When Dummet says:

(quote)”“How would it be if you knew that something was true? Other things would have to fit with it.” (end quote)

he is referring to the validity of his religious claims, correct? Not the validity of philosophical concepts independent of religion. I am writing this understanding the passage as Dummet claiming he knows his religion to be true, and has to “fit” his philosophy around it. If I am wrong about this, forgive me.

You say:

(quote)”It shows (presumably) that religious experience can be veridical (okay – can seem to be veridical);” (end quote)

My dictionary (Webster’s New College Dictionary) defines veridical as such:

(quote)”1 truthful; veracious 2 corresponding with reality or facts” (end quote)

Here’s what I don’t understand about people who hold such beliefs as Dummet does: how does his truth claim go from “god” to “Christian God?” (I am assuming since he is identified as a Catholic that he believes in the specific Christian God.) I don’t believe in ghosts, and yet if I had an experience with one (say I saw one with my own eyes when I was in a normal psychological state, and was left with scratches and bruises from the ghost) it would be “corresponding with reality or facts,” for me, to believe in that one ghost. (I think it was Thomas Paine who once said “one man’s miracle, is another man’s hearsay.” I wouldn’t expect anyone else to believe me about my ghost, therefore. And if there were other people in the room who saw nothing, I think it would be wise to question my own sanity.) But certainly Dummet has not had any direct contact (by direct I mean actually seeing, talking to, feeling) with the CHRISTIAN God. How would he ever claim to know what god it was? He could reply that the power of the feeling was too strong to be questioned. But millions of other believers in different gods have had that same feeling, and, as Sam Harris has noted, the fact that the same type of evidence supports two opposite claims refutes the evidence itself (something cannot be A & ~A). It doesn’t seem philosophically sound, to me, (and you seem to feel the same way, unless I’m wrong) that a simple feeling is evidence of a specific God, whether Christian, Hindu, Wiccan, Scientology etc.

I agree with (2). I don’t think, as an atheist, I will ever understand the feeling of religious euphoria. I do just find with music, love, sex, philosophy, food, sport etc. I think religious people are genuine in their belief that there is a God, but they are simply mistaken.

I’m afraid I don’t understand (3), however. You state:

(quote)”It means that it is possible to be just about as good at philosophy as it is possible to be, and yet still believe in God (which is interesting if belief in God is manifestly absurd);” (end quote)

For the sake of argument, say a philosopher believes ten things. One of those ten things is that the Christian God exists (as Dummet does). If knowledge and truth is considered a philospher’s main objective, and this belief in the Christian God is “manifestly absurd” can one still state that the believer can be “just as good as philosophy as it is possible to be?” I think this claim is questionable especially when one thinks of the enourmous importance religion is to the believer; it would undoubtably effect other areas of belief.

Again, I hope I didn’t misunderstand what you are claiming. I’m not even sure I’m using the correct defintion of veridical.

I do just fine* with music, love…

enormous*

undoubtedly*

definition*

Before we argue the (non) existence of “god”, can we define terms as to what this “god” thing is, please?

Also, if “god” exists, and loves EVERYONE … then why is there such gross and unecessary suffering around?

To which there are two possible answers, really:

One: “God” doesn’t exist, and you are making it up.
or, much, much worse…
Two: “God” does exist, and he/she/it/they is a murderous, sick, torturing bastard, whom I want nothing to do with.

AND/OR

Is “god” in this universe, and real, with direct intervention in human affairs,
OR
Is “god” transcendant/immaterial, and “outside the universe, and hence space and time?

If the former, then why no detection, at all, ever, and if the latter, why bother?

and has to “fit” his philosophy around it.

Yes, I assume that is what is meant.

I guess the thing about this kind of religious experience is that it brooks no dissent. The fact that other people claim to have similar experiences only means that they are mistaken about the nature of their experience (because obviously people can be mistaken). So the Sam Harris argument doesn’t work.

The thing about Dummett is that he just is considered one of the great philosophers of the last fifty years.

Dummett’s stance adds suuport to my view that “attachment to supernatural explanations” has a genetic substrate with variability in the population. He “knows” it’s true means “he has a deep-seated emotional conviction that it’s true”. Trying to argue him out of it is pointless because his convinction doesn’t come from logic; the logic is retro-fitted.

The nearest analogy I can think of off the top of my head would be trying to convince a young fit heterosexual male that there is nothing that interesting between the legs of a young woman.

Don’t buy that genetic substrate thing as stated - because surely when we were evolving there would be nothing to distinguish supernatural from other kinds of explanation.

(Though I am sympathetic to the idea that there may be some kind of evolved religious sensibility.)

“It means that it is possible to be just about as good at philosophy as it is possible to be, and yet still believe in God (which is interesting if belief in God is manifestly absurd);”

One can be successful in a field of endeavor and be a blithering idiot otherwise. At least since Kant, philosophers, theologians and scientists have had permission to wall off what they believe about their particular world of forms from what they can express on the basis of a firm empirical or even logical foundation. This explains why excellent epidemiologists can be creationists and why Heidegger could be a Nazi.

This takes nothing away from Dummett. What little I’ve read seems really top notch and you’ve made me want to read more. What it does say is that the argument that people need to have wholly integrated views of the world is false, and I would have thought Hume had buried that idea a long time ago. Catholicism, sorry to say, might be well schooled mass hysteria even though its adherents might be excellent thinkers in most respects.

there would be nothing to distinguish supernatural from other kinds of explanation Don’t know how much you know about the details of the various proposals for evolved susceptibility to religion (if you’ve read Breaking the Spell, presumably a bit), but it strikes me that hair-trigger agency detection, for instance, fits well with “supernatural”.

In any case, I was probably using “supernatural” almost synonymously with “religious”, but possibly to include various things like belief in UFOs or crystal healing, for which “religion” doesn’t seem like a good word.

I think it’s also likely that there is genetic variability in emotional attachment to induction, too. Twin studies would be the way to go here, but I don’t know of any.

Why don’t you like Breaking the Spell, btw?

nothing to distinguish supernatural from other kinds of explanation.

The genetic substrate to religion seems most likley to be a “spandrel” or at least not originally or strongly adaptive and to arise from a number of separate features combining.

One could see why the tendency to use induction as an explanatory method might evolve; but it doesn’t produce the need for supernatural explanations.

Jeremy-

I’m a little confused. What is your objection to Harris’ argument? I think it can be said thusly:

1. Nothing (truthful) can be A and ~A
2. Evidence “X” results in A and ~A
3. Evidence “X” is spurious.

In this case “X” is the “feeling” (what does that mean?…) of God’s existence. As Sam Harris said recently in his debate with Andrew Sullivan:

(quote) “I recently spent an afternoon on the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee, atop the mount where Jesus is believed to have preached his most famous sermon. It was an infernally hot day, and the sanctuary was crowded with Christian pilgrims from many continents. Some gathered silently in the shade, while others staggered in the noonday sun, taking photographs.

As I sat and gazed upon the surrounding hills gently sloping to an inland sea, a feeling of peace came over me. It soon grew to a blissful stillness that silenced my thoughts. In an instant, the sense of being a separate self-an “I” or a “me”-vanished. Everything was as it had been-the cloudless sky, the pilgrims clutching their bottles of water-but I no longer felt like I was separate from the scene, peering out at the world from behind my eyes. Only the world remained.

The experience lasted just a few moments, but returned many times as I gazed out over the land where Jesus is believed to have walked, gathered his apostles, and worked many of his miracles. If I were a Christian, I would undoubtedly interpret this experience in Christian terms. I might believe that I had glimpsed the oneness of God, or felt the descent of the Holy Spirit. But I am not a Christian. If I were a Hindu, I might talk about “Brahman,” the eternal Self, of which all individual minds are thought to be a mere modification. But I am not a Hindu. If I were a Buddhist, I might talk about the “dharmakaya of emptiness” in which all apparent things manifest. But I am not a Buddhist.

As someone who is simply making his best effort to be a rational human being, I am very slow to draw metaphysical conclusions from experiences of this sort. The truth is, I experience what I would call the “selflessness of consciousness” rather often, wherever I happen to meditate-be it in a Buddhist monastery, a Hindu temple, or while having my teeth cleaned. Consequently, the fact that I also had this experience at a Christian holy site does not lend an ounce of credibility to the doctrine of Christianity.”(end quote)

How is this wrong?

This thread is going to become a sprawling mess like the Dick Dawkins thread, everyone putting in their pennyworth about the reasons for & origins of theism.

It should be clear to us today that religion has its origins in what psychologists now call social intelligence & emotional intelligence - distinct from intellectual intelligence (but all 3 interreact…).

It shouldn’t be a surprise that there are still philosophers who rationalise theist beliefs, since they’ve been immersed in a tradition - studying the history of ideas - that’s been doing the same thing for two and a half thousand years. After the experience of the 20th century we should realise that human beings are capable of rationalising anything - even Christian-baiting.

Why do theists choose one god rather than another? They choose the god of their tribe (Social Intelligence). Humans are born xenophobes - they’re always born into the in-group.

What would distinguish supernatural from other kinds of explanation? Think Sexual Selection. Supernatural explanations provide more to say in a more colorful & imaginative way. More talk, more sex.

The best argument against epiphenomenalism is: What would be the value of an adaptation like this?

How is this wrong?

Because my religious experience isn’t Sam Harris’s religious experience. Nothing about my experience follows from the fact that Sam Harris has his kind of experience. Mine is veridical, his isn’t. If he had my experience, he’d realise this, but he hasn’t, so he doesn’t.

So, in other words, I simply deny that my “X” in 2 of your scheme is the same as his “X”. If it isn’t the same, then it doesn’t entail A and ~A.

Okay, none of this is going to persuade a non-believer, but that isn’t the point: it persuades me because I have my experience (and if you had it, it would persuade you too).

Obviously, I don’t have these kinds of experience, but that’s the (a) defence against Harris’s argument.

The genetic substrate to religion seems most likley to be a “spandrel” or at least not originally or strongly adaptive and to arise from a number of separate features combining.

Yes, I agree with that. My objection was just to the idea that natural selection would pick out peculiarly supernatural explanations.

The best argument against epiphenomenalism is: What would be the value of an adaptation like this?

I wouldn’t be an adaptation - just the consquence of the adaptations that built the brain (in other words, the argument would be that a certain kind of neural complexity inevitably results - given the nature of our universe - in an inert consciousness).

In the book by Dennett that Jeremy said is terrible, the author discusses how mice have strange behavior that doesn’t seem to have value until you realize that it is being caused by a parasitical organism and the behavior has value to the parasite, not the host. Dennett goes through many qui bono examples.

The mind doesn’t have to have any apparent (to minds) survival value for its existence either to make sense or to be a consequence of adaptation. It might indeed be a side effect. Similarly, religion might not have any survival value and may have evolved as a side effect.

Assorted philosophers, physicists and even a few atheists still want there to be a Cartesian dualism so that mind stuff can exist separately and have some other reality in which all minds share. Dennett, being a materialist denies this.

I am not sure what relevance this has as to whether people who practice a religion can have other rational thoughts.

In the last (only) book I read by Sam Harris, his central argument was that religion is dangerous, and free thinking people should no longer go along for the ride. I think his point was well taken, and has not been discussed on this blog where his name has come up.

To say religious experience is veridical is redundant. This is precisely what evangelicals mean by witnessing. They want their witness to be convincing to others to win converts. In this case it’s ‘true for me and may/should also be true for you.’

I’m not sure it is redundant because I think that there are also kinds of religious experience that are not veridical. For example, the kind of thing that Sam Harris seems to be talking about could be classed as a religious experience - i.e., some people would class it so - but it (seems at least) to be different from the kind of thing that Russell Stannard, for example, was talking about when he talked about experiencing God in prayer.

I don’t know if anyone here has any experience with psychosis (as patients or professionals) - but the veridical nature of the experience is one of the factors that leads to such a profound loss of insight - i.e. you just can’t explain to them that it is really quite unlikely black helicopters are chasing them and that they are therefore hallucinating them.

I think Harris was saying that he has had many of the sorts of experiences that religious people say are show their connectedness with God but that he doesn’t see a need to ascribe anything supernatural to these events. Private knowledge of the universe that is inexpressible but somehow true is the meat of transcendental literature. That doesn’t prove that people who say they experience these things are experiencing anything other than a chemical imbalance in their brains.

I meant to say that when religious people talk about their religious experiences they are giving testimony about what they think is most true but probably wouldn’t show up on any kind of radar. In this case to point out that there is a veridical aspect to what they are doing is like saying sleep is caused by a dormitive factor. –A special case and not true of all things going on in religion, so I stand corrected.

Not sure I see the difference in the two examples: Harris v. Stannard.

Another aspect to the veridical thing is this: some people might be experiencing a form of psychosis and others might merely be lying when they make that little extra leap from “I felt a warm feeling right here,” to “I heard God speak to me in a still small voice.” I can imagine political and managerial reasons why Moses might have lied about his mountain top experiences and the rest of his reported behavior doesn’t fit the mystic schizoid profile.

Andrew

If I understood what Russell Stannard was saying it was that the phenomenology of his experience in prayer was such that it was undeniably an experience of God; he could no more doubt it than he might doubt that he had breakfast that morning (or whatever). If this is right, then it seems to be a different kind of experience to that of Sam Harris (because his is deniable).

There is a class of religious experience that is more tentative than a properly veridical experience. I’ve had conversations with people where they’ve talked about experiencing the warmth of God, but have readily conceded that it might simply be their minds playing a trick. This doesn’t seem to me to be the kind of thing that Stannard was talking about.

I think the lying/self-deception angle is interesting. As someone who has never had even the Sam Harris type thing, I do wonder how much of this stuff is simply wishful thinking, etc.

“he could no more doubt it than he might doubt that he had breakfast that morning (or whatever).”

But actually, one can doubt things like that, and sometimes there are reasons to doubt things like that - because memory is fallible, and can be very easily manipulated.

What I wonder about the Stannard example (I did a comment [no, actually, two] at B&W about this because I meant to stay out of this one, but I’m too curious) is if he properly considers 1) the fact that inner experiences can simply be illusory, and 2) the fact that in a sense he ought to keep that in mind - at least, if he wants to make any claims about the experience, which maybe he doesn’t, maybe you winkled them out of him.

But your question is ‘If the experience genuinely has that quality - is it rational to take it at face value?’, and that’s why I think it isn’t, quite. It isn’t quite rational to take it at face value because it is common knowledge that inner experience is subject to delusion, distortion, hallucination, etc. Stannard must know that. So - I can (I think) imagine how the experience would seem that way, but at the same time I still think it’s intellectually possible to stand back and be aware that it is simply a matter of the inside of one’s own head - and that the failure to do that betrays a certain irrationality.

one can doubt things like that

Hmmm. Sometimes, but sometimes not. I cannot doubt that I went running this morning.

Suppose people have religious experiences that have this quality. (I’m not saying that they do.) If they do, then it seems to me that they could accept that inner experiences can simply be illusory (just like memory can be faulty), keep this in mind (just as I keep in mind that memory can be faulty when I say that I cannot doubt that I went running this morning), and still insist that the experience is genuinely veridical.

I’m not sure that they thereby make a wrong move. Where Stannard did make a wrong move, I thought, was to claim that this kind of data should be available to science in the same way as other kinds of verifiable/falsifiable data. Obviously it should not. But that’s a different question as to whether it is rational for the believer to accept the experience as veridical.

This is not an argument for God from religious experience. I’m just musing about what it is reasonable to expect people to believe if they have these kinds of experiences (though, of course, it is quite possible that they do not have these experiences - wishful thinking, self-deception, etc).

Yes. Well, if people have religious experiences that really are every bit as hard to disbelieve as is a memory of a very recent physical experience (by the same token, I cannot doubt that I walked down to the sculpture park and back this afternoon), then maybe it is rational for them to take the experience at face value. But then of course the question becomes are the experiences really that impossible to doubt - really *as* impossible, for the same kinds of reasons? Perhaps I mean, do they really seem as physical and external and hence undoubtable as does a (recent) long tiring run or walk? Do they have the same kind of quality? I don’t know, but I doubt it. They’re not usually described that way, for one thing - they’re not extended in the same way. If we just mathematize it and say the two are exactly equal, then maybe it is rational, but otherwise…I’m full of doubts. (Mind you - I’m making a distinction between rational and reasonable. [That is, I did at B&W.] I do think it’s reasonable - but I don’t think it’s rational [unless the experience really is like a run a few hours ago].)

Veridicated “religious” experiences?

Really?

I suggest that, as usual, this discussion is several years behind the experimental physical sciences.

You should be reminded of the experiments of Persinger, and many others now ….

That “religious” “visionary” expereiences can be manufactured to order in the lab, with the correct stimuli.

So, under controlled conditions - easy - ask Persinger and friends.

But of course, the religious wouldn’t want to do that - it mught interrupt their income stream.

Furthermore, any “god” doesn’t seem to, or want to provide any sort of real evidence of him/her/it/them’s existence, but to take it on “faith” as a sort of test.

This just means that “god” is a secretive, paranoid bastard.
Just as “god” is “good”, with all the suffering and injustice in the world, just goes to show that he(etc) is a cruel, torturing bastard. And it doesn’t ammeter which “god” you are talking about either ….

Once, when I was still teaching, a pupil (obviously from a religious family) asked me - “Don’t you believe in anything, sir?”
To which I replied - “Yes, I believe in Gravity” - picked up a small piece of chalk, and dropped it - “Look, it’s still working, isn’t that wonderful!”

The religious bullshitters really don’t like that one.

Similarly, the religious who claim that there are “no universal truths, except “god”, don’t like it when I tell them that this is codswallop, and then proceed to write out half-a-dozen Physics equations which are universal truths.

[ Newtonian gravitational attraction, relatavistic mass increase, e-to-the minus-i-pi, radioactivity decay relationship, velocity = wavelenth x frequency usually do quite well for starters ... ]

G. T - so what? Memories can also be reproduced under experimental conditions. Memory is notoriously unreliable. I have in the past misremembered things (things about which I was certain - you know, so that it was a shock when I found out that I had misremembered). But I still can’t doubt that I went running yesterday.

Nobody here is arguing that religious experience = God. The only argument is about whether if one has these kinds of experiences - if they are as apparently veridical as the memory I have of my running - it is then rational, reasonable, or understandable to take them at face value.

I also remember (following the TV programme a year or two ago which reported this experiment) finding a claim by one of the people who had been peripherally involved in the experiment (performing the experiments, but not one of the actual researchers) that it showed that God is real. He viewed the experiment as showing that stimulation of that area of tbe brain enabled a faculty which was otherwise dormant, analogous to the way that direct electrical stimulation of nerves can move the arm or leg of a stroke victim who has lost the power to send signals down the nerve from their brain.

I can’t remember if this was Todd Murphy - Murphy is marketing the technology as an aid to spiritual exploration, apparently with Persinger’s blessing.

In a further twist, Nature in 2004 reported a Swedish attempt to replicate the study using double-blind experiments, which failed.

I think that how one reacts to a prima facie religious experience in one’s own case has much to do with one’s existing basic metaphysical framework. If one is already a religious believer, then the experience will probably just reinforce this existing belief. If one is not a believer, but is inclined to be credulous, then the experience might encourage religious belief. However, if one is of a sceptical nature, then I think that one would likely try to rationalise the experience.

For example, I would be inclined to rationalise any such experience in myself as follows:

• I am aware that the brain is capable of creating hallucinatory and other experiences that can seem to be extraordinarily authentic. So is it intrinsically more likely that my experience was a product of some mental state or other, or that it was God communicating with me? That is, which of these prior probabilities is the greater?
• I am aware that many people throughout history and in all cultures have claimed similar experiences, but have attributed them to different gods (or devils, spirits etc). What reason have I for thinking that my particular experience is veridical (other than the fact that I am the one experiencing it), when it may conflict with many of these other experiences (mutually exclusive gods etc)? Would it be just special pleading on my part to say that mine is veridical, where many of these others are not?
• Is there anything about my experience that I can verify or test in some other way? Have I been given any information that I didn’t know beforehand, and that I couldn’t have possibly come to know by any other means? Some previously unknown scientific or mathematical knowledge, for example. The more extraordinary and counterintuitive the information the better for testing this. After all, it should be no problem for God to give me such information, although theists might argue that by doing so He would be giving me less opportunity for faith. However, even if we were to grant that argument, it doesn’t help me to decide for myself whether the experience is veridical or not. Also, if God wanted to give me the greatest opportunity to have faith (by providing me with no evidence), then He perhaps shouldn’t have communicated with me at all, as any such communication might be interpreted as constituting evidence.

In my case, I feel that my current worldview (Metaphysical Naturalism) has a strong foundation – both epistemologically and empirically. This I have determined not by taking it to be self-evidently true, or by having some dogmatic attachment to it. Rather, I have sought to test it as thoroughly as I am able, in order to see if it fails – which it so far has not done. So, if I was to have a prima facie religious experience, I would not be inclined to change my whole worldview to the Christian one (for example), based upon that one experience. To me, this would be analogous to throwing Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection out of the window if one fossil was found that is apparently out of sequence in the rock strata. The evidence for Darwin’s theory is so strong that I would want to subject this apparent contradiction to very stringent tests and analysis before making any such decision. And so it would be for my prima facie religious experience.

It might be superficially tempting if I had such an experience to presume it to be veridical. However, as I feel that the Christian worldview makes a number of extraordinary claims (existence of God, resurrection of Jesus, existence of the soul, afterlife etc), I would have to decide if my apparent religious experience constitutes the extraordinary evidence that I would need in order to completely re-structure my worldview. In my case, I think it is unlikely.

If I was to consider my religious experience as being good supporting evidence for the Christian worldview (for example), I think that I should be prepared to examine the worldview as a whole, and consider all of its implications before making such a decision. The point is that the Christian worldview comes as a package deal. Whilst there are variations between the beliefs of the different denominations, there are still certain basic core beliefs that need to be signed up to if one is to be considered a Christian at all. Therefore, before taking my religious experience to be veridical, I should be able to justify belief in these other tenets too, or my worldview would be in danger of being incoherent or inconsistent.

For this reason, I think it would not be reasonable for me to adopt the Christian worldview, without further analysis, based on a prima facie religious experience. Even if we could somehow discount the possibility of my experience being due to a mental aberration, it might have been some other god, or a Cartesian demon, or somebody communicating with me telepathically, or it might have been a glitch in our universe-running simulation (see: http://www.simulation-argument.com/) etc. Not that I think that these possibilities are at all likely either, but rather that there is much room for doubt or rival interpretations here.

After all, how can I know for sure that it is the Christian God that I am hearing, rather than any of these other possibilities? I think that for me to profess certainty in such a situation would be irrational. After all, in such a case, what would ever convince me that my religious experience has some other explanation? If I am absolutely impervious to any contradictory evidence or reasoned argument, then I think I could justifiably be accused of irrationality.

And what about people who are brought up in a (vaguely) religious background, who later realise that it is blackmailing crap, and go for the aforementioned Metaphysical Naturalism?

Using MN, then how valid and “real” are these memories and experiences, as has been asked?

Well, are they reproducible?
Can they be tested?

Sometimes, if not all the time, and yes seem to be the answers.

So why look for complicated mystical answers when naturalistic ones will servr?
W. Ockham rules, or something.

The discussion started out with the wonder at how philosophers of the first rank such as Dummett and Anscombe could have this religious side to them with the accompanying problem of justification and so forth. The distinction between knowledge; the intentional, the logical, the apodeictic and realization; what we are but can’t comprehend in that we cannot get outside it, is important here. In the plane of realization we have the deep metaphysical questions of identity, of the possibility of knowledge; answers to which cannot be logically demonstrated without an element of self-refutation. However if we are properly Socratically prepped, knowing that we don’t know, the operation of nous may proceed to deliver intuitions. Sam Harris in Gallilee might, if he was an Aristotelian realist, have said to himself: ‘ Ah yes, connaturality’ and would have taken in the form of the experience and not the experience as such. That these intuitions are actualised in different mystical traditions in different ways is not a knock down proof of their irrationality because at this level of realization it is the form and not the matter that counts.

Well this thread has become a sprawling mess, as djones predicted it would, and I am enjoying it immensely! Thanks, Jeremy for stimulating our noggins.

I am mystified that using the word veridical should support the rationality of religious experience, especially when we are talking about private, non-testable and possibly deliberately false testimony about one’s own brain state at some point in the past (I think I am with ophelia and GT on this).

Clearly, it is rational to start from a false premise and reach an absurd conclusion but be logical along the way (as several posters pointed out in the various Dawkins rambles). In any case, I don’t think the issue is whether religion is rational; rather it’s whether religion is toxic.

Following the lying bit further:

Based on the historical record as it stands I am convinced that Moses, Joseph Smith, Mohammed and L. Ron Hubbard were all lying to win friends and influence people. I am also convinced the Francis of Assisi, Julian of Norwich and Meister Eckhart were telling the truth about visions and such — but that leaves me scratching my head and saying, that’s nice for you but why should it change anything for anybody? The latter support the former in their power grabs and I would rather be a jammer based on my own mix of rational irrationality.

“I am mystified that using the word veridical should support the rationality of religious experience”

Well I said the experiences might *seem* to be veridical.

I think the whole hallucination/imagination thing is a red herring. It might be that I have imagined running yesterday morning, but this possibility doesn’t make me able to doubt that I ran yesterday morning.

It might well be the case that with private experiences such as prayer the possibility of hallucination/imagination is some figure more likely than with straightforward memory. But it is still the case that one might accept this, and still insist that some particular experience was veridical. There was just something about *that* particular experience.

My argument isn’t that there are these experiences (there might be, there might not be - I don’t know). It is simply that if there are these experiences, then it does lead to interesting questions about the reasonableness of taking them at face value.

I recant a little bit, I think I conceded too much. I think the problem is not quite with the inherent undoubtability of the experience itself - because it seems perfectly rational to believe one had a certain kind of inner experience - but with how one interprets it. Stannard seems to move seamlessly (i.e. without visible interpretation) from the experience to what the experience is. But that has to be the issue. He has An Experience when he prays; but it is just his interpretation that that experience is meeting God and understanding that God is love and forgiveness. I would say that’s the part that’s not rational. He takes it for granted himself, but that’s just what he shouldn’t do. He seems to be claiming that that is what he is unable to doubt - that that experience is one of meeting God, and what kind of being that God is. That seems different from, and stranger than, being unable to doubt one went running a few hours ago. One has a memory of traveling through space on one’s own legs, one remembers what one saw on the way, etc; one interprets that as ‘going running’ or ‘walking to the sculpture park and back’. That seems a not very far-fetched interpretation - and it is one that we could easily put into more precise terms (bipedal motion, X number of steps, T time taken, route on a map, etc). But interpreting an inner experience as meeting a loving forgiving God is a pretty different kind of thing. So - why is Stannard so unable to doubt it? I don’t think that is rational, and I’m not even sure I think it’s really reasonable any more.

And another point occurs to me. I’ll put it as a statement rather than a question, so that you won’t feel pressure to answer (that’s the idea anyway). You say you can’t doubt you went running this morning. Suppose you had a very intense inner experience this morning - suppose it exactly like the kind of experience Stannard has in prayer. (Obviously no one can confirm or deny that, so we can just suppose it.) I wonder if you would say or think you can’t doubt you had that experience - not just an experience, but that experience - an experience of that particular kind. I wonder if you would find it as inherently undoubtable as your having gone running - if you would find it undoubtable in exactly the same way.

I’ll volunteer the opinion that if I had such an experience, I wouldn’t find it undoubtable in the same way as a recent long walk down and up a steep hill. I can’t be certain of that, but that’s my guess. My guess is that as soon as I tried to think about it in order to see if I could doubt it or not, it would become too fuzzy to be undoubtable, in a way that a fresh memory of a walk down and up a steep hill doesn’t.

I am reminded of Arthur C. Clarke’s comment that any sufficiently advanced technology would seem to be magic to the uninitiated (or words to that effect). The Egyptian priests knew this and so they rigged megaphones inside “talking” god statues. That in mind, would God (if he existed) want his children to be easily gulled by the man behind the curtain posing as The Great and Powerful OZ? Put another way, how can the faithful behave in a way that relaxes skepticism in the face of what seems to be so only inwardly downwardly? Therefore, how can any prayer experience prove that one is talking with God, and not the devil? Theologians have grappled with this for many years and this is used as a reason why one needs to be part of a community, practice a liturgy and be subject to correction by those in the know.

I seem to recall reading somewhere that the way we form memories is clustered and layered and constantly subject to revision. It’s not like taking a picture and that’s it. Consequently, the conundrum posed by Ophelia has a simple answer — we can never trust our memory of what we did to represent the facts. That said, I can’t be sure either that I went running, nor that I had an intense experience with God this morning. In the one case, we can get evidence that confirms or denies my testimony. That makes the run historical. In the other case we can’t. I suppose that makes it veridical — but I prefer to call it imaginary.

BTW, a critical difference between the liberal theologians (like Tillich) and the neo-orthodox ones (like Barth and most fundamentalist preachers) is that the latter say what God does is not private, but historical and factual. They claim literally that the death and resurrection of Jesus is the pivot point of history, not a private experience. If you accept the authority of scripture in this then the position is logical and rational. If you don’t then they are deluded. It’s not very complex.

Another interesting point occurs based on what Ophelia said. If we claim to not be able to doubt our recollection of events then we are being inconsistent with they way our minds store information, since it is always subject to conjecture, refutation and revision. Science, after all, is just a formal and group expression of what our brains evolved to do, as is apparent to any parent. I know I am jumping levels conceptually, but from a neurological standpoint, to be unable to doubt is pretty much the definition of insanity.

Yes, but there is doubt and there is doubt. I can, of course, doubt that I went running, but that I didn’t isn’t a live hypothesis (to borrow William James’s expression).

Yes but the question isn’t whether any prayer experience can prove that one is talking with God, it’s merely whether it is rational for the experiencer to take the experience at face value. That’s a much lower threshold. And JS isn’t claiming not to be able to doubt his recollection of events in general; on the contary, he’s disavowed that; he’s noting that he’s unable to doubt one particular recollection, and presumably other recollections of that kind - I take him to mean other recollections of recent, physical, hard-to-ignore activities, which is why I added my own recollection of a recent extended walk. He also said it’s possible that he imagined the run, but that the possibility isn’t able to make him doubt the memory. Some memories are harder to doubt than others - which we’re all (or nearly all) well aware of, we’re always saying ‘well it was a long time ago so…’

But actually that does raise another issue about Stannard - his memories of these experiences were necessarily always aging; did he take all of them as equally veridical however old they got? I wonder.

Oops, sorry, crossed.

Right, but to discuss the reasonableness of doubt under certain circumstances one must also grapple with that possibility that our certainty is what is unreasonable under all circumstances. –And neuro-science has come a long way since William James’ day (not that I’m any kind of expert, having spent more time studying theology and practicing applied social science). Being a realist of sorts (and I hope not a naive one) I don’t accept extreme relativism as a consequence of problems of perception. At the same time, I think the bright line test has to be what is empirically verifiable

Back to Ophelia: If I am praying the way I think Stannard means it I believe I am talking to God. If he answers me back and I believe that this really happened, then two things — I may take this at face value (I am a prophet) or I can see a doctor.

I realize that Jeremy was describing a hierarchy of doubts and I think there are problems with this.

In the history and literature of mystical experiences, certainty increases with age and retelling. This is how religions get born. The revision of memory gets a helping from exaggeration and commitment. Story becomes legend becomes fact — until the heretics come along and push the needle back the other way.

“In the history and literature of mystical experiences, certainty increases with age and retelling. ”

Ah. That’s a point. And that combined with the fact that we all know memories degrade very quickly - makes it seem all the less rational for Stannard to take his experiences at face value.

The more I think about it, I’m afraid, the more of a split I see between his understandable personal belief in his own experience, and the rationality of taking both at face value (I say ‘I’m afraid’ I suppose because that’s merely what I’d be expected to say. I’m considered one of them there fundamentalist atheists, I gather. Also because it seems harsh.)

Veridical #1 = true
Veridical #2 = hallucinatory

If 1 then must be objectively verifiable.
If 2 then must not be 1 (accept insofar as measurements might detect brainwave or other physiological variation but would not prove any connection to the supernatural, because instruments wouldn’t work in a supernatural world, only a natural one).
If veridical1, then it can’t be private knowledge, so the whole discussion over whether certain types of experience are or might be veridical goes away.
If veridical2, then taking the experience at face value means sharing in the hallucination, unless you are just talking about the instrument readings, which I doubt.

What else would it mean to say certain types of mystical experience are veridical?

I accept that mystics believe they are experiencing something special and that they may indeed, be experiencing something special. However, when they conclude that the special thing they feel must be God because they felt it, they are mistaken. When they go on to insist that it must be so because it was just so special and they can’t doubt it any more than they could that they drank a cup of coffee just now, then I conclude they are:

1. In the grip of a social phenomenon that rewards this type of lunacy called religon and they are playing along

and/or
2. They are mentally ill

If we say they are experiencing something but we can’t confirm what it is, that’s fine – but, to use another Jamesian expression, what’s the cash value of this?

Would the claims of somebody that God told him to murder women be considered veridical? How about if no other signs of psychosis could be found? What would Stannard make of any such claims, I wonder. Presumably he would consider them to be false - but how would he justify that opinion?

He might say that the murderer’s claims couldn’t possibly be true, since God would never command such a thing, as God is perfectly loving.

However, there are several problems with that type of explanation:

1) It might all be part of God’s bigger plan that the murderer kill these women. We are not in a position to judge what such a plan might be, or why this might be to the greater good. This is standard Christian apologetics for other things that need excusing.
2) God is described in the Bible as commanding many atrocities, so there is some precedent here.
3) It begs the question, since it assumes the voice can only be God’s if it conforms to what we would expect God to say. So, in that way it becomes just self-fulfilling. But that all hinges upon one assuming God’s character in the first place. What if Stannard is mistaken about that character?

And, as outsiders, how are we to judge the merits of these competing claims? Are Stannard’s claims intrinsically more veridical than the murderer’s? On what grounds could we ever make such a judgement? Some might suggest that people hear God tell them what they want to hear i nthe first place. So, nice people such as Stannard only hear nice things, but violent deranged people hear these types of things from God.

Ophelia,

I crossed messages with you again. Sorry.

I too am a fundamentalist atheist trying not to be too harsh. But I feel, to work a bad coinage, like I’m on a mission from God. It’s not so much that I disbelieve in God because I’m not convinced, it’s that I think religion has outlived whatever usefulness it ever had and we humans have to get beyond it soon or we are all going to die and take whatever good we have with us. I am, as the Gospel preacher might say, four square with Sam Harris . . . and Richard Dawkins . . . and Dan Dennett.

I think Jeremy finds that bunch a bit disreputable. I quite understand. As Martin Luther said, “here I stand, I can do no other.”

I think Jeremy finds that bunch a bit disreputable.

Hmmm. It’s not that straightforward. You might have seen that Ophelia and I are about to write a book called “Does God Hate Women?” - so it isn’t as if I’m blind to the problems of religious belief and practice.

I don’t like consensus, I guess. In another context, I’d be arguing against the positions I’m arguing for now.

Every now and again I talk about writing something on the tyranny of truth. I really must get around to it.

“I don’t like consensus, I guess. In another context, I’d be arguing against the positions I’m arguing for now.”

–Pretty much as I expected. And this will become a boring place if we all sound too much alike. I submit that consensus building is useful even if one must later tear down the house of cards one has made. And I will be happy to argue with you about the tyranny of truth any time!

Andrew’s comment on consensus building suggests a question I hadn’t thought of before. You don’t like consensus, yet in politics you are quite pragmatic, I think you’ve told me - you think it’s important to pay attention to what’s possible. Now, me, I don’t like consensus in electoral politics - I see the pragmatic reasons for sticking to what’s possible, but I hate the relentless pressure for a bland (or worse) consensus. Do you experience any tension in your own likes and dislikes there?

Oh dear, I’ve done been and gone and asked a question. Oh well, just ignore it if too busy; pretend it was a declarative sentence.

Ophelia’s question suggests a new thread, no?

Отличное наполнение блога, есть что почитать интересного, спс

А мне нравится этот блог, только авторам надо помнить , что посетители разные бывают. Короче учитывайте возростной ценс посетителей.