Credible/Honest Apologetics?

[Simon Moon]

The only first principles an atheist has to accept, is that: the outside world exists, and other minds exist, and we are not a brain in a vat being fed false information. But again, I don't think this is a faith based position, since I have evidence.

As I understand it, many many people in history have reported religious experiences which, for them, constituted solid evidence that God exists.

But the question then should be, is personal experience actually good evidence?

Especially when it has been proven over and over and over, how easy it is to fool the human senses.

Not to mention, a misinterpretation of an unusual, but otherwise natural change in brain states that could lead one to think they are having some sort of supernatural experience.

Has everyone that has reported religious experiences with a god, actually had an actual authentic religious experience with a god? If only some are authentic, and some are not, how do we tell the difference? How do we go about determining if any of them are authentic experiences with a god?

And how does the experiencer tell if they had an authentic experience with a god, or it was a misinterpreted natural experience?

In other types of cases, such a large number of people reporting similar experiences would be considered good evidence. Atheists, however, reject the claims of all of these people. What principles do they use for this rejection?

I would not reject the fact that multiple people all had an experience, I would reject their interpretation of it. For the reasons I mentioned previously.

There are reported cases of multiple people: seeing bigfoot, UFO, being abducted, seeing Loch Ness monster, experiencing Jinn, seeing Indian gurus: pulling jewels out of the air, floating, manifesting sacred ash, etc. Do you give these all the same credence as god experiencers?

Read the book "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds" for perfectly rational explanations of crowd behavior.

I would say that they are interpreting the evidence in light of a theory. This is something like a scientific theory -- a structuring system through which claims are evaluated. The theory posits the principle that personal experiences do not count as good evidence if they are not backed up by different kinds of evidence -- the scientific kinds of evidence which scientists prefer. 

Personal experience is evidence, just not very good evidence. You do know, that evidence of a supernatural nature is not allowed in courts, right? "But judge, that ghost was responsible for hitting my wife in the head with that bronze statue".

Once again, 1000's of people a year experience UFO abduction, Jinn, bigfoot, and dozens of other supernatural events. Do you give them all credence equal to that as god experiencers?

The principles provided by this theory, which posit certain facts about the world, provide the standards by which atheists reject the claims of millions of people, and settle on the belief that God remains unevidenced. Without these evaluative principles, used to reject people's claims, we would have to admit that the millions of people in history who have claimed personal experience of God do lend credibility to the belief in the existence of God.

You are right, I should not have used the word 'unevidenced', I should have stipulated that personal experience counts as evidence, just evidence of a very poor quality.

Your entire paragraph above is one big argument from popularity fallacy.

There was a time when the vast majority of humanity believed: lightening, earthquakes, famine, floods, were all evidence for gods. How did that end up as lending credibility to their claims?

The only principal I have to accept in order to disbelieve gods and other supernatural claims, is, to paraphrase Hume, "A wise person proportions their belief to the quality of the evidence".

So it's pretty clear that to be a thinking conscious atheist in today's world requires commitment to certain principles.

Yes, I have a goal to have as many true beliefs as possible, and eliminate as many false beliefs as possible. Accepting poorly evidenced claims of personal experience with gods, is not a good was to achieve my goal.

And not to beat a dead horse, but if relied on the fact that many people claim to have had personal experiences with gods, as lending any credibility to the claim that gods exist, AND i wanted to remain intellectually honest, I'd also have to accept all those claims about: UFO abductions, Loch Ness, ghosts, Jinn, floating Indian gurus, bigfoot, etc, etc.