tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11516215.post-42976024835582567562007-11-21T12:35:00.000-08:002007-11-21T12:35:00.000-08:00A great argument - stretched the mind!.<BR/><BR/>The argument from religious experience is strong even at an empirical level. The number of people who have them cannot be ignored. Yes some who claim them are charlatans, but many are reliable individuals.<BR/><BR/>The often heard, and rather patronising, atheist response that ‘those who claim to have had a religious experience are sincere in what they think happened, but wrong’. The atheist defence of mental illness does not hold water when applied to such a large number of instances across such a range of individuals – it is a shield from the weight of evidence.<BR/><BR/>Paul’s Damascus road experience is an example that is hard to refute. He had a conversion that even common sense can only attribute to his own explanation of a religious experience. <BR/><BR/>If Paul’s conversion was a conscious exercise of choice then it was certainly a very stupid move – there was no logical upside to becoming a Christian, the persecutions (as Paul well knew) were not fun and the job did not pay well or come with status and power that compared to his old job.<BR/> <BR/>Simple reasoning says Paul was converted through a religious experience plus there is a pattern of similar experiences across a range of diverse people in different countries over an extended period of time with. It is very hard to deny that there is some substance here – and if there is, then there is a spiritual realm. <BR/><BR/>Really, if atheists accepted the evidence supporting the likelihood of religious experiences then the atheist/theist debate would be about the nature of the supreme figure in that realm – is it really “God”.akakiwibearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18324950054939335251noreply@blogger.com