Comments on: An Analogical Argument for the Legitimacy of Religious Experiences

By: My Religious Experience is More Valid Than Yours. Nyah! :-p~~~ | Christianity @ Ales Rarus

Thu, 28 Sep 2006 14:40:22 +0000

[...] Riffing on a comment made in response to my post about the validity of religious experiences , I have a question to ask you folks. [...]

By: Tom Smith

Tom Smith — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Perhaps I haven't read your post closely enough, but I have a question.

"The events to which I refer are car accidents and bank robberies. Any police investigator will tell you that it is neigh impossible to get coherent, cogent, and consistent stories from witnesses of either of these types of events. All participants witness a subset of the same sensory stimuli, yet each has a slightly, if not completely contradictory, memory of the event in question. Nobody but a complete skeptic would question the veridicality of a car accident or bank robbery. To do so would cast doubt on all sensory experiences as source for understanding our universe - a rather extreme proposition. Yet, if several people experience mystical/religious states, they are typically called liars, fools, or drug addicts. They are told that even if anybody wanted to believe their stories, people wouldn't simply because the stories are inconsistent! This kind of double standard is not acceptable."

How are the witnessing of a bank robbery and a religious experience at all alike? They're both experiences, but that's it. I don't even know that I'd call a religious experience "sensory." Because a bank robbery is something extrinsic to me, I am limited to how I witness it. But a religious experience is something that is infused in me by God. It does not exist outside of me, and therefore there can be no variance in the interpretation of it. It's not like there's one religious experience everywhere throughout the world that I am merely tapped in to at a particular time. So in a way, religious experiences, if they do, indeed, exist, have far more veracity than other experiences.

By: Funky Dung

Funky Dung — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

"How are the witnessing of a bank robbery and a religious experience at all alike?"

The point is that though eye-witness accounts of such sensory events are notoriously inconsistent, nobody doubts that such an event actually ocurred. Some people dismiss religious experiences as bunk because accounts differ wildly at times. My argument is that in this way religious experiences might be like bank robberies. IOW, contradictory accounts do not nullify the veridicality of an event. Make sense?

By: Tom Smith

Tom Smith — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I agree that contradictory accounts do not imply the non-existence of the actual thing being witnessed. Perhaps my objection is only to your example of the burglary. The thing is, if 20 people see a bank robbery, and all say different things, you at least know that something's happened. But religious experiences are not like bank robberies because there can only be one account of a religious experience — that of the person who has it. It does not exist outside that person, and it could therefore be much more easily invented. Maybe another way to put it is this: you *witness* a bank robbery, whereas you *have* a religious experience. Does that make any sense?

By: Funky Dung

Funky Dung — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

You assume that every religious experience is necessarily entirely unique. What if they're not? Maybe I should have used a different analogy, such as feeling hungry, having an itch, or being in love. The robbery analogy resulted from a psych experiment I took part in, wherein written descriptions of perpetrators were compared to photo identification of the same. The written accounts sucked. The photo selections were flawed, but they were right, or closer to right, most of the time.

By: Tom Smith

Tom Smith — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Each religious experience is ontologically unique, as it's not something that's shared with others. But you're right that they aren't necessarily completely different. I think your other suggested examples probably fit the mold of religious experiences better.

By: Troy

Troy — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I heard recently about research that found that those who believed in alien abductions were much more likely to report being abducted than those who didn't have that prior belief. Our courts have to deal with false memories being invoked in children all the time. It's funny (hee hee) how mystical/religious experiences follow the expectations of the culture in which they are experienced. When's the last time you heard of an LDS missionary claim to receive a revelation from Ganesh?

By: Funky Dung

Funky Dung — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

You make interesting points, but I wonder if you miss one of the points I was trying to make. That the experiences differ, or even that they are attributed to different causes, need not invalidate them entirely. Perhaps Saxe's poem is more meaningful with it's intended meaning in this context. The incorrect deductions made by the blind men do not invalidate that fact that they are all indeed toughing not only an elephant, but the same elephant.