What makes a 'divine' experience less valid than any other subjective experiences?

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lepustimidus

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When you talk to a theist and ask them why they believe what they believe, they often claim that they can 'feel' God within them/around them etc.

How is such a feeling any less valid than the numerous other emotions and sensations that humans are prey to? For example, pain is an entirely subjective experience, as is nausea and discomfort. Does this lack of objectivity mean that I am not feeling pain, discomfort or nausea?
 
lepustimidus said:
When you talk to a theist and ask them why they believe what they believe, they often claim that they can 'feel' God within them/around them etc.

How is such a feeling any less valid than the numerous other emotions and sensations that humans are prey to? For example, pain is an entirely subjective experience, as is nausea and discomfort. Does this lack of objectivity mean that I am not feeling pain, discomfort or nausea?
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It's obvious that any experience described as a 'feeling' is necessarily subjective. A belief in God (or anything else) that entirely depends on a private hunch is inaccessible to rational inquiry by 'outsiders'.

However, if theists point to the natural world around them as the source of their belief in God, what they probably mean is that should we see a pot we can infer the existence of a potter.
 
Alex:
It's obvious that any experience described as a 'feeling' is necessarily subjective. A belief in God (or anything else) that entirely depends on a private hunch is inaccessible to rational inquiry by 'outsiders'.
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So should a clinician disbelieve a patient who complains of chronic pain, yet displays no structural or physiological abnormality?
 
lepustimidus said:
Alex:

So should a clinician disbelieve a patient who complains of chronic pain, yet displays no structural or physiological abnormality?
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It depends on what you mean by 'clinician'. A physician who is unable to find a physical cause for chronic pain might perhaps refer the patient to a psychiatrist who would have a better understanding of psychosomatic illness. Not all causes of pain are physical and, as you say, the pain itself isn't susceptible to objective study.

Without previous evidence of let's say hypochondria, I don't think it's likely that someone complaining of chronic pain would be disbelieved.
 
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What makes a 'divine' experience less valid than any other subjective experiences?
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In the first place, there is a big difference between an identified subjective experience and the proposed explanation for it. If someone claims to feel pain, they are often believed. When they claim to feel the pain of KGB agents beaming mindreading microwaves into their head, they are less often believed. If someone claimed to feel a sense of great joy, an upwelling of assurance that the universe had meaning and all was well, I think they would be often believed. If they claimed to feel a God assuring them thus, they would be less often believed - in a sane world.

In the second place, such feelings cannot be recreated on demand, or experienced under controlled circumstances. This creates understandable scientific skepticism, about all such subjective feelings. The enlightened states possible via meditation were much doubted, for example, until monks sat down in labs and proved they could alter their EEG readings on demand.
 
iceaura said:
In the first place, there is a big difference between an identified subjective experience and the proposed explanation for it. If someone claims to feel pain, they are often believed. When they claim to feel the pain of KGB agents beaming mindreading microwaves into their head, they are less often believed.
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probably because it would be difficult to understand why the KGB would have a specific interest in causing pain to a particular person with mindreading microwaves
If someone claimed to feel a sense of great joy, an upwelling of assurance that the universe had meaning and all was well, I think they would be often believed. If they claimed to feel a God assuring them thus, they would be less often believed - in a sane world.
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probably because you have difficulty understanding why god would assure a particular living entity
 
iceaura said:
In the first place, there is a big difference between an identified subjective experience and the proposed explanation for it. If someone claims to feel pain, they are often believed. When they claim to feel the pain of KGB agents beaming mindreading microwaves into their head, they are less often believed. If someone claimed to feel a sense of great joy, an upwelling of assurance that the universe had meaning and all was well, I think they would be often believed. If they claimed to feel a God assuring them thus, they would be less often believed - in a sane world.

In the second place, such feelings cannot be recreated on demand, or experienced under controlled circumstances. This creates understandable scientific skepticism, about all such subjective feelings. The enlightened states possible via meditation were much doubted, for example, until monks sat down in labs and proved they could alter their EEG readings on demand.
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So the question isn't so much whether the person is experiencing what they say they are experiencing, but more what the CAUSE of that subjective experience is. Hmm.
 
If it's meaningful to you, that's fine, I must accept the validity of your subjective experience. But don't expect me to believe there is some essential objective reality to it, unless it can be confirmed using the scientific method. Pain can be generated by non-existent limbs. Hallucinations and other mental phenomenon are common. Personal anecdote is simply not reliable.
 
light said:
probably because it would be difficult to understand why the KGB would have a specific interest in causing pain to a particular person with mindreading microwaves
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Not at all. Even people the KGB would have great interest in mindreading with microwaves would be doubted in such claims.
light said:
probably because you have difficulty understanding why god would assure a particular living entity
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Why would anyone have any difficulty whatsoever in understanding any of the dozens of reasons why a god would do such a thing ?

lepus said:
So the question isn't so much whether the person is experiencing what they say they are experiencing, but more what the CAUSE of that subjective experience is.
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The question is whether a person's attribution of objective cause to their experience is to be accepted in the same light as their reports of subjective experience itself.

It is the objective claim, not the subjective one, that is doubted on objective grounds.
 
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lepustimidus said:
So should a clinician disbelieve a patient who complains of chronic pain, yet displays no structural or physiological abnormality?
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A better example would be a patient who complains of chronic pain and insists that the pain is caused by an invisible unicorn that is slowly eating them. The clinician would probably believe that the person is experiencing something, but they would doubt the person's explanation for their sensation.

When a theist claims to have "felt the presence of god" or something similar, obviously that are experiencing something. But that doesn't mean that they are correct about the source of their sensation/feeling/whatever. When someone claims that a sensation or feeling is caused by something improbable, magical, or wildly fantastic, its reasonable to question whether or not their attribution is correct.
 
In addition to the problem of CAUSES, which is an important one, some subjective experiences are still universal. Everyone gets nauseous. Everyone feels pain. Not everyone feels that God loves them, let alone that "God" is "Jesus" (and in my experience, those who feel the presence of God feel the presence of "their God"...if you were to suggest to a Baptist that what he felt was the presence of Vishnu, he'd think you were crazy).

Subjective experience is easier to accept when the listener has had the same feeling and can relate to it by reference to his own.
 
This statement "For example, pain is an entirely subjective experience, as is nausea and discomfort. " assumes, none of these have a cause, don't you need to show, that these have no cause, to show they are as you put it "Entirely Subjective"
 
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Pandaemoni said:
Subjective experience is easier to accept when the listener has had the same feeling and can relate to it by reference to his own.
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Sorry not possible, maybe simular, but definitely not the same.
and the only reason a person has these type of subjective experiences is due to the indoctrination he/she has received and their feelings toward being accepted.
 
lepustimidus said:
Alex:


So should a clinician disbelieve a patient who complains of chronic pain, yet displays no structural or physiological abnormality?
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Premenstrual syndrome used to be called hysteria in women while normal sexual desire, if expressed, was termed nymphomania. Its like trying to explain color to a blind man.

mis-t-highs said:
rotflmao, Are you seriously saying there is no direct cause of pain, some pain can be in the mind, but it's not Entirely subjective, you have got to be kidding. rotflmao.
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Yeah, like phantom pain in amputees.
 
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