bd-from-kg

Taffy Lewis:

In this post I want to talk about the supposed conditions or requirements for being able to “directly perceive God”, which presumably account for why so many of us have failed to do so. You quoted two authors who listed such conditions, so let’s look at what they have to say.

First up, William Alston:

Let’s take these one at a time. Concern with worldly things, no matter how intense, can hardly be considered “excessive” unless there are other things to be concerned about. But what kind of things might there be other than “worldly” ones? Why unworldly – i.e., supernatural – ones, of course. So the requirement that one not be “excessively concerned” with worldly things is a requirement that one must believe in the supernatural. Anyone who meets this requirement has already waived the rational insistence on having evidence that something exists as a condition of believing that it does. This, of course, means that he will have little reason not to believe in God. In fact, in modern Western cultures belief in the supernatural is almost always accompanied by a belief in God.

The second requirement is peculiar. Many theists, especially Christians, insist that there is no rational reason to be moral, and especially to sacrifice one’s own interests for the sake of others’, unless one believes in God. But then what sense does it make to insist that a person be moral as a condition of perceiving God directly, especially if having done so is the only rational reason for believing in God in the first place? This is a classic catch-22: one must be irrational to be provided with a rational reason to believe in God.

As to the third requirement, no one’s mind is really closed to the possibility of communion with God. But most of those who don’t believe in God consider it only a remote, theoretical possibility. Presumably this is what the author really means. In other words, in order to “directly perceive” God one has to believe that there is a reasonable possibility that God exists. But on what grounds would a rational person who has not directly perceived God believe this? As a general rule, the probability that something for which one has no evidence exists is very low, even if it’s something as mundane as a red-painted baseball in one’s back yard. The a priori probability that something as complex, and as utterly foreign to all ordinary human experience, as God might exist has to be rated as ridiculously low – say one chance in a googolplex. To make this requirement reasonable, you have to offer some serious argument as to why this estimate is far too low – that unlike other things of which we have no evidence, the probability of God’s existence is in the “reasonable” range – say, one chance in a thousand or better.

Now let’s look at Robert McKim’s comments:

But this is nonsense; it is certainly not inevitable. To illustrate, suppose that your roommate claims to be dating Cameron Diaz. You consider this wildly improbable; in fact, you’re so certain that he’s lying that you challenge him to bring her to a party at your place the next night. You invite friends to jeer and ridicule him when he shows up without her. But to your amazement, she actually shows up with him. It is not at all inevitable that you will not be able to perceive Cameron because your only motive in asking him to produce her was to discredit and disparage; on the contrary, this will not interfere with your perceiving her in the least.

Now what does this mean? What exactly is the unbeliever being asked to “focus” on? Why – God, of course! Does anyone see a problem here? More on this requirement later.

Needless to say, these are again requirements that are almost impossible to meet for someone who does not consider god’s existence to be a serious possibility.

A review of these supposed “conditions” by anyone familiar with mediums and other quacks will recognize them immediately. Mediums also claim that one must be “open to possibilities that one does not understand”. They assure their marks that the dear departed will never put in an appearance if they are “closed to the possibility of communion” with them or “excessively preoccupied” with this world. they explain that “failing to take the time and trouble to attend, to focus in the right way” will lead to failure. And of course if anyone came “solely to discredit and disparage” , it will be inevitable that their loved ones will remain hidden. These are all standard dodges for unscrupulous frauds. They understand very well that in order to induce people to perceive things that aren’t there, one must first get them into a frame of mind of expecting to perceive them, of wanting to perceive them, of being ready to welcome them if they “appear”. And miraculously enough, those who attain the requisite frame of mind almost invariably do perceive the things that they’ve prepared themselves for, even though they aren’t there. And, of course, all of these conditions provide a perfect “explanation” for why those who don’t perceive them “failed”. They just weren’t “ready”, they weren’t “focusing” or “attending” quite strongly enough. It’s their fault, you see; they weren’t worthy of the blessed revelation.

The mind is a remarkable thing. If it wants to perceive something badly enough, it will – whether it’s there or not.

One also has to wonder just why God would impose conditions on our being able to perceive Him that just happen to be of the sort that are the staple of con men and flim-flam artists. If He wants us to know Him, why does He remain hidden unless we manage to meet some very stringent requirements? And why would He give so many of us a nature such that we are capable of loving Him, but never will because we are destined never to fulfill these requirements? This seems an odd way to proceed for an omnipotent, loving Being who cares about us so much that He sent His only-begotten Son to suffer an agonizing death on our behalf.

So forgive me for not being impressed by people who claim to have “directly perceived” God. I have no doubt that most of them are sincere, just as most of those who say they have communicated with their dead children or spouses at a séance are sincere. This sort of thing is evidence of nothing whatsoever other than the well-known propensity of the human mind to fool itself - to believe what it wants to believe.

But wait. McKim has yet another condition:

Here of course we are not looking at anything that even pretends to be a description of how to put oneself in a position such that an awareness of God is possible, but simply the standard Christian ad hominem attack on anyone who claims to have a rational disbelief in God based on a dispassionate examination of the evidence. Such a claim, the author is saying, is almost certainly false; the person who makes it doesn’t really disbelieve deep down, but rather is in rebellion against God.

The idea that any but a tiny handful of raving lunatics would rebel against a being whom they knew had created them, who was perfectly good, who held their fate in His hands, and against whom rebellion was doomed and certain to lead to infinite misery, is absurd. Christians find it plausible only because they have had this insane notion drilled into them from childhood. The only reason that this belief doesn’t outrage nonbelievers (rather than just annoying them) is that it is so patently ridiculous.

It really would be wise for Christians to keep this nonsense to themselves; there is no chance whatever that it will ever convince any nonbeliever to accept Christ. Its only effect is to convince the unbeliever that Christians are completely out of touch with reality, and that they have no real interest in understanding those who disagree with them. All that they really want to do is to demonize us so that they don't have to think seriously about our real reasons for rejecting Christianity.

Keith Russell

bd from kg:

Well said!

Keith Russell.

The AntiChris

bd-from-kg

Two excellent posts.

Chris

Taffy Lewis

bd-from-kg,

In my first post, I emphasized that belief in God is not reasonably compared to belief in this or that physical object. On a perceptual model of experience of God our primary access to God is through theistic perception. Similarly, our primary access to facts about the physical world is through our senses. So God should be compared to the whole of physical reality and not to individual physical objects. This can be difficult to realize since we are aware of objects through particular experiences. However, this does not change the fact that theistic perception is parallel to sensory perception in that both are forms of perception and both are our primary access to their respective objects.

First, belief in the physical world and belief in God do not depend upon any particular theory of perception. I accept a direct realist account of perception over a representationalist account like you seem to endorse. A perceptual model of God's existence could be stated in terms of either. Similarly, belief in the physical world is a position independent of any theory of perception.

Nevertheless, with regard to (1), if we are not directly aware of something then perceptual experience leads to an infinite regress. And if we are not directly aware of the objects of our perception then what are we directly aware of? Sense data? Representations? Are you indeed endorsing some kind of representationalist theory of perception?

Treating (2) as relevant to theistic perception can be dealt with fairly easily. The conditions for perceiving an object are determined by the nature of the object perceived and our relationship to it. In the case of mundane sized physical objects, we have learned through sensory perception that spatiotemporal location is a condition for actually perceiving some physical object. We have learned that mundane sized physical objects behave in such simple, repeatable ways that people who meet certain spatiotemporal conditions will have similar experiences. However, in the case of God we have not learned any such thing through theistic perception. It seems that you want to judge one basic belief forming mechanism on the basis of facts relevant to a different basic belief forming mechanism.

Try this in general. Memory is another basic belief forming mechanism. It is our primary access to beliefs about past states of affairs. If I have an experience in which I remember eating toast for breakfast last week and my friend who is only a few feet away from me does not have a similar experience then this fact will not tend to undermine the belief that I had toast last week. We know that spatiotemporal location has nothing to do with whether or not we can trust our memory in experiences of remembering.

Or consider logical intuition. Suppose someone has an experience in which they come to understand some mathematical truth. It is irrelevant that others near them do not have a similar experience.

So it is wrong to apply the conditions relevant to sensory experience to theistic perception or any other basic belief forming mechanism.

With regard to (3), you seem to want to say that God is infinitely complex. Not everyone agrees. The philosopher Richard Swinburne says:

So it's not obvious that the idea of God is a complex idea. In addition to the points about infinity and zero, it might be added that we are more intimately acquainted with personal beings (such as ourselves) than we are with impersonal objects such as photons and other entities referred to in physics.

It might be added that theism has an additional simplifying effect in that ultimately everything can be explained in terms of the activity of something personal. It might be argued that without theism, we are forced to some kind of dualism with regard to explanations. Under atheism, some physical systems are associated with personal beings and some are not. Yet under theism, every physical system is associated with a personal being.

You seem to be misusing the word "inference". An inference is necessarily a conscious process. The fact that there are many nonconscious brain states and processes which are necessary in order to draw an inference does not change the fact that there is a distinction between that which is known directly (ie. perceived) and that which is known indirectly (ie. inferred).

Here is a good introductory discussion of different theories of perception. It discusses direct perception as well as representationalism (or indirect realism):

<a href="http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Philosophy+of+perception" target="_blank">Philosophy of Perception</a>

You quote me and then say:

In the quote, I was responding to fact that different people claim to experience different deities in different cultures. I drew a distinction between "visions" and "experience of a personal presence". It's pretty clear that "visions", which "violently" conflict with each other, are simply faulty sensory experiences. Visions are instances of a person "seeing" or "hearing" some object that one takes to be a god or what is sometimes referred to as a supernatural being. (I don't assume that the terms supernatural or natural even pick out anything). Such experiences clearly conflict. But theistic perception is not a case of sensory perception at all. And it is just a fact of theistic perception that it yields such experiences as a sense of personal presence, or a sense that the presence is guiding, strengthening, comforting, or sustaining one. Or similar such experiences.

Thus, visions are merely anomalous sensory experiences. If they cast doubt on anything it is sensory experience.

Simply stating that theistic perception is subjective is question begging.

Further, the nature of the object perceived in theistic perception is relevant to what one should believe about what other people should experience. Such experiences are supposed to reveal a good and loving creator and sustainer. It seems likely that this being would not restrict his revelation to merely one person but would reveal himself to others. And in fact we find that millions of people through recorded history and in varying cultural conditions have had such experiences.

In addition, the fact that no one "around" a person who experiences God has the same experience is only relevant to sensory experience. You are applying a standard relevant to sensory experience to theistic perception. Nothing revealed in theistic perception suggests that spatial location has anything to do with experiences of God.

And "imaginative, creative" explanations of why some people do not experience God are simply inevitable. Such accounts are presented on both sides of the theism/atheism debate. No doubt you have your own account of why so many people think they experience God. You believe there is no god or lack belief in God and therefore you must think there is some reason why all of these people are having such faulty perceptions. No doubt you will refer to wishful thinking or some evolutionary account of why they think they perceive God. So the theist has his ideas about why you are spiritually blind and you have your ideas about why the theist is delusional. They are both attempts at psychological analysis.

Also, the theist is offering a perceptual account of experience of God. We know that perception requires that a person meet specific conditions before various experiences occur. This is just how perception works. So theistic perception should have various conditions. The theist is offering an account of what those conditions are in the case of God.

But all of this is true of sensory experience as well. Specifically as to why the entity is part of their worldview in the first place, we can appeal to the fact that they are perceived. For example, trees are part of my worldview for the same reason.

I'll devote the rest of this post to your attempts to undermine the conditions of theistic perception mentioned by Alston and McKim. (It should be noted that McKim does not endorse these arguments but rather claims it is a possible explanation for divine hiddenness.)

You quote Alston's remarks that "an excessive preoccupation and concern with worldly goods, certain kinds of immorality - particularly self-centeredness and unconcern with one's fellows - and a mind that is closed to the possibility of communion with God, are all antithetical to an awareness of God's presence."

Then you say:

I think Alston is best interpreted as saying that some people are preoccupied with impersonal objects rather than persons. This is a point that is often made in nonphilosophical contexts. It's the kind of point persons make when they say someone is very "materialistic". (They aren't making a metaphysical claim but rather a claim about consumerism or something similar.) A person might be so caught up in their job or their interests that they have little concern for other persons. For example, I might be so absorded in my computer that I take no interest in my family and friends.

Also, a person can be so preoccupied with sensual matters that they take no interest in moral, religious, or spiritual questions. This does not require a prior belief in gods or spirits or any similar things. I can take an interest in the philosophy of religion without believing that there is a god. Similarly, I don't have to believe that gravitons exist in order to take an interest in questions involving theories of gravity.

Next you say:

I don't see why an atheist can't be a rational and moral person.

Next you say:

It does seem that a significant number of atheists believe that it is very unlikely that God exists or that it is impossible that God exists or that it is not even meaningful to claim that God exists. So Alston's requirement would apply to any atheists who fit into any of these three categories.

Interestingly, one of your supporters above, Keith Russell, in another thread says "My Christian wife often asks what kind of evidence would convince me that God exists. She beleives that no evidence could. I think she's right."

Next you say:

But if I believe that the probability that a red-painted baseball is in my backyard is "very low" it seems that even this probability would be overwhelmed by an experience of such a baseball. It seems unreasonable to allow an apriori probability which is "very low" to undermine what seems so evident in experience. I doubt that while walking in your backyard you would say "Well, it certainly looks like a red-painted baseball at my feet but I can't believe one is there because I know that the probability that such an object would be here is 'very low'."

It seems to me that Alston simply means that one can't believe the probability of God's existence is close to zero and that there are no considerations that undermine theistic perception. Also, whether or not the belief is reasonable will depend on the forcefulness of the experience. If I can see the ball clearly and a strong belief is thus formed then it will take a lower probability to undermine the belief.

Also, it's important to realize that beliefs based upon experience have a prima facie rationality. That is, they are judged reasonable unless there are grounds to undermine them. They are not ultima facie reasonable.

You also say:

I would deny that the concept of God is complex or "utterly foreign" to human experience. The concept of God seems simple and remarkably familiar. I made this point above. We are directly aware of ourselves as agents and subjects of experience. Further, we are aware that there are other minds which operate "behind" various aspects of the physical world (human bodies for instance). The concept of God is just a general application of this concept--a concept which we are intimately aware of in introspection. God is a personal being "behind" the entire physical world.

You quote McKim's comments that "if your motives, when you reflect on or discuss matters pertaining to theism, are, for instance, solely to discredit and disparage: it may be inevitable that God will be hidden if that is the case."

And respond by saying:

Again, you make the mistake of trying to apply conditions which are relevant to sensory perception apply to theistic perception. Surely it is the case that your mocking attitude toward your friend will not interfere with a sensory experience which is as forceful as directly seeing someone. But it does not seem unreasonable that God would not reveal himself to you if you are only intersted in mocking religious ideas. Consider the parallel case of someone who is not willing to share (or reveal) their ideas with some person because they know that person believes those ideas are absurd or pointless or meaningless. I rarely discussed philosophy when I was in high school because many of my classmates believed the subject was boring or pointless or not something worthwhile. It is doubtful that they would have even made an effort to understand it or even saw a point in coming to understand it.

Next, you discuss con men and mediums and try to make a connection between them and God.

One important difference in the two cases is that we have overwhelming evidence that people cannot be spoken to once they are dead. We know that our minds depend upon functioning brains and when we are dead our brains no longer function. We don't have such overwhelming evidence against God's existence.

Also, con men take advantage of our expectations with regard to physical objects. For instance, magicians make use of misdirection. And a number of con men make use of what we would like to hear. I'd like to believe that people like me. Quite a few salespersons have said flattering things about me. Does that mean I shouldn't believe anyone who says something good about me? Of course not.

Further, con men must necessarily take advantage of our expectations about how the world works. Just because they can take advantage of what we expect with regard to physical objects, general human behavior, and spiritual or religious subjects that does not mean that we can't trust our sensory experience, other humans, or theistic perception in general. Your line of reasoning leads to a general scepticism.

However, I thank you for your time and the effort you've made.

[ August 11, 2002: Message edited by: Taffy Lewis ]</p>

Taffy Lewis

For anyone interested, there are numerous book lenghth defenses of the kind of case for God's existence based upon religious experience which I attempt to make.

Perceiving God by William Alston

The Evidential Force of Religious Experience by Caroline Franks Davis

The Epistemology of Religious Experience by Keith Yandell

and Experience of God and the Rationality of Theistic Belief by Jerome Gellman

In addition, the Secular Web has some criticisms of such arguments:

<a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/keith_augustine/alston.html" target="_blank">Can Mystical Experience be a Perception of God? A Critique of William Alston's Perceiving God</a> by Keith Augustine

<a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/evan_fales/mystical.html" target="_blank">Do Mystic See God?</a> by Evan Fales

<a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_gale/swinburne_argument.html" target="_blank">Swinburne's Argument from Religious Experience</a> by Richard Gale

and

<a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_gale/alston.html" target="_blank">Why Alston's Mystical Doxastic Practice Is Subjective</a> also by Richard Gale

There's another critique of Alston by Gale which originally appeared in the journal Religious Studies which is not on the Secular Web. You can find it on Gale's homepage at:

<a href="http://www.pitt.edu/~rmgale/alston.htm" target="_blank">The Overall Argument of Alston's Perceiving God</a>

[ August 11, 2002: Message edited by: Taffy Lewis ]</p>

joedad

Hello Taffy Lewis,

Bd-from-kg's posts nicely explain a particular situation in my life, and not surprisingly, I agree with his explanations and conclusions.

Bd from kg states that perceiving a god is only possible if a god is already a part of one's ontology. I suppose the degree to which that perception occurs is as varied as there are people so inclined. Once again, however, it appears to me that perceiving a god is no different than perceiving a santa. And I don't mean to be insulting with that analogy. I only use it because it works for me.

That particular situation I mentioned earlier? Actually I have a brother in law who is retarded due to brain damage during birth. He has a very real perception of a santa and an easter bunny, a tooth fairy, and other things that you and I have long since vanquished to the realm of make-believe. His perception of these things is no different than a child's of perhaps three. Functionally, he can dress himself and eat, get up in the mornings, turn on the TV, etc. But if he goes to use the sprayer in the sink to rinse off dishes, and it sticks in the "on" position, he'll go get a pair of scissors to cut the hose to make the water stop. So, as you can see, he can't be left alone. His life, now 44 years young, is very different from yours and mine.

As I said, he also has a refreshingly real belief in a santa. The cookies have to be out for Santa, and the carrots have to be out for the reindeer every year. I mean, they HAVE to be! Get the picture? His parents have simply never explained this reality to him, this reality that santa is not real, something that you and I would not argue. And quite obviously, he has never mustered the intellectual means to make the observation himself. So, imagine having a three-year-old that never outgrows his belief in a santa and is never able to advance intellectually. And even though he is involved in the giving and exchanging of gifts, nicely orchestrated by his parents of course, he has absolutely no clue that santa is not real. None!!!! Like I said, it is a refreshingly candid picture of an "adult" who very much believes that a santa, complete with flying reindeer and assisted by elves, drops in at each and every Xmas Eve, just to bring him presents.

Using your above quote as a reference, is this person's perception of an unreal santa any different than another person's perceptions of a supposedly real god?

Would you care to comment?

joe

Vorkosigan

However, this does not change the fact that theistic perception is parallel to sensory perception in that both are forms of perception and both are our primary access to their respective objects.

Taffy, "theistic perception" is not at all like sensory perception. Your argument is that god is being directly perceived by some-as-yet-unidentified entity or process residing in the brain. But that is not how perception works. The sense data are organized and processed by the brain and never reach the consciousness; you get only the conclusions, and only part of those, those judged important for your consciousness to know.

Your sense do not have "primary" access to the objects they sense. They are evolved to sense the world in certain ways; that is, to reconstruct the data so that it is effective for your needs in going about your business as a large hairless primate in a society of large hairless primates. For example, when you drive a car, there are millions of perceptions -- signs, random noises, people, clouds, smoke, etc, that you have, but your brain screens out data that is extraneous to the task you have set it. It may or may not alert the consciousness to certain things you prioritize (the location of Indian restaurants, a hot babe by the side of the road). But the vast majority of sense data never reaches any conscious level.

However, in the case of God we have not learned any such thing through theistic perception. It seems that you want to judge one basic belief forming mechanism on the basis of facts relevant to a different basic belief forming mechanism.

Taffy, above you claim that "Theistic Perception" and ordinary perception are similar; now when we make judgements based on that claim, you suddenly reverse yourself.

The problem with "theistic perception" is that it does not behave anything like other forms of perception. Its experiences are unreliable and unrepeatable, and different for those who experience it. How did it evolve? Obviously, it could not have evolved, since it does not work on a stable object in the world, and there is no selection pressure working to produce it.

So it is wrong to apply the conditions relevant to sensory experience to theistic perception or any other basic belief forming mechanism.

Is "theistic perception" a belief-forming mechanism or a perception-mechanism? What is the difference? If the conditions of sensory experience are not relevant, in what sense can "theistic perception" be said to be like sensory perceptions?

It might be added that theism has an additional simplifying effect in that ultimately everything can be explained in terms of the activity of something personal. It might be argued that without theism, we are forced to some kind of dualism with regard to explanations. Under atheism, some physical systems are associated with personal beings and some are not. Yet under theism, every physical system is associated with a personal being.

Multiple problems:
1. Atheism says that there are no gods, not that there are no beings associated with certain physical systems. One could be an atheist and believe in bodhisattvas, or fairies, or ESP. I think you mean metaphysical naturalism, not atheism, here.

2. This is not "simpler," just different. And metaphysical naturalism ultimately refers to natural laws and similar constraints, not beings, in formulating explanations.

3. A personal being is NOT simpler. If you impute action X to being A, you are still stuck providing an explanation of why being A behaved in such and such a way? For example, why did god design the world full of viruses and other bugs designed only to harm human beings whom it supposedly loves? Attributing things to personal beings simply complicates them further; indeed, it is a refusal to explain.

You seem to be misusing the word "inference". An inference is necessarily a conscious process. The fact that there are many nonconscious brain states and processes which are necessary in order to draw an inference does not change the fact that there is a distinction between that which is known directly (ie. perceived) and that which is known indirectly (ie. inferred).

Taffy, you seem to have ignored everything BD and I have been saying. So I'll say it clearly so that you can understand:

• THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A 'CONSCIOUS' INFERENCE

All cognitive processing takes place outside and away from the consciousness. All you ever get, in the consciousness, is the conclusions of processes you have set in motion. You NEVER EVER think consciously. You may believe you do, even ardently feel you do. But that is an artifact of your subjective internal experience. The reality is that you have no direct access to your own inference processes. There are not "many" unconscious processes. ALL processes are unconscious.

Just imagine if you actually consciously accessed the cognitive processes you needed to understand this sentence. First, you'd have to consciously process all the shapes and recognize them as letters, and all the spaces and punctuation. Then you have to match the words to words you know and suss out the correct meanings for words with more than one. Then.....but I am sure you are familiar with the Language of Thought hypothesis, and so know that the language of cognition isn't one's native language at all....

But you get the idea. All you see is the output of that processing. You never get to access the processing directly....but are claiming that we do directly access experiences of god. If so, that would be the only brain experience in which that happens.

Thus, there is no distinction between "directly" and "indirectly" known things; all things are inferred by the brain unconsciously and thus all things are "indirectly" known. Thus, your whole idea of "direct experience of god" is deeply in error from the get-go. It is based on false ideas about consciousness and perception, and for that reason should be rejected.

Further, the nature of the object perceived in theistic perception is relevant to what one should believe about what other people should experience. Such experiences are supposed to reveal a good and loving creator and sustainer.

There is no evidence for this. A glance at the world, full of diseases, suffering, and death, would show that the creator, whatever it is, is at least indifferent, if not actively opposed to, our happiness. Thus, your perception of "love" must be some kind of internal brain state or an erroneous conception of god.

No doubt you have your own account of why so many people think they experience God. You believe there is no god or lack belief in God and therefore you must think there is some reason why all of these people are having such faulty perceptions. No doubt you will refer to wishful thinking or some evolutionary account of why they think they perceive God. So the theist has his ideas about why you are spiritually blind and you have your ideas about why the theist is delusional. They are both attempts at psychological analysis.

The difference being that evolution is well-established as a testable theory based on independent and non-subjective evidence, whereas there is no similar evidence for god. Further, naturalistic explanations account for all aspects of the god-experience and do not clash with any other knowledge we have.

On the other hand, the "theistic perception" concept conflicts with what we know of brain anatomy, congition and perception, cannot be fit into an evolutionary framework, and does not appear to reference any independently verifiable object, unlike all sensory experiences.

I think Alston is best interpreted as saying that some people are preoccupied with impersonal objects rather than persons. This is a point that is often made in nonphilosophical contexts. It's the kind of point persons make when they say someone is very "materialistic". (They aren't making a metaphysical claim but rather a claim about consumerism or something similar.)

But Taffy, the problem is that persons obsessed with material goods/impersonal objects frequently and regularly claim direct experience of god. Remember Oral Roberts' 900 foot tall Jesus? Alston's claim is not what we observe in the real world, where claims of "theistic perception" occur equally among ragged ascetics, cloistered monks, gurus with 72 Rolls-Royces, and televangelists. Not to mention ordinary joes like Reggie White, who was told by god to reject a $17 million contract with the Browns &lt;sob&gt;....people claim to get a "calling" from god all the time, and yet the internal events they describe are no different from any other process of rationalizatin.

Also, a person can be so preoccupied with sensual matters that they take no interest in moral, religious, or spiritual questions.

Problem being, again, that "theistic perception" does not behave like any other processing entity or sensory act. Regardless of what level of interest I have in pavement, I always perceive it when I drive my car. I have zero interest in questions of firefighting, but smoke from my neighbor's plastic burning gives me a headache regardless. There is no other perceptory function that requires a level of interest in the object perceived in order for it to function. This suggests that experiences of "theistic perception" are having some sort of subjective and internal experience (when not lying outright).

Also, it's important to realize that beliefs based upon experience have a prima facie rationality. That is, they are judged reasonable unless there are grounds to undermine them. They are not ultima facie reasonable.

That's precisely what we've offered here -- grounds to reject certain experiences. These are based on (1) the existence of alternative explanations (2) the impossibility of direct perception of anything (3) the impossibility of fitting this capability, "theistic perception" into any evolutionary or cognitive framwork (4) the lack of evidence for gods (5) the positive evidence against your concept of god (6) the proven existence of powerful rationalization processes in the brain to produce post-hoc justifications for behavior, and so on.

Further, we are aware that there are other minds which operate "behind" various aspects of the physical world (human bodies for instance). The concept of God is just a general application of this concept--a concept which we are intimately aware of in introspection. God is a personal being "behind" the entire physical world.

This is in fact another way of saying what I ponted out the other day -- namely that god is just the feeling of that things have intentions that humans need in order to function in our complex social world.

In addition, you have offered no evidence or argument to show that it is valid to generalize from human beings to gods (a more revealing concept of gods as a mere anthropomorphic projection would be hard to find, Taffy). You have invited us to join you in this generalization, but I see no reason why human social perceptions should form the basis for the workings of the universe.

But it does not seem unreasonable that God would not reveal himself to you if you are only intersted in mocking religious ideas.

But Taffy, one could just as well argue that this is the instance in which god would have the most to gain by revealing itself. Why bother to show up among religious believers, since they already believe? The real gain is among non-believers.

Consider the parallel case of someone who is not willing to share (or reveal) their ideas with some person because they know that person believes those ideas are absurd or pointless or meaningless. I rarely discussed philosophy when I was in high school because many of my classmates believed the subject was boring or pointless or not something worthwhile. It is doubtful that they would have even made an effort to understand it or even saw a point in coming to understand it.

Taffy,as a teacher, I can assure that your problem here is not the inherent impossibility of the task, but simply a failure to present the topic in a way that the audience can appreciate. This is why your argument won't work. People can, in spite of themselves, become interested in topics they initially perceive as pointless or dull. It's all in the presentation.

Now consider the case of god. Alston and McKim appear to be arguing that it is impossible for the omnipotent god of the universe to make itself known to anyone not ready to receive him. That is clearly absurd. It's a god; it can do whatever it wants. Your argument seems to be that god is either too impotent or too uncreative to do what millions of successful teachers do on a daily basis.

One important difference in the two cases is that we have overwhelming evidence that people cannot be spoken to once they are dead. We don't have such overwhelming evidence against God's existence.

Yes we do. There is the last 500 years of western science, the existence of alternative explanations that are more robust for everything once attributed to god, the incoherence, contradictoriness and just plain silliness of god and related ideas, and so on. The evidence against your particular concept of god, the loving deity of Christianity, is overwhelming enough to dismiss it.

Vorkosigan

[ August 12, 2002: Message edited by: Vorkosigan ]</p>

mfaber

Hi,Taffy!!! Read this thread and this is my opinion on "religious experience".
Religious "experience" is just at trick of brain chemistry and that chemistry is rapidly becoming elucidated. It doesn't matter who, what or how you experience God(s?). To quote Tom Flynn "When Explaining is Explaining Away", Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 21, Number 4
An excerpt: <a href="http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/flynn_21_4.htm" target="_blank">http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/flynn_21_4.htm</a>

He goes on to analyse dissenting opinions, namely that lf Newberg, so I encourage you to read it all, didn't want to post it all here. Newberg was featured in Newsweek not too long ago......

Newsweek Article Here: God, Your Brain on Religion

<a href="http://www.bio.utk.edu/Neils.nsf/b4f38e7a3a7c24bc8525641b0066c23a/e938e40271ec394c85256a4a00626175?OpenDocument" target="_blank">Here</a>

Try this link if the other one doesn't work:
<a href="http://www.geocities.com/islampencereleri3/religion_and_the_brain.htm" target="_blank">or here</a>

Consider another phenomenon, dear to the hearts of theists, the near death experience (NDE). An NDE can be duplicated with the drug ketamine. Ketamine, a chemical relative of the infamous PCP(angel-dust), was developed as a human anesthetic Unfortunately some people awoke from anesthesia terrified by the "NDE" they had just experienced as the result of the anesthesia (they thought that they had "died" and been "revived"). This drug is no longer used alone (other drugs can eliminate the "NDE" experience) or simply not used at all (now used primarily on children).

Another way to duplicate an NDE by subjecting people to multiple G-forces (gravity) by placing them in a centrifugal field. The multi-G environment deprives the brain of oxygen and voila! brings on the NDE! Potential astronauts wash out of astronaut training programs because some of them can't maintain their composure after such an experience (they just lose it!) even though they are forewarned that such an episode is possible.

One thing to observe about religious fanatics is how much their behavior duplicates that of habitual drug users. They are paranoid of anyone not on their "drug" of choice (Christianity, Islam, etc.). At the end of the day, blind faith is all they have and this make one very insecure because there is no way to provide proof to a skeptic and what is worse, one is often forced to confront the poverty of believing without proof and often in spite of proof to the contrary. This "insecurity" is why some religions will do anything to"sell" their drug of choice (convert) to others.. Only when everyone around them is "using" (converted either by persuasion and often by force) can they feel "secure" (gee! looky here, we're all "doing" it, so it must be right!Gott mitt uns!)

Oh and another thing..... The most successful programs for getting people off drugs are often religious based ones. Why? If you talk to a lot of these folks they are fanatical in their devotion to whatever religion they think got the off their drug of choice, but is it really just substitution of one drug for another (religion subing for alcohol, heroin, etc.). Sort of a mental form of "methadone" for whatever drug addiction ails you.

Bottom-line...People also take drugs for the same reasons people turn to religion and the more people study the brain, the more neurobiologists and neurochemists find that Marx was more right than he knew "religion is the opiate of the people". (No difference between "your brain on drugs" and "your brain on religion" IMO. Certainly does explain a lot of delusional behaviour on the part of otherwise organically sane theists)

[ August 12, 2002: Message edited by: mfaber ]

[ August 16, 2002: Message edited by: Vorkosigan ]</p>

Taffy Lewis

Hi joedad,

Thanks for the response.

You said:

The perceptions of your brother-in-law can be judged nonveridical because of at least two facts. The first is that he has a pathological condition. This gives us good reason to question such perceptions. Fortunately, most people who experience God do not have brain damage. The vast majority of people who purportedly experience God live normal lives.

The second reason is that we have good reason to believe that there is no Santa Claus. In Contemporary Perspectives on Religious Epistemology, Scott Shalkowski says "at some point in our lives we found that those who let us in on the myth were conscious of the fact that they were telling us a falsehood. Our parents knew that they were telling us a lie and later we found this out. We disbelieve rather than suspend belief because at some point we learned of the willful deception, participate in the process of decorating trees and putting presents under them and (possibly) propagating the deception ourselves. Atheists do come to hold the belief that theism is false and that there is some deception present in relgious teaching and practice, but in the vast majority of cases this is not because someone like a parent confesses deceiving them at an early age, nor do atheists typically begin to participate in the production of the phenomena that is allegedly explained by the activity of God."

Another interesting point is that children rarely claim to experience Santa. Rather, they think Santa's existence explains various "phenomena" such as presents under the tree and stuffed stockings or noises from the living room on Christmas Eve. This point applies even more to the case of the tooth fairy and easter bunny. The vast majority of children don't claim to see, hear, or in any way perceive these "entities" but rather think their existence explains various other things they do perceive (such as money under their pillow for a tooth or easter eggs in their yard).

Further, in the case of experiences of God it is part of the content of the experience that the subject perceives a personal presence sustaining them or guiding them or whatever. It's not part of the content of a visual experience that a person in someone's living room is Santa. At most, a direct sensory experience of Santa would merely include the experience of a person who is fat, jolly, dressed in red and white, etc.

I take this to be a rhetorical question. The question in the case of God is whether or not perceptions of God are more like perceptions of Santa or are they more like perceptions of real people. The point of discussion is to determine which of these is the best comparison. It's question begging to simply assume such experiences more closely resemble the case of Santa.

I haven't assumed anything about God's existence. I've simply began with the content of experience. Also, arguably it's a principle of rationality that how things seem in experience is good reason to believe that's how things are in reality unless you have overriding reason to believe otherwise.

Taffy Lewis

Vorkosigan,

There's so much wrong with your post that it's difficult to know where to start. So I'll make only a couple of points.

You include remarkable passages such as the following:

So what are you conscious or aware of when you think?

Normally, the term "thought" means conscious episodes with propositional content.

You also said:

1) All men are mortal.
2) Socrates is a man.
3) Therefore Socrates is mortal.

That's not a conscious inference?

I really doubt that bd-from-kg will agree with you on this. At least I hope not.