Larry Sanger

then why shouldn't you believe that the Christians actually sincerely believe what they believe?

And then shouldn't you take them more seriously if you're going to take the dark side seriously?

My view is not that I actually became convinced that there is a...

dark underside of the world that is spiritually powerful.

I didn't actually come to that conclusion.

I simply saw that it is possible and backed away.

And then a little later, turned to the Bible and realized that essentially it's true.

I don't know if they're unexplainable, not in the sense of witnessing a miracle or hearing the voice of God or anything like that.

That's never happened to me.

But certainly in the whole process of my conversion, I started doing something—well, I actually need to give a bit of backstory to make this make sense—

When I was a kid, I used to talk to God, right?

And like I would just have these sort of pretend conversations.

I had an imaginary friend when I was five years old.

And I continued to talk to God in the same way, you know, from time to time.

I don't remember how much when I was a kid.

And then later...

After reading philosophy, Socrates, Socratic dialogues and so forth, I started thinking about different issues and both philosophical and just personal issues in my life.

in the same sort of dialogue way.

So I would have these dialogues often with just some mysterious, all-wise person.

And sometimes it would even be God when the topic was about God.