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.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

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.

[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?

[RI]

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.

[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!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

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

Visceral? Can't say that I have one. Should I? Strictly speaking I come from a minority tradition, so perhaps that's the reason, if it is to be expected?

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No. Why would I? Do you? Is that what this is all about? Do you find it difficult to come to terms with people thinking about the world (and their place in it) in a radically different way to yourself?

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

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I can answer the first question there; no. But because of the answer (that is: no) I can't actually answer the second.

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All belief is heavily based on personal experience, darling.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

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?

[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.)

*****************************************************

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?

[Gustaf]

I'm mostly with Realisticidealist in thinking that religious experiences can vary and reflect different sides of the same thing. And also that the same experience may not be interpreted as religious because a person doesn't accept religion.

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.

I can't say that I view it as dissonance or something that bothers me though. I think it might be helpful if you would elaborate a little on what you think the problem here is.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

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?

well, how could it be made uncircular to you?

maybe you should look to the examples within the bible for your answer.  Example: What convinced Paul that he was on the right track?

Maybe it had to do with Paul's day to day relationship with Christ, and the fact that others were experiencing the same thing, and the fact that dozens of others over a span of thousands of years had predicted exactly what he was going through.

Even though I wasnt called to be an apostle like Paul, how am I any less convinced than what Paul was?  And don't I have even more reason to believe than Paul did?  After all, I have the added layer of 2000 years of witnesses which Paul and Peter didnt have.

I mean, it's not like it's that difficult to trace the steps of the bible:  the NT was obviously written in the first century for just the book of Acts alone is unmatched by any other single piece of literature in the accuracy and breath of its description of the first century Mediterranean world, its obvious Jesus was a historical figure, it's obvious (despite the claims of Islam) that Jerusalem had been the center of Judaism for hundreds of years prior to Christ, it obvious that King David was an historical figure, its obvious that the first five book of the OT were written by someone highly educated in second millennium BC Egyptian culture and language.

And, again, it's not like Islam, that can be easily proven to have been created out of wholeclothe around 600AD, despite the claims of Islam that Jesus and the other prophets where Muslim.

[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?

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

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.

[Gustaf]

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?"

 

[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.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

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

[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?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Will all respect, I've "played" this issue in my head plenty.

Yes, of course you have. Would I have written what I did if I thought otherwise? No, of course not.

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Possibly. But then I'm under no obligation to answer it directly, if at all. Though I do genuinely believe that you can't divorce belief (of any kind and in anything) from personal experience.

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I was trying for both. I did consider something on the theme of ducks (there are quite a few) but then that would have looked strange. So it was either darling or a variation on dear. I like to think that I made the right decision.

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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.

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

[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 .

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

I'll try again...in A and B form

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?

This is really hard for me because I want to establish the quality grade difference between A and B.  If you insist in saying the quality of A and B is indistinguishable, then I am at a loss because it has never been my experience to have a matter of spiritual importance to be unsolvable.

So I can’t really speak to generic A and B situations, because A and B have always been distinctly different, at least they have since my first experience in Oct 1992. 

As to how I would approach the problem of A and B prior to Oct 1992, then I would have to answer that prior to 1992, A and B were NOT experiences to choose between.  Rather I was simply being told viewpoint A was true, with A being Armstrongism which my girlfriend (now wife) believed in.  And my solution to the problem was to take B (the bible) and compare it to A.  I didn’t assume B was inerrant,  rather since A was claiming it was in agreement with B, I could at least judge the validity of the claim that A=B by comparing A to B.  And I didn’t get farther than an hour into that comparison when it was clear to me that A did not equal B, and then things unfolded very quickly, within a span of a couple of minuets, and  my spiritual eye-opening “experience” began with the spiritual perception that there were spiritual forces driving A and B and that they were on different sides of the battle and they weren’t battling over peanuts but rather were fighting a battle over eternal souls. 

It was the ability to spiritual perceive this spiritual battle that caused me, right then and there, to believe the couple of chapters of Galatians I had been reading.  And then the spiritual insight panned over to my life and the multiple events separated by years in my life (how I used to watch Armstrong’s TV program in my early teens, how I met a friend in college who was a member of Armstrong’s church, how through him I had met my girlfriend who had prompted me to look into this thing) that brought me to this point of belief. And when I enquired to myself if all these events were engineered for the purpose to bring me to believe n Christ, God poured out his spirit into my heart and answered the question himself, “Yes that is the reason why, now go and tell them the truth.”  And basically sent me to them to show them that B didn’t equal A.

Now, you and probably a lot of the other nonbelievers on this forum, since you’re not under the spiritual influence of A, can easily see that A does not equal B. (which is why I have so few scriptural disagreements with nonbelievers on this forum).  But for those who are under the spiritual influences that are telling them A = B, they are blinder than blind can be.  They no longer can see because they are deceived.  For example, to you it is easy to see that 4 does not equal 5, but to them, they can’t see the difference between 4 and 5 because they are under a spiritual deception that is telling them 4=5.  As Jesus said, it is better to be admittedly blind than claiming you can see when you can’t.  Because a blind man knows he is blind and asks for help (e.g. you yourself are asking how to distinguish A from B), but a blind person deceived into believing he can see is quite dangerous because he is convinced that 4=5 and is therefore beyond the help of those who can indeed see and who are trying to help him understand 4 does not equal 5.

And when youre confronted with such spiritual deception, it can be quite frustrating – it took 18 months before my girlfriend left her church.  And what won her was the fact that her church study guides were corrupting 4 to appear as 5.  When she read the bible without her church’s study guides, she could see clearly.  What I would do is sit her down and have her take a whole book of the NT, e.g. Hebrews, and read it to me and explain each verse to me as she read them.  I could sit back and not say a single word (I know that is hard to believe)  to her and allow her to completely own the conversation.  And she could see just fine that the number 5 was actually a 5.  But after she finished Hebrews, I could say, “I agree with you that it is a 5, but look, your church says it is actually a 4.”  And because of the fear instilled her that the only unforgivable sin was to leave Armstrongism, she would draw back and allow herself to be convinced by her study “guides” that it was actually a 4 and not the 5 she had perceived through her own reading.

But after 18 months of her seeing the difference between what she read on her own and what she was being told, she understood that if she couldn’t see on her own, then there was no way for her to judge who was telling the truth.  So she had to learn to trust that the bible was meant for individuals to understand, that it was written to the masses.

So, the only thing I can tell you is:  you have to trust your own eyes and don’t follow any guides.  For there are MANY unbelievers on this forum that have much better eyesight than those who claim they can see.

[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.

[Gustaf]

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.

I'm afraid I'm still not following your point. I agree that other people using the same "methodology" (although I'm not entirely positive towards using that term) can come to different conclusions. Which is why I said I wouldn't use it as an argument to convince anyone (you will never see me saying "you should believe in God, because I've experienced His existence" because, as I said, anyone can say that for their own belief).

I just don't really see any of this as all that problematic? Of course, in some sense there is a point where I must contend that someone is wrong - if I think God exists and someone else doesn't I must consider them wrong. And to the extent that this is based on experience I must consider their experience in some sense to be wrong.

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.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

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?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I don't think we're talking on the same issue, here.

Entirely possible.

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Right... yeah... 'methodology'? If ever a word was over-used...

(4am, damn it)

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Quite in that context would imply specifics, I think. No, no specifics. Just words.

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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.

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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?

[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?

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

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?

I test any and every experience, my own or someone else's, against scripture.  In fact, when I first experienced Christ, I've told this forum how I questioned if I were the only one in the world with a similar experience, because I had never heard of anyone receiving the Holy Spirit apart from a bunch of symbolic religious ceremonies that left you feeling the same at the end as you did at the beginning.

so, since I consider my experiences to be reflected within scripture, it's going to come down to, once again, me comparing the scripture of Christianity with the scripture of, say, Islam....in order to see which one is true.

I've never doubt the reality of, say, Islamic experiences, rather I question whether the source of the experience is godly or demonic.

(sorry if I am still missing your point)