I simply want to convince you to entertain the possibility that people might profess to believe in God for reasons other than indoctrination or stupidity.
Why do you think any convincing is necessary?
arguing against religious beliefs on logical grounds [...] spirituality is not about logic. It’s about subjective experiences [...]
Religious beliefs and subjective experiences are quite separate things, at least in principle. If someone simply says “I went to church and had this amazing experience”, I don’t think even the strawmanniest Spockiest stereotypical rationalist would have much quarrel with that. But here in the real world, actual religious people tend not just to say “I had this amazing experience” but to go further and say “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of all things seen and unseen, and in one Lord Jesus Christ”, or “Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is one”, or whatever.
(They not infrequently go further still and say “you must do X and not do Y, because God says so”, or attempt to get laws made requiring X and forbidding Y, or in very extreme cases blow things up in an attempt to intimidate people into doing X rather than Y, and that sort of behaviour tends to be what provokes the louder sort of unbeliever, rather than mere professions of belief. But let’s ignore that for now.)
So, consider someone who has these amazing experiences and reacts to them by (not merely appreciating the experiences, but) declaring that those experiences give him special insight into the nature of reality, and professing belief in a particular religion’s doctrines. There are (crudely) three possibilities.
Perhaps he means what he says at something like face value: he actually intends to make claims about how the actual world actually is.
In this case, arguing against those claims isn’t a matter of misunderstanding What Spirituality Is About; our hypothetical religious person really is making (alleged) factual claims which may be right or wrong, supported or undermined by the evidence, etc., and argument is an appropriate response (at least in some contexts).
Or perhaps he doesn’t mean to make actual factual claims; when he says “I believe in one holy, catholic and apostolic church” he really means “I had an experience where I felt like I was one with the universe”; when he says “Muhammad is the messenger of God” he really means “something ineffably indescribable happened to me”.
In this case, indeed arguing against the claims he makes may be a mistake. But it might be perfectly reasonable to argue against using those claims to express those experiences. Because, really, take a look at typical religious professions of faith, theological writings, etc.; do they look to you like good ways of expressing ineffable overwhelming religious experiences? They don’t to me.
Or, finally, perhaps he actually doesn’t make those claims at all; or, at most, he makes them when required to make them by some ritual he participates in, and otherwise refrains.
In this case, finally, I do agree: the usual sort of religious argument may be entirely irrelevant to this person. But it seems to me that (1) most people who profess religious belief are not like this person, and (2) most people who engage in argument against religious beliefs are, most of the time, not doing so in discussion with someone like this.
In this sense, God is everywhere.
In this sense, we are all Spartacus. In this sense, the Singularity is here. In this sense, I am the walrus.
But here in the real world, actual religious people tend not just to say “I had this amazing experience” but to go further and say “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of all things seen and unseen, and in one Lord Jesus Christ”
Yes, of course I don’t deny that. The point is that the reason that they say these things (and maybe even actually believe these things) is because of subjective experiences that they have personally experienced which people who do not believe have not had (and who do not believe because they have not had those subjective experiences).
In this sense, we are all Spartacus.
This piece was originally written for a different audience than the hard-core rationalists that hang out here on Less Wrong. I probably should have taken that sentence out before posting it here. Sorry about that.
As I’ve remarked elsewhere in the thread, the fact (when it is one) that their belief is based on their subjective experiences is no reason why it shouldn’t be the subject of argument. Neither does that fact mean that their belief isn’t the result of “indoctrination or stupidity”. (Of course it needn’t be. But if you interpret a euphoric altered-consciousness experience as indicating the presence of a god who, say, is composed in a mysterious way of three persons in a single substance, disapproves of gay sex, approves of forgiveness, and walked the earth a couple of thousand years ago until he got nailed to a tree, that can be the result of indoctrination or stupidity just as easily as if you draw the same conclusions from the beauty of the natural world or from the presence of claims along those lines in a particular set of old documents.)
Sorry about that.
It’s OK. I hope you didn’t mind my snarkiness too much.
I think an interesting implication of this piece is that instead of arguing about the reality of the experiences of religious people, it would be helpful to empathize with religious people about their experiences, and even use the term “spiritual” if it resonates with them. Saying something like: “oh wow, that must have been really powerful” and sharing a personal euphoric experience might help them be more open to subsequent discussions, and prevent the backfire effect.
Religious beliefs and subjective experiences are quite separate things
I would like to take this opportunity to note that “religious beliefs” is not redundant; that belief is not even a particularly important part of many religions. Not that you said anything to the contrary. But to a lot of readers of this site, Bible-thumping Christians, to whom belief is paramount, are over-represented in the mental prototype of “religion”.
Why do you think any convincing is necessary?
Religious beliefs and subjective experiences are quite separate things, at least in principle. If someone simply says “I went to church and had this amazing experience”, I don’t think even the strawmanniest Spockiest stereotypical rationalist would have much quarrel with that. But here in the real world, actual religious people tend not just to say “I had this amazing experience” but to go further and say “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of all things seen and unseen, and in one Lord Jesus Christ”, or “Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is one”, or whatever.
(They not infrequently go further still and say “you must do X and not do Y, because God says so”, or attempt to get laws made requiring X and forbidding Y, or in very extreme cases blow things up in an attempt to intimidate people into doing X rather than Y, and that sort of behaviour tends to be what provokes the louder sort of unbeliever, rather than mere professions of belief. But let’s ignore that for now.)
So, consider someone who has these amazing experiences and reacts to them by (not merely appreciating the experiences, but) declaring that those experiences give him special insight into the nature of reality, and professing belief in a particular religion’s doctrines. There are (crudely) three possibilities.
Perhaps he means what he says at something like face value: he actually intends to make claims about how the actual world actually is.
In this case, arguing against those claims isn’t a matter of misunderstanding What Spirituality Is About; our hypothetical religious person really is making (alleged) factual claims which may be right or wrong, supported or undermined by the evidence, etc., and argument is an appropriate response (at least in some contexts).
Or perhaps he doesn’t mean to make actual factual claims; when he says “I believe in one holy, catholic and apostolic church” he really means “I had an experience where I felt like I was one with the universe”; when he says “Muhammad is the messenger of God” he really means “something ineffably indescribable happened to me”.
In this case, indeed arguing against the claims he makes may be a mistake. But it might be perfectly reasonable to argue against using those claims to express those experiences. Because, really, take a look at typical religious professions of faith, theological writings, etc.; do they look to you like good ways of expressing ineffable overwhelming religious experiences? They don’t to me.
Or, finally, perhaps he actually doesn’t make those claims at all; or, at most, he makes them when required to make them by some ritual he participates in, and otherwise refrains.
In this case, finally, I do agree: the usual sort of religious argument may be entirely irrelevant to this person. But it seems to me that (1) most people who profess religious belief are not like this person, and (2) most people who engage in argument against religious beliefs are, most of the time, not doing so in discussion with someone like this.
In this sense, we are all Spartacus. In this sense, the Singularity is here. In this sense, I am the walrus.
Yes, of course I don’t deny that. The point is that the reason that they say these things (and maybe even actually believe these things) is because of subjective experiences that they have personally experienced which people who do not believe have not had (and who do not believe because they have not had those subjective experiences).
This piece was originally written for a different audience than the hard-core rationalists that hang out here on Less Wrong. I probably should have taken that sentence out before posting it here. Sorry about that.
As I’ve remarked elsewhere in the thread, the fact (when it is one) that their belief is based on their subjective experiences is no reason why it shouldn’t be the subject of argument. Neither does that fact mean that their belief isn’t the result of “indoctrination or stupidity”. (Of course it needn’t be. But if you interpret a euphoric altered-consciousness experience as indicating the presence of a god who, say, is composed in a mysterious way of three persons in a single substance, disapproves of gay sex, approves of forgiveness, and walked the earth a couple of thousand years ago until he got nailed to a tree, that can be the result of indoctrination or stupidity just as easily as if you draw the same conclusions from the beauty of the natural world or from the presence of claims along those lines in a particular set of old documents.)
It’s OK. I hope you didn’t mind my snarkiness too much.
I think an interesting implication of this piece is that instead of arguing about the reality of the experiences of religious people, it would be helpful to empathize with religious people about their experiences, and even use the term “spiritual” if it resonates with them. Saying something like: “oh wow, that must have been really powerful” and sharing a personal euphoric experience might help them be more open to subsequent discussions, and prevent the backfire effect.
I would like to take this opportunity to note that “religious beliefs” is not redundant; that belief is not even a particularly important part of many religions. Not that you said anything to the contrary. But to a lot of readers of this site, Bible-thumping Christians, to whom belief is paramount, are over-represented in the mental prototype of “religion”.
Yup, all agreed.