Another Case Study In How To Defend Obfuscate The Christian Faith, Part 2
Previously I had written a post titled, Subjective Private Religious Experiences Prove Nothing! Randal Rauser objected to it, so I wrote another one titled, Another Case Study In How To Defend Obfuscate The Christian Faith, Part 1. I'm finally getting around to Part 2, where I offer four tests for the veracity of private subjective miracle claims.
Darren Slade wrote an Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion entry on Miracle Eyewitness Reports, containing a wealth of information packed into a small entry. It speaks to what remains of any attempt to say someone experienced a private miracle. There are way too many distortions and psychological variables that the so-called witness himself should question his own judgment on the matter. If the so-called eyewitness himself cannot find any independent third party objective corroboration of the alleged miracle, not even he should believe it occurred.
Quotes from Slade on weighing the accuracy of miracle reports:
Memory Issues:
We must press home two undeniable facts about miracles. We need to stick to a proper description of a miracle as a violation, or a suspension, or breaking the laws of nature in some sense, since nature could never behave in a miraculous way without some supernatural power or being. We must insist on this since we're looking for objective evidence that a miracle occurred.
We must also distinguish between a real supernatural miracle from the odds that extremely rare events occur every day. Even the very people who claim to experience a private miracle may be ignorant of these odds. Coincidental miracles cannot count as real miracles. Believers perceive miracles in rare coincidences not because there's a god doing them, but because they look for them. This isn't evidence of anything except their own subjective awareness placing a god-grid upon these events. They show nothing more than that believers are ignorant of math and statistics and the probabilities built on them.
These two facts undermine private miracles, especially when we take into consideration Darren Slade's article.
There's another consideration. Private subjective miracles are claimed by every believer in every sect of every religion. These private subjective miracles provide absolute certainty to most all believers of their religion and sect, despite any and all objective evidence to the contrary. In fact, one study reveals what private miracles produce inside the brains of believers. It leads them to believe their god agrees with them about everything! So this is a basic lesson in Epistemology 101. Any experience that produces a wide diversity of contrary conclusions is not something we can rely on if we want to know the truth. Cognitive biases predict we will see and even experience what we want to see and experience.
Private miracles must pass the same tests that third parties require.
People who claim to have experienced an alleged private mental miracle can only say it was real after rigorously verifying it by asking a whole slew of honest questions. They need a sufficient amount of third party independent corroborative objective evidence for them. If there's no objective evidence to convince others, there would be no objective evidence to convince oneself either. Rather than being an experience of a real private miracle, the experience could come from an accident, hallucination, brain malfunction, wish-fulfillment, sleep deprivation or a drug. So whether private or public all miracle claims should be able to show a sufficient amount of third party independent corroborative objective evidence, that is, the same exact standards reasonable people require for believing a biblical miracle took place.
So here are the four tests for one's own alleged private miracles:
If it merely is a rare experience rather than one requiring the suspension of the laws of nature.
If it tells you nothing different than what you already believe.
If it provides you a sense of certainty about what you believe.
If it cannot be confirmed by third party objective evidence.
Then you should reject your own private miracle claims!
Subjective religious experiences of private miracles without independent objective corroboration prove nothing to third parties, and should prove nothing to the very people who have them.
Darren Slade wrote an Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion entry on Miracle Eyewitness Reports, containing a wealth of information packed into a small entry. It speaks to what remains of any attempt to say someone experienced a private miracle. There are way too many distortions and psychological variables that the so-called witness himself should question his own judgment on the matter. If the so-called eyewitness himself cannot find any independent third party objective corroboration of the alleged miracle, not even he should believe it occurred.
Quotes from Slade on weighing the accuracy of miracle reports:
Memory Issues:
The “source confusion” or “source-monitoring” error is where people misattribute the origin of their memories to personal experiences that never ensued. For example, claimants may remember a miracle event when, in reality, they only heard or read about the incident happening to someone else (Memon et al. 2003). There are also certain biases that affect memory, as well, such as a “retrospective bias” where people superimpose their current experiences, feelings, attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs onto past events. The reverse is also true when people perceive and interpret a current event according to earlier experiences (“schema theory”). In effect, what people expect to see and hear affects their perception of reality. Once people assimilate a new interpretation about a past event, they are likely never to remember their previous beliefs about the episode. These errors can then become established fact and will perpetuate through continual retellings of the miracle, even after individuals learn that their recall is erroneous (Schacter and Scarry 2000; Redman 2010).
Another psychological variable is the “source-confusion” or “source-monitoring” error where people misattribute the origin of their memories to personal experiences that never ensued. For example, claimants may remember a miracle event when, in reality, they only heard or read about the incident happening to someone else (Memon et al. 2003). There are also certain biases that affect memory, as well, such as a “retrospective bias” where people superimpose their current experiences, feelings, attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs onto past events. The reverse is also true when people perceive and interpret a current event according to earlier experiences (“schema theory”). In effect, what people expect to see and hear affects their perception of reality. Once people assimilate a new interpretation about a past event, they are likely never to remember their previous beliefs about the episode. These errors can then become established fact and will perpetuate through continual retellings of the miracle, even after individuals learn that their recall is erroneous (Schacter and Scarry 2000; Redman2010).Postevent Interviewing
Miracle eyewitnesses are also susceptible to a postevent “misinformation effect,” which occurs when other people interject details into an eyewitness’s remembrance or when people mistakenly recall or speculate about event details, which then become part of the memory narrative itself. Eyewitnesses unconsciously invent details to supply information of “what must have happened” for things they did not directly observe (Saunders and MacLeod 2002; Memon et al. 2003).Imagination inflation and fantasy proneness
Certain miracle eyewitnesses are also susceptible to “imagination inflation” where a statistically significant number of people in the general population invent past experiences simply because they imagine an event occurring (Mazzoni and Memon 2003). A similar problem involves people with “dissociation” problems, who are incapable of differentiating between actual memories and fantasies...By introducing the possibility of fantasy proneness, it becomes exceedingly difficult to distinguish between truthful miracle accounts and memories based on fantasies or overactive imaginations.Conclusion:
The implication for religion is that psychological variables involving memory, postevent misinformation, imagination, and fantasy proneness need consideration when assessing the accuracy of miracle eyewitness reports. The potential psychological distortion on eyewitness testimonials is true of both historic miracle reports (e.g., the New Testament Gospels) and present-day spiritual experiences.Do people have a good reason to think they've personally experienced a miracle? I think not, not at all. Here's why:
We must press home two undeniable facts about miracles. We need to stick to a proper description of a miracle as a violation, or a suspension, or breaking the laws of nature in some sense, since nature could never behave in a miraculous way without some supernatural power or being. We must insist on this since we're looking for objective evidence that a miracle occurred.
We must also distinguish between a real supernatural miracle from the odds that extremely rare events occur every day. Even the very people who claim to experience a private miracle may be ignorant of these odds. Coincidental miracles cannot count as real miracles. Believers perceive miracles in rare coincidences not because there's a god doing them, but because they look for them. This isn't evidence of anything except their own subjective awareness placing a god-grid upon these events. They show nothing more than that believers are ignorant of math and statistics and the probabilities built on them.
These two facts undermine private miracles, especially when we take into consideration Darren Slade's article.
There's another consideration. Private subjective miracles are claimed by every believer in every sect of every religion. These private subjective miracles provide absolute certainty to most all believers of their religion and sect, despite any and all objective evidence to the contrary. In fact, one study reveals what private miracles produce inside the brains of believers. It leads them to believe their god agrees with them about everything! So this is a basic lesson in Epistemology 101. Any experience that produces a wide diversity of contrary conclusions is not something we can rely on if we want to know the truth. Cognitive biases predict we will see and even experience what we want to see and experience.
Private miracles must pass the same tests that third parties require.
People who claim to have experienced an alleged private mental miracle can only say it was real after rigorously verifying it by asking a whole slew of honest questions. They need a sufficient amount of third party independent corroborative objective evidence for them. If there's no objective evidence to convince others, there would be no objective evidence to convince oneself either. Rather than being an experience of a real private miracle, the experience could come from an accident, hallucination, brain malfunction, wish-fulfillment, sleep deprivation or a drug. So whether private or public all miracle claims should be able to show a sufficient amount of third party independent corroborative objective evidence, that is, the same exact standards reasonable people require for believing a biblical miracle took place.
So here are the four tests for one's own alleged private miracles:
If it merely is a rare experience rather than one requiring the suspension of the laws of nature.
If it tells you nothing different than what you already believe.
If it provides you a sense of certainty about what you believe.
If it cannot be confirmed by third party objective evidence.
Then you should reject your own private miracle claims!
Subjective religious experiences of private miracles without independent objective corroboration prove nothing to third parties, and should prove nothing to the very people who have them.
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