Atheists: have you ever had a religious experience and what did you make of it?

[robvalue]

The brain is amazing at fooling itself. I mean, it's the perfect inside man. It knows everything you know, and what buttons to push to make you believe what it wants. Of course I'm talking as if you and your brain are separate. I suppose I'm talking about the difference between all the physical stuff in the brain versus the perceived conciousness. That's about as good as I can describe it. The conciousness is at the mercy of the brain, which is why it is so unreliable.

I don't know how you could possibly define a religious experience. I would say that there's no such thing, that it is by definition an argument from ignorance. It is always going to much more likely that the person just doesn't undstand what happened than they had a unique "divine" experience. And since no one has anything divine to compare to, they are essentially making up the explanation. It's not surprising that the brain can produce images from the mythology you are familiar with.