But in that instance the experience wasn't contradictory, if you had 200 people saying it was a giant green bird and 200 saying it was a series of flying saucers then in neither instance would you have a conclusive experience - This is more analogous to the religious personal experiences, where two groups come up with contradictory attributions.
Also, if 200 people said they saw a flying saucer, you would conclude that they had seen something (and likewise the religious experience you would conclude that they experienced something) but without a higher standard of evidence you would be unable to conclude that their sight (or experience) was correctly attributed to the phenomenon that they believed they were seeing (or experiencing).
That is why personal experience alone is completely insufficient for reaching a conclusion - In all instances you need to confirm that the experience was correct, with the case of entities such as God that are non-demonstrable it is impossible to prove the experience is correct, be it wanting to know whether the experience of the Christian God was actually an experience of that God, or of any God at all.
What we know of personal experiences of this nature is through neuroscience, and we can show conclusively that the parts of the brain involved in religious experience are the same as those that construct any dream. fantasy situation, from hypothetical conversations in the mind to induced physical experiences that never happened. There is no neurological function unique to religious experiences, as such if you accept the validity of your own experience, you have no mechanism by which to distinguish it from the false attributions of similar experience.
Also, if 200 people said they saw a flying saucer, you would conclude that they had seen something (and likewise the religious experience you would conclude that they experienced something) but without a higher standard of evidence you would be unable to conclude that their sight (or experience) was correctly attributed to the phenomenon that they believed they were seeing (or experiencing).
That is why personal experience alone is completely insufficient for reaching a conclusion - In all instances you need to confirm that the experience was correct, with the case of entities such as God that are non-demonstrable it is impossible to prove the experience is correct, be it wanting to know whether the experience of the Christian God was actually an experience of that God, or of any God at all.
What we know of personal experiences of this nature is through neuroscience, and we can show conclusively that the parts of the brain involved in religious experience are the same as those that construct any dream. fantasy situation, from hypothetical conversations in the mind to induced physical experiences that never happened. There is no neurological function unique to religious experiences, as such if you accept the validity of your own experience, you have no mechanism by which to distinguish it from the false attributions of similar experience.
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