{"id":257,"date":"2010-01-17T17:53:27","date_gmt":"2010-01-18T00:53:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/?p=257"},"modified":"2010-01-17T17:53:27","modified_gmt":"2010-01-18T00:53:27","slug":"one-mans-miracles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/?p=257","title":{"rendered":"One Man’s Miracles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Question…well, more of a spiel<\/em> from Jeff:<\/strong>
\n I stumbled onto your website about a week ago and saved your website on my computer. This week I was clearing out my “favorites” in the computer and came across it again. I just listened to your info on you tube and agree with where you are at this point in your life. I was somewhat close to where you are on a spiritual level 43 years ago. I wasn’t sure there was a God. My mom was a spiritual nut in the big pix but I had no reason to believe.
\n
\n Somehow I got linked up with a guy who happened to become my best friend who was a pastor’s son. I could see strange happenings around him and i wondered what was causing them. Later on he invited me to a chuch camp where everyone was talking about Jesus. I was arogant and doubtful that he even existed. I said these words out loud: “If Jesus is so real, why doesn’t he show himself?
\n
\nOver the next 40 years I tracked unusual events in my life and they all tied together with this very incident. I’m currently writing a book about it as i believe people should be aware of what i was seeing.
\n I work in electronics and I analyze things for a living. If my analysis takes me off course, then i waste valuable time and money. So i’ve learned to sharpen my skills. I ended up at a church camp 39 years after this event and saw something I couldn’t quite believe so i asked 6 other people what they saw. The answer tells the story that Jesus is real. The book is “the Cross in the Road” and i’m writing it for the people who can not see God in their life. It explains how i come to realize he was real. I’ve seen the impossible happen right before my eyes many times and even questioned my own sanity. But the other 6 people confirmed that it wasn’t my sanity in question but my belief system.
\n
\nAnswer:<\/strong>
\nA little more detail might help.
\n
\nI realise that you want people to read your book when it’s finished, assuming it becomes available to our visitors the world over. For the moment though, you’re claiming to have seen miracles without even describing them, let alone supporting your claims with evidence. This will probably not convince anybody, or even pique much interest.
\n
\nWhat you have done is talk up your own analytical powers, essentially daring people to say you’re wrong about what you saw. This doesn’t count for much, as every religion has sharp people among its devout and they can’t all be right about their conversion experiences.
\n
\nThat’s the general problem with using perceived personal experience of the divine when proselytising: there’s no real credibility to be gained, and plenty to be lost. You’re essentially trading on your existing credibility, which relative to the strangers you’re now trying to reach is zero.
\n
\nI’m not saying you won’t convince anybody, because at worst some people will believe anything. I’m just saying that the persuasive power of your experiences at church camp will not easily translate into a written account intended for the general public in their living rooms.
\n
\n– SmartLX<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“A little more detail might help.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[65],"class_list":["post-257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-text","tag-miracles"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pB6tr-49","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=257"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":578,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257\/revisions\/578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}