: Ridiculous? Well, there's an unequivocal rebuttal if ever i heard one. However i fail to see how such a judgment is justified on the basis of what i have written. Allow me to explain.allow me also to counter-explain. I think you misinterpreted my argument a little...
: What i was talking about was personal experience of God (or if you please jehovah, buddha, satan, zeus, venus, etc etc take your pick). Such experience is subjective.
First of all, to speak of Jehovah, Vishnu, etc. in the same breath as Satan and discredited gods like Venus reveals your biases. If no one believes in Venus any mroe, doesn't that indicate that there was something unsatisfactory about that religion. Those religions that have survived tend to have survived becuase they answered people'es deepest needs and questions.
: There is nothing to ground it in the real world.
So witnessing something with your own two eyes doesn't groudn it in teh real world? Give me a break! My point was not that YOU should believe in God because God spoke to ME, it was that I should believe in God if God speaks to ME. In other words, for you to be objective, I woudl expect that a personal experience of God woudl be enough to convince you taht god exists. If having experienced God, you chose to write teh experience off as a psychological adventure, i would say you are being less than fair minded.
:Indeed it is a common occurance that only those who actually 'believe' are capable of subjectively experiencing God.
Well, no. Plenty of people have come to an experience of God, having not believed before. E.g. Paul formerly Saul of Tarsus, who was a persecutor of Christians before God spoke to him.
: Consequently i hold that personal experience of God is highly subjective and unreliable.
'Subjective' only in so far that it is filtered through your own experience. and why 'unreliable'? When you see certain phenomena, sometimes it makes sense to assume that they are evidence of the existence of a god. Now it may take a leap of faith to go here, because while the god hypothesis may be convincing, it is not ultimately provable. But then again, neitehr can we prove taht the tangible world is real, in fact many argue it is not. we assume that the tangible world is real, and that God is real, because life is much more sensible, meaningful and intellible in light of these views.
: Now you give yourself away in your example. How do we know electrons are negatively charged? Because a WHOLE BUNCH of scientists observed it.
Actually, a WHOLE BUNCH of Hindus experience Vishnu, a WHOLE BUNCH of Christians experience Christ, etc.
:It wasn't a case of bertrand the physicist having a subjective experience that an electron was negatively charged. It was an observable phenomenon.
Yes, but fundamentally, it is based on observation. If you obsreved God, I woudl expect you to believe in God.
: Do you imagine that if a scientist came by and said 'oh yeah i had a personal experience of cold fusion. No I can't show you what it is, i just experienced it. No i can't explain it'
It is impossible that he could have had such an experience. Cold fusion does not exist, therefore his experience of it could not have been genuine.
