On spiritual experiences, brain science, skepticism and deconversion

[TruthSeek3r]

Who is GM Skeptic

Genetically Modified Skeptic is the name of a very popular YouTube Channel (487K subscribers as of March 2022) and also the alias of his owner, Drew McCoy, an American atheist YouTuber who makes videos about atheism, responses to religious videos, and has also criticized alternative medicine (source).

GM Skeptic is special among popular atheist YouTubers because he not only is a former Evangelical Christian, he also claims to have had a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ" and plenty of "personal spiritual experiences" prior to his deconversion. On August 19, 2018, he uploaded a video titled My Personal Experience with God (As an Atheist) (~ 220K views). The description reads:

I'm an atheist, but I've personally experienced God in the same way that many religious people have. I left Christianity and my "personal relationship with Jesus Christ" a while back even though I had those experiences, and I think I have good reasons for that. The argument from personal experience is thrown at me often, so I wanted to have this on the record, as well as explain why personal experience isn't evidence for god.​

_________________________________

Summary of the argument in the video

In simple words, GM Skeptic argues that:

• Over a century of Psychology & Neuroscience research on religious experiences can provide a naturalistic explanation for these sorts of experiences. Religious experiences are simply the result of brain activity under special circumstances.
• People from different religions experience very intense and religion-specific spiritual experiences with their own respective deities. These religions cannot all be true at the same time, because they contradict each other on several key points. Therefore, this shows that personal spiritual experiences do not constitute proof of the veracity of a given religion. Otherwise, we would need to conclude that mutually contradictory religions are true at the same time, which is a logical contradiction.
• Therefore, personal spiritual experiences are unreliable, and should be dismissed entirely as supportive evidence for religious claims.

_________________________________

Question

What are your thoughts on GM Skeptic's argument against the epistemic value of personal spiritual experiences? Is his argument flawed?

_________________________________

Appendix - transcript of relevant excerpts from the video

0:00:

I was raised Christian fundamentalist and have only been an atheist for about two and a half years. Hopefully my regular viewers all know that by now. I believed it all fervently. I wasn't the kid that always had their doubts and asked too many questions in Sunday school and got kicked out for it. I was a leader in my church youth group. I prayed constantly. I studied the Bible diligently and I evangelize to any of my acquaintances who weren't Christian. Most of all, I had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ ... or, so I thought ...

A major part of my Christian life was personally experiencing and interacting with God. Some but not all atheists I know say they've never experienced anything they felt was supernatural even when they were religious. But, I have, and I want to take you through the story of a deeply meaningful experience I had, tell you what it meant to me then, and tell what it means to me now.​

3:37:

[...] and suddenly I wasn't alone in the room. Something intense swept over me. God's presence was there and I was overcome with indescribable peace. Time became imperceptible and my sense of self was stripped away. I was meeting with God. No words were needed to communicate what happened from there. I was to become more open, more vulnerable, more compassionate. God would allow me to feel emotion like I never had before for a few days from that point on [...]​

4:56:

As unique or life-changing as that experience sounds, it's far from the only one I've ever had. I actually had to choose between several experiences I could tell you guys about for this video. Growing up how I did, those moments were definitely special but they weren't uncommon. The presence of God was something I felt pretty often. Not always in huge miraculous ways but also in still small ways that felt like the comfort from a close friend. I mean, I had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. If I hadn't felt like he was there with me sometimes then, I wouldn't have ever called it a relationship.

To run through just a few other spiritual experiences I've had, I asked God for wisdom like King Solomon's at 9 years old and he told me it would come through him as I got older. As a preteen I rededicated my life to Christ and I felt him at the church alter with me. At church camp I felt God in the room with me more than I could feel people there. In high school I intensively studied apologetics so I could effectively share the gospel with my acquaintances who were unsaved and God met me multiple times in that process. During college, I even had experiences much more intense than the one I described here. The point is, I've had a lot of powerful personal experiences with God in my life. So, why then am I an atheist?

The answer is my view of personal experience. See a few years ago a lot of people I knew started using and selling essential oils. A lot of them claimed that the oils cured medical issues of theirs like chronic migraines, heart diseases and even cancer, and that oils could do the same for other people. I found that there was no research showing that essential oils could do any of those things, and those selling them actually admitted as much. They believed oils could do those miraculous things based solely on their personal experiences.

I was studying scientific methodology at that time and I learned that reliable scientific medical studies always test one factor at at time by putting certain controls in place which allow researches to rule out the placebo effect, the effects of other medications, dietary and exercise changes, etc. That way the really know what caused the effects they observed. I realized that people claiming they know what essential oils do based on their personal experience didn't have a leg to stand on. What they experienced could have been and more likely was effects of factors they didn't account for. That realization led me to stand pretty firmly against essential oils and a lot of other types of alternative medicine. After all, they were using them as medicine and making huge parts of their lives based on nothing but unreliable personal experiences ... and then ... it hit me. My personal experiences with God strengthened my faith, but were they any more reliable than others' personal experiences with essential oils? Probably not.

I went on to learn that psychologists have been studying religious experiences for over a century. They've found that experiences of the supernatural had certain triggers, like music, large crowds, extended exercise, meditative states, sensory deprivation, drugs, sleep, food & water deprivation, and much much more. Scientists have even tracked brain activity during supernatural experiences and have seen predictable patterns. Many of which can be even replicated with electrical and chemical stimulation. After that I learned about the religious experiences of those of other faiths. Apparently people of basically every religion on the planet have reported experiences very similar to my own. Personally sensing and interacting with one's own deity is a universal experience regardless of the deity that one worships. People even have unique religion-specific experiences in religions which actively contradict other faiths. For instance, Pentecostals experience the baptism in the Holy Spirit or speaking in tongues, meanwhile Pentecostalism claims to be the only true religion which allows for actual connection to God. Many Muslims, however, experience a connection to Allah during prayer, in which they're bathed in a green light, green being a sacred color in Islam. Meanwhile, Islam claims to be the only true religion which allows for actual connection to God. Because of the exclusive nature of these religions, they can't both be right. One or both of them must be mistaken about the origins of their own divine experiences.

At a certain point, after learning all of this for myself, I ran through the implications of what I discovered. Maybe my experiences were real, but I hadn't controlled for any of the influences on me so I couldn't be sure what I felt was a result of something supernatural. Maybe they were real but they happened in meditative states which are known to cause brain activity, which scientists can both predict and replicate with natural means. Maybe they were real but people of religions that contradicted my own had experienced things just as real and religion-specific as I had. Maybe they were real, but I had no valid reason to think they were supernatural, and every reason to think they were natural. I could no longer be honest with myself and say that I had good reason to believe that my experiences, however powerful, were anything divine. It was dishonest to continue to think that my experiences were special while all others in different religions were most likely just a product of the mind. While that realization disappointed me in a way, it also taught me that all I need to create amazing self-transcending experiences is my brain. In fact, I've had experiences like that since becoming an atheist and they were just as powerful all while being completely naturalistic.

In my deconversion, I lost nothing and gained a greater understanding of the human condition than I had previously. Honestly, I'm glad I experienced what I did as a Christian so that I can know exactly what religious people mean when they talk about supernatural experiences. And ... if nothing else, I love that when a Christian asks me if I've ever experienced what it's like to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, I can honestly say "yes".​

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

How do you define "God"?

 

[Carl Emerson]

Summary of the argument in the video

In simple words, GM Skeptic argues that:

• Over a century of Psychology & Neuroscience research on religious experiences can provide a naturalistic explanation for these sorts of experiences. Religious experiences are simply the result of brain activity under special circumstances.
• People from different religions experience very intense and religion-specific spiritual experiences with their own respective deities. These religions cannot all be true at the same time, because they contradict each other on several key points. Therefore, this shows that personal spiritual experiences do not constitute proof of the veracity of a given religion. Otherwise, we would need to conclude that mutually contradictory religions are true at the same time, which is a logical contradiction.
• Therefore, personal spiritual experiences are unreliable, and should be dismissed entirely as supportive evidence for religious claims.

_________________________________

Question

What are your thoughts on GM Skeptic's argument against the epistemic value of personal spiritual experiences? Is his argument flawed?

_________________________________

Yes, he fails to appreciate the function of the human spirit which was created in each of us by God to bypass the normal senses and communicate Epignosis which is a total knowing of truth that comes with the conviction of the Holy Spirit...

His claim that he once was a believer cannot be taken too seriously.

Any real encounter with the Almighty leaves an indelible mark on ones being that is wholly 'other' - it seems this has not been in his journey.

 

[Aussie Pete]

Who is GM Skeptic

Genetically Modified Skeptic is the name of a very popular YouTube Channel (487K subscribers as of March 2022) and also the alias of his owner, Drew McCoy, an American atheist YouTuber who makes videos about atheism, responses to religious videos, and has also criticized alternative medicine (source).

GM Skeptic is special among popular atheist YouTubers because he not only is a former Evangelical Christian, he also claims to have had a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ" and plenty of "personal spiritual experiences" prior to his deconversion. On August 19, 2018, he uploaded a video titled My Personal Experience with God (As an Atheist) (~ 220K views). The description reads:

I'm an atheist, but I've personally experienced God in the same way that many religious people have. I left Christianity and my "personal relationship with Jesus Christ" a while back even though I had those experiences, and I think I have good reasons for that. The argument from personal experience is thrown at me often, so I wanted to have this on the record, as well as explain why personal experience isn't evidence for god.​

_________________________________

Summary of the argument in the video

In simple words, GM Skeptic argues that:

• Over a century of Psychology & Neuroscience research on religious experiences can provide a naturalistic explanation for these sorts of experiences. Religious experiences are simply the result of brain activity under special circumstances.
• People from different religions experience very intense and religion-specific spiritual experiences with their own respective deities. These religions cannot all be true at the same time, because they contradict each other on several key points. Therefore, this shows that personal spiritual experiences do not constitute proof of the veracity of a given religion. Otherwise, we would need to conclude that mutually contradictory religions are true at the same time, which is a logical contradiction.
• Therefore, personal spiritual experiences are unreliable, and should be dismissed entirely as supportive evidence for religious claims.

_________________________________

Question

What are your thoughts on GM Skeptic's argument against the epistemic value of personal spiritual experiences? Is his argument flawed?

_________________________________

Appendix - transcript of relevant excerpts from the video

0:00:

I was raised Christian fundamentalist and have only been an atheist for about two and a half years. Hopefully my regular viewers all know that by now. I believed it all fervently. I wasn't the kid that always had their doubts and asked too many questions in Sunday school and got kicked out for it. I was a leader in my church youth group. I prayed constantly. I studied the Bible diligently and I evangelize to any of my acquaintances who weren't Christian. Most of all, I had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ ... or, so I thought ...

A major part of my Christian life was personally experiencing and interacting with God. Some but not all atheists I know say they've never experienced anything they felt was supernatural even when they were religious. But, I have, and I want to take you through the story of a deeply meaningful experience I had, tell you what it meant to me then, and tell what it means to me now.​

3:37:

[...] and suddenly I wasn't alone in the room. Something intense swept over me. God's presence was there and I was overcome with indescribable peace. Time became imperceptible and my sense of self was stripped away. I was meeting with God. No words were needed to communicate what happened from there. I was to become more open, more vulnerable, more compassionate. God would allow me to feel emotion like I never had before for a few days from that point on [...]​

4:56:

As unique or life-changing as that experience sounds, it's far from the only one I've ever had. I actually had to choose between several experiences I could tell you guys about for this video. Growing up how I did, those moments were definitely special but they weren't uncommon. The presence of God was something I felt pretty often. Not always in huge miraculous ways but also in still small ways that felt like the comfort from a close friend. I mean, I had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. If I hadn't felt like he was there with me sometimes then, I wouldn't have ever called it a relationship.

To run through just a few other spiritual experiences I've had, I asked God for wisdom like King Solomon's at 9 years old and he told me it would come through him as I got older. As a preteen I rededicated my life to Christ and I felt him at the church alter with me. At church camp I felt God in the room with me more than I could feel people there. In high school I intensively studied apologetics so I could effectively share the gospel with my acquaintances who were unsaved and God met me multiple times in that process. During college, I even had experiences much more intense than the one I described here. The point is, I've had a lot of powerful personal experiences with God in my life. So, why then am I an atheist?

The answer is my view of personal experience. See a few years ago a lot of people I knew started using and selling essential oils. A lot of them claimed that the oils cured medical issues of theirs like chronic migraines, heart diseases and even cancer, and that oils could do the same for other people. I found that there was no research showing that essential oils could do any of those things, and those selling them actually admitted as much. They believed oils could do those miraculous things based solely on their personal experiences.

I was studying scientific methodology at that time and I learned that reliable scientific medical studies always test one factor at at time by putting certain controls in place which allow researches to rule out the placebo effect, the effects of other medications, dietary and exercise changes, etc. That way the really know what caused the effects they observed. I realized that people claiming they know what essential oils do based on their personal experience didn't have a leg to stand on. What they experienced could have been and more likely was effects of factors they didn't account for. That realization led me to stand pretty firmly against essential oils and a lot of other types of alternative medicine. After all, they were using them as medicine and making huge parts of their lives based on nothing but unreliable personal experiences ... and then ... it hit me. My personal experiences with God strengthened my faith, but were they any more reliable than others' personal experiences with essential oils? Probably not.

I went on to learn that psychologists have been studying religious experiences for over a century. They've found that experiences of the supernatural had certain triggers, like music, large crowds, extended exercise, meditative states, sensory deprivation, drugs, sleep, food & water deprivation, and much much more. Scientists have even tracked brain activity during supernatural experiences and have seen predictable patterns. Many of which can be even replicated with electrical and chemical stimulation. After that I learned about the religious experiences of those of other faiths. Apparently people of basically every religion on the planet have reported experiences very similar to my own. Personally sensing and interacting with one's own deity is a universal experience regardless of the deity that one worships. People even have unique religion-specific experiences in religions which actively contradict other faiths. For instance, Pentecostals experience the baptism in the Holy Spirit or speaking in tongues, meanwhile Pentecostalism claims to be the only true religion which allows for actual connection to God. Many Muslims, however, experience a connection to Allah during prayer, in which they're bathed in a green light, green being a sacred color in Islam. Meanwhile, Islam claims to be the only true religion which allows for actual connection to God. Because of the exclusive nature of these religions, they can't both be right. One or both of them must be mistaken about the origins of their own divine experiences.

At a certain point, after learning all of this for myself, I ran through the implications of what I discovered. Maybe my experiences were real, but I hadn't controlled for any of the influences on me so I couldn't be sure what I felt was a result of something supernatural. Maybe they were real but they happened in meditative states which are known to cause brain activity, which scientists can both predict and replicate with natural means. Maybe they were real but people of religions that contradicted my own had experienced things just as real and religion-specific as I had. Maybe they were real, but I had no valid reason to think they were supernatural, and every reason to think they were natural. I could no longer be honest with myself and say that I had good reason to believe that my experiences, however powerful, were anything divine. I was dishonest to continue to think that my experiences were special while all others in different religions were most likely just a product of the mind. While that realization disappointed me in a way, it also taught me that all I need to create amazing self-transcending experiences is my brain. In fact, I've had experiences like that since becoming an atheist and they were just as powerful all while being completely naturalistic.

In my deconversion, I lost nothing and gained a greater understanding of the human condition than I had previously. Honestly, I'm glad I experienced what I did as a Christian so that I can know exactly what religious people mean when they talk about supernatural experiences. And ... if nothing else, I love that when a Christian asks me if I've ever experienced what it's like to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, I can honestly say "yes".​

And such is the problem with people who base their Christianity on experiences. Satan can and does counterfeit experiences. His claim to have a personal experience with Jesus is patently false. We are warned in God's word about false Christs. He's been led astray and is deceived. He never knew Jesus. Worse, Jesus does not recognise him.

Every person he leads astray by his pronouncements increase his level of judgement when he faces God. I'd like to meet him and hear exactly what happened when he was supposedly saved.

He is right about supernatural experiences being common in many religions. He is wrong about the source. He is simply being controlled by occult powers. And yes, they influence the mind and emotions, which can be monitored medically.

 

[PloverWing]

I think that, while GM Skeptic is right to be wary of religious experience as a form of proof, he is mistaken when he rejects the value of religious experience altogether.

Any experience we have of the world -- whether it's an internal feeling or an external sense perception -- is a state of our brains and bodies. That's the kind of beings we are. If we are happy or afraid or we see the color blue or we smell gingerbread, it is embodied as a particular brain state. So saying "it wasn't really God, it was just a state your brain was in" is like saying "it wasn't really the smell of gingerbread, it was just a state your nose and brain were in".

Now, brains can be fooled. People hallucinate, or make other kinds of mistakes in their sense perception. And people can make mistakes in their perception of internal states, including spiritual experiences.

On top of that, internal experiences can't be verified by other people as easily as sensory experiences can. If we're both looking at an object, we can talk about what we both see and figure out that we're talking about the same thing. But I can't see inside your head to see your spiritual experiences (or emotional experiences, or other kinds of internal states and experiences), so it's much harder to figure out if you and I are experiencing the same thing. That doesn't make internal experiences illusory; it just makes it really hard to analyze and verify them.

As to people who follow other religions: I see no reason to think their spiritual experiences are all false. As we reflect on our experiences afterwards, of course, we may come to different conclusions. One person looks at their experience and says "That was Jesus"; another says "That was the spirit of the universe" or "That was Ganesha", or even "That was a strange dream", and we can't all be right. Spiritual experiences aren't often detailed enough to tell us whether there are many gods or one or none. Discerning amongst those options is difficult philosophical work. But spiritual experiences can be genuine, even if the philosophical analysis we do afterwards contains mistakes.

 

[Carl Emerson]

As to people who follow other religions: I see no reason to think their spiritual experiences are all false. As we reflect on our experiences afterwards, of course, we may come to different conclusions. One person looks at their experience and says "That was Jesus"; another says "That was the spirit of the universe" or "That was Ganesha", or even "That was a strange dream", and we can't all be right. Spiritual experiences aren't often detailed enough to tell us whether there are many gods or one or none. Discerning amongst those options is difficult philosophical work. But spiritual experiences can be genuine, even if the philosophical analysis we do afterwards contains mistakes.

My experience has been that an encounter with Jesus leaves no doubt which spiritual entity is communicating.

 

[PloverWing]

My experience has been that an encounter with Jesus leaves no doubt which spiritual entity is communicating.

I'm glad your experience was that clear to you.

 

[NBB]

If he lost nothing when deconverting, he had nothing to begin with, ask a christian if they would like to have the holy spirit ripped apart from them, most say they would prefer to die.

 

[TruthSeek3r]

If he lost nothing when deconverting, he had nothing to begin with, ask a christian if they would like to have the holy spirit ripped apart from them, most say they would prefer to die.

Excellent point. He claims that he continued having similar "spiritual experiences" after deconversion, which means that the cause of his experiences when he was a believer couldn't have been the Holy Spirit ... or maybe it was, and now he is just experiencing a counterfeit ... I don't know. To be honest, without the ability to read someone else's mind/memory, this is way too speculative.

 

[Joy]

MOD HAT ON

This Thread has Moved
From
Requests for Christian Advice
To
Controversial Christian Theology

MOD HAT OFF​

 

[Maria Billingsley]

Who is GM Skeptic

Genetically Modified Skeptic is the name of a very popular YouTube Channel (487K subscribers as of March 2022) and also the alias of his owner, Drew McCoy, an American atheist YouTuber who makes videos about atheism, responses to religious videos, and has also criticized alternative medicine (source).

GM Skeptic is special among popular atheist YouTubers because he not only is a former Evangelical Christian, he also claims to have had a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ" and plenty of "personal spiritual experiences" prior to his deconversion. On August 19, 2018, he uploaded a video titled My Personal Experience with God (As an Atheist) (~ 220K views). The description reads:

I'm an atheist, but I've personally experienced God in the same way that many religious people have. I left Christianity and my "personal relationship with Jesus Christ" a while back even though I had those experiences, and I think I have good reasons for that. The argument from personal experience is thrown at me often, so I wanted to have this on the record, as well as explain why personal experience isn't evidence for god.​

_________________________________

Summary of the argument in the video

In simple words, GM Skeptic argues that:

• Over a century of Psychology & Neuroscience research on religious experiences can provide a naturalistic explanation for these sorts of experiences. Religious experiences are simply the result of brain activity under special circumstances.
• People from different religions experience very intense and religion-specific spiritual experiences with their own respective deities. These religions cannot all be true at the same time, because they contradict each other on several key points. Therefore, this shows that personal spiritual experiences do not constitute proof of the veracity of a given religion. Otherwise, we would need to conclude that mutually contradictory religions are true at the same time, which is a logical contradiction.
• Therefore, personal spiritual experiences are unreliable, and should be dismissed entirely as supportive evidence for religious claims.

_________________________________

Question

What are your thoughts on GM Skeptic's argument against the epistemic value of personal spiritual experiences? Is his argument flawed?

_________________________________

Appendix - transcript of relevant excerpts from the video

0:00:

I was raised Christian fundamentalist and have only been an atheist for about two and a half years. Hopefully my regular viewers all know that by now. I believed it all fervently. I wasn't the kid that always had their doubts and asked too many questions in Sunday school and got kicked out for it. I was a leader in my church youth group. I prayed constantly. I studied the Bible diligently and I evangelize to any of my acquaintances who weren't Christian. Most of all, I had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ ... or, so I thought ...

A major part of my Christian life was personally experiencing and interacting with God. Some but not all atheists I know say they've never experienced anything they felt was supernatural even when they were religious. But, I have, and I want to take you through the story of a deeply meaningful experience I had, tell you what it meant to me then, and tell what it means to me now.​

3:37:

[...] and suddenly I wasn't alone in the room. Something intense swept over me. God's presence was there and I was overcome with indescribable peace. Time became imperceptible and my sense of self was stripped away. I was meeting with God. No words were needed to communicate what happened from there. I was to become more open, more vulnerable, more compassionate. God would allow me to feel emotion like I never had before for a few days from that point on [...]​

4:56:

As unique or life-changing as that experience sounds, it's far from the only one I've ever had. I actually had to choose between several experiences I could tell you guys about for this video. Growing up how I did, those moments were definitely special but they weren't uncommon. The presence of God was something I felt pretty often. Not always in huge miraculous ways but also in still small ways that felt like the comfort from a close friend. I mean, I had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. If I hadn't felt like he was there with me sometimes then, I wouldn't have ever called it a relationship.

To run through just a few other spiritual experiences I've had, I asked God for wisdom like King Solomon's at 9 years old and he told me it would come through him as I got older. As a preteen I rededicated my life to Christ and I felt him at the church alter with me. At church camp I felt God in the room with me more than I could feel people there. In high school I intensively studied apologetics so I could effectively share the gospel with my acquaintances who were unsaved and God met me multiple times in that process. During college, I even had experiences much more intense than the one I described here. The point is, I've had a lot of powerful personal experiences with God in my life. So, why then am I an atheist?

The answer is my view of personal experience. See a few years ago a lot of people I knew started using and selling essential oils. A lot of them claimed that the oils cured medical issues of theirs like chronic migraines, heart diseases and even cancer, and that oils could do the same for other people. I found that there was no research showing that essential oils could do any of those things, and those selling them actually admitted as much. They believed oils could do those miraculous things based solely on their personal experiences.

I was studying scientific methodology at that time and I learned that reliable scientific medical studies always test one factor at at time by putting certain controls in place which allow researches to rule out the placebo effect, the effects of other medications, dietary and exercise changes, etc. That way the really know what caused the effects they observed. I realized that people claiming they know what essential oils do based on their personal experience didn't have a leg to stand on. What they experienced could have been and more likely was effects of factors they didn't account for. That realization led me to stand pretty firmly against essential oils and a lot of other types of alternative medicine. After all, they were using them as medicine and making huge parts of their lives based on nothing but unreliable personal experiences ... and then ... it hit me. My personal experiences with God strengthened my faith, but were they any more reliable than others' personal experiences with essential oils? Probably not.

I went on to learn that psychologists have been studying religious experiences for over a century. They've found that experiences of the supernatural had certain triggers, like music, large crowds, extended exercise, meditative states, sensory deprivation, drugs, sleep, food & water deprivation, and much much more. Scientists have even tracked brain activity during supernatural experiences and have seen predictable patterns. Many of which can be even replicated with electrical and chemical stimulation. After that I learned about the religious experiences of those of other faiths. Apparently people of basically every religion on the planet have reported experiences very similar to my own. Personally sensing and interacting with one's own deity is a universal experience regardless of the deity that one worships. People even have unique religion-specific experiences in religions which actively contradict other faiths. For instance, Pentecostals experience the baptism in the Holy Spirit or speaking in tongues, meanwhile Pentecostalism claims to be the only true religion which allows for actual connection to God. Many Muslims, however, experience a connection to Allah during prayer, in which they're bathed in a green light, green being a sacred color in Islam. Meanwhile, Islam claims to be the only true religion which allows for actual connection to God. Because of the exclusive nature of these religions, they can't both be right. One or both of them must be mistaken about the origins of their own divine experiences.

At a certain point, after learning all of this for myself, I ran through the implications of what I discovered. Maybe my experiences were real, but I hadn't controlled for any of the influences on me so I couldn't be sure what I felt was a result of something supernatural. Maybe they were real but they happened in meditative states which are known to cause brain activity, which scientists can both predict and replicate with natural means. Maybe they were real but people of religions that contradicted my own had experienced things just as real and religion-specific as I had. Maybe they were real, but I had no valid reason to think they were supernatural, and every reason to think they were natural. I could no longer be honest with myself and say that I had good reason to believe that my experiences, however powerful, were anything divine. I was dishonest to continue to think that my experiences were special while all others in different religions were most likely just a product of the mind. While that realization disappointed me in a way, it also taught me that all I need to create amazing self-transcending experiences is my brain. In fact, I've had experiences like that since becoming an atheist and they were just as powerful all while being completely naturalistic.

In my deconversion, I lost nothing and gained a greater understanding of the human condition than I had previously. Honestly, I'm glad I experienced what I did as a Christian so that I can know exactly what religious people mean when they talk about supernatural experiences. And ... if nothing else, I love that when a Christian asks me if I've ever experienced what it's like to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, I can honestly say "yes".​

My take away is he never experienced regeneration through the Holy Spirit. He claims this is a Pentecostal phenomena when in fact it is what brings us into the Body of Christ. The flesh can produce many euphoric experiences and so can the adversary. At best he was never converted and regenerated, at worse He apostisized. Either way he has rejected Jesus Christ of Nazareth as his King. Mystical experiences are by no means a gauge for the Holy Spirit dwelling in a person. Scripture tells us precisely what the signs and experiences will be and none of them are esoteric.

Galatians 5:22-23
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness,goodness,faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Blessings

 

[Jipsah]

Preface here - I consider atheism ridiculous and unworthy of consideration by any intelligent person. There, that should stave off any accusations of "closet atheism".

What are your thoughts on GM Skeptic's argument against the epistemic value of personal spiritual experiences? Is his argument flawed?

I agree with him. During my pentecostalist period, I heard too many accounts of spiritual experiences that seemed to me patently false. Reports that were absurd ("I saw Jesus sitting on a stump and he looked right at me!"), manipulative ("the Holy Spirit has shown me that you're burdened with unconfessed sin"), probable dreams ("My departed grandmother was standing at the end of my bed..."), etc. Some used "spiritual experiences" to gain street-cred among their chjurch brethren. Some were purely delusional. One dear friend of mine who who I believe almost incapable ot telling a knowing falsehood shared a series of stores with me that were, to put it bluntly, deranged and mostly ridiculous, but that he sincerely believed to be true. Mostly innocent or at least well-meant stuff.

Then there are the actual frauds. One that I took a lot of personal abuse in these forums for refusing to swallow was the "His Name Is Flowing Oil" fraud. Lies, misrepresentations, outright con artistry. Stage magic passed off as acts of God. Nasty business. Fortunately the perps proved "too clever by half" and were soon caught out. But during their run they inspired tons of "religious experiences" amongst the credulous. Very sad.

"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen".

I'm a deist because logic demands it.

I'm a Christian by faith.

 

[bling]

Just as you cannot “proof” someone had a personal miraculous experience and interaction with God: you cannot “disproof” it either.

The Bible does not tell us to build our faith on feelings, but on truth and that means real knowledge.

Read and study scripture and see if you do not find an extremely wise Jesus, a very deep logic behind what He says and does, and everything in nature working together to help willing individual in the fulfillment of their earthly objective.

This seemingly messed up Universe is designed to help those willing to accept God’s help.

Does he not see man’s objective fitting perfectly into the world?

I would say: “the word to him fell on rocky soil, sprang up and because it was poorly grounded died away.”

His Atheist believe is supported by the fact he and others cannot “proof” the miraculous experiences really came from God and were truly miraculous.

OK, but before jumping to atheism, he needs to show the support for there not being a God and at least compare it to those believing there is a God.

What is the more likely alternative and if God is much more likely then it will take a much greater faith to believe there is no God.

The idea of something coming from nothing is far from being proven, or shown to be even possible. “Nothing” has to be redefined as something and the model has lots of unanswered questions.

An infinite number of universes over an infinite amount of time does not solve anything.

Think about this: “Intelligence” exists here on earth, so even if intelligence came from just; matter, energy, time and space, could earth have been the first time and place it happened, given an infinite number of universes and time? We can easily imagine, intelligence would come about with the help of previous intelligence, then to believe intelligence just came from matter, energy, time and space. Is it reasonable to think, half way back in previous time, super intelligence might develop and it could thus create lesser intelligence? Half way back in infinity is also infinity.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

Maybe they were real, but I had no valid reason to think they were supernatural, and every reason to think they were natural. I could no longer be honest with myself and say that I had good reason to believe that my experiences, however powerful, were anything divine. I was dishonest to continue to think that my experiences were special while all others in different religions were most likely just a product of the mind. While that realization disappointed me in a way, it also taught me that all I need to create amazing self-transcending experiences is my brain. In fact, I've had experiences like that since becoming an atheist and they were just as powerful all while being completely naturalistic.

This is where I think I part company with a lot of believers. I see no distinction between natural and supernatural. That distinction is like the horizon, purely a matter of perception. The "natural" world is a manifestation, an expression of God and so are each of us. And when atheists talk about the brain they really don't have comprehensive idea of what they are talking about. They reduce it to observable functions without really understanding what gives it life or what life is.

 

[BobRyan]

• Therefore, personal spiritual experiences are unreliable, and should be dismissed entirely as supportive evidence for religious claims.

_________________________________

Question

What are your thoughts on GM Skeptic's argument against the epistemic value of personal spiritual experiences? Is his argument flawed?

1. It is just as illogical to conclude an argument with "therefore eye witness testimony should never be used in a court of law" as it is to conclude "Therefore, personal spiritual experiences are unreliable, and should be dismissed entirely as supportive evidence for religious claims", The four gospels come to mind.

2. Sarah Morehead, executive director for Recovering From Religion - a hotline for atheistst to help them adjust to being atheist (not to make them Christian - rather the opposite) -- said in a radio interview on the Michael Medved program - that the number one complaint from atheists over the hotline (no matter how long they had been an atheist) - was "fear of hell". This is predicted in the Christian model since we are told in John 16 that the Holy Spirit " convicts the world of sin and judgment - (John 16) -- 'not just Christians being convicted.

GM's logic backfires on him in the case of the second point above - since atheists fearing hell are from all sorts of background.

 

[fhansen]

Who is GM Skeptic

Genetically Modified Skeptic is the name of a very popular YouTube Channel (487K subscribers as of March 2022) and also the alias of his owner, Drew McCoy, an American atheist YouTuber who makes videos about atheism, responses to religious videos, and has also criticized alternative medicine (source).

GM Skeptic is special among popular atheist YouTubers because he not only is a former Evangelical Christian, he also claims to have had a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ" and plenty of "personal spiritual experiences" prior to his deconversion. On August 19, 2018, he uploaded a video titled My Personal Experience with God (As an Atheist) (~ 220K views). The description reads:

I'm an atheist, but I've personally experienced God in the same way that many religious people have. I left Christianity and my "personal relationship with Jesus Christ" a while back even though I had those experiences, and I think I have good reasons for that. The argument from personal experience is thrown at me often, so I wanted to have this on the record, as well as explain why personal experience isn't evidence for god.​

_________________________________

Summary of the argument in the video

In simple words, GM Skeptic argues that:

• Over a century of Psychology & Neuroscience research on religious experiences can provide a naturalistic explanation for these sorts of experiences. Religious experiences are simply the result of brain activity under special circumstances.
• People from different religions experience very intense and religion-specific spiritual experiences with their own respective deities. These religions cannot all be true at the same time, because they contradict each other on several key points. Therefore, this shows that personal spiritual experiences do not constitute proof of the veracity of a given religion. Otherwise, we would need to conclude that mutually contradictory religions are true at the same time, which is a logical contradiction.
• Therefore, personal spiritual experiences are unreliable, and should be dismissed entirely as supportive evidence for religious claims.

_________________________________

Question

What are your thoughts on GM Skeptic's argument against the epistemic value of personal spiritual experiences? Is his argument flawed?

_________________________________

Appendix - transcript of relevant excerpts from the video

0:00:

I was raised Christian fundamentalist and have only been an atheist for about two and a half years. Hopefully my regular viewers all know that by now. I believed it all fervently. I wasn't the kid that always had their doubts and asked too many questions in Sunday school and got kicked out for it. I was a leader in my church youth group. I prayed constantly. I studied the Bible diligently and I evangelize to any of my acquaintances who weren't Christian. Most of all, I had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ ... or, so I thought ...

A major part of my Christian life was personally experiencing and interacting with God. Some but not all atheists I know say they've never experienced anything they felt was supernatural even when they were religious. But, I have, and I want to take you through the story of a deeply meaningful experience I had, tell you what it meant to me then, and tell what it means to me now.​

3:37:

[...] and suddenly I wasn't alone in the room. Something intense swept over me. God's presence was there and I was overcome with indescribable peace. Time became imperceptible and my sense of self was stripped away. I was meeting with God. No words were needed to communicate what happened from there. I was to become more open, more vulnerable, more compassionate. God would allow me to feel emotion like I never had before for a few days from that point on [...]​

4:56:

As unique or life-changing as that experience sounds, it's far from the only one I've ever had. I actually had to choose between several experiences I could tell you guys about for this video. Growing up how I did, those moments were definitely special but they weren't uncommon. The presence of God was something I felt pretty often. Not always in huge miraculous ways but also in still small ways that felt like the comfort from a close friend. I mean, I had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. If I hadn't felt like he was there with me sometimes then, I wouldn't have ever called it a relationship.

To run through just a few other spiritual experiences I've had, I asked God for wisdom like King Solomon's at 9 years old and he told me it would come through him as I got older. As a preteen I rededicated my life to Christ and I felt him at the church alter with me. At church camp I felt God in the room with me more than I could feel people there. In high school I intensively studied apologetics so I could effectively share the gospel with my acquaintances who were unsaved and God met me multiple times in that process. During college, I even had experiences much more intense than the one I described here. The point is, I've had a lot of powerful personal experiences with God in my life. So, why then am I an atheist?

The answer is my view of personal experience. See a few years ago a lot of people I knew started using and selling essential oils. A lot of them claimed that the oils cured medical issues of theirs like chronic migraines, heart diseases and even cancer, and that oils could do the same for other people. I found that there was no research showing that essential oils could do any of those things, and those selling them actually admitted as much. They believed oils could do those miraculous things based solely on their personal experiences.

I was studying scientific methodology at that time and I learned that reliable scientific medical studies always test one factor at at time by putting certain controls in place which allow researches to rule out the placebo effect, the effects of other medications, dietary and exercise changes, etc. That way the really know what caused the effects they observed. I realized that people claiming they know what essential oils do based on their personal experience didn't have a leg to stand on. What they experienced could have been and more likely was effects of factors they didn't account for. That realization led me to stand pretty firmly against essential oils and a lot of other types of alternative medicine. After all, they were using them as medicine and making huge parts of their lives based on nothing but unreliable personal experiences ... and then ... it hit me. My personal experiences with God strengthened my faith, but were they any more reliable than others' personal experiences with essential oils? Probably not.

I went on to learn that psychologists have been studying religious experiences for over a century. They've found that experiences of the supernatural had certain triggers, like music, large crowds, extended exercise, meditative states, sensory deprivation, drugs, sleep, food & water deprivation, and much much more. Scientists have even tracked brain activity during supernatural experiences and have seen predictable patterns. Many of which can be even replicated with electrical and chemical stimulation. After that I learned about the religious experiences of those of other faiths. Apparently people of basically every religion on the planet have reported experiences very similar to my own. Personally sensing and interacting with one's own deity is a universal experience regardless of the deity that one worships. People even have unique religion-specific experiences in religions which actively contradict other faiths. For instance, Pentecostals experience the baptism in the Holy Spirit or speaking in tongues, meanwhile Pentecostalism claims to be the only true religion which allows for actual connection to God. Many Muslims, however, experience a connection to Allah during prayer, in which they're bathed in a green light, green being a sacred color in Islam. Meanwhile, Islam claims to be the only true religion which allows for actual connection to God. Because of the exclusive nature of these religions, they can't both be right. One or both of them must be mistaken about the origins of their own divine experiences.

At a certain point, after learning all of this for myself, I ran through the implications of what I discovered. Maybe my experiences were real, but I hadn't controlled for any of the influences on me so I couldn't be sure what I felt was a result of something supernatural. Maybe they were real but they happened in meditative states which are known to cause brain activity, which scientists can both predict and replicate with natural means. Maybe they were real but people of religions that contradicted my own had experienced things just as real and religion-specific as I had. Maybe they were real, but I had no valid reason to think they were supernatural, and every reason to think they were natural. I could no longer be honest with myself and say that I had good reason to believe that my experiences, however powerful, were anything divine. It was dishonest to continue to think that my experiences were special while all others in different religions were most likely just a product of the mind. While that realization disappointed me in a way, it also taught me that all I need to create amazing self-transcending experiences is my brain. In fact, I've had experiences like that since becoming an atheist and they were just as powerful all while being completely naturalistic.

In my deconversion, I lost nothing and gained a greater understanding of the human condition than I had previously. Honestly, I'm glad I experienced what I did as a Christian so that I can know exactly what religious people mean when they talk about supernatural experiences. And ... if nothing else, I love that when a Christian asks me if I've ever experienced what it's like to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, I can honestly say "yes".​

Personal spiritual experiences should never be depended on as the basis of one’s faith, even though at the end of the day God is/will be a practical personal experience, no more, no less, just as it is with any real being, even as such an experience of Him would be incomparably profound. Our faith points us to that very meeting.

And some have experienced being gifted with a “glimpse” of that union in the here and now, at Gods discretion and for His reasons and purposes, and while anyone can say they’ve had a “personal experience” themselves, anyone else can say, ‘Ok, but then, if you experienced the real thing it would be impossible to dismiss it. IOW, you haven’t really experienced what you think or in any case claim that you have.”

 

[Clare73]

Who is GM Skeptic

Genetically Modified Skeptic is the name of a very popular YouTube Channel (487K subscribers as of March 2022) and also the alias of his owner, Drew McCoy, an American atheist YouTuber who makes videos about atheism, responses to religious videos, and has also criticized alternative medicine (source).

GM Skeptic is special among popular atheist YouTubers because he not only is a former Evangelical Christian, he also claims to have had a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ" and plenty of "personal spiritual experiences" prior to his deconversion. On August 19, 2018, he uploaded a video titled My Personal Experience with God (As an Atheist) (~ 220K views). The description reads:

I'm an atheist, but I've personally experienced God in the same way that many religious people have. I left Christianity and my "personal relationship with Jesus Christ" a while back even though I had those experiences, and I think I have good reasons for that. The argument from personal experience is thrown at me often, so I wanted to have this on the record, as well as explain why personal experience isn't evidence for god.​

_________________________________

Summary of the argument in the video

In simple words, GM Skeptic argues that:

• Over a century of Psychology & Neuroscience research on religious experiences can provide a naturalistic explanation for these sorts of experiences. Religious experiences are simply the result of brain activity under special circumstances.
• People from different religions experience very intense and religion-specific spiritual experiences with their own respective deities. These religions cannot all be true at the same time, because they contradict each other on several key points. Therefore, this shows that personal spiritual experiences do not constitute proof of the veracity of a given religion. Otherwise, we would need to conclude that mutually contradictory religions are true at the same time, which is a logical contradiction.
• Therefore, personal spiritual experiences are unreliable, and should be dismissed entirely as supportive evidence for religious claims.

_________________________________

Question

What are your thoughts on GM Skeptic's argument against the epistemic value of personal spiritual experiences? Is his argument flawed?

_________________________________

Appendix - transcript of relevant excerpts from the video

0:00:

I was raised Christian fundamentalist and have only been an atheist for about two and a half years. Hopefully my regular viewers all know that by now. I believed it all fervently. I wasn't the kid that always had their doubts and asked too many questions in Sunday school and got kicked out for it. I was a leader in my church youth group. I prayed constantly. I studied the Bible diligently and I evangelize to any of my acquaintances who weren't Christian. Most of all, I had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ ... or, so I thought ...

A major part of my Christian life was personally experiencing and interacting with God. Some but not all atheists I know say they've never experienced anything they felt was supernatural even when they were religious. But, I have, and I want to take you through the story of a deeply meaningful experience I had, tell you what it meant to me then, and tell what it means to me now.​

3:37: [...] and suddenly I wasn't alone in the room. Something intense swept over me. God's presence was there and I was overcome with indescribable peace. Time became imperceptible and my sense of self was stripped away. I was meeting with God. No words were needed to communicate what happened from there. I was to become more open, more vulnerable, more compassionate. God would allow me to feel emotion like I never had before for a few days from that point on [...]

These are not characteristics of the Holy Spirit.​

4:56:

As unique or life-changing as that experience sounds, it's far from the only one I've ever had. I actually had to choose between several experiences I could tell you guys about for this video. Growing up how I did, those moments were definitely special but they weren't uncommon. The presence of God was something I felt pretty often. Not always in huge miraculous ways but also in still small ways that felt like the comfort from a close friend. I mean, I had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. If I hadn't felt like he was there with me sometimes then, I wouldn't have ever called it a relationship.
​

To run through just a few other spiritual experiences I've had, I asked God for wisdom like King Solomon's at 9 years old and he told me it would come through him as I got older.

I suspect this is where the problem started. . .at nine years old.

As a preteen I rededicated my life to Christ and I felt him at the church alter with me. At church camp I felt God in the room with me more than I could feel people there. In high school I intensively studied apologetics so I could effectively share the gospel with my acquaintances who were unsaved and God met me multiple times in that process. During college, I even had experiences much more intense than the one I described here. The point is, I've had a lot of powerful personal experiences with God in my life. So, why then am I an atheist?

What you describe is not "God with you," but the external presence of an unclean spirit.

The answer is my view of personal experience. See a few years ago a lot of people I knew started using and selling essential oils. A lot of them claimed that the oils cured medical issues of theirs like chronic migraines, heart diseases and even cancer, and that oils could do the same for other people. I found that there was no research showing that essential oils could do any of those things, and those selling them actually admitted as much. They believed oils could do those miraculous things based solely on their personal experiences.

I was studying scientific methodology at that time and I learned that reliable scientific medical studies always test one factor at at time by putting certain controls in place which allow researches to rule out the placebo effect, the effects of other medications, dietary and exercise changes, etc. That way the really know what caused the effects they observed. I realized that people claiming they know what essential oils do based on their personal experience didn't have a leg to stand on. What they experienced could have been and more likely was effects of factors they didn't account for. That realization led me to stand pretty firmly against essential oils and a lot of other types of alternative medicine. After all, they were using them as medicine and making huge parts of their lives based on nothing but unreliable personal experiences ... and then ... it hit me. My personal experiences with God strengthened my faith, but were they any more reliable than others' personal experiences with essential oils? Probably not.

I went on to learn that psychologists have been studying religious experiences for over a century. They've found that experiences of the supernatural had certain triggers, like music, large crowds, extended exercise, meditative states, sensory deprivation, drugs, sleep, food & water deprivation, and much much more. Scientists have even tracked brain activity during supernatural experiences and have seen predictable patterns. Many of which can be even replicated with electrical and chemical stimulation. After that I learned about the religious experiences of those of other faiths. Apparently people of basically every religion on the planet have reported experiences very similar to my own. Personally sensing and interacting with one's own deity is a universal experience regardless of the deity that one worships. People even have unique religion-specific experiences in religions which actively contradict other faiths. For instance, Pentecostals experience the baptism in the Holy Spirit or speaking in tongues, meanwhile Pentecostalism claims to be the only true religion which allows for actual connection to God. Many Muslims, however, experience a connection to Allah during prayer, in which they're bathed in a green light, green being a sacred color in Islam. Meanwhile, Islam claims to be the only true religion which allows for actual connection to God. Because of the exclusive nature of these religions, they can't both be right. One or both of them must be mistaken about the origins of their own divine experiences.

At a certain point, after learning all of this for myself, I ran through the implications of what I discovered. Maybe my experiences were real, but I hadn't controlled for any of the influences on me so I couldn't be sure what I felt was a result of something supernatural. Maybe they were real but they happened in meditative states which are known to cause brain activity, which scientists can both predict and replicate with natural means. Maybe they were real but people of religions that contradicted my own had experienced things just as real and religion-specific as I had. Maybe they were real, but I had no valid reason to think they were supernatural, and every reason to think they were natural. I could no longer be honest with myself and say that I had good reason to believe that my experiences, however powerful, were anything divine. It was dishonest to continue to think that my experiences were special while all others in different religions were most likely just a product of the mind. While that realization disappointed me in a way, it also taught me that all I need to create amazing self-transcending experiences is my brain. In fact, I've had experiences like that since becoming an atheist and they were just as powerful all while being completely naturalistic.

In my deconversion, I lost nothing and gained a greater understanding of the human condition than I had previously. Honestly, I'm glad I experienced what I did as a Christian so that I can know exactly what religious people mean when they talk about supernatural experiences. And ... if nothing else, I love that when a Christian asks me if I've ever experienced what it's like to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, I can honestly say "yes
".

What is described here is definitely a real spiritual experience, however, not of the realm of the Holy Spirit, but rather of the unholy spirit.

And though he may not know it, they are still "with him."
​

 

[aiki]

The GM Skeptic took Greg Koukl to task a while ago and Greg has made a couple of response videos recently on his Stand To Reason podcast. You might find them worthwhile. You can see the videos on YouTube on Greg's Stand To Reason channel.

GM Skeptic is special among popular atheist YouTubers because he not only is a former Evangelical Christian, he also claims to have had a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ" and plenty of "personal spiritual experiences" prior to his deconversion. On August 19, 2018, he uploaded a video titled My Personal Experience with God (As an Atheist) (~ 220K views). The description reads:

I'm an atheist, but I've personally experienced God in the same way that many religious people have. I left Christianity and my "personal relationship with Jesus Christ" a while back even though I had those experiences, and I think I have good reasons for that. The argument from personal experience is thrown at me often, so I wanted to have this on the record, as well as explain why personal experience isn't evidence for god.

What's ironic here is that GM is using his own personal experience as grounds to show that personal experience may be discarded.

Summary of the argument in the video

In simple words, GM Skeptic argues that:

• Over a century of Psychology & Neuroscience research on religious experiences can provide a naturalistic explanation for these sorts of experiences. Religious experiences are simply the result of brain activity under special circumstances.

As Dr. John Lennox has pointed out, being able to explain how a page in a book is made, what the chemical make-up of the ink forming the letters on the page is, what sort and size of font was used on what kind of printing press, how the page is bound to the rest of the pages of the book, and so on, does nothing to explain the purpose of the book or the meaning of the words on its pages. Likewise, detailed descriptions of the material nature of the universe do nothing to answer the Big Questions concerning it: Why does the universe exist? Why do I exist? Where did the universe come from? What happens after I die? Is there existence beyond the death of the body? You can't get at the answers to these questions by mere explanations of the mechanical features of the universe.

Also, the meaning of the words on the page of the book is not located in the page or the ink that forms the words that express the meaning. One cannot dissect the page mechanically, dissolving, burning, or steaming out the meaning, able then to put it in a beaker and examine the meaning as a material entity. No, the meaning of the words on the page of the book is immaterial, communicated by the words and in this way related to them, but not contained by, and confined to, the words. A reader of the book extracts the meaning of the words of the book from it and in his mind carries that meaning with him when the book is closed and put on a shelf. And so, while the physical words and their meaning are inter-related, the meaning expressed by the words is not dependent upon the words on the page for its existence.

Likewise the brain and mind. They are related as printed words are related to the meaning they convey, but the brain is no more the mind than the words on a page are the meaning they express. As well, describing the connection between one's brain and one's mind does nothing to prove God does not exist. Such a description speaks ultimately only to the nature of the connection between mind and brain.

If one can establish that God exists, then it follows inevitably that the mind exists and not just the brain. God is immaterial but existent, as the Christian believes the mind to be. Actually, so are numbers and sets of numbers, the laws of logic, and things like integrity, courage, and love. Anyway, there are excellent arguments and evidences for God's existence and thus, by extension, good grounds for asserting mind-body dualism.

All this to say, that the physicalism GM Skeptic wants to assert does not hold up as proof-positive that God does not exist and Christianity is false.

People from different religions experience very intense and religion-specific spiritual experiences with their own respective deities. These religions cannot all be true at the same time, because they contradict each other on several key points. Therefore, this shows that personal spiritual experiences do not constitute proof of the veracity of a given religion. Otherwise, we would need to conclude that mutually contradictory religions are true at the same time, which is a logical contradiction.

Personal spiritual experiences by themselves cannot establish the spiritual reality to which they are supposed to point. In recognition of this fact, Christianity has developed a VERY robust Natural Theology and evidentiary basis for itself, encapsulated in Christian apologetics. Such a robust apologetic basis does not exist for other religions. The thoughtful Christian does not argue solely from personal experience but from that experience supported by the enormous warrant for theistic belief that exists in philosophy, science, and history, too.

Failing to argue from one's spiritual experience to the spiritual reality to which those experiences connect, then, does not necessarily mean one's spiritual experiences are false. Lots of Christian believers are almost entirely ignorant of the apologetic realm that supports their faith, using mere personal, subjective experience (which has its place) as the sole basis for their beliefs about God and things spiritual. But when they stumble about, fumbling to properly provide warrant for their faith on this basis, it does not follow, therefore, that Christianity is false.

In my deconversion, I lost nothing and gained a greater understanding of the human condition than I had previously. Honestly, I'm glad I experienced what I did as a Christian so that I can know exactly what religious people mean when they talk about supernatural experiences. And ... if nothing else, I love that when a Christian asks me if I've ever experienced what it's like to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, I can honestly say "yes".

Nothing GM Skeptic describes of his experience of God aligns with the Bible's description of what experiencing God is actually like. Sweeping sensations of peace aren't God; religious thoughts and impressions, however strong, aren't God; a sense of comfort isn't God. These all are subjective effects believers commonly hold up as evidences of God in their lives, the results - supposedly - of God's presence and work in them. The Bible, though, offers objective, external descriptions of God's interactions with His children, of His work upon them (as opposed to the effects of that work, or the believers response to His work): conviction of sin, illumination of divine truth, strengthening in times of temptation and testing, comfort in seasons of sorrow and pain, transformation of character and conduct, etc. Does GM Skeptic describe these things? Not that I saw. And if he did, I greatly suspect they would be confused with subjective, natural human experiences: mere guiltiness confused with divine conviction; self-effort called divine power; God's comfort anchored in changed circumstances, or mistaken for feelings of relief; simple self-reformation offered as an experience of divine transformation, and so on. Certainly, what little you offered of his telling of his story smacks of this sort of confusion.

 

[Clare73]

The GM Skeptic took Greg Koukl to task a while ago and Greg has made a couple of response videos recently on his Stand To Reason podcast. You might find them worthwhile. You can see the videos on YouTube on Greg's Stand To Reason channel.

What's ironic here is that GM is using his own personal experience as grounds to show that personal experience may be discarded.

As Dr. John Lennox has pointed out, being able to explain how a page in a book is made, what the chemical make-up of the ink forming the letters on the page is, what sort and size of font was used on what kind of printing press, how the page is bound to the rest of the pages of the book, and so on, does nothing to explain the purpose of the book or the meaning of the words on its pages. Likewise, detailed descriptions of the material nature of the universe do nothing to answer the Big Questions concerning it: Why does the universe exist? Why do I exist? Where did the universe come from? What happens after I die? Is there existence beyond the death of the body? You can't get at the answers to these questions by mere explanations of the mechanical features of the universe.

Also, the meaning of the words on the page of the book is not located in the page or the ink that forms the words that express the meaning. One cannot dissect the page mechanically, dissolving, burning, or steaming out the meaning, able then to put it in a beaker and examine the meaning as a material entity. No, the meaning of the words on the page of the book is immaterial, communicated by the words and in this way related to them, but not contained by, and confined to, the words. A reader of the book extracts the meaning of the words of the book from it and in his mind carries that meaning with him when the book is closed and put on a shelf. And so, while the physical words and their meaning are inter-related, the meaning expressed by the words is not dependent upon the words on the page for its existence.

Likewise the brain and mind. They are related as printed words are related to the meaning they convey, but the brain no more confines the mind than the words on a page confine the meaning they express.
Also, describing the connection between one's brain and one's mind does nothing to prove God does not exist. Such a description speaks ultimately only to the nature of the connection between mind and brain.

If one can establish that God exists, then it follows inevitably that the mind exists and not just the brain. God is immaterial but existent, just as the Christian believes the mind to be. Actually, so are numbers and sets of numbers, the laws of logic, and things like integrity, courage, and love. Anyway, there are excellent arguments and evidences for God's existence and thus, by extension, good grounds for asserting mind-body dualism.

All this to say, that the physicalism GM Skeptic wants to assert does not hold up as proof-positive that God does not exist and Christianity is false.
Personal spiritual experiences by themselves cannot establish the spiritual reality to which they are supposed to point. In recognition of this fact, Christianity has developed a VERY robust Natural Theology and evidentiary basis for itself, encapsulated in Christian apologetics. Such a robust apologetic basis does not exist for other religions. The thoughtful Christian does not argue solely from personal experience but from that experience supported by the enormous warrant for theistic belief that exists in philosophy, science, and history, too.

Failing to argue from one's spiritual experience to the spiritual reality to which those experiences connect, then, does not necessarily mean one's spiritual experiences are false.



Nothing GM Skeptic describes of his experience of God aligns with the Bible's description of what experiencing God is actually like. Sweeping sensations of peace aren't God; religious thoughts and impressions, however strong, aren't God; a sense of comfort isn't God.

These all are subjective effects believers commonly hold up as evidences of God in their lives, the results - supposedly - of God's presence and work in them. The Bible, though, offers objective, external descriptions of God's interactions with His children, of His work upon them (as opposed to the effects of that work): conviction of sin, illumination of divine truth, strengthening in times of temptation and testing, comfort in seasons of sorrow and pain, transformation of character and conduct, etc. Does GM Skeptic describe these things? Not that I saw. And if he did, I greatly suspect, they would be confused with subjective, natural human experiences: mere guiltiness confused with divine conviction; self-effort called divine power; God's comfort anchored in changed circumstances, or mistaken for the relief of whatever is causing discomfort; simple self-reformation offered as an experience of divine transformation, and so on. Certainly, what little you offered of his telling of his story smacks of this sort of confusion.

Outstanding post!

Love those Baptists!

 

[Jipsah]

Just as you cannot “proof” someone had a personal miraculous experience and interaction with God: you cannot “disproof” it either.

Sometimes you can disprove. For example, the "His Name Is Flowing Oil" grifter was caught buying gallons of very un-miraculous mineral oil at Tractor Supply. Pretty much put the quietus on that racket.