[kypro]

To be fair a lot of Christians do the same and explain away contradictions in the bible as being simply "metaphors".

As more people become scientifically literate hopefully it will push religions to adopt a more rational interpretation of their beliefs.

[Dangeranger]

I have had some success speaking with those who devoutly believe in God by stating that while the Universe is governed by the rules of physics and math, science doesn't address where those rules come from, and therefore they can be justified in believing that God created them. Put another way, God isn't the musician playing the symphony, God is the composer of the notes.

[Ancapistani]

I’ve had some success speaking with those who don’t believe by stating that my faith is based on subjective personal experience, and therefore it would be unreasonable for me to expect them to believe based upon my testimony alone.

Instead, I only ask that they be open to the idea that the Holy Spirit exists and pay attention if and when they feel His presence in their life.

Coming from apparently very different perspectives, I’m struck by the beautiful symmetry of our approaches. It makes me happy :)

[vmception]

Proponents of other religions experience that same energy.

Alongside those that have used psychedelics.

Given that, it seems more likely that we have a vestigial sense or an additional state our mind can be in that is either tricking us (our other senses patch and filter erroneous information, tricking us in a fairly uniform way to create our shared reality), or allowing us to perceive an always-there presence or energy. Perhaps other life forces exist in this state alongside us - just like the Bible and other belief systems say - and we are unable to perceive them, or perhaps not. Perhaps a combination of shared reality filtering and an energy/entity(s) operating at a different frequency than we can normally perceive. Or not at all.

Although I’m not religious don’t subscribe to exalting the renditions of this energy, I am open to all outcomes about what the expanded reality really is, what is there, what is our symbiotic relationship with it and knowing what it can be.

[brabel]

One important thing is not symmetrical in your analogy: for scientists, the truth is approximated by coming up with hypothesis, making experiments and then observing the evidence. If the evidence, as collected by multiple experimenters, is strong for the hypothesis, then that hypothesis is accepted, otherwise it is rejected. Anyone with enough skill and equipment can reproduce the results. If someone can't, the results lose weight and more research is needed.

In your subjective personal experience, nearly all of this is missing. You only have a hypothesis: there's a God that is causing this personal experience. There's no experiment we can make, as you say yourself, that would convince us that you do feel something magical, and that that feeling is coming from something supernatural, not from your brain (which is known to be prone to illusions and hallucinations).

Even if I felt such experience, I would be convinced that it was a brain illusion and I don't know of anything that could be used to convince me otherwise, except perhaps something real, tangible (say, God tells me what black matter is in a way that I could not have possibly come up with by my own means, or explains why he doesn't just show up and tell everyone he's real, or give me some power to alter reality and prove to everyone I've met Him!).

There's no symmetry here at all.

[Dangeranger]

This is indeed a beautiful symmetry. Thanks for adding your perspective.