Can A Supernatural Personal Experience Constitute Empirical Evidence For A Belief In God?
Carl Sagan was intrigued by this concept and explored it in his book, CONTACT (and the movie based upon it).
Do atheists believe that Christians who’ve had such supernatural experiences should ignore them if they have no naturalistic explanation for them? Or how should one “process” such experiences?
rast29
29 Jan, 2010
how can you be certain that the supernatural event wasn’t A: a natural event you only witnessed part of and only seemed supernatural. or B: you where drugged/ had a psychotic episode/ etc.
the answer is faith, but faith is the opposite of evidence.
Alexis
29 Jan, 2010
Certain truths about the nature of reality can only be learned through the experience of unique qualia.
However, even experiencing such qualia only gives proof of the *existence* of such truths, not proof of their *nature*.
There is no proof, personally-experienced or otherwise, that any truth is supernatural, or, essentially, that anything supernatural is true.
Pants Party III
29 Jan, 2010
It is billions upon billions of times more likely that a personal experience is due to brain malfunction than it is that something supernatural happened.
tylertxa
29 Jan, 2010
as soon as you can prove the experience was supernatural and not a chemical imbalance in the brain–we’ll talk. Otherwise could we consider the guy who says he’s napoleon as proof of reincarnation?
JOExHIGA
29 Jan, 2010
Personal=/=empirical
You may be convinced by the experience but you can’t possibly expect me to take your word for it.
Anonymous
29 Jan, 2010
It is only evidence for yourself. It is not evidence you can “show” to others.
Ramon
29 Jan, 2010
and do they have the proofs for the ‘supernatural experience’?