Paddy

I have until recently written off subjective experience as evidence for the existence of god. However, recent mental meanderings have resulted in my questioning the veracity of such a claim:

It seems to me that consitent wilth Kant's theories on antinomies there is no way to establish an absolute truth on the existence of god using only "rational thinking". Debates on the existence of god have gone on for many years, and will continue to do so for many more. This is because defenders of both sides of the debate are able to develop and express cogent arguments in favour of the beliefs; if this was not the case then these debates would have fizzed out many years ago.

It seems to me that we either choose our position arbitrarily, or certain experiential factors lead us to that position, and then we find evidence to support our position and build an argument. This would explain why we have very intelligent people who belive in god.

Now, if this is the case, then the scriptures invoking subjective experience as evidence for god's existence have a much more compelling case. Also, scriptures that implore us to trust god, and not our own understanding are seen in an entirely different light. I used to believe that these scriptures were a way of encouraging christians not to think for themselves, and that they were fools for having such "blind faith". But there seems to be method in god's madness. How can WE ever come to have an absolute understanding on the subject. It seems to me that we have three broad options/perspectives to choose from when attempting to tackle such issues, each which has supporting evidence that can be coalesced into a cogent argument. It seems fruitless to use reason, and not subjective experience to make judgements as to whether or not there is a god.



Cheers,

Paddy

The_Unknown_Banana

I don't think I'm the most capable of answering this, but if the only way to believe in something is to disregard rational thinking, then in my opinion there is no basis for believing in it.

I can't say god doesn't exist, but I'm pretty sure that if you put all your 'trust' (or faith) in your left sock, and believed it had the same properties as a common definition of God, that the results would be amazingly similar.

Stephen T-B

There is a good reason for the priesthood to distrust analytical thinking when it comes to examining the probability of a god’s existence and it’s simply this: the more you look at it, the less there is to see.

They want us to trust our gut reaction, not our brains, and I suppose you might ask: which is the more reliable when it comes to making sensible judgments?

the suggestion that believers would long ago have had to accept that gods don’t exist if it were not for the fact that their subjective experiences “prove” they do is wrong for two reasons.

1. Some people need to believe in the supernatural because, for one reason or another, they are unable to come to terms with harsh, prosaic reality. This need is divorced from intelligence, and as long as it occurs, people will continue to believe in gods.
Some of them will find it necessary to rationalise their beliefs through argument, but when they engage with unbelievers, it’s not an argument which can ever be resolved because the opposing sides are locked into different modes of thought. A merging of the two so that they become homogenised is an impossibility; it's like one travels on a railroad track and the other on the highway.

2. People only believe things which they believe to be real, which is why believers inevitably confuse the reality of their belief with the reality of what they believe in. As long as there are believers, gods will have the reality which believers give them.

scumble

The trouble with subjective experiences is you have to be sure the person talking about it is reliable, and not embellishing, interpreting and so on.

I think it's an interpretation problem, not the experinces themselves.

Stephen T-B

I don’t see that it is possible to embellish a subjective experience.
If it is subjective, it is what you make of it; and being subjective, no external arbiter can say anything useful about it.
If I think I see a ghost, my imagination might add details to the phantom - but since the phantom is something which my brain thinks my eyes have seen, it’s involved in a process of elaboration from the outset.

Jobar

Some time back, we had a really excellent discussion of this topic, centering around one of our regular theist posters, luvluv.

Subjective experience, or manufacturing your own evidence

This is one of the classics of the EoG forum, I think. Well worth the 8-page read.

Darth Dane

There once was a man that was blue
He was a very nice man that's true
He then met a man that was yellow
Also an altogether goodhearted fellow
They talked and talked, and he saw through his screen
That he was talking to a man that was green
Open your eyes







DD - Love & Laughter

Stephen T-B

Since all our responses to stimuli are necessarily subjective, we may conclude that the stimuli themselves have no objective reality. Indeed, without corroborative evidence and lacking a consensus as to their characteristics, it can be stated with a fair degree of certainty that they don’t.

The monster I see bursting through the office wall after I’ve eaten some magic mushrooms may cause me to leap from our second-floor window. In my mind it is real, a fact attested to by the fact that I jumped through the window, but the absence of corroborative evidence as to its objective reality, and the absence of a consensus as to its appearance prove it was, indeed, all in my mind.

On the other hand, the truck which hits me as I saunter across a busy highway and sends my body hurtling into a ditch and my head into a tree, has an external reality attested to by the fact that I’m dead, corroborated by the skid marks it left on the road and affirmed by a consensus as to its colour, shape, size, speed and the fact that it had a blown exhaust and was very noisy.

We have knowledge of things which have objective reality.

Belief is a substitute for knowledge in the absence of objective reality.

SignOfTheCross

The Catholic Church teaches God reveals Himself to an individual by private revelation. So yes, one does require a subjective experience to believe in God, and no amount of rational thinking or evidence will ever prove the existence of Him. The challenge of theists is to prove belief in God is rational, of which I believe can be done quite easily.

Peace,
SOTC

Stephen T-B

OK.
Do it.