Typically religious experiences are things such as visions, dreams, odd coincidences. They happen unexpectedly, are experienced by one person, and leave no physical evidence behind. They can usually be explained fully by the psychology of the experiencer.
(1) How could a spiritual being deliver a message to a skeptical human and make it persuasive?
(2) How could a skeptical human be persuaded that religious experiences have a spiritual message?
The obvious solution would be miracles, but maybe the physical laws of the universe cannot be violated. In that case, a miracle could be no more than a coincidence with meaning. For example, a person might roll three dice hundreds of times and always get the number 666. But even that unlikely coincidence could be ignored as a coincidence. How many times are dice rolled everyday with no apparent meaning and pattern?
So another solution might be to include something bizarre in the religious experience and to repeat the religious experience for two unrelated people. For example, rather than Jesus telling me to become a missionary in Africa, why not have Mickey Mouse tell me? And why not have another person share the same dream where Mickey Mouse tells them to become a missionary in Africa? That would be more persuasive.
Interestingly, the Bible has examples of skeptics who use similar methods. In Judges, Gideon asks for a couple of unlikely physical phenomena involving wool and morning dew to satisfy his skepticism. And in Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar asks for somebody else to describe his dream to validate the dream interpretation but maybe also to validate the dream itself.
(1) How could a spiritual being deliver a message to a skeptical human and make it persuasive?
(2) How could a skeptical human be persuaded that religious experiences have a spiritual message?
The obvious solution would be miracles, but maybe the physical laws of the universe cannot be violated. In that case, a miracle could be no more than a coincidence with meaning. For example, a person might roll three dice hundreds of times and always get the number 666. But even that unlikely coincidence could be ignored as a coincidence. How many times are dice rolled everyday with no apparent meaning and pattern?
So another solution might be to include something bizarre in the religious experience and to repeat the religious experience for two unrelated people. For example, rather than Jesus telling me to become a missionary in Africa, why not have Mickey Mouse tell me? And why not have another person share the same dream where Mickey Mouse tells them to become a missionary in Africa? That would be more persuasive.
Interestingly, the Bible has examples of skeptics who use similar methods. In Judges, Gideon asks for a couple of unlikely physical phenomena involving wool and morning dew to satisfy his skepticism. And in Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar asks for somebody else to describe his dream to validate the dream interpretation but maybe also to validate the dream itself.
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