist.

To put it another way: Book A exists. I don't know what is n Book A, but since it is written in English, I could read it to learn what it contains. Book B exists, but I don't know where it is, what language it is written in, if it is blank or not, and I have no reason to even think this book exists. How would I learn what is in this book? I'd need to learn of the possibility it exists, find it, discover what language it is written in, learn that language, and then be able to read it.

I do not know how many layers exists between my current mind and the mind I'd need to get to in order to believe. I do not know what those layers consist of. All I know is that at the moment, I have no reason to believe this thing people sometimes say is true. People existing and saying something is true is just one layer in this whole process.

5732238 I'm not fine with your reasoning. Religious people take slack for saying stuff like 'God has a plan'. We demand to know what plan would demand a genocide, and we don't accept their answer as sufficient. With the same reasoning, I don't accept your answer as sufficient.

Jesus Christ is well enough defined and there's no need for all the mystical conviction methods.

You defined exactly what would be needed for you to believe in book B, but when it comes to Jesus Christ, you're like, "I dunno. Ask Jesus. Maybe He knows."

5732122
It occurs to me that there's something else odd going on with your argument. Let's grant for the moment that praying to Jesus makes you a Christian. But you seem to be treating that as a permanent thing, like the moment you pray someone is going to jump out and say “Gotcha! Now you're religious forever!” But that's not how that works. It isn't a one-way street. You are allowed to sincerely believe something in the moment, and then look back later and realize that you were being stupid. So, okay, you're Christian in that moment as you pray for Jesus to save you from some evil spirits. But there's nothing stopping you from looking back on that later, when you no longer feel like you're in imminent danger, and reassessing your position.

5734635 If I were still being haunted by ghosts, I'd still be on my knees in the center of the holy ground, praying to Jesus to produce that sweet, saving glow from the sand. The lack of the mentioned manifestations in the real world is the only thing that prevents me from relapsing back to Christianity.

5734662
To me, that sounds rather like ‘the lack of someone pointing a gun at my head is the only thing that prevents me from handing over my wallet to a stranger’. If you can spot the several oddities in that statement, you can then translate them directly to oddities in what you said.