(March 8, 2017 at 4:53 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote:(March 8, 2017 at 4:23 pm)Crossless1 Wrote: You seem to think that no atheists have experience of -- for lack of a better word -- the numinous. If so, you're wrong. It's just that most of us, I suppose, recognize the feelings associated with the experience as originating from within -- a byproduct of being a sentient being with a healthy human brain.
You are proving my point. I do believe many atheist have had experiences with the numinous. So we agree on that. The next step is to interpret that experience. Being an atheist necessarily entails other beliefs needed to exclude one particular interpretation of the evidence. You need reasons to prefer the set of explanations that exclude the divine. There is a burden of proof for justifying at preference, one the 'lack of belief' position tries to dodge.
The least controversial and most parsimonious starting place seems to me to be: The human brain gives rise to a number of extraordinary experiences under various circumstances. I'd prefer to rule out physiological/psychological explanations for these 'numinous' experiences before leaping to other explanations.
