My meditation teacher took me through a similar process. Not getting into the details, but I got to the point where ‘the non-existence of God’ was just as inconceivable (to me) as a round square. I wouldn’t describe it “as if my brain changed,” but who knows maybe it did because I literally couldn’t conceive or imagine the counterfactual. He then switched the practice up on me, and ‘the existence of God’ became just as inconceivable and unimaginable. The point of the exercise is to give an aspirant the direct experience of induced beliefs and how powerful and exhaustively persuasive they can be, so that he can later discriminate between them (induced beliefs) and a genuine mystical experience, were he to have one.

If by this, you mean that I believe in Christ, then yes. I don't see how it differs from epistemic, in that I still acknowledge I could be wrong, but believe nonetheless, as this is the easiest most coherent explanation to me.

I think Original Position answered this well. It increases the likelihood.

I said that it is not obviously false (like Santa). Not, obviously not false.

I can't ignore these experiences. For starters they are persistent and continual and I need to account for them. Even by ignoring them, I am making a statement of belief, that they are a delusion or dissonance or a deceptive entity. It is easiest for me to attribute them to Christ, given that they themselves compel me to credit them to Christ. You can call this faith, but by my reasoning, this is the easiest option to believe. It would take more "faith", to label it anything else, even if I concede that all are possible, including other things I have not accounted for.

I've examined my options, and I choose the easiest one to believe, it just doesn't seem that way to you. You would presumably not object my dropping these beliefs, and professing atheism, but I would not be acting coherently. I would be ignoring these experiences and assuming that they are unimportant or useless to knowledge, no different than my assumption that it is Christ behind the experiences. Ignoring this part of my life, would likewise take faith, and from my perspective, more faith.

Thanks, would your professor contend that he was epistemically certain? Did he consider his experience, along with his arguments for theism sufficient to defeat the arguments against?

The distinction between certainty is really interesting and explains why N_R can seemingly acknowledge all the arguments regarding certain positions yet defend them so strongly. I've never really understood how this makes sense and it does now.

Agreed, well named said some poignant things there. I believe he answered some of your above questions (maybe?).

I couldn't answer this question, "if there was an evaluation prior to the experience", because if there was one which affected my evaluation of the experience, it is beyond my ability to detect. Like I've said, Christ seems inherent in the experience. Take Original Position's story about his professor who claimed to see a vision of Christ. Was he affected by his previous knowledge of Christ in order for him to identify it was Christ? It would be impossible to answer that, all one can say is that it appears as Christ. Anything further is subconscious, since one could simply realize they are imposing their preconceptions, and then reject it as a mental phenomenon, and not Christ.

Believe me or not, if Allah had appeared to me as Christ does, then I would have followed Allah, and would have investigated the Quran like I did the Bible. Perhaps I would be defending what I believe to be the correct interpretation of the Quran, like I do the Bible. I don't believe this would have happened, since I believe that Christ is real, and that he is behind my beliefs.

I'll just note that an important difference here is that my professor's ability to conceive or imagine God not existing was unchanged. He could still engage in arguments about the relative strengths and weaknesses of the arguments and evidence for god's existence or non-existence. It was just that these arguments became abstract exercises that had little to no impact on the strength with which he held the belief that God existed.

Very fascinating , would you mind sharing your beliefs? Christian? Deist? Other?

No.

He accepted a version of Reformed epistemology and so thought that his belief in Christianity was warranted, but that atheism was potentially warranted as well. No doubt his experience of God provided part of the justification for this view.

There appear to be a number of interesting posts on that blog

Great read. Quite an objective examination. What I disagree with is that one cannot have a "positive coherence" while affirming a belief in God, I think he underestimates the spiritual experience, when compared to his physical one of examining his laptop with the world around him.

Has anyone read Plantinga's "Warranted Christian belief"? He sparked my curiosity, and wondering if anyone has any comments on it?

Prosblogian is an excellent resource on contemporary Anglo-American philosophy of religion; some prominent philosophers of religion post there fairly regularly.

I've read parts of it. If you are interested, we discuss an early version of his view in this thread. I vaguely having another go at this more recently with some people, but might be thinking of somewhere else.

Maybe this thread?

Nah, that one is more on his argument against naturalism than his warrant for Christianity.

I’m not a big fan of dogmas and creeds, so I tend to check the “spiritual but not religious” box.

I struggle to believe that you accord this same probability to any written account so I'm assuming that the bible, or something about that story must be in a special category, you must be treating them differently?

Where I can comfortably accept that the gospels increase the probability that Jesus existed at all, his turning 5 loves and 2 fish into enough food to feed 5000 people is a different type of claim. Are there rules that stop us from dismissing such stories as impossible until otherwise proven and that cause you to afford even a marginal increase in probability that they're true simply because it was written somewhere? Isn't it more likely that they have simply been exaggerated, especially given how people felt (and wanted others to feel) about Jesus?

No, you misunderstand. This isn't "me ignoring your reasons", this is me following the argument as presented by William James regarding mystical states.

Per his train of thought, your reasons for believing something (specifically spiritual, mystical, religious) or having a religious experience can't be expressed. Since they can't be expressed, he further argues that they should be ignored and that we should only focus on actual claims.

So if you bring mystical states to the table, that is what I will do. For example, I will ignore that you actually think the Bible is true (as I can't experience what you experience) and merely focus on whether the Bible is accurate. I would then say that the Bible is inaccurate, heavily vested in single source evidence, often written long after actual claimed events and more the work of religious committee than historians. Then I would conclude that the Bible might have value as a historical source, but as a source of the claims made within it is a very poor document.

I would then conclude that your implicit claim regarding the veracity of the Bible is unsupported.

There's a big difference, did you read any of the article that OrP linked?

If you're not epidemically certain, would you say the above applied?

Well, that's something I'm exploring, I'm not convinced at this point. I don't understand how it being written somewhere makes something that as far as we know is impossible even marginally more likely to have happened and it matters that it's seemingly impossible because if it were something possible then it wouldn't be miraculous and therefore wouldn't be any kind of proof of Jesus' divinity. The written claims made by people on behalf of Uri Gellar don't add any credibility to his feats, or do they for you?

Even if the biblical account added 'at least' a marginal increase in probability, as a basis for believing in a god I would require more than that, far more than that. Especially as there are more likely explanations, such as that it was simply exaggerated over time because that's what people do with their prophets and messiahs. Are you being too easily convinced?

Ok, and what point are you making? Can you elaborate?

Actually, ignoring them, or interpreting them entirely differently are both perfectly valid options. I've suggested sensible reasons why you might have found the christian story the best for providing your easy answers, but suppose you were trying to explain to someone why I'm an atheist, what reasons might you offer on my behalf?


I feel like we're going in circles on this. I've said previously that when you say 'easy' I don't think you mean 'parsimonious' so your easy is something I would never do. Defaulting to the 'easy' explanation for me is something lazy and dishonest, something to be avoided, particularly for claim that requires such high standards of supporting reason.

It would take more faith to ignore what you've learned by using faith. I don't really know what to make of that claim.

So I am kind of thinking of from wikis
kind of contrasts with instrumentalism
My experience is that instrumentalism is more the norm amongst 'hard' scientists. Certainly it is closer to my view which might be biasing by perception of 'hard' sceintist.

My observation is the same as Piers'. In my own field (psychology) I don't think I have ever met a scientific realist. Generally speaking almost all active researchers I have come across are empiricists with some minor influences from pragmatism/instrumentalism. Psychology might be a special case, as it tends towards very strict methodological rigor. We do cross into softer social sciences however, and my impression in the same in regards to those.

I think it is in huge part down to the nitty gritty of doing actual science. When we're not talking about huge paradigms or making sweeping generalizations in debates, we actually expect the models we work with to continuously change and evolve. Therefore I don't seem them as "true", I see them as models. I also fully expect them to be obsolete and replaced by better models in the future.

Great thread, enjoyed it very much. (Almost done)

What happened to Jibninjas? I appreciated your exchanges with him.

I see what you're saying. We are on the same page, then.

I did read it, but I think it works better as an objective framework. It's more difficult to differentiate and apply these two labels to oneself, and assign a level of certainty. I can't know if I'm right, so it's kind of useless to examine these hypothetical divisions.

I think you underestimate the historicity and accuracy of the bible. Most respected scholars accept the accounts as reliable. That's not to say that Christ is necessarily the son of God, or that he did miracles, but it's accurate to say that people believed he was the son of God, and believed he did miracles.

If the bible "concluded" that Christ was a fraud, then I would seriously need to rethink my position, since it is no longer coherent. Given that this is not the case, it gives some credence to my view, since the likelihood of Christ being divine is greater.

On a side note, if you have not already, you should read Bart Ehrman, to see the extent a biblical scholar that does not believe in the divinity of Christ gives the bible. Even someone taking the an extreme position of biblical uncertainty, will still grant these events to have occurred, and to carry with them a certain reliability, as most other historical documents also do.

If I had visions of Santa, then I would rethink my view almost immediately, since it is not coherent. We can prove that Santa doesn't exist with virtually perfect certainty. Since Christ's divinity is debatable, I don't need to immediately discard it, because it is "not obviously false" like Santa is obviously false.

I agree, rejecting it is an option, as is any explanation as to it's source. These are indeed my options. I don't consider the option of rejection to be the most coherent one, and the most honest choice I can make. It would be like ignoring a pain, and pretending it's not present. I understand you don't agree, but I think you need to acknowledge that since you are not subject to this, it is more difficult for you to accurately say whether I'm being irrational or not.

I really can't answer why you're an atheist, I don't have access to your worldview. From what you've said, I can imagine that lack of evidence is paramount.

I think you're not objectively looking at this through my perspective. When I say easy, I mean most coherent, and acceptable.

If I decide right now to accept atheism, and say, "I've decided to ignore these spiritual experiences", it seems that you would more gladly accept my new worldview, simply because it matches your own, all the while, ignoring the fact that I am ignoring something that is overwhelming in my life. An exaggerated example is accepting solipsism, and ignoring the world around you.

Well... not really. I think William James (and the good Nagel for that matter) is very much in the wrong, or rather they have not thought their arguments fully through.

If we follow their logic, you could not describe to me your experience of blue. However, both mantain that you can explain the color blue.

This is a very akward argument, since your explanation of the color blue is your experience and my understanding of your explanation is my experience. And according to both, experience is impossible to communicate. And since they are implicitly arguing that transfer of experience is impossible, any similarity in your encoding and my decoding would have to be random or non-existent. Thus if we take James' logic to its actual conclusion, communication is impossible.

Now, some would say "so what? You can't show that it is possible". And that is true, under the (most fascist) veil of philosophical skepticism I can't. However, any spiritual experience based on other beings (be it angels, gods, humans, Bibles or whatnot) would also be impossible.

So there.

I think James might distinguish between the impossibility of perfect communication and the impossibility of any communication at all.

If he allows for imperfect communication, his argument would also topple.