Atheism's Assualt on all forms of Knowledge

 


 Jerry A. Coyne* is on the war path against all forms of thought that are not science.On his blog, "Why Evolution is True," he defends scientism as the only from of knowledge. He doesn't defend science but "scienTISM." The thing about that is that term has always been used to refer to an phony exaggeration in the confidence one places in scinece. It's always meant a sort legalistic worship of science. Apparently those adjectives accurately describe Coyne's feelings about the subject. For him there's only one form of knowledge. He goes after Eric MacDonald who is actually opposing religious obstacles to the right to die. He runs a sight called Choice of Dying. Whatever his site is about he makes the satement oppossing scientism:

 I won’t go into the detail of the arguments (or non-arguments) presented in this thread. That was not the focus of my concern, which remains even when everything said here has been said. Certainly, for example, to say that Mozart is a greater composer than Hummel requires evidence, and the people who would be the best judge of what constitutes evidence in this case would not be scientists, but experts in music, composition, direction, performance, and appreciation. I don’t think that a study of the structure of music as related to brain structure or response would tell us very much. I may be quite wrong about this, but I think there is more going on here than simply those things discoverable by science. And that is precisely my problem with what I am here calling “scientism.” It is, basically, a “faith” position, since it is not in fact based, and cannot, in the nature of the case, be based on empirical evidence, for it is, essentially, a meta-claim about such evidence, and the belief that only those beliefs based on the kind of evidence in question constitute knowledge.

 This is too much for Coyne. He summarizes MacDonald's battle plan thusly:

 As I pointed out in the first part of my critique, these pieces espoused three themes: the failures of New Atheism, especially its inability to replace what religion gives people; the dangers of scientism, which Eric apparently sees as a pervasive and destructive attitude; and the fact that there are Ways of Knowing other than science.  Yesterday I analyzed—and disagreed with—Eric’s claim that New Atheism is an abject failure because it a). criticizes simplistic caricatures of religion rather than serious theological thought, and b). tears down religion without replacing the essential human needs that religion meets. This morning I’ll address “other ways of knowing.”

 MacDonald is saying that experiential forms of knowing are required and are valid forms of knowledge in their own right apart form the formal scientific collection of data. You can't really know music just by  knowing a lot of technical data about sound waves, without actually hearing the music. That's not good enough for Coyne. He complies a short list of forms of knowledge MacDonald says require other froms of knowing than just scinece and it includes:

• Aesthetic judgments
• Moral judgments
• Law
• History

 He points out that science is not a collection of people with Ph.Ds or a body of results but a method. In the broader sense that method invovles evidence that can be deduced systematically and can be tested by others. "Evidence that cannot be tested and confirmed by others is not reliable evidence: it falls into the purview of things like religious revelations, which many theologians do see as “evidence.” He asserts that construing scinece broadly one can include things like auto mechanics and plumbing. Well of course he fails to distinguish between using scientific methods or approach and applying them to problems rather actually doing science; something has to be said about science as inquiry. It's not just a pragmatic tool fo re-roofing your house it's about actually learning for the sake of knowledge itself. It has has something to do with knowledge about the workings of natural world not the workings of anything, so the workings of impressionists painters are excluded. If we make he definition too board in encompass everything then it's not even meaningful to distinguish bewteen science and not science. Of cousre he actually knew something about theology he would know that some aspects of it can be appraoch through replicable methods that yield evidence which can be checked by others, such as textual criticism.

 Then there's no reason why theology should produce that kind of knowledge. The purpose of theology is not mirror scinece. It's to answer problems and understand developments in religious tradition. the first thing scientistic types always do when they see anything about other forms of knowledge is hold up to scinece and assume that their purpose must be to imitate scinece. For them that's all life is about, science, its not about experiencing things its about collecting data. This gimmick of reducing everything to science is followed by Coyne until he incorporates all of the "other forms" into scinece. History and archeology, he argues, test hypotheses so they are scinece."Archaeologists and historians often act as scientists when trying to determine truth about the past. Indeed, that is the only way they can be credible.."

He does acknowledge that aesthetic and moral judgements are not in the same category (not scinece) because they can't be verified determined objectively. A set of criteria that might render a judgement true in that sense is nevertheless set up subjectively. But not only are they not reduced to scinece but they are not true either. So he reduced truth to that which suits the scientific method. He repudiates moral thinking on the same ground because it can't be given the official stamp of scinece (even though as we have seen there are schools of thought that think they are doing that). He accepts Math and philosophy as uses of logic that are "almost scientific." So he makes a small niche for something that is not scientific per se (no replicable, no empirical data). It's still on the basis of being able to discern an objective basis through the use of logic, making it an alley of science (he doesn't use that phrase). He says,"I think philosophy and mathematics are “ways of understanding”, and come close to science in that one can demonstrate truths within an accepted system of logic."

Literature she shuns because it tells us nothing external until scinece is use (again scinece in the loosest sense of anything that's not subjective) to confirm it. By that way of thinknig then psychology is out. Psychology ceases to be scientific. Of course individual judgement is out.

He reduces all to naturalism:

What I argue, then, is that anything that is claimed to exist in our universe can be verified only with the methods of science, broadly construed. I don’t see that Eric has convincingly demonstrated that there are real and objective moral and aesthetic judgments that can be demonstrated by “evidence.”  How can you test your claim that Mozart is better than Hummel by checking it against the real world? All you can find out is that many people think that Mozart is better than Hummel. But others may dissent, and who can prove them wrong? How can you prove someone wrong who says that it’s immoral to abort babies after the first trimester?

 Mozart vs. Hummel was MacDonald's example of a time when you listen to the music rather than gather data. He totally glosses over the meat of the point and reduces everything to data collection. There is no experience;  experience of the world doesn't give us truth, truth is nothing more than the simulacra that results from having put data through the process of replication. We are not getting reality, he's divorced truth from reality. Just as he's divorced music from listening. Of cousre he assume it has to be subjective, there can't ever be any kind of subjective value, which is no wonder he's just eliminated the arts completely. Then concepts like personal enlightenment wouldn't even appear on his radar. Whole traditions like Buddhism and some forms of Christianity and other oriental religions will just be left out and even confiscated,consigned to the nether world of "the subjective" and the 'not truth' because they seek the kind of verification he can control. Finding what people think about Mozart based upon actually hearing his music is good enough. After he's eliminated the concept of inter-subjectivity, but why should it be when it is verifiable? We have a sense of checking the subjective machinations of each others world views by comparing notes on the subjective. That all carefully designed to steer us into avenues scientists control and ordinary people can't have access to. His final statement says it all:

Finally, although this isn’t Eric’s aim, much of the “other ways of knowing” palaver is used to advance the “truth claims” of religion. But I hardly need to add that I don’t think religion is a way of knowing anything about the real world. That’s simply a truism, for our understanding of any divinities, transcendent beings, or “moral truths” derived from faith alone has not advanced one iota since the ancient Greeks. Hell, after millennia of apologetic and “proofs” of God, we don’t even know whether there is a god, much less one god or many, or what said gods are like or want us to do.

 Holy question begging Batman, so that's what it's all about? The exclusion of subjective ideas is carefully controlled to get rid of religion. Of course he's already got the ideology down, he's already opposed to religion before the deliberations even start. Everything he says in that paragraph is propaganda. It's all based upon the refusal to learn theology. He says other ways of knowing (which are just palaver) can just be ruled out because they support religion. Don't' show me the evidence, it might not concur with what I want to hear. That religion is not a way to know anything is clearly propaganda BS. First of all it's a way to know spiritual things and religious thing.s For that that "likes it" that's a good thing. Of course It's not for those who are predisposed to think of it as "the enemy." The idea that faith has not advanced, that's a matter of ignorance. the 20th was one of the most amazingly progressive times for theology. Theology made huge advances in the last century. I doubt Coyne would understand any of it as advancement because he can't control it and it doesn't advance the robot mind control ideas of atheism and reductionism and scientific.

One of the most amazing advances of the last century, in terms of religious knowledge, was the M scale, Hood's measurement study instrument or understanding the validity of mystical experience. That actually gives us a handle on empirical evdience for the existence of God, through the universal arguemnt made possible by the M scale (see the link). Speaking of that there's an interesting possibility by observing how Coyne reduces everything that can produce any kind of tangible results to scinece. Not only does that lose the distinction between science and not scinece but it also means that we can extend the same connection to religious belief and include it in the same way. Not does the M scale make this possible but also arguments like fine tuning that employ scientific data. He says we don't know if there's a good. I know there is. We have rational warrant for belief becuase we have wealth of argument and data to back them up. More importantly by employing the same strategy he does we can reduce everything to ethology. science becomes theology through the M scale and fine tuning data, God on the brain evidence, and that backs up the warrant for belief. It's can't be used with an atheist assumption since it's no part of theology. It becomes theological by the same token that all those other forms of knowing become scientific. The mediating principle that incorporates them is provide data backing the co-determinate.

The co-determinate is Schleiermacher's concept of an aspect of the naturalistic dimension of human experience that telegraphs the divine in human experience, such as the presence of God in the sense of the numinous. This fits with Tillich's concept of the correlation whereby doctrines of the faith are lined up with data from human behavior and experience. In other words do people in fact experience this presence and what does it do for them when the do? Just like a finger print this aspect is always there to  mark the presence of the other, as the print marks the presence of the finger though it is absent. In do doing, by the same logic that Coyne uses, we can make theology science and scinece theology.

 ____________________
*Jerry A. Coyne, Ph.D is a Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago and a member of both the Committee on Genetics and the Committee on Evolutionary Biology.

Belief and Rationalization, Manipulation

We have some interesting comments that came in on past postings. In reaction to my statement on Notes on Realization of God's Reality, someone named "Atheist" says:

Atheist said...

Metarock: Belief Is, therefore, a realization about the nature of reality, not a technology.

Atheist: Belief Is, therefore, a realization about the nature of fantasy, not a technology. Belief has nothing to do with reality or truth. In fact belief and truth are mutually exclusive.

The problem with this is that it privileges doubt to the extent of re-writing the point of bleief. Belief becomes a dirty word tot he professional doubter. The fact of belief is that one does not believe something one thinks is false. Belief is obviously about truth. Of cousre this is not a guarantee that the particulars of one's beliefs are true, yet no one sets out to believe falsehood. Dawkamenatlists. like the fundies that they are, are literalistic and rigid slave thinkers who dread having to think for themselves, thus any hint that a held opinion is not a "fact" and is not guaranteed by the atheist fortress of facts (ala atheist ideology) but is merely "belief," must be held as falsehood and ridiculed to the text the very word "belief" is taken ass a dirty word and held to mean "rationalization." Belief is what one hold to be true, it' s synonymous with "conviction," that's a term atheists are not familiar with.

I am thinking that this person is reacting to the idea that I stated, that proving things is a technology. Somehow this person sees this as an insult he/she has to insult belief back and though belief is some alien process that atheists don't involve themselves in. Unless one is illiterate it must be obvious to all that even atheists have beliefs. Strangely enough an atheist on CARM, who humbly calls himself "big thinker," who martians that he has no beliefs. Belief is such a dirty word to the Dawkies that he can't bring himself to admit that he has beliefs. He refused to answer my question "so you believe you have no beliefs?" That would entail the admission that what you think is true is a belief. Thus there are no people without beliefs. How is it possible that one thinks for oneself without believing things? This person obviously believes that belief is is about unreality, this person believes that atheism is about being realistic about reality these are beliefs. I wonder if most atheists even know the word reality. What they really mean is "what I want to be the case." If it could be proved that God is reality what would they do? They would then begin asserting that reality stinks and fantasy is true.

Webster's Online:

be·lief

noun \bə-ˈlēf\

Definition of BELIEF

1

: a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing

2

: something believed; especially : a tenet or body of tenets held by a group

3

: conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon especially when based on examination of evidence

See belief defined for English-language learners »

Examples of BELIEF

1. There is growing belief that these policies will not succeed.
2. He gets angry if anyone challenges his religious beliefs.
3. We challenged his beliefs about religion.

Origin of BELIEF

Middle English beleave, probably alteration of Old English gelēafa, from ge-, associative prefix + lēafa; akin to Old English lȳfan — more at believe

First Known Use: 12th century

Related to BELIEF

Synonyms: credence, credit, faith, article of faith

Antonyms: disbelief, discredit, doubt, nonbelief, unbelief

Related Words: axiom, law, precept, principle, tenet; assurance, certainty, certitude, conviction, positiveness, sureness; confidence, dependence (also dependance), reliance, trust; hope; doctrine, dogma, philosophy; dogmatism, fanaticism, insistence

Near Antonyms: distrust, mistrust, skepticism, suspicion, uncertainty

see all synonyms and antonyms

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Synonym Discussion of BELIEF

belief, faith, credence, credit mean assent to the truth of something offered for acceptance. belief may or may not imply certitude in the believer belief that I had caught all the errors>. faith almost always implies certitude even where there is no evidence or proof faith in God>. credence suggests intellectual assent without implying anything about grounds for assent credence by scientists>. credit may imply assent on grounds other than direct proof credit to the statement of a reputable witness>.

Belief is placing confidence in a proposition." conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon especially when based on examination of evidence " Belief is about the way one views reality not manipulating reality.

Proving things is a from of manipulation. Why? Because it requries the re-organizing of bits of sense data in order to change the situation form appearance to demonstration. I didn't originally call it manipulation I called it "technology." Then I defined technology as manipulation. This commenter took this as an assault upon truth. It's actually just phenomenological awareness about our relationship to sense data in the formation of truth claims. Belief is a conviction of truth as the definition says it is not a pretense or a fantasy. Getting at truth requires re arranging the appearance of reality and thus its manipulation. This doesn't mean that stacking the manipulation to coincide with our desires is truth finding.

Webster defines Technology:

tech·nol·o·gy
noun \tek-ˈnä-lə-jē\
plural tech·nol·o·gies
Definition of TECHNOLOGY
1
a : the practical application of knowledge especially in a particular area : engineering 2 b : a capability given by the practical application of knowledge
2
: a manner of accomplishing a task especially using technical processes, methods, or knowledge
3
: the specialized aspects of a particular field of endeavor
— tech·nol·o·gist \-jist\ noun
See technology defined for English-language learners »
Examples of TECHNOLOGY

This doesn't tell us the use of the term in such elite venue as intellectual history in postmodern circles such as the writing of Michele Foucault. The word is used apart from gadgets. We can employ a technology in the way we think about things without any new inventions or scientific apparatus. That's the way I was using the term, not as an insult or an attack but with persimmon making known the fact that the way we think about "reality" in relation to what can be demonstrated as true is a technology and an application of knowledge in a varied way.

In other words, belief is actually conviction that honestly understands truth or reality to be a certain way, while proof and demonstration are actually manipulating reality by arranging the way it is perceived, in order to produce a particular outcome.

The same poster left another interesting comment, this was addressed to the post about atheists moving away from the big bang.

Atheist said...

I am an atheist. I do not depend on science for my atheism. In fact I disagree with science often when it looks too much like theism. Multi-universes, quantum mechanics and the Big Bang are a some examples.

My atheism is based on truth and facts not science.

"I disagree with science when it looks like theism." I assume then that he/she agrees with it when it looks like opinions he/she already holds. So at that rate science is not a teaching device that tells this person truth but is in fact the "big fortress of facts" that proves atheism and backs up her opinion. In other words in the Orwellian "atheist speak" truth is a lie and one's own desire to escape God is paramount and outweighs truth, scirnce is a propaganda tool that can only be useful when it backs the template of atheist ideology. Look at the two quotes back to back it's pretty obvious that's what being said. If science was as atheists cling to it and portray it in clash with Genesis or creationism it's supposed to be a tool that lays bear what is real and enables us to know the truth of the physical world. To allege that would be a belief. Belief is a dirty word, belief is fantasy. Yet it's also apparent that truth finding goes hand in hand with fantasy and in place of truth this atheist wants propaganda. Hence I only believe science when it tells me what I want to hear.

"I don't believe scinece when it looks like theism."


Is there a way to reason with such people? If the facts and the uncovering of reality to the extent that the umpire of reality says "this be true" is not good enough, but must be rejected when ever it strays from the ideology that enthralls this salve thinker then what could possible point to truth in discussion or argument or evidence? Can't we see this is the total betrayal of "free thought" that it obviously is? How long can people be suckered?

We have to fear truth seeking and make conviction a dirty word becasue reality might be other than we wish?

That trick Atheists do with the Subject-Object Dichotomy

 Picasso


This is one of the most important tricks to deal with. We have all heard that refrain "that's subjective." they use that every time anything experiential comes up. Of course they do because that basic reason to bleieve in God is experiential. God must be sought in the heart, the heart (meaning the inner most psychological aspect of the will) is the ground upon which the realization of God's reality happens. If one does not seek God in the heart one cannot find God. Thus the atheist first and most important target is the experiential realm. "That's subjective, you can't trust feelings." "That's not scinece." "Science is math and certifiably and stuff you can prove. you can't prove experiences." That is basically the whole point of the atheist ideology, becuase once they get you to doubting your heart and doubting your ability to seek God through experience you might as well pack it in. It makes no more sense to say "that's subjective, it must be dismissed" than it makes to say "there no scientific proof for God." God is not a scientific question so it makes no sense to demand scientific proof. By the same token, the realization of God has to be experiences as a feeling of utter dependence so it makes no sense to say "that's subjective." It makes less sense when we realize that objectivity is a pretense and there is no other point of view that humans have to approach anything form but the subjective. Dismissing the question of God on the basis of subjectivity makes no more sense than dismissing God on the basis of scinece.

Of course what we have to do is to realize that science is not the only kind of knowledge. This is what I demonstrated with the three posts on the limitations of scinece. I will offer three major arguments:

I. Objectivity is a pretense


II. Experiential and subjective knowledge is not always unreliable


III. Global knowledge 

I.
The great irony here is that the atheists are using objectivity to justify their subjective world view. There is no way they can deny that their world view (atheism) is subjective. It's a world view. By definition world view are subjective. When they talk about their former experiences in the faiths they fell away from they are speaking of feelings, experiences, these are subjective. Those subjective feelings are reliable. You can't tell them what they experienced. Suddenly experiences aren't so bad when they are atheist experiences. The irony is what to back the pretense that because they cheer lead of objectivity that makes them objective, so their world view is factual, they only believe what is based upon by empirical science. So their view s not subjective it's factual. Of cousre the brighter one's among them will stop and reflect that all world views are subjective by definition. Their world cannot be objective if it is a world view. Something is wrong here.

We all know that human beings cannot be objective. Atheists will try to press and demand that scientific facts are "objective facts." Facts can't be objective becasue they are not subjects. Facts don't do the perceiving, people do. Human perception is subjective. The idea that we can get outside of our perceptions and check them is the empiricists dilemma or the epistemological fallacy. We cannot check out perceptions from outside our perceptions. The idea that the atheist world view is scientific and factual is easily disproved. All we need to do is present them with some science that speaks agaisnt their view and see quickly that bit of scientific fact soon becomes unimportance. The selective nature with which they cling to that which supports their view and denounce that which dose not, despite it's good scientific quality, is obvious proof that the objectivity of atheists is a pretense. Example of this are for example the Lourdes miracles. Those are studies with excellent science. They consult the doctors, they have good rules to screen out remission, they only use cases that can be documented through scientific diagnostics they insist upon having all the evidence. I have yet to see an atheist treat these facts with any sort of respect. They say the most outrageous things about Lourdes and refuse to believe there's anything scientific connected with it. There merely goes to show how subjective the atheist view is. Their use of scinece is totally subjective.

Another fine example is the 200 empirical studies from academic journals that show that religious experience has long term positive effects. Architects have everything they can to undermine and discredit these studies except read them! In two years of harping on them they have looked up two studies. They didn't read those. Yet they claim to have  a factual, scientific, objective view point. it's so bleeding obvious that their view is subjective because they are so totally selective about what they embrace as scinece and what they don't accept. They are even willing to accept pseudo scinece. They will treat the religious expediences studies as though they are new age movement garbage done by self appointed shamans while at the same time using phony social scinece studies with crap methodology no study design by anyone with credentials. A major example here is that badly done "study" on atheists in prison compared to how many "Chrsitians" are alleged in prison. The study design on that one is done by a five year old it's so bad. Their protestations about having a fact based world are just poppycock. That's nothing but propaganda.

In response to this atheists will insist upon scientific facts that can't be denied. Sure, on a mundane or trivial level there are facts, but when we start connect them to a big picture, of necessity it becomes a subjective world view.

II.

Subjective knowledge is not necessarily unsealable. Since subjectivity is the only state we are capable of it follows that we can learn ways to minimize the problems of subjectivity. Atheists use that as the ultimate dismissal "that's subjective." That means case closed it's a over, but that's just more rhetorical flourish. Subjective knowledge is part of human experience it's valid too. In addition to subjectivity and objectivity there is also inter-subjectivity. I have never head a single atheist say anything about it and I have never met not one atheist who knows what it is. I say it every time and they just let roll off their backs like water off a duck and say nothing more. This is because they learn their philosophy form atheist websites so they know nothing phenomenology. Inter-subjectivity means a subjective aspect to something that more than one person perceives in a very similar ways. Because there is a perceptual check though the many different minds perceiving the phenomena we can find to minimize the unreliability.

A good example of this the M scale developed by Dr. Ralph H. Hood Jr. of University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. The M scale (mystics scale) is a means of validating the theories of W.T. Stace ho wrote about the mystics of the world. M scale is a means of placing a control upon mystical experience so that it can be determined weather or not one has has had a valid mystical expedience. To determine that it validates the work of Stace who developed a theory about the nature of mysticism based upon the writings of the world's great mystics. The M scale has been validated in about a dozen different cultures with several different faith and has demonstrated that Stace's view is correct and the experiences of modern people conform to those of ancinet mystics. That gives us a comparison by which we can say "this is/is not a mystical experience." Having such control we set up a typology so we understand what the experiences entail. Once we know that we can study the effects of such experiences on the lives of those who have them. In well over 200 studies this has been done and the evidence shows that such experiences have a profound long term positive effect upon those who have them.

(from the Mohan article)

Research studies

For the purpose of this review of studies relating spirituality with psychological well-being, studies involving religious influence have also been considered as they are closely related to spirituality.

Spirituality and well-being

From time immemorial it is believed that spiritual experiences and practices have a therapeutic value in so far as they are capable of establishing an integrated personality. A report (Culligan, 1996) of a 1995 conference held at Harvard University reflects the new collaborative attempts of religion and medicine wherein there is a recognition of the power of religion and spiritual practices in medical treatment. The conference explored the relationship between spirituality and healing in medicine, with reference to the major world religions, and it provided a platform to discuss the physiological, neurological and psychological effects of healing resulting from spirituality.

Several recent studies (Allman et al., 1992; Elkins, 1995; Shafranske & Malony, 1990) have shown that the majority of practicing psychologists though not involved in organized religion, consider spirituality important not only to their personal lives but also to their clinical work. In a study Sullivan (1993) reports findings from a larger qualitative study that is seeking to discover factors associated with the successful adjustment of former and current consumers of mental health services. The study concludes that spiritual beliefs and practices were identified as essential to the success of 48% of the informants interviewed.

Vaughan (1991) explored the relevance of spiritual issues for individual psychotherapy among those motivated by spiritual aspiration and concluded that spirituality underlies both, personal impulses to growth and healing, and many creative cultural and social enterprises. Spitznagel (1992) and Sweeney and Witmer (1992) discussed the spiritual element in the well-ness model approach to work-adjustment and rehabilitation counselling and said that this holistic concept of working with clients is generally centred on faith, belief and values. Westgate (1996) in her review proposed four dimensions of spiritual wellness: (1) meaning in life (2) intrinsic value (3) transcendence and (4) spiritual communality. The paper also discussed the implications of these dimensions for research, counselling and counsellor education.

In a two year exploratory group study of participants in spiritual healing practices, Glik (1986) found that the healing which occurred is related to various measures of psychological wellness defined as the construct of subjective health. Fehring et al., (1987) correlating studies that investigate the relationship between spirituality and psychological mood states in response to life change, found that spiritual well-being, existential well-being and a spiritual outlook showed a strong inverse relationship with negative moods, suggesting that spiritual variables may influence well-being.

Over the years numerous claims have been made about the nature of spiritual/mystical and Maslow’s “peak experiences”, and about their consequences. Wuthnow (1978) set out to explore findings regarding peak experiences from a systematic random sample of 1000 persons and found that peak experiences are common to a wide cross-section of people, and that one in two has experienced contact with the holy or sacred, more than eight in ten have been moved deeply by the beauty of nature and four in ten have experienced being in harmony with the universe. Of these, more than half in each have had peak experiences which have had deep and lasting effects on their lives. Peakers are more likely also, to say they value working for social change, helping to solve social problems, and helping people in need. Wuthnow stressed the therapeutic value of these experiences and also the need to study the social significance of these experiences in bringing about a world in which problems such as social disintegration, prejudice and poverty can be eradicated. Savage et al., (1995) provided clinical evidence to suggest that peakers produce greater feelings of self-confidence and a deeper sense of meaning and purpose. Mogar’s (1965) research also tended to confirm these findings.

Some researchers in the recent past have found that life satisfaction correlated positively with mystical / spiritual experiences, and these experiences were further found to relate positively to one’s life purpose (Kass, et al., 1991). In fact researchers are of the view that a positive relation between positive affect and mystical experiences may not be surprising given that intense positive affect is often considered to be one of the defining characteristics of these experiences (Noble, 1985; Spilka, Hood & Gorsuch, 1985). The few studies that investigated well-being measures, spirituality and spiritual experience have found that people who have had spiritual experiences are in the normal range of well-being and have a tendency to report more extreme positive feelings than others (Kennedy, Kanthamani & Palmer, 1994; Kennedy & Kanthamani, 1995).

Spiritual experiences are also considered to be exceptional human experiences at the upper end of the normal range such as creative inspiration and exceptional human performance, and can be life changing. Fahlberg, Wolfer and Fahlberg (1992) interpreted personal crises from a developmental perspective that includes the possibility of self-transcendence through spiritual experience / or emergency. The authors suggest that health professionals need to recognize, facilitate and support positive growth experiences.

A study by De Roganio (1997) content-analyzed and organized into a paradigm case examples found in themes of 35 lived-experience informants and 14 autobiographers who represented a wide range of people with physical disability and chronic illness. It was found that the combined elements of spiritual transformation, hope, personal control, positive social support and a meaningful energetic life enabled individuals to improve themselves and come to terms with their respective conditions. These experiences led many people to realize their own interest, sense of wholeness and unity, and to experience and integrate a deeper meaning, sense of self and spirituality within their lives.      

Some studies have offered a spiritual approach to addiction problems. Caroll (1993) found that 100 members of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) benefited from spirituality which was found to correlate positively with having a purpose in life and the length of sobriety. Frame and Williams (1996), in their study of religions and spiritual dimensions of the African-American culture, address the role of spirituality in shaping identity, and conclude that reconnecting AA clients to their powerful spiritual tradition may be a crucial catalyst for personal empowerment and spiritual liberation. The finding was confirmed in a later study by Wif and Carmen (1996). Another study reported by Green et al., (1998) described the process of spiritual awakening experienced by some persons in recovery during the quest for sobriety. The data suggested that persons in recovery often undergo life altering transformations as a result of embracing a power higher than one’s self i.e., a “higher power”. The result is often the beginning of an intense spiritual journey that leads to sustained abstinence.

In the last few years investigators in the rapidly growing field of mind-body medicine are coming across findings that suggest that an attitude of openness to unusual experiences such as spiritual, transcendental, peak, mystical may be conducive to health and well-being. For example, Dean Ornish, a heart disease researcher, believes that “opening your heart” to “experience a higher force” is in an important component of his programme for reversing heart disease (Ornish, 1990, chapter 9). There are also studies that relate illness with spirituality: Reese (1997) found in her study of terminally ill adults aged 20-85 years that, (1) they had a greater spiritual perspective than non-terminally ill hospitalized adults and adults, (2) their spiritual perspective was positively related to well-being and (3) a significant larger number of terminally ill adults indicated a change toward increased spirituality than did non-terminally ill or healthy adults.

Further, McDowell et al., (1996) investigated the importance of spirituality among 101 severely mentally ill and chronically dependent in-patients, and 31 members of the nursing staff who treated them. It was found that both the patients and the staff who treated them were equally spiritually oriented, and that the patients viewed spirituality as essential to their recovery and they valued the spiritual programme in their treatment more than some of the more concrete items.

Numerous studies have found positive relationships between religious beliefs and practices and physical or mental health measures. Although it appears that religious belief and participation may possibly influence one’s subjective well-being, many questions need to be answered such as when and why religion is related to psychological well-being. A review by Worthington et al., (1996) offers some tentative answers as to why religion may sometimes have positive effects on individuals. Religion may (a) produce a sense of meaning, something worth living and dying for (Spilka, Shaves & Kirkpath, 1985); (b) stimulate hope (Scheier & Carver, 1987) and optimism (Seligman, 1991); (c) give religious people a sense of control by a beneficient God, which compensates for reduced personal control (Pargament et al., 1987); (d) prescribe a healthier lifestyle that yields positive health and mental health outcomes; (e) set positive social norms that elicit approval, nurturance, and acceptance from others; (f) provide a social support network; or (g) give the person a sense of the supernatural that is certainly a psychological boost-but may also be a spiritual boost that cannot be measured phenomenologically (Bergin & Payne, 1993). It is also reported by Myers and Diener (1995) that people who experience a sustained level of happiness are more likely to say that they have a meaningful religious faith than people who are not happy over a long period of time.

A study by Handway (1978) on religiosity concluded that religion is one potential resource in people’s lives. More recently Myers and Diener (1995) in their survey of related studies observe that links between religion and mental health are impressive and that culture and religiosity may provide better clues to understanding the nature of well-being. Religious belief and practice play an important role in the lives of millions of people worldwide. A review by Selway and Ashman (1998) highlighted the potential of religion to effect the lives of people with disabilities, their families and care givers.

These results enable us to trust subjective experience becasue the bottom line of reliability is the concrete effect upon the one experiences it. Since these experiences are so profound and positive it is clearly they are not merely a psychological trick up a real experience and they are indicative of a reality, the content of the experience tells us that the reality is that of the divine. The effects of the experience, because they can be studied and demonstrated to be positive form a control on the reliability of the experience. Atheists can't argue that it's mental illness because that is never long term positive. they can't argue that it's just a trick of the mind because those rarely last. They can't argue that it's unreliable because with the M scale we can show it's an extremely tight correlation. These experiences almost always result in this outcome. Just becasue we can't get into the texture of the experience doesn't' mean it's unreliable as long as we can predict the out come.

III.

We need to use all the knowledge we have. We know there are other kinds of knowledge besides science. There is logic, phenomenology, intuitive sense, experiential, and so on. We need to use all kinds of knowledge and to Taylor the method to the type of question using only the method that is suited to the question. We need to abandon the baron road of reductionism that is nothing more than ideology and expand our understanding to a holistic approach to learning and knowledge. Atheist propaganda has sold its adherents a bill of goods, they have done a bait and switch transposing slective bias and propaganda for real knowledge and learning. Let me give two examples of the way method needs to be taylored:

(1) God arguments.

God is not given in sense data. God is beyond human understanding because God is transcendent. Its' foolish to expect scientific evidence for God because God is not a scientific question. Thus attempt to prove God's existence will be nil if we use scinece. We can use logic, it could have proved by logic but that's very complex whee we deal with issues of the ground of being. It makes a lot more sense to scrap the question "how you prove the existence of God" and say "you don't." You don't need to prove it if you experience the reality of God because then you know. We need, therefore, to argue for a rational warrant. All we need to do is show that it's ratinoal to believe in God, that does not require proving it and it could take on a huge range of different kinds of evidence, from logic to scientific empiricism. See my God argument list for examples.

(2) Poly Symbolic Monotheism

Atheist are always trying to play divide and conquer by saying things like "which God is the one that created the universe." Trying to direct one faith against another. They often make the assumption with so many competing faiths we can never know which one is right therefore none can be. I've never understood the logic of that but the question is moot. We do not need to ask "which one is right" because all of them all They are all also wrong. That doesn't matter because salvation comes in knowing God and that is an individual matter that transcends all man made institutions. Same reality stands behind all religions. So the question we should ask is "how do we understand the reality behind all religions?" The method we need to use, social science, cultural constructs, theology, mystical experience, an understanding of comparative religion.

It is possible to understand the core of mystical and religious and divine truth and to experience the reality of God and know that God is real. Subjectivity you will have with you always, subjectivity is the nature of our species. Subjectivity is human experience, it need not not get in the way.