Evidentialism

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

They serve as evidence to myself which is all that matters in a discussion of "how does one know things" (versus "how does one convince others of things.")

Experiences in and of themselves only serve as evidence of those experiences. They are not a good source of evidence for underlying truth. For example, you can know exactly what it's like to have a certain kind of religious experience-- but that does not serve as evidence that God exists.

Well, what I'm saying is that there is no other way to coherently believe something to be true except by experience(s). Whether if what I believe is actually true or whether I used good methods of evaluating the evidence is another matter. What's being addressed here is whether experience (or "reason and evidence" as it's more commonly called) is required at all to coherently believe something is true. I'm saying for a person to hold a belief requires experiences that support the truth of that belief or at least seem to to themselves. There's no such thing as a belief without support anymore than there's a square circle. When certain people say for instance that they don't need any support at all to believe in God, they're just spouting gibberish.