It still doesn’t really hold. Adherents of other religions describe similar experiences. If they were a sign of any particular religion being true, you would expect only adherents of the true religion to experience them, so all the claims from different religions function as counterevidence for each other.
Rather than making the proposition more plausible, but not enough more plausible, the evidence you provided is only as good or weaker than the sort of evidence I would have predicted in advance, so it doesn’t increase my probability estimate of Mormonism being true at all. In order to increase our probability estimates, you would have to offer stronger evidence than we would expect a Mormon in your position to be able to offer given the assumption that Mormonism is not true.
On a side note, I think you may have anchored on an estimate of the likelihood that we assign to Mormonism being correct that was completely out of the ballpark. Given what I said about the probability I’d assign Mormonism given the premise of some religion being true, adding a couple zeroes would only account for my having a 1 in 100 probability estimation of any religion being true, which is still off by several orders of magnitude.
Okay, so you’re saying that I haven’t adjusted your probability at all. Understood.
Adherents of other religions describe similar experiences. If they were a sign of any particular religion being true, you would expect only adherents of the true religion to experience them, so all the claims from different religions function as counterevidence for each other.
Not true. Here’s an analogous argument. “If LW rationalism is valid, then you would only expect people who fully understand LW rationalism to make correct arguments. All correct arguments made by people outside LW are therefore evidence against Less Wrong.”
Clearly, this is flawed. Do LW rationalists predict that no one else has correct arguments? No. Do adherents of the claimed true religion predict that no one else will have spiritual experiences? In this case, no.
Not true. Here’s an analogous argument. “If LW rationalism is valid, then you would only expect people who fully understand LW rationalism to make correct arguments. All correct arguments made by people outside LW are therefore evidence against Less Wrong.”
I concede that the argument was flawed in that you would not necessarily expect only people following the correct religion to have religious experiences (although it would certainly be a very helpful way to point people in the right direction,) but if it’s evidence for a religion being true, it must be more likely to occur in the true religion than any non-true religion.
If Mormons assert that their religious experiences are evidence for their religion being true, they must thereby assert that religious experiences are more prevalent in their religion than any other, otherwise they are mistreating evidence. Is this an assertion that you’re prepared to make?
If Mormons assert that their religious experiences are evidence for their religion being true, they must thereby assert that religious experiences are more prevalent in their religion than any other, otherwise they are mistreating evidence. Is this an assertion that you’re prepared to make?
I don’t think that’s been studied before, but it doesn’t seem like it should be particularly difficult. If one defined religious experiences clearly, one could resolve it with a poll.
Is anyone here in a position to carry out this sort of research? It would need pollsters who don’t know the hypothesis.
Good idea. Upon investigation, it seems the Pew Forum already did this for us. I found this. You can also go here, click on Beliefs and Practices, and then click on Frequency of Receiving Answers to Prayers. (This isn’t a perfect proxy of reported spiritual experiences but it’s the best one they have.)
Same data, but it’s easier to see the second way.
This is the proportion of group members who report receiving answers to prayers, in descending order:
Mormons, 74% (=32% at least once a week + 22% once or twice a month + 20% several times a year)
Historically Black Churches, 68% (=34% at least once a week + 16% once or twice a month + 18% several times a year)
Other Christians, 67% (29% at least once a week + 20% once or twice a month + 18% several times a year)
In some order, evangelicals, mainline Protestants, Muslims, Catholics, Orthodox, Hindus, Buddhists, etc
The bottom is Jews at 21% (=8% at least once a week + 4% once or twice a month + 9% several times a year)
I should add that I already knew about the existence of this data source, do not know of the existence of any others, but had never scrutinized data on this question before.
I have to wonder what criteria they use for answering of prayers. Obviously if you pray for things that are likely to happen anyway, you’re more likely to be “answered” than if you pray for, say, world peace. But on the other hand, they might be referring to the mental sensation of feeling like you’ve made a connection, and you’ve received a definite answer from God, even if it’s “no.”
We would be much better off standardizing what the groups are praying for, and having a concrete way of measuring whether the prayers are answered or not, otherwise we can’t tell differences in the actual rate of prayer answering from differing rates of softball prayers and bias in interpreting results.
Polling people on rates of religious experiences, provided they’re clearly defined, would be easier than this though. The poll you linked tells us something, but not much given that they didn’t isolate any of the multiple factors that could account for different rates in reporting. It’s not really useful for the question we’re trying to answer.
The metric you used for frequency of prayer answering also seems somewhat misleading, since it weights different rates of receiving answers to prayers equally.
I agree, the data isn’t perfect. But it’s better than nothing, and it does support my conclusion—there are 14 groups. It also supports the conclusion “More-actively-religious groups are more likely to claim spiritual experiences.” But we should expect a true religion to be an active religion.
Can you go find some better data?
As for some people being more likely to say softball prayers, that would be a good reason to weight the three categories equally, because we need to adjust for that. And different levels of likelihood-to-perceive-events-as-spritual-experiences.
But okay, even if we discard that and re-weight, 9 points for the highest frequency, 3 points for the medium frequency, 1 point for the lowest frequency. (Once or twice a month ~ 1⁄3 of once a week)
As for some people being more likely to say softball prayers, that would be a good reason to weight the three categories equally, because we need to adjust for that. And different levels of likelihood-to-perceive-events-as-spritual-experiences.
Why suppose these differences manifest within religions as different frequencies in prayer answerings, but not between religions?
A cursory search didn’t reveal any applicable data, which is why I said in the first place that I didn’t think the matter had been studied before. Better to admit we don’t know, and if possible conduct the research, than pretend we have an answer based on poor or tenuously related data.
Browsing through this page, I saw no mention of Mormonism … I also wasn’t aware that Mormons considered they experienced a lot of religious experiences, it’s something I usually associated with Hindus, Buddhists and Sufis.
Probably the emphasis on Hinduism, Buddhism, etc are correlated with the amount of time the religion has been around. When William James wrote his landmark treatise, there were like ~300,000 Mormons concentrated in an isolated territory in the American West.
This is a pretty good article on the subject. It is called “Spiritual Experiences as a Basis for Belief and Commitment.”
When we approach people who are not LDS and ask them to consider what we have to offer, we don’t suggest that we offer a superior theology of axioms and propositions (though I would suggest we have a compelling and beautiful theology and we may even share with them our best take on how our theology works for us). And we don’t try to persuade them through arguments from scripture that we can read the Bible better than they can, or that we have the best reading of scripture based on the most recent biblical scholarship (though we definitely will share our scriptures with them and will do our best to get them to read scripture, and I believe we have a persuasive reading of the texts). In fact, the last thing on earth we would do is send out a bunch of 19 year olds to argue with people about the Bible if that’s what we were serious about. Now, we don’t try to persuade them that we have overwhelming empirical evidence to demonstrate that we’re right (though we may offer them empirical evidence). Rather, what we offer is a way to enter into an interpersonal relationship directly with God to get answers directly from God. We don’t say, “Trust me and my brain and how well I can argue;” we say, “Despite the fact that I’m not such a great instrument, you can get it for yourself and you don’t have to rely on me.”
We are rather like the first disciples in the Gospel of John who, when they met Jesus and saw, went to their closest friends and family members and said, simply, “Come and see.”
Probably true. But is the point I am making here different if you add a couple of zeroes?
It still doesn’t really hold. Adherents of other religions describe similar experiences. If they were a sign of any particular religion being true, you would expect only adherents of the true religion to experience them, so all the claims from different religions function as counterevidence for each other.
Rather than making the proposition more plausible, but not enough more plausible, the evidence you provided is only as good or weaker than the sort of evidence I would have predicted in advance, so it doesn’t increase my probability estimate of Mormonism being true at all. In order to increase our probability estimates, you would have to offer stronger evidence than we would expect a Mormon in your position to be able to offer given the assumption that Mormonism is not true.
On a side note, I think you may have anchored on an estimate of the likelihood that we assign to Mormonism being correct that was completely out of the ballpark. Given what I said about the probability I’d assign Mormonism given the premise of some religion being true, adding a couple zeroes would only account for my having a 1 in 100 probability estimation of any religion being true, which is still off by several orders of magnitude.
Okay, so you’re saying that I haven’t adjusted your probability at all. Understood.
Not true. Here’s an analogous argument. “If LW rationalism is valid, then you would only expect people who fully understand LW rationalism to make correct arguments. All correct arguments made by people outside LW are therefore evidence against Less Wrong.”
Clearly, this is flawed. Do LW rationalists predict that no one else has correct arguments? No. Do adherents of the claimed true religion predict that no one else will have spiritual experiences? In this case, no.
I concede that the argument was flawed in that you would not necessarily expect only people following the correct religion to have religious experiences (although it would certainly be a very helpful way to point people in the right direction,) but if it’s evidence for a religion being true, it must be more likely to occur in the true religion than any non-true religion.
If Mormons assert that their religious experiences are evidence for their religion being true, they must thereby assert that religious experiences are more prevalent in their religion than any other, otherwise they are mistreating evidence. Is this an assertion that you’re prepared to make?
Yes, I am.
I don’t think that’s been studied before, but it doesn’t seem like it should be particularly difficult. If one defined religious experiences clearly, one could resolve it with a poll.
Is anyone here in a position to carry out this sort of research? It would need pollsters who don’t know the hypothesis.
Good idea. Upon investigation, it seems the Pew Forum already did this for us. I found this. You can also go here, click on Beliefs and Practices, and then click on Frequency of Receiving Answers to Prayers. (This isn’t a perfect proxy of reported spiritual experiences but it’s the best one they have.)
Same data, but it’s easier to see the second way.
This is the proportion of group members who report receiving answers to prayers, in descending order:
Mormons, 74% (=32% at least once a week + 22% once or twice a month + 20% several times a year)
Historically Black Churches, 68% (=34% at least once a week + 16% once or twice a month + 18% several times a year)
Other Christians, 67% (29% at least once a week + 20% once or twice a month + 18% several times a year)
In some order, evangelicals, mainline Protestants, Muslims, Catholics, Orthodox, Hindus, Buddhists, etc
The bottom is Jews at 21% (=8% at least once a week + 4% once or twice a month + 9% several times a year)
I should add that I already knew about the existence of this data source, do not know of the existence of any others, but had never scrutinized data on this question before.
I have to wonder what criteria they use for answering of prayers. Obviously if you pray for things that are likely to happen anyway, you’re more likely to be “answered” than if you pray for, say, world peace. But on the other hand, they might be referring to the mental sensation of feeling like you’ve made a connection, and you’ve received a definite answer from God, even if it’s “no.”
We would be much better off standardizing what the groups are praying for, and having a concrete way of measuring whether the prayers are answered or not, otherwise we can’t tell differences in the actual rate of prayer answering from differing rates of softball prayers and bias in interpreting results.
Polling people on rates of religious experiences, provided they’re clearly defined, would be easier than this though. The poll you linked tells us something, but not much given that they didn’t isolate any of the multiple factors that could account for different rates in reporting. It’s not really useful for the question we’re trying to answer.
The metric you used for frequency of prayer answering also seems somewhat misleading, since it weights different rates of receiving answers to prayers equally.
I agree, the data isn’t perfect. But it’s better than nothing, and it does support my conclusion—there are 14 groups. It also supports the conclusion “More-actively-religious groups are more likely to claim spiritual experiences.” But we should expect a true religion to be an active religion.
Can you go find some better data?
As for some people being more likely to say softball prayers, that would be a good reason to weight the three categories equally, because we need to adjust for that. And different levels of likelihood-to-perceive-events-as-spritual-experiences.
But okay, even if we discard that and re-weight, 9 points for the highest frequency, 3 points for the medium frequency, 1 point for the lowest frequency. (Once or twice a month ~ 1⁄3 of once a week)
Witnesses = 36x9 + 13x3 + 14x1 = 377 points
Mormons = 32x9 + 22x3 + 20x1 = 374 points
Black Churches = 34x9 + 16x3 + 18x 1 = 372 points
Other Christians = 29x9 + 20x3 + 18x1 = 339 points
So yeah, if we re-weight, now it’s 2nd out of 14 instead of 1st.
Why suppose these differences manifest within religions as different frequencies in prayer answerings, but not between religions?
A cursory search didn’t reveal any applicable data, which is why I said in the first place that I didn’t think the matter had been studied before. Better to admit we don’t know, and if possible conduct the research, than pretend we have an answer based on poor or tenuously related data.
Browsing through this page, I saw no mention of Mormonism … I also wasn’t aware that Mormons considered they experienced a lot of religious experiences, it’s something I usually associated with Hindus, Buddhists and Sufis.
Probably the emphasis on Hinduism, Buddhism, etc are correlated with the amount of time the religion has been around. When William James wrote his landmark treatise, there were like ~300,000 Mormons concentrated in an isolated territory in the American West.
This is a pretty good article on the subject. It is called “Spiritual Experiences as a Basis for Belief and Commitment.”