Of all of the arguments that theists use the hardest to deal with, and the one given the shortest shrift is the argument from personal experience.
This is going to be long folks - apologies.
The problem is that the easiest response, "you are delusional", is satisfying to neither side. There has to be more to it than that. If theists are delusional - why? Are they lying? If they genuinely believe that their personal experiences are from God then something must have convinced them of that fact - what was it?
I have spent a fairly considerable amount of time considering the above. I still do not have a proper argument - but I do have a series of examples, illustrations and comparisons that might put personal experience of God into what I would regard as its proper light.
Throughout all of this I am working on the assumption that there is no God, being an atheist its not unreasonable.
With that in mind:
1. Incorrect allocation of causality:
This is a common enough phenomenon outside of religion as well as within. The footballer who plays better when he is wearing his lucky socks (or lucky anything), for example, is far from rare. Whilst the footballer probably really knows deep down that there is no correlation between socks and how well the game is played that doesn't change the fact that he genuinely plays better whilst wearing them.
Now the difference between 2 footballers with lucky socks might be that one of them really thinks its the socks doing it and the other recognises that it is the belief in the socks that is making him play better.
On the flipside - not wearing the socks, in both cases, introduces a small element of doubt in his play. As margins in football (between curling the ball into the net and sending it high into the crowd) are minute, measured in milliseconds of timing, the slightest element of doubt can have a catastrophic impact.
2. The theists view.
This is not of their own personal experiences, but those of others who maybe from a different group (e.g. a Christian's view of a Moslem's personal experience of Allah, or to a Hindu's personal experience of Vishnu etc.) or from something else entirely.
That something else could be seeing Bigfoot, the Lock Ness Monster, aliens, alien abduction and so on.
The aim here is to find a personal experience of X that the theist rejects and then to ask them why? How do you know its not true? Why do you dismiss them as delusional? Basically all the things we throw at them they now find themselves throwing.
3. The complexity of the placebo effect.
Most people know of the placebo effect. Treating an illness with a fake pill actually shows better results than not treating it with anything.
What many don't realize is how far this goes. Dosage, for example, has an effect on results. In double blind trials with one group given 1 tablet to take twice a day and the other given 2 tablets to take twice a day with the ones taking the higher dosage do better. Other variants include comparing taking one tablet twice a day to one tablet 3 times per day. Again the higher dosage gets better results.
Additionally a placebo injection is more effective than a placebo tablet.
So getting more of a medically entirely neutral placebo along with the means of administering that placebo has an impact exactly the same as would be expected of a real drug.
The most amazing thing is that even when the patient is told the drug is a placebo the dosage effect is still present with the exact same proportionate improvement.
4. The negative placebo effect
A witch doctor puts a curse on a man - with some elaborate routine (making a doll and sticking pins in it or something). The man dies in horrible agony shortly afterwards with no obvious cause other than the curse.
Or:
We've discussed the report not all that long ago in the press with regard to the effectiveness of prayer as a treatment.
Essentially a trial was set up with 3 groups. One not being prayed for, one being prayed for but not knowing it and one being informed that they were being prayed for.
As expected the group not being prayed for, and the group being prayed for without their knowledge showed no difference in their results. The surprise was the group being prayed for and knowing it did significantly worse.
5. Delusion
Really this is a combination of all or any of the above in addition to the most common human delusion of being more important as an individual than we really are. We are all the heroes of the narrative of our own lives.
Factor in dreams, hallucinations and occasional real diagnosable psychiatric conditions and other medical complaints that might lead to visions and so on and we have, potentially a means of explaining the vast majority of personal experiences.
Most theists claiming personal experience can see/sense that the claims of others following other paths must be some form of delusion. They simply cannot see it in their own. In many ways this is indicative of delusion in and of itself. Any sane person experiencing a really peculiar event, or series of events, ought to be able to at least recognise the possibility that they might be delusional.
Apologies again for the length. The fact that I haven't yet formulated this into a cohesive argument denies me the ability to shrink it down.
Thoughts (for anyone what made it through)?
This is going to be long folks - apologies.
The problem is that the easiest response, "you are delusional", is satisfying to neither side. There has to be more to it than that. If theists are delusional - why? Are they lying? If they genuinely believe that their personal experiences are from God then something must have convinced them of that fact - what was it?
I have spent a fairly considerable amount of time considering the above. I still do not have a proper argument - but I do have a series of examples, illustrations and comparisons that might put personal experience of God into what I would regard as its proper light.
Throughout all of this I am working on the assumption that there is no God, being an atheist its not unreasonable.
With that in mind:
1. Incorrect allocation of causality:
This is a common enough phenomenon outside of religion as well as within. The footballer who plays better when he is wearing his lucky socks (or lucky anything), for example, is far from rare. Whilst the footballer probably really knows deep down that there is no correlation between socks and how well the game is played that doesn't change the fact that he genuinely plays better whilst wearing them.
Now the difference between 2 footballers with lucky socks might be that one of them really thinks its the socks doing it and the other recognises that it is the belief in the socks that is making him play better.
On the flipside - not wearing the socks, in both cases, introduces a small element of doubt in his play. As margins in football (between curling the ball into the net and sending it high into the crowd) are minute, measured in milliseconds of timing, the slightest element of doubt can have a catastrophic impact.
2. The theists view.
This is not of their own personal experiences, but those of others who maybe from a different group (e.g. a Christian's view of a Moslem's personal experience of Allah, or to a Hindu's personal experience of Vishnu etc.) or from something else entirely.
That something else could be seeing Bigfoot, the Lock Ness Monster, aliens, alien abduction and so on.
The aim here is to find a personal experience of X that the theist rejects and then to ask them why? How do you know its not true? Why do you dismiss them as delusional? Basically all the things we throw at them they now find themselves throwing.
3. The complexity of the placebo effect.
Most people know of the placebo effect. Treating an illness with a fake pill actually shows better results than not treating it with anything.
What many don't realize is how far this goes. Dosage, for example, has an effect on results. In double blind trials with one group given 1 tablet to take twice a day and the other given 2 tablets to take twice a day with the ones taking the higher dosage do better. Other variants include comparing taking one tablet twice a day to one tablet 3 times per day. Again the higher dosage gets better results.
Additionally a placebo injection is more effective than a placebo tablet.
So getting more of a medically entirely neutral placebo along with the means of administering that placebo has an impact exactly the same as would be expected of a real drug.
The most amazing thing is that even when the patient is told the drug is a placebo the dosage effect is still present with the exact same proportionate improvement.
4. The negative placebo effect
A witch doctor puts a curse on a man - with some elaborate routine (making a doll and sticking pins in it or something). The man dies in horrible agony shortly afterwards with no obvious cause other than the curse.
Or:
We've discussed the report not all that long ago in the press with regard to the effectiveness of prayer as a treatment.
Essentially a trial was set up with 3 groups. One not being prayed for, one being prayed for but not knowing it and one being informed that they were being prayed for.
As expected the group not being prayed for, and the group being prayed for without their knowledge showed no difference in their results. The surprise was the group being prayed for and knowing it did significantly worse.
5. Delusion
Really this is a combination of all or any of the above in addition to the most common human delusion of being more important as an individual than we really are. We are all the heroes of the narrative of our own lives.
Factor in dreams, hallucinations and occasional real diagnosable psychiatric conditions and other medical complaints that might lead to visions and so on and we have, potentially a means of explaining the vast majority of personal experiences.
Most theists claiming personal experience can see/sense that the claims of others following other paths must be some form of delusion. They simply cannot see it in their own. In many ways this is indicative of delusion in and of itself. Any sane person experiencing a really peculiar event, or series of events, ought to be able to at least recognise the possibility that they might be delusional.
Apologies again for the length. The fact that I haven't yet formulated this into a cohesive argument denies me the ability to shrink it down.
Thoughts (for anyone what made it through)?
Kuusi palaa, ja on viimeinen kerta kun annan vaimoni laittaa jouluvalot!
![[Image: bbb59Ce.gif]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=i.imgur.com%2Fbbb59Ce.gif)
