The Argument from Religious Experience

Framework: The argument from religious experience seeks to establish the existence of God from our observations of people who have religious experiences, at the very least it should demonstrate that God’s existence is more probable than not based this. Pro has not argued for this however, which I will address later. There are a few ways in which the strong resolution (“given religious experiences, God most likely exists) can be affirmed but for the purposes of this debate, I will largely be addressing what I believe to be the most potent route, the inference to best explanation.I will be affirming that metaphysical naturalism (as defined) offers a much more powerful and substantive explanation for religious experience than the “God hypothesis”. Thus, my positive case will address the ontological question of God’s existence and as an explanation of the facts as we have them for the question:“What is the best explanation for religious experiences/my religious experience”Which is clearly the question raised by these experiences, including Pro’s own anecdote. For the purposes of this debate I see no reason to deny that people genuinely have religious experiences, much like I have no reason to deny people’s claim to have sensations of text appearing on their computer screen, or their experience of flying during the nightime. These are incorrigible mental states/experiences, and I am pretty sure that at least this much will be agreed upon. I will be affirming that an explanation that is born from metaphysical naturalism, in the sense that they are best explicable from our existing natural laws and physics, and not from an intervening supernatural entity (which is what the resolution demands).Inference to Best ExplanationWhen appealing to an explanation in any field via. abductive reasoning, the following criteria are generally ubiquitous, regardless of what philosophy or field of study (including science) that is undertaken:[1,2]1. Has good explanatory power2. Proposition is simple (Law of Parsimony)3. Invokes minimal ad hoc explanations4. Is in line with background knowledge5. Makes testable statementsOn every single level, an explanation that is derivative from metaphysical naturalism is superior than a theistic one except #1, which I argue is at worst a tie for naturalism.#2. The naturalistic explanation, which proposes that theistic experiences are purely internal to one’s mind, and are not externally derived is inevitably an explanation that obeys the Law of Parsimony as opposed to theism, which entails a specific (assumption) non-physical entity (assumption), interacts with the mind (assumption). Both explanations posit the involvement of the mind, but only the theistic explanation invokes entities external to the mind, moreover, the theistic explanation invokes entities that are not known otherwise, and as such their nature is assumed.#3. Both explanations need to account for the enormous diversity in types of religious experiences, while the naturalistic explanation is straightforward, we have millions of different minds, who have lived different lives, subject to different physical, socio and economical conditions which inevitably will yield non-uniform religious experiences. The theistic explanation on the other hand does not have this luxury, since have one objective entity, and as such we would expect the experience of this entity to be both precise (with little variation between them) and uniform, but this is clearly not what we observe (more on this later). While the theistic explanation can in principle render an explanation for these (significant) variations, it does not take away the fact that it seriously weakens it as an explanation.#4. Clearly, metaphysical naturalism has significant basis on pre-existing knowledge, since the existence of some form of naturalism is not in question, the natural world obviously exists and the universe at least in large part (if not entirely) obeys natural laws. Thus, any explanation based on these well-attested principles is going to be initially superior to any explanation that posits non-naturalistic (which we do not have pre-existing knowledge on) explanations, since we are starting from a questionable premise (the existence of the metaphysical possibility[9] of such an explanation).#5. Metaphysical naturalism holds that existing physical laws are responsible for everything that happens within the mind, including religious experience. Consequently, affecting the physical body will in principle affect the mind. Studies with psilocybin have under rigorous conditions been shown to induce psychosis and religious experiences in the minds of patients[3-5] While must less rigorous, canibinoids, peyote, ayahuaska and others have been reported to induce experiences of their own flavour.[6] Moreover, because these experiences are entirely naturalistic, then no brute knowledge gain, or learning will be performed, and that these experiences will be largely affected by demography and existing culture. Which is seen to be the case (more on this later).#1. Neither naturalism, nor theism themselves entail such experiences, since in theism God has free will, and thus is never obliged to induce religious experiences, and thus cannot be said to be an expectation of God. Similarly in naturalism, we don’t necessarily expect experiences, although in naturalism it would be especially unsurprising since:1. Transcending experiences exist for other things anyway (c.f. ghosts, deceased loved ones, alien abductions,[7] etc.), thus such experiences for God would be natural to expect2. First person internal experiences already exist anyway (c.f. dreams, thoughts, etc.)Thus, based on existing non-theistic knowledge (regardless of whether or not metaphysical naturalism is true), religious experiences are not a spectacular phenomena which poses serious ontological questions. No more than other comparable experiences do.RebuttalsOverviewPro’s arguments addresses the prima facie belief that one is justified in believing in God due to the attributed experience of “God”. However, this resolution is about ontology, not epistemology. Thus, an argument for belief is insufficient to address the ontological nature of the experiences and to address the metaphysical question of whether or not God exists based on it. I could concede everything Pro asserts here, yet it would not demonstrate the conclusion that this debate is centred (that God exists/most likely exists). Pro is attempting to turn a screw with a saw, it’s completely the wrong tool for the job. Type PCT“on the basis of that experience - I spontaneously and am strongly inclined to believe the content of that experience.”Based on the purely intuitive nature of the attribution of belief to experience by the subject, we already have sufficient grounds to reject this premise out of hand. Human’s construct models of reality, and our model of reality develops over the course of interacting with reality. This is probably our best prima facie justification of beliefs regarding reality. Pro by arguing for the Type PCT thesis completely ignores the process by which we subconsciously develop beliefs, and buries the major point that it’s people that attribute beliefs to the experiences, and not the other way around.[11]While it is a basic belief that you are having a specific set of sensations (e.g. the sensations of looking at this computer screen), your synthetic belief of the nature of that set of sensations is a separate attribution. One only needs to look as far as a few well-known optical illusions to realise that prima facie justification is fatally deficient: TE is a well-established type of experienceIn order for Pro’s argument to remain valid, it must be with respect to a God of the ontology of “ supremely powerful, all-loving, personal ground of being”, however he provides no evidence that theistic experiences as a generalised set are of this ontology, or anything like it. While will concede quickly that some people genuinely have had experiences of this ontology, I have no reason to believe it’s the norm rather than the exception.Moreover, we already have serious reason to doubt these religious experiences, which is the fact that they are personal, subjective, and hence not shared amongst other peers. When one wants to make claims about what is external to the mind as opposed to what is internal to the mind, one needs to have a general principle for separating the two. Clearly we have experiences and sensations that do not reflect what is external, e.g. our dreams, our internal dialogue, and other first-person experiences. Thus, one of the most obvious tests is to see if others sharing the same objective experience. Your dreams of you flying last night are not going to be shared with your peers, and thus by itself counts as good initial reason to doubt that your experience reflects anything that is external to the mndBy comparison, religious experiences are not shared amongst their peers, and while one can cite that others have also had religious experiences, one can also cite others who have had dreams of flying, simply having some people sharing similar types of experiences is not sufficient to overcome the implausibility granted by the experience being necessarily subjectiveFurthermore, while controlled studies on religious experiences are hard to come by, Hindu, Buddhist, Christian and Islamic mythisms have been documented, all mutually exclusive, and much more indicative of socio-cultural factors having causal influence on the content/interpretation of these experiences rather than the other way around.[9,10]References1.http://tinyurl.com...2.http://tinyurl.com...3.http://tinyurl.com...4.http://tinyurl.com...5.http://tinyurl.com...6.http://tinyurl.com...7.http://tinyurl.com...8.http://tinyurl.com...9.http://tinyurl.com...10.http://socrel.oxfordjournals.org...11. http://tinyurl.com...;