I've been an atheist for nearly two years now. I think I'm rational person. But something happened to me when I was a kid still to this day leaves me scratching my head. I was wondering if there were some possible explanations for it.

I was about 8 or 9 when, I had a cousin named Steven that was murdered, who was very close to all of us. He was extremely close to my mom and brother. I can look back and say that it was a very, very tragic time for everyone, because he was a teenager I don't think quite 16 yet.

At his funeral it was our chance (my mom and I) to pay our last respects to him. So, she and I walked up to the casket and stood for a moment. She leaned over told him something seeing his father in heaven and stepped back and we looked at the body. Then it was as if the air around the casket warbled, the only way I can describe it was like a drop in a still pool of water), the casket seemed to tremble, yet made no noise and I looked up at what used to be my cousin and I saw what looked to be a shadow of him chuckling right there in the casket. My mom and I looked at each other and then up at the Minister to see if he saw what we saw and he simply shrugged as if he saw it and couldn't believe it. It's never happened at another funeral since then. We lived in Chicago so, there weren't any earthquakes or anything, no trucks passing by. Strangely enough, we didn't feel that tremble or quake and my mom and I were the only ones that saw it for sure.

Interesting story Asheraa and it is definitely something I would like to talk to you about. I would like to ask you a question, however, to better understand your position because you call yourself an atheist but question seems to imply that you might still have some inclination that there actually might be something out there that you cant explain. But so I can further understand your position, my question is: Do you claim to be an "atheist" someone who knows with CERTAINTY that God (I am speaking about the Christian God of the Bible only because I myself am a Christian and it is the only true and objective worldview) DOES NOT EXIST or are you an "agnostic," someone that claims that they DON'T KNOW with ANY CERTAINTY whether God exist or not. Which one best describes your position?

Let us set aside for the moment that there may be a mundane explanation for the event. The existence of one supernatural event does not prove all other supernatural events. If you could prove there were werewolves, that is not evidence that vampires exists. For any Christians who would like to refute this, consider, the same logic would mean that if your Judeo-Christian god exists, all the Hindu gods must exist as well.

Let us consider this event is directly tied to a Judeo-Christian god. Why did it only happen at this funeral? Surely there are plenty of other Christian funerals where god could have manifested himself or make the presence of deceased souls known. Why are there not many reports of such things? Is it possible that the ones there are would fail the scrutiny of any investigation? Would your experience held up under investigation by non-emotionally invested witnesses?