Two different things
Hello Commodore, Someday,
You are talking of two different things.
Commodore speaks out against personal experience as a basis for convincing others. I agree with him, since the situation the person with experience claims to have witnessed, is always exactly the same as if nothing supernatural had happened and the person is just prone to buying into superstition.
Someday doesn't speak of personal experience as a basis for convincing others. So far, so good imo. Instead he says atheists should produce something to convince the believer his/her experience is unreal. That's not so good imo. That seems like a slightly different variety of asking the 100% certain proof that god isn't real. And it turns on its head the burden of proof. Before suggesting that atheists should produce counter-proof, the onus is on the believer to show there is anything to disprove at all. Otherwise it's a bit like me saying that the Flying Spaghetti Monster (may noodles be forever upon him) is real because I have experienced the embrace of His noodly appendages. Sure, a believer is free to take that position, just as he/she is free to believe in the invisible pink unicorn, the ancient Egyptian gods etc. But without any other indication of them being real, he/she does give up the right to complain about not being taken serious and being ridiculed for it.
Peter
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