Do you believe in souls?

Frank - how about these two instances:

Case #1

I am in a motorcycle accident - I have such severe spiral fractures that a leading orthopedic surgeon (in this case Dr. Scholls) tells me I will never walk again. I am visited in a dream some days later by an angel (very picture book - wings and such) and tells me I will be fine. Within a month I am walking and to this day do very well on my leg.

Case #2

I use my pool cue to hit the cue ball into the eight ball and it moves.

In both cases I cannot observe the causal nexus and have no direct experiential - deductive proof that either the angel healed me or the cue ball CAUSED the eight ball to move.

Also, Joe and Frank I am also not deducing anything here. I am talking about inductive evidence. Frank's claim is that because all religious experience is ambigious no religious experience can be counted as evidence is the claim I am trying to address.

I do not claim that God exists because I feel one thing - I use that as one peice of inductive evidence to be wieghed in with other bits. And yes, Joe, this does mean when prayers are not answered that I put THAT bit in my careful wieghing of my belief in God. I do not go willy nilly into this - this is a life long experiential experiement to give inductive evidence to God's existence.

The only leap of faith is when there is not conclusive evidence for or against God's existence that I 'chose' to believe.

Does this make sense?

OK, here's one.

I was a liar. I was a climber. I yelled at my mother; sought my own selfish desires. I always responded to life based on the predicate of what was in it for me. I guess, your average person...

I don't know how else to say it--after my experience, my entire life changed.

People imagine, I guess, that after a conversion experience, the 'converted person' has to drop all the things you would categorize as sin. Or either you have to start hiding it.

There are a lot of people who DO try to change their internal structure, or hide their external behavior, and call themselves Christians. They can't do it. They become bitter, and give Christianity a bad rap.

But, there are some, who have a genuine experience with Christ--and in a surprise to them, their internal construction changes, and their external vibe evidences it.

My life changed. The first time my mother started on me after my conversion--my usual response wasn't even in me. I didn't even have to tell her I'd changed, or been reborn. After she saw I wasn't going to respond the way I always had--she knew. Love for people replaces whatever was there before. Lying becomes as hard as telling the truth was before. You are seeking to help those who are hurting you, more than you used to strive to protect yourself.

That's not a normal human response.

It's not to say you still don't do things you know you 'shouldn't'. You always will. But, your internal construction has been reorganized.

That is a miracle. It is without effort.

Its my contribution to evidence. Its the best I have.

Nothing floated.

If humans are creatures of habit, how does one's habits change overnight with no effort?

Do you subscribe to nature or nurture? How does such a profound change take place that cannot be attributed to either?

Do you know anyone who, without any outside intervention, completely changed the basic structure of their identity in a split second?