{"id":43,"date":"2012-02-20T10:18:35","date_gmt":"2012-02-20T16:18:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/creationanswers.net\/answersblog\/?p=43"},"modified":"2012-02-20T10:18:35","modified_gmt":"2012-02-20T16:18:35","slug":"is-christian-experience-a-delusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/creationanswers.net\/answersblog\/2012\/02\/20\/is-christian-experience-a-delusion\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Christian Experience a Delusion?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some skeptics who like to try and debunk Christianity may say that the experience of a Christian is a delusion.\u00a0 That when Christians talk about experiencing God changing their life they are only engaging in wishful thinking or deceiving themselves about the nature of their experience.\u00a0 They would point to people who believe other religions who might also say that their religion changes their lives (in positive ways) also.\u00a0 So what is the difference between a Christian who\u2019s life changes and someone of another religion who\u2019s life changes?\u00a0 This also brings up the issue of what\u00a0are the roles of external objective evidence, such as historical or scientific evidence, versus subjective experience?\u00a0 The skeptics may say, like John Loftus for instance, that subjective experience is not evidence at all<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It is true that a Christian\u2019s personal relationship with God\u00a0is a subjective experience.\u00a0 But there is an objective basis behind Christianity that is not affected by my feelings or perceptions.\u00a0 Christianity has its basis in historical events, such as the history of ancient Israel and the life and ministry of Jesus Christ in the first century.\u00a0 I would not say it\u2019s impossible for a Christian to delude themself, but that does not make their whole faith experience a delusion.\u00a0 If there are many people who have a very similar subjective experience of faith in God changing their lives in positive ways because of believing in the same objective truths from history, then there must be something to it!\u00a0 Millions of people from different cultures, languages, education levels, and nations have experienced many positive changes in their lives as a result of becoming a Christian.\u00a0 This is not something to just dismiss.\u00a0 It is not like the experience of people from other religious faiths, such as Mormonism or Islam for instance.\u00a0 Mormons and Muslims do not have an experience like a Christian.\u00a0 There may be outward similarities to a Christian\u2019s behavior in these religions.\u00a0 There are some commendable things about Mormonism and Islam in many outward behaviors but that does not make it the same.\u00a0 There is a deeper more subtle satisfaction that is experienced in the Christian life that people of other religions do not know.\u00a0 If a person is a Christian but they do not live an obedient Christian life, they do not by that failure disprove Christianity.\u00a0 They just generate confusion.\u00a0 There are many who by living the Christian life have demonstrated that their faith explains human experience better than other beliefs.<\/p>\n

I think that many of the things that show the authenticity of a Christian\u2019s faith are things that are long term patterns that are demonstrated over time in the person\u2019s life.\u00a0 In other words don\u2019t judge the reality of my faith based on whether I have a good day or a bad day.\u00a0 But, if my faith makes permanent positive changes in my life that last a lifetime, then that is a kind of “evidence” that it is real.\u00a0 When I was a nonchristian and 20 years old, I was seeing a psychiatrist on campus at Kansas State University.\u00a0 He was a Harvard graduate and was not a Christian.\u00a0 When I became a Christian, he did not try to dissuade me from my faith.\u00a0 He saw that my involvement with Christian people and with Church was a good thing for me and he observed me making good decisions in my life that were healthier than the way I had been in the past.\u00a0 My attitudes about myself were different as well.\u00a0 So, my Christian conversion was not part of the problem that led me to see a psychiatrist, it was really part of the solution that led to my psychiatrist telling me I didn\u2019t need to see him any more.\u00a0 I really believe that if someone would have asked my psychiatrist then if I was deluding myself, he would have said no.\u00a0 He would have been able to observe the difference in me believing a delusion and me growing in maturity and going in a healthy direction in my personal life.\u00a0 Delusions don\u2019t really meet people\u2019s needs and often they don\u2019t make a good life-long experience.\u00a0 Others around someone who believes a delusion may be able to see that something is wrong in their life easier than they can see themselves.\u00a0 I think Christian faith makes for a balanced healthy life, if you live a life obedient to God and you learn to really understand what the Bible teaches about life.\u00a0 No one is perfect, so it is never nearly perfect, but it is significant.\u00a0 I\u2019m now in my 50’s and I\u2019m certainly not perfect, but God has brought me a long way from where I was.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some skeptics who like to try and debunk Christianity may say that the experience of a Christian is a delusion.\u00a0 That when Christians talk about experiencing God changing their life they are only engaging in wishful thinking or deceiving themselves about the nature of their experience.\u00a0 They would point to people who believe other religions … Continue reading Is Christian Experience a Delusion?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/creationanswers.net\/answersblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/creationanswers.net\/answersblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/creationanswers.net\/answersblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/creationanswers.net\/answersblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/creationanswers.net\/answersblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/creationanswers.net\/answersblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44,"href":"https:\/\/creationanswers.net\/answersblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43\/revisions\/44"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/creationanswers.net\/answersblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/creationanswers.net\/answersblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/creationanswers.net\/answersblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}