My Dear - It IS so by definition, because it ONLY happens WITHIN you...
That is the quintessential ostensive definition of FIRST-HAND experience...
But it is not a first hand encounter with God, since you have no way to distinguish it from an encounter with something that you merely THINK is God...
I agree, and YOU have NO WAY to test it...
Quid, Erat, Splat!
So you can't say it is an encounter WITH GOD.
Yup - You can do the same with love... And end up married... Then divorced...
Happens all the time...
And you can experience something you think is love (but isn't), get married and have a happy relationship that lasts your whole life. You may think it is love, but it isn't, is it?
Likewise with what you think may be God.
What is real is that they castrated themselves and committed suicide...
And their conviction that what they believed was true was no less than your conviction than what you believe is true.
If someone as convinced as you can be wrong about it, you must admit that you may be wrong as well, despite your extreme conviction.
There is other evidence, but a personal encounter with God is just that: Personal... The evidence will be found externally in a revised life that proceeds from that encounter...
What other evidence? The fact that a person's life will change?
There are plenty of people who have had lives changed by a belief that you think is wrong. Changed lives are not evidence.
You have to have the encounter to know...
Until you do, you cannot know...
You can only believe or not...
So you admit that it is not testable, not verifiable.
If you believe in something that has no verifiable evidence, yes, it is faith.
Show me just ONE example of an acquired physical characteristic being genetically passed on...
Have you read Koestler's "The Case of the Mid-Wife Toad"? It addresses this issue, and the one time that it seemed to have happened, and what the actual evidence was - K. was a Soviet Atheist, btw... An Apparatchik..
DNA tests to determine paternity, for example? Where does the child get the genetic material that matches that of the father if not from the father?
Not as much as Arthur Koestler...
He was an author, essayist and a journalist.
Why should I believe a thing he says about evolution?
Would you take advice from a carpenter about computer repairs? "Yeah, just delete the SYS32 folder. Makes your computer much faster."
We used to explain everything by material development... The mechanism is NOT understood, irreligious of its higher theoretical accountings...
Yes, the mechanism is very well understood. The fact you don't understand it does not change that fact.
Billiard BALLS I say!!
REAL evidence!!
There is real evidence for evolution.
The fact that you claim it is not evidence doesn't change the fact that it is very well supported evidence. (Maybe if you got your information about evolution from actual evolutionary biologists instead of authors and journalists, you'd know better.)
You are but defining your own limits...
Is this "I know you are, I said you are, but what am I?"
Wow, I haven't heard that since I was a kid.
Well, we ARE behind enemy lines and we ARE conducting operations...
So there ARE going to be counter-offensives...
Yes, all the different versions of Christianity are at war with each other.
I share your scorn for untestable feelings...
And yet you rely on it.
Or perhaps you can describe the rigorous testing that you put your faith through.
Widen your perception: It is not popularity, but historical pervasiveness that is being proffered...
Isn't that the same thing?
If you claim it is not, then please describe how to tell the difference between the two.
It is a fallacious doctrine - Social Metaphysics - Groups assemble themselves and proclaim and enforce their version of truth... The Roman Catholic Church did it in the west... Gallileo can attest... Environmentalists do it now... So do evolutionists... Enforcement is less painful than burning at the stake, but more pernicious and pervasive...
You have no idea how science actually works, do you?
"Here's my claim. Here's my evidence. If you want to say I am wrong, then show me the error in my data and explain how it is in error."
ANd yet you make it seem like scientists are just saying, "You're wrong because I don't like your conclusion!"
Evidence of what it is studying.
Yes, God is NOT material, so what evidence would you prefer?
Photons are not material, the higgs boson is not material, and yet we have plenty of testable and verifiable evidence for them. Why can you not provide testableand verifiable evidence for God?
That is your limitation of understanding. God is not an OBJECT, so encountering Him will not be an objectively provable event... No video-cams...
By your logic, there can never be any evidence for electricity.