Question to religious types

[Alcon]

What is your visceral reaction to people who have contradictory experiences of God (compared to yours), or no experience with God?

Do you get a "this seems crazy!" feeling and feel compelled to investigate where such a starkly conflicting perception of the world originates from?

What about people whose experiences just contradict your beliefs -- why do you dismiss them?

Does it give you any cognitive dissonance?  Why or why not?

If your belief is heavily based on personal experience, and other experiences contradict, why are you convinced it's not all a matter of psychology?

Feel free to respond to any of these, all of them, or -- if you have Oppositional-Defiant Disorder (or "J.M.F.C.S.T." for short) -- none of them.  And I'll answer my own question, just to be fair about it.

[Alcon]

Watching videos about the origins of Islam and Buddhism, I took it pretty much in stride. In terms of reactions to other religions, I haven't really had any arguments about that outside this forum, and the creationist I was talking to was actually pretty well informed.

Thanks, but that's not quite what I'm asking.  Take these two scenarios:

1. Someone expresses a religious experience that starkly contrasts with whatever led you to your religious beliefs.

2. Someone who you consider decent and open-minded expresses no religious experience.

How do you intellectually reconcile that?  That is, how do you intellectually reject their (non-)experiences and accept your own?

[Alcon]

As a former atheist, neither of those scenarios bothers me in the least bit. Then again, my faith isn't primarily built on the concept of 'religious experiences', unlike some on this forum. I have had experiences that I might regard as genuinely religious if I so chose (which I do), but they are inconsequential to my decision to believe.

Regardless, I generally don't let other people's experiences threaten my own self--I'm not that insecure--but, if someone has a genuine religious experience that 'contradicts' () my own beliefs, I tend to view it as an issue of interpretation and application rather than of fundamental substance. I'm of the one-God-many-faces (anchored by a fundamental reality and mandate) school of thought on the matter, so what may be a contradiction for jmfcst might not be a contradiction for me. I'm sure I'm a heathen for saying that.

Also, I don't believe that religious experiences happen to everyone, or at least that they occur at vastly different frequencies between people. Furthermore, what actually qualifies as a genuine religious experience greatly varies from person to person. What I might consider to be a spiritual experience, another might miss or interpret differently. I don't see this as an act of cognitive dissonance.

That's exactly the kind of answer I was hoping for.  I'm not entirely on board with this argument, but I definitely don't have the bones to pick with it that I do with the jmfcst school   Thank you for your answer!

[Alcon]

That's an odd question. Probably a good deal stranger than you think. Play it back to yourself and you should see why.

Will all respect, I've "played" this issue in my head plenty.  If you have a problem with my question, either in intellectual grounding or because you think it suggests I'm disrespectful, let me know.  

All belief is heavily based on personal experience, darling.

That's sidestepping my point, not to mention the "darling" is either creepy or...British.

Unless you think other people are lying about their reported experiences, or are somehow less sincere/more deluded than you in their experiences, you either have to reconcile them or dismiss them in some other way.  Ceteris paribus, "they're not mine" seems like an incredibly weak reason for dismissal.  (Unless you're arguing "all experience is subjective anyway," which doesn't defeat my argument for the obvious reason that you still assert a position.)

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Feel free to respond to any of these, all of them, or -- if you have Oppositional-Defiant Disorder (or "J.M.F.C.S.T." for short) -- none of them.  And I'll answer my own question, just to be fair about it.

was this thread directed at me or was it directed away from me?  cant tell.

but, in any case, this is pretty simple to answer...

how to legitimizing your own Christian experience:  does it conform to scripture which was written by dozens of different people over thousands of years.

how to de-legitimize real but nonChristian experiences:  1John 4:1 "Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. "

explaining those who dont have any experiences:  dont know why this is even asked.  why would everyone have a religious experience of one type or another?

The J.M.F.C.S.T. thing was just me being facetious.  You're entitled to answer.  But yours is obviously circular.  Are you interested in engaging the difficulty I'm obviously talking about, or do you find it to be not compelling, for some reason you want to share?

[Alcon]

I have to admit that I'm not entirely sure I understand what you're getting at. Is your point that a personal religious experience is not a great argument to convince someone else of the truth of one's religious beliefs? Because that I would agree with. I view religious experiences as personal and only valid for myself - just like most of my emotional or psychological reactions to various concepts. I would never extrapolate my own experience to someone else, because they could obviously do the same thing back.

That's the point I'm getting at (with you and jmfcst) -- why, unless you strongly assume the other "experiencers" to be deluded and/or lying?

[Alcon]

I have to admit that I'm not entirely sure I understand what you're getting at. Is your point that a personal religious experience is not a great argument to convince someone else of the truth of one's religious beliefs? Because that I would agree with. I view religious experiences as personal and only valid for myself - just like most of my emotional or psychological reactions to various concepts. I would never extrapolate my own experience to someone else, because they could obviously do the same thing back.

That's the point I'm getting at (with you and jmfcst) -- why, unless you strongly assume the other "experiencers" to be deluded and/or lying?

I'm afraid I'm not really following - for me it's sort of a "why not?"

Because that's completely arbitrary, unless you have a reason to dismiss the other person's experience.  Say people are using the same methodology as you, so to speak, and coming to different conclusions, and you have no reason to assume your experience is more accurate than theirs (other than that they're your experiences.)  Does that not suggest some sort of subjectivity?  If you can "explain away" their varying beliefs, how could that not potentially "explain away" yours, if you assume others are sincere about their beliefs?

I've asked this of a half-dozen formal apologists or so, and the best I've gotten is some mumbled stuff about that constraining modal logic too much, but he couldn't explain what he meant.

I have to admit that I'm not entirely sure I understand what you're getting at. Is your point that a personal religious experience is not a great argument to convince someone else of the truth of one's religious beliefs? Because that I would agree with. I view religious experiences as personal and only valid for myself - just like most of my emotional or psychological reactions to various concepts. I would never extrapolate my own experience to someone else, because they could obviously do the same thing back.

That's the point I'm getting at (with you and jmfcst) -- why, unless you strongly assume the other "experiencers" to be deluded and/or lying?

didn't I already answer that by quoting the verse, "Do not believe every spirit, rather test the spirits to see if they are from God.  Every spirit that doesn't recognize Jesus as coming from God in the spirit of the antiChrist"

so they dont have to be deluded or lying, rather they are simply deceived by demons who masquerade as coming from God.

You're still running into the problem I'm getting at above.

[Alcon]

You're still running into the problem I'm getting at above.

I don't see how, I've already alluded to the superiority of the bible (written by dozens of people over thousands of years, yet completely complimentary and on the same page), and I've asked you to consider examples like Paul....yet you never responded

I'm trying to avoid a debate over the evidence behind the texts.  It's a fair reason to dismiss the importance of what I'm getting at, but it's not an answer to what I'm getting at.  My concern is about situations in which the same methodology would result in two different outcomes between Person A and Person B, but Person A believes his own outcome, despite not doubting the sincerity of Person B's claim that the same methodology resulted in his different interpretation.  Get me?

[Alcon]

I find the mindset here odd; do you view every viewpoint that is not yours as a challenge of some kind? Or are you some kind of secular evangelist now? I don't mean any of that - or anything written in this thread at all - as any kind of personal attack, by the way. My default setting might well be sardonic, but I don't try to come across as actively hostile.

No, I appreciate that.  I don't think we're talking on the same issue, here.  I illustrated my point in the last post (the one with A and B.)  I think that should address the first part of your post.

I don't quite know what you mean by "secular evangelist."  Do I become an evangelist when I make an argument that doesn't end the discussion at "to each their own"?  Well, whatever.  I am whatever presenting this point makes me, I guess.

What ever makes you think that I'm trying to defeat your argument? Is everything a contest of some kind?

I meant "defeat" as in "resolve logically" (like, as in to defeat a construct) not as in "win."  I mean, they're the same word, but it's more of a dialectic than a contest .

[Alcon]

Is person A and person B members of different sects within Christianity, or is person A and person B of completely different faiths (eq one is a Christian, the other a Muslim)?

If of different sects of the same faith, you at least have some common ground (the bible) to bounce differences of opinion off of.

If of completely different faiths, then you simply can NOT avoid “a debate over the evidence behind the texts”

If you want to address this as a theoretical question, you can.  I understand that some other source of belief might render the question moot, but moot does not mean unanswerable.

Whether you think the historical record corroborates the Bible, is a separate question from the one I'm getting at.  It could be important in the methodology used to address the question of the Bible's veracity, but you do not have to engage the details of that debate to answer my question.

[Alcon]

Alcon, I'm not sure what you're getting at.  

I reject Scientology because it is made up totally out of thin air a few decades ago.  I reject Islam because it also was made up out of thin air around 620AD and conflicts with human recorded history.

what else is there to judge it by?

Do you understand my question about A and B above?  That's an instance in which I've removed all variables (like whether you think texts are historically valid), and just left the basic question.  I can clarify if you want, but that is what I'm asking.

But I don't see this as extraordinary. Some people went to Nazi Germany and experienced the building of a great society for the future. Some people went there and experienced a horrible dictatorship constituting a menace to the world. I would argue that the latter experience was more correct. And I could take a gazillion other examples.

I sense that I'm probably missing something in your reasoning which is why I'd like for you to elaborate a bit more.

...

Perhaps an important point of clarification is that I have one very good reason to dismiss the experience of someone else - they're not me. I don't expect my experience to have any value in their reasoning and likewise I'm not going to weigh their experience in my own reasoning.

I think your example is exactly my point.  Why would someone accept their own experience, and not question their experience when confronted by someone who they assume to be lucid and rational?  If there is a strong chance that psychology and/or incidental experiential difference accounts for the difference in perception, how is some (a lot I'd think) agnosticism not inevitable?

I mean, think about that in terms of the example you just gave, and how ludicrous it would be to deny others' experiences (granted, it would be hard not to see those experiences first-hand yourself, but even still.)  I just do not think that people behave that way -- except sometimes selectively, like with religion.

No, it's not that. It's just that you're oddly vehement about this. And insistent about its importance. So, you know, a case of finding words that fit. Those don't, actually, thus your seemingly genuine state of bemusement. Or if they do fit, they don't fit very well. But better than anything else I could think of at the time.

...

That would make slightly more sense, yeah. But, again, why bother to resolve logically your argument? It doesn't seem important to me. You seem to find it very important, which is interesting. Why?

I find it interesting because others' practices confuse me, and the discussion is intellectually stimulating.  You're on a web site where people spend pages upon pages picking over Census data and precinct results.  You find it remarkable that I'd be interested in the means by which people observe existence?

[Alcon]

It's a fair answer, but not really what I'm going after...

It's not really answering my question, because you're applying a heuristic (scripture) to analyze whether experiences are legit or not.  My question would be in how you'd develop that heuristic, and wouldn't apply once you've decided that heuristic is sound.

You're going to have to just answer it in the raw A or B form above, because otherwise we'll be talking about totally different things, that just happen to be relevant to the same process.

[Alcon]

That's a very sincere, thoughtful response, but you just elaborated on your previous explanation using the letters A and B.  I was talking about specific things with A and B, that is, varying experiences based on the same methodological approach; one being your experience (A) and one somebody else's (B).  You're confounding things by including a heuristic (validating experience using the Bible), originating from your methodological approach as B, and then making pre-existing beliefs A.  Those are just totally different things than I'm talking about.  Moreover, you presumably would only reach a heuristic like that (accepting the Bible as evidently true text) based on some methodological approach (empiricism or whatever), so it essentially begs the question, since the question is about methodological approach.  I'm not trying to be obtuse, but an answer is only meaningful to the question if it directly answers the question.

Basically, it is: If someone else, using your methodology (although perhaps not heuristics which come out of that methodology), comes to a different conclusion, why would you (if you would) accept your experience over theirs without agnosticism?  This seems ludicrous to me.

I promise, even if I'm being unintentionally obtuse, I'm confident what I'm saying makes sense .

[Alcon]

Basically, it is: If someone else, using your methodology (although perhaps not heuristics which come out of that methodology), comes to a different conclusion, why would you (if you would) accept your experience over theirs without agnosticism?  This seems ludicrous to me.

can you restate that using smaller words?  i've had 1.5 beers, which is a lot for me, even though I am 190 pounds, so I am not in any mood to fake having a vocabulary

also, if you could try to give me a hard-coded example, instead of using abstract A and B examples, it might help me understand where you're coming from

Haha, I totally understand.  Let me try tomorrow, hopefully less sleep-deprived, and able to actually translate abstract to concrete examples.  I know most people work better when starting at concrete and moving to abstract, but alas that's not how my brain works

[Alcon]

I'm a little confused by the side debate with jmfcst, and I don't see any response to Dibble's paraphrase, so I'm going to cut in back here:

Maybe we just fundamentally disagree here? If I experience apartheid as horrible and someone else experiences it as great, why would I care about their experience?

...Because you can accept both experiences in your decision-making process, while not having to compromise your overall conclusion.  This is a obviously not analogous, though.  Different results using the same methodology indicates one of two things: One, that application of the methodology has some level of subjectivity involved, which is grounds for some agnosticism.  Two, that the input is different, at which point you can evaluate the new information, as long as the source seems legit.  I think your South Africa example falls into the trap of assuming that #2 is impossible or impractical.  Which would make it completely OK to support Hitler on the basis you haven't seen Jews suffer with your own eyes, I guess?  This seems both logically arbitrary and dangerous to me.

(I haven't thought through this argument 100% formally, but I'm quite sure I disagree with your stuff on the modal logic behind empiricism, if you want to call it that.)

[Alcon]

I'm a little confused by the side debate with jmfcst

werent you going to give me a hard coded example?

I think the South Africa analogy is pretty hard-coded

[Alcon]

Now I'm sort of at a loss again. Of course I can accept that they have that experience without changing my conclusion regarding apartheid. That was exactly my point! Their experience does not necessarily have any impact on my view.

There is a difference between "not having an impact" and "not being an input."  Do you think it's reasonable to ignore inputs from those with methodologies/heuristics/whatever you see as reasonable, simply because they are not inputs you have directly experienced?  This is a hugely important difference.

But the rest I feel I can grasp a bit more. The second option you mention is obviously irrelevant to what we're both trying to get at so I'll just ignore that part.

I don't see how you can think that's "obviously irrelevant."

That leaves the first one. Which seems to crash down into the exact same discussion that I think you and I had like 3 years ago or something.

Because to me the experience is "subjective" in the way everything is subjective. If someone were to experience that 2+2 did not equal 4 that still wouldn't really change my view on the issue. (I'm trying to go for poorer and poorer analogies as this discussion progresses).

The reason that analogy is poor is because it only works because the idea that someone could experience that differently is absurd.  On the other hand, if you witnessed an event, and 2/3 of the people around you seemed to have different interpretations of what happened, I assume that you'd have some agnosticism about what was going on.  By selecting an analogy that implies an extreme instance of something I'm conceding operates on a spectrum you're ignoring the essential question.

You seem to think that most people come to most views by objectively assessing facts and you don't understand why religious people use subjective experience to arrive at faith but I disagree on the gulf between the two being that wide. (if this summation is grossly unfair and distorts your position, just correct me...)

It's grossly unfair and distorts my position, as above.    In fact, the two things you claim I distinguish not only seem non-wide, but functionally indistinct.

[Alcon]