luvluv

That makes about as much sense as this:

1) Some people had sensory experiences.
and
2) Some people labeled them "red".

1) Is not evidence for red, since sensory experiences happen all the time.

luvluv

I also have to ask what makes anyone here think that God would have to speak to us through supernatural means? We communicate to each other all the time using purely natural means. Why can't God do the same?

For example, why can't God, in response to prayer, cause a cancer to go into remission via completely natural secondary causes? Why couldn't he, in response to prayer, use the wind to part a Sea?

Lafcadio

"The more people say something the more likely it is to be true,"

Angrillori, actually this is science (in fact, applied inductive reasoning). The more observations (and observators, of course) agree on the same thing, is more likely to be true (actually, considered as true)
I don't mean true in itself, but true as a reflection of empyrical data (the observation, the people's sayings).
Notice the word "likely"

Of course, people may be a certain set of people (any people, doctors, teenagers whatever) and their opinion (and consecutively sayings) may change in time.

Angrillori

You're almost there! No one denies you the opportunity to say: I had an experience that felt like this. Heck, you can even say: I had an experience that can be described just as what a lot of other people label an NDE. However, what you do not have the authority to do is to say: my experience that felt like this is due to god, or the supernatural, and not to natural causes A, B, and C.

Beg the question much?

It's merely an experience. As long as this person is ignorant as to other possible causes of their experience, then they cannot be an authority in determining whether an experience was "religious" or non-religious.

What authority does this lay person have to differentiate supernatural-induced experiences from naturally induced experiences?

You dance around this, and snip it out of quotes over and over, but no where do you answer it.

Unless this person has some authority to differentiate supernatural caused experience from naturally caused experience, then any appeal to this person's diagnosis is appeal to invalid authority.

You're appealing to this persons authority and ability to self-diagnose the cause (not the fact that they had an experience, but the cause of that experience), without establishing that authority.

No one disagrees these people know they had an experience. However, you've abjectly refused to establish their authority in discerning the cause of that experience.

Again, your analogy fails. Because the people who are claiming that the experiences they had are "religious" are not trained to diagnose the cause of their experiences, beyond what they've been told as children by others equally un-authoritative.

The only apt analogy is this so far:

A bunch of blind people approach me. They tell me that they were told as kids that when they hear tweeting in the trees, that means elephants are near. Then they tell me they heard tweeting (the sensory experience) and try to convince me elephants are near (their interpretation of the sensory experience). They DID hear tweeting, yes, but their authority to determine the source of that tweeting (birrds vs. elephants) is lacking.

Aww, hurt a bit?

All you have to do is establish on what authority these lay people can differentiate supernatural-caused experiences from non-supernatural-caused experiences, since their authority to do so is the only support your argument has, and you'll have a leg to stand on. Remember, it's not my contention that they can't recognize that they're experiencing certain feelings/whatever, merely that they are unqualified to determine the cause of that feeling.

You need to establish that when they say: I felt this, and in my expert opinion, the feeling came from the supernatural, the phrase "expert opinion" is not misapplied..

Again:

No one doubts they know that they felt some feelings. I'm just pointing out that they have no authority to support their claim for the origin of that experience--no way to put the "religious" in "religious experience."

Angrillori

See, you equivocate right from fallacy to non fallacy.

When there's a consensus of valid authorities, the colclusion is reasoned and evidenced. But sheer weight of non-authoritative opinions is worthless.

That's why, no matter how many high-school drop outs believe in creationism, it's the consensus of the scientists that matters.

Even if 10,000 to 1 uneducated people believe in creationism, it won't be evidence of creationism. However, if 10,000 to 1 scientists believe in evolution it is evidence of evolution. The difference is simple:

Appeal to legitimate authority.
vs.
Appeal to illegitimate authority.

luvluv is attempting to justify appeal to illegitimate authority as evidence. It's not. It's just appealing to numbers, which is ad populum, which is a fallacy.

KleinGordon

Give me a break. If it is a matter of solipsistic evidence, then "religious experience" is one data point to the individual in the same way that "pink elephants" are one data point for an alchoholic. You want to call it evidence. Fine. It is evidence for them and only them. Actually, it isn't evidence it is certainty. They talk to God <=> God exists (to them). They don't get to grab other peoples' religious experiences, but I'll let them claim they talk to God and use that as evidence for themselves. Big deal. We all know that isn't the kind of evidence you were talking about. It is also basically indistinguishable from madness.

MARBLE EXAMPLE
It is as if you know some black marbles exist (B) (fakes) and you only suspect that white marbles(W) exist (actual religious experiences). You wish to infer that there exists a company (C) (God) that makes only white marbles. You decide that "evidence" for the company's existence is the total number of marbles (T) in the world. Oh, you will try to argue that, surely, if the company exists they will produce some white marbles so that the total number of marbles goes up.

P(T1=W1+B1|C) > P(T2=W2+B2|~C).

But we have to ask, If I only measure total marbles and the total marbles might be all black marbles (which I know exist), how can I say the total marbles will go down in a world without a white marble-producing company? This is especially true since the white marble-producing company doesn't make black marbles. You need a f*#@ing white marble!

We don't believe trees exist because a whole bunch of people have internal "tree experiences", we go see a tree for ourselves. We believe "consciousness" exists because we don't have choice. We believe "love" exists - some of us - because we agree to label it love, not because love exists in an objective sense. It is different for everyone.

Lafcadio

For instance, "sex is pleasure" - who is an authority on that?
But "Earth is round" - who is an authority on that?
But "E = mc^2"? Do you actually need a physics doctorate to support rationally such opinions and be taken in account, or just you need to have the ability of proving (and here the circles of consensus and authorities opens again, what is a proof?, I say we should ignore that for now) your sayings within a reasonable (again consensus and authorities) threshold?

And last, but not at least, what makes the authority an authority? And to avoid the beggable questions: who makes an authority from the ultimate authority? Somewhere, must be a general consensus, otherwise the system will reduce again to a god, as an authority of Absolute Truth.
Or do you believe in an "oligarchy" of smart people deciding what's reasonable or not in different fields? Again, the authority investment questions occurs. Who says that what those people say is true?

There's a point to address an illegitimate authority fallacy when talking of a narrow scientific field (because of the degree of specialization) and someone hides behind a name or a bunch. There's no point to address an illegitimate authority fallacy when talking of more general issues. The ad populum fallacy applies likewise. If one claims "there are many enough people reporting religious experience" and backs this affirmation with data (from the people), it's not an ad populum argument, it's a factual claim. Of course, the observations (each one's experience) can be viciated, but that's another issue, isn't it?

However I cannot find with certainty the point where your ad populum fallacy addresses to, to insert my own opinion if those people's voice matters or not. It all depends on the premises and the conclusion. Not any vox populi is a fallacy, not any vox populi is not a fallacy. It depends a lot whether those people are throwing opinions about their experiences or sub-atomic particles.

Cobalt

As I said earlier, as far as Bayes' theorem is concerned, there's evidence for god belief, just as there's evidence for every belief -- big f'ing deal. Unless you're willing to engage in the particulars of calculating the Bayesian probability of existence of your god, then belaboring the existence of such 'evidence' is pointless hand waving.
Would a schizophrenic’s experiences need to be authenticated (whatever that might mean)? Would such a person's hallucinatory experiences count as evidence of whatever they 'witnessed'? Clearly, it’s some sort of evidence -- but is it evidence for what the person 'witnessed' or is it evidence of schizophrenia?
This seems to be a question of dualism, concerning the mechanism of contact between the natural and supernatural dualities. It's manifestly unclear how a mechanism of dualism could be explained while still being dualistic. Thus, if god is supernatural, then anything god does has a supernatural cause.

Angrillori

I'm glad you brought this up, because it illustrates the precise weakness of luvluv's point:

Because we're merely describing a state, anyone who's had sex is an authority on whether it is pleasurable or not.

What they are not an authority on is whether or not it is pleasurable because little green happy elves dance the fandango invisibly in our loins.

To paraphrase you:
"Sex is pleasurable BECAUSE little green happy elves dance the fandango invisibly in our loins." Who's an expert?

Analgously then, religious experiences jump from:
"I feel X." (Of which anyone is an expert.)
to:
"I feel X because god made me feel X." (Can you see how this maps to the green happy elves?)

What luvluv would have is both cases:

People being experts on what they feel, AND being experts on the origin of that feeling. There's a reason psychologists, psychiatrists, neurologists, etc. get paid to do what they do, and that reason is precisely BECAUSE other people are not experts in those fields.

Astronomers, geologists, cite someone saying the world is flat and we'll discuss his credentials and whether you should believe him.

Especially this last, I wouldn't believe it without having the consensus of scientific support also supporting it. Mass is energy? How preposterous! Yet the authorities--those who are paid to do the research, do the math, run the equations, run the experiments agree that such is true.

It is not the high school drop-outs believing E=mc^2 that is evidence that E might actually = mc^2. No, it is the LEGITIMATE authorities believing such that gives us evidence that E might just = mc^2.

Absolutely. If everyone was an authority, the term "expert" would be meaningless. You go to your local street-person to fix your car--I'm going to go to an expert mechanic. We'll see whose car runs tomorrow.

Definition of "expert" and "authority" my friend.


Yes. it is a fact that a lot of people have an experience.
It is another fact that a lot of inexpert people attribute these experiences to religious origins.

What turns these two facts into evidence for the truth of religion would be one thing, and one thing only:

The expertise of these people in being able to authoritatively discriminate between experiences which originate non-supernaturally and those that orgininate supernaturally.


No one disagrees that these people had experiences.

What is wholly not in evidence is whether there is any reason we should put any weight at all on these people's self-diagnosis as to the supernatural origin of their feeling.

If they're not experts on telling the difference between experiences which are supernatural in origin and experiences that are not supernatural in origin, then an appeal to their opinion on the matter is worthless.

One expert is worth a million armchair-analyzers.

KleinGordon

Nothing. If you posit a supernatural being that no one will ever see, but that can do anything then that is what you get. In fact, you must hide him in a 'natural secondary' causes background. If the fact that you have to isn't a clue, then I don't no what else to say.

But you know as well as I know, that you are playing hide the dragon. Why couldn't anything I want happen? I posit that I am God and I've created you as a diversion. Why can't that happen?