Theistic Inclinations

[Neo-Scholastic]

As a Hindu, would you not agree that within your religious tradition there are highly developed and deliberate practices for sorting out the veracity of subjective experiences? It seems to me that first-person experience with the Divine has an immediacy that is every bit as real and as rational as interpretations of third-person phenomena. The tools may be different but no less empirical. Anyone could in theory practice the required austerities and confirm for themselves the reality of the Divine. The fact that not all people do is no different from the fact that not all people practice the scientific disciplines necessary to confirm natural theories. And I would also note that those so-called objective findings are ultimately mediated by minds in the first person.

I can't tell if you a taking exception to something implicit in what the OP had said or meaning to agree with him.  

But would you really put the preparations for divine experience on the same level as for scientific practices (as indicated where I bolded).  In the case of scientific practice there is the possibility of replication and peer review.  We're talking about third person phenomena available to others.  But even if religious practitioners follow the same carefully prescribed procedures there would not seem to the possibility to review each other's results, no?

Yes, I do believe they are equivalent. Suppose I told you and another friend about an elusive black swan that lived in a pond in rural Norway. You and my friend are incredulous but he goes to Norway while you stay home. When he comes back he tells you that, yes, he too saw the black swan. In essence he qualifies as a peer who has replicated my observation. In the same way, if I tell you that in order to find God you must spend 20 years in earnest meditation under the guidance of an acknowledged guru and you choose not to because it would require a serious commitment that does not undermine the empirical nature the experience. That's actually what empirical means - capable of being independently observed and experienced.

Similarly if you want to find a Higgs Boson you have to build a multi-billion dollar particle collider (sp) It would be rather silly to say that before accepting the results you have to build a second multi-billion dollar collider to replicate the results.

Now to continue the analogy, my friend and I not only directly observed the black swan, we have photographs to share. The photos still are not immediate verification; but rather mediated, so your acceptance of them as evidence of a black swan requires acceptance of a whole host of conditions not required by direct observation, such as the veracity of photographic evidence, your confidence in our truthfulness etc. Likewise, those who practice contemplative prayer or practice Eastern meditation or sudden epiphanies have profound experiences that on-their-own justify their beliefs. Holy scripture, rational demonstrations and the like are supplemental to such experiences - tools to make sense of those primal experiences by drawing on the testimony and reflections of others.

I am perfectly willing to accept that believers of other religious traditions have had direct experiential access to the Divine. That does not mean I must also accept doctrinal interpretations of those experiences or not use reason to discern differences and similarities between them. It seems to me, that even many atheists on AF have prayed the sinners prayer, had a profound experience, and then later dismissed it. I often wonder to what extent they compared and contrasted those experiences not only with their fellow parishioners but also against reports such as the The Cloud of Unknowing, Saint John of the Cross, or even Sri Ramakrishna or Rumi to try and truly understand what they experienced, using tools appropriate to that task, and not immediately turned to the methods of natural science to explain it away.