No I mean things like. I prayed to quit smoking after years of failing by my own devices. Then after I prayed I quit cold turkey, without any desire to smoke. That one's a little hard to deny.
But one day I was fishing and said to the Lord, lets catch a big fish. The next cast was sort of funny, like it was guided to the exact spot my eyes focused at, then wham, caught a nice fish. But still since God is invisible it leaves you wondering, did God do it or did it just happen that way.
Ima challenge you since we're talking about testing your faith.
I argue (make a statement of challenge) that what you believe is synchronicity not god. Synchronicity is which "holds events are "meaningful coincidences" if they occur with no causal relationship yet seem to be meaningfully related." or better definition:
"The simultaneous occurrence of causally unrelated events and the belief that the simultaneity has meaning beyond mere coincidence."
The smoking (outsider in) sounds more to do with your devotion to stop smoking not an outside force. If you want something to happen and you find it hard to do, your subconscious is constantly making an attempt to solve the problem. Solving problems, especially big ones, make us more eager and aware of possible answers. If it is something like abuse, the answer may be the victim developing an "other" inside her head as a survival technique as it puts a wall between her and the abuse experience. I know smoking isn't like abuse, but I'm sure you kinda get my point?
If we are in love with someone we just met, we look for things that may not be there but we are blind to that (in some cases) if we do not "test ourselves" (aka the thread title) in what we believe is true or an alternative fact.
Also, prayer is a huge motivator for many people to "get up an do things" and it's another form of meditation to let you be "aware" of things that in life is everyday but to you they are meaningful and to god-believers they attribute this awe-some event to god.
Since god is invisible, then how can you ascertain that god helped you stop smoking or help you catch a fish. We can attach meaningful things to an outside party to help ourselves. Many people do (like the abuse thing). Our praying to the lord is the same as my picking up a pencil and devoting myself to my art. It's an action that motivates us inside and outside. Does it have to do with god? Since god is invisible, the closest we can come is how
humans interpret god and their relation to him.
Hundreds of people find it hard to do this without, I guess, feeling silly (just guessing). Scriptures of different religions, community, family, etc help confirm (confirmation bias) what they
believe is true. It's like saying something is in a empty box because we have no way of seeing whats in it. I mean, you can use the box to stand up on and get your cereal. It can be useful, that
does not mean anything is in the box anymore than a motivated atheist who shakes the box redundantly as if something will magically appear.
Like doesn't work that way. If someone makes a claim that nothing is in the box, it is just a claim. Likewise, the other way around. However, I haven't heard any believers of the box present non-bias information. On the other end, I bring a psychological explanation of why we think something is in the box. But nothing pops out of thin air.
Maybe people are lying?
Maybe we don't know.
That is from our point of view. People can't really think too much from their point of view, so
some people turn to god.
Nothing wrong with that. Just an interesting observation after my religious experiences.
