Personal Experience
Another Favorite argument that the average religious person will bring up in discussions with the godless is their personal experience of the divine or a miracle they witnessed. I have already had several encounters of this kind and so far they have come from people I care deeply about. Recounting their personal experience has resulted in them becoming emotional or even crying. This leads me to believe that they are being incredibly honest and sincere.
That makes these types of conversations incredibly awkward and difficult because I do not want to hurt their feelings but at the same time I absolutely cannot give credibility to anecdotal stories because they are infamously unreliable and ridiculously insufficient as evidence of such grand claims. So here are some tips I have developed for how to handle these encounters (Hope they help).
That makes these types of conversations incredibly awkward and difficult because I do not want to hurt their feelings but at the same time I absolutely cannot give credibility to anecdotal stories because they are infamously unreliable and ridiculously insufficient as evidence of such grand claims. So here are some tips I have developed for how to handle these encounters (Hope they help).
Let me remind you the goal here is to get through this awkward situation without hurting your relationship or their feelings and without reinforcing any delusions.
(if their feelings are not your priority scroll down)
1: Listen intently
Give the person speaking your undivided attention and let them finish. They are usually pouring out their heart and soul when they recount their personal experience. Letting them have their say will help create openness.
2: Do Not Laugh!
You may be tempted to giggle or chuckle while you listen, especially if the story gets supernatural or ridiculous but DO NOT DO IT! Nothing kills someones willingness to cooperate more than being laughed at.
3: Make an effort to understand them
If this is a person you care about you'll want to actually understand the emotions fueling this belief as well as understand how to help them through it. Ask clarification questions and genuinely make an effort (this is time consuming and can be tedious but if it is someone important to you then It will be worth the effort)
"Seek first to understand then to be understood" - Stephen Covey
4: Don't acquiesce
An easy way out of these situations is to agree with the person and lend credibility to their story. This is harmful to the person because it reinforces the delusion. Every time they tell the story and get support from someone they will feel more confident in it. Politely, let them know that you cannot find their story convincing or reliable and let them know why as kindly as possible. That being said, do not apologize or flip flop. Respect the person and respect their emotional reasons for holding unjustified beliefs but do not pretend to respect the ridiculous belief itself. (This is tricky and I don't always do so well with it myself)
5: Don't try to disprove their personal experience
You probably can't. Even if you were there and know what happened, trying to argue against their interpretation of events is next to impossible. Excuses like "It could have been all in your head" or "Maybe you missed something" may seem like reasonable rationalizations to you but might be interpreted as a cheapening of the experience to them or it could come off as you calling them crazy. Relating a story of your own or telling them about some of the common tricks our brains can play on us could be beneficial but avoid coming off as adversarial. Try to avoid using the word "You" as it can put them on the defense.
6: Try not to get frustrated
The person probably wont give up the belief after the first talk with you about it. Realize this is an emotionally based belief, evidence and argument carry very little weight here. Be patient. Think of your talk as the first dose of antibiotics to treat the problem and further doses will almost certainly be needed. If you show signs of frustration (sighs, moans, glares, side-long glances, face-palming, or becoming angry) you can compromise the relationship you have been trying to build with the person.
The person probably wont give up the belief after the first talk with you about it. Realize this is an emotionally based belief, evidence and argument carry very little weight here. Be patient. Think of your talk as the first dose of antibiotics to treat the problem and further doses will almost certainly be needed. If you show signs of frustration (sighs, moans, glares, side-long glances, face-palming, or becoming angry) you can compromise the relationship you have been trying to build with the person.
...on to the argument itself
Does Personal Experience count?
The argument is usually formatted like this.
1. I had a personal experience of god
2. Therefore god exists
Some common experiences are
a near death experience
Witnessing a miracle
a revelation from god
a vision or a dream
the inner witness of the holy spirit
Argument 1: Can your experience mean anything to me?
In chapter 2 of Thomas Paine's pamphlet "The Age of Reason" Paine say's
"No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a communication if he pleases. But admitting, for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and, consequently, they are not obliged to believe it."
The argument here is basically:
You may very well have had a genuine experience of god but to me it can never be anything but a story.
Argument 2: Some things seem extremely real... but they are not actually real
While there is still many secrets about the inner workings of the human brain there are many things that neuroscience has brought to light. Among these bits of incite into the cosmos between our ears are warning signs. There are many things our brains do that are not at all obvious to us consciously, many pit-falls and shortcomings of the mind that we need to be aware of before accepting divine revelations as anything more than figments of our imaginations.
If we must believe everyone's personal experience at their word then we will be believing contradictory things. So all of them cannot be what they are claiming to be, at least some of them must be wrong. They all believe their own claims with the same conviction as everyone els, so some of them must be believing something untrue with that same conviction. Some of them must be delusional.
These reasons are all fallacious, you can be popular, rich, kind, reasonable, and still be wrong. The answer is we can't tell, they are indistinguishable. They are both bizarre unsupported claims that I have no reason to take seriously.
The only way you could have enough evidence of a miracle happening is if the possibility of it not happening was even more unlikely.
A good example is the Miracle of the Sun
In Fatima, Portugal on October 13th 1917 30,000 people witnessed the Sun crashing toward the earth in a zig-zag pattern. The event is well reported and witnesses well documented. But did the miracle happen?
It seems improbable that 30,000 people shared in a mass hallucination, collaborated to lie about it to reporters, or that they all were mistaken.
But how much more improbable is it that the gigantic star at the center of our solar system almost crashed into the earth without anyone outside of that town noticing? What about the gravitational effects? The natural explanations are not very likely but the probability of it having actually happened is even more remote.
Thank you for reading, I know it was long. Any comments or corrections are welcome and appreciated.
-Adam Johnson
Some tricks of the mind are:
Optical Illusions
(This pic is not moving)
Hallucinations
(This one is fun in full screen... but not if you have Epilepsy)
(This one is fun in full screen... but not if you have Epilepsy)
With this in mind I am very skeptical of my own experiences and look for evidence before I come to a conclusion about what I have seen or heard. In turn I am more skeptical of other people's experiences when they bring little or no evidence to support their conclusions. In addition religious experiences have been induced by magnets in the laboratory (google "god helmet") leading us to believe that all of this is in our heads.
This is an immense topic and I cannot do it justice here, for more info check out Michael Shermer "The believing brain".
(Warning it's a bit long, but well worth the watch)
Argument 3: Which god?
This is a reoccurring response to many arguments for god. I personally have heard from christians about their experiences seeing Jesus or calling on his name and being saved from a bad outcome to a series of events. But non-christians have experiences relating to their beliefs too. Why should we take the word of christians but not the word of muslims, mormons, hindus, buddhists, alien abductees, or anyone els? Are hindu miracles less miraculous than christian ones?If we must believe everyone's personal experience at their word then we will be believing contradictory things. So all of them cannot be what they are claiming to be, at least some of them must be wrong. They all believe their own claims with the same conviction as everyone els, so some of them must be believing something untrue with that same conviction. Some of them must be delusional.
How can I tell the difference between your religious belief and a delusion?
If there is no process I can use to differentiate between what you claim and what a delusional person claims how can I tell them apart?
In response to this many people will reply "Come on now you can't compare a crazy person to a religious person". Why? To someone outside both of their beliefs they both appear to be claiming highly unlikely or downright impossible things and providing no solid evidence for it at all. How do we know if we cannot check?
How popular the belief is?
The amount of money they have?
How nice they are?
How reasonable they act concerning other things?
These reasons are all fallacious, you can be popular, rich, kind, reasonable, and still be wrong. The answer is we can't tell, they are indistinguishable. They are both bizarre unsupported claims that I have no reason to take seriously.
Argument 4: Hume on miracles
The basic argument David Hume makes is:
The only way you could have enough evidence of a miracle happening is if the possibility of it not happening was even more unlikely.
A good example is the Miracle of the Sun
In Fatima, Portugal on October 13th 1917 30,000 people witnessed the Sun crashing toward the earth in a zig-zag pattern. The event is well reported and witnesses well documented. But did the miracle happen?
It seems improbable that 30,000 people shared in a mass hallucination, collaborated to lie about it to reporters, or that they all were mistaken.
But how much more improbable is it that the gigantic star at the center of our solar system almost crashed into the earth without anyone outside of that town noticing? What about the gravitational effects? The natural explanations are not very likely but the probability of it having actually happened is even more remote.
-Adam Johnson
