@wayne,
What kind of Religious Experience would qualify as 'proof'?
i think this is an interesting question.
I take the points made re proof in the sense of proving to someone else. Thats tricky. Essentially a group experience i guess. That would be the ultimate proof. But what kind of group or personal experience?
I have to say that it seems obvious to me that, if there is a spirit world then it isn't as obvious as traffic and cucumbers to most people. So there must be a reason for that.
What is important is how we would understand the experience. There is, "well that proves there is a spirit world" on the one hand and "so thats what the spirit world is about" on the other. My guess is that the second option is out of bounds simply because we are not capable of grasping it. ....... And maybe that is related to why it isn't obvious. eg if a god is love, why is there suffering and hatred? It isn't obvious how that can be the case, so it isn't obvious that god exists. ie because we cannot grasp a consistent meaning to the spiritual dimension may be
the reason itself why we don't believe in it.
Maybe there is so much obvious spirit world about .... but because we can't make sense of it then we reject it as superstition. Consider the following. A family is rescued from a deep jungle tribe wiped out by forestation. They are rehoused in a city. Here they are given money to live by. But there was no money in the jungle. People traded 'things' and writing didn't exist. Such a family might look at us and see money changing hands all over the place, but to them it is pure superstition. Nobody in their right mind would swap something valuable for a bit of leaf, no matter how magical they believe its powers. However, stare in wonder because if enough people believe in a superstition it can work! This can apply to anti superstition equally well. It so happens that the woman at the bank till who hands over these strange leaves, doesn't even believe in the realm of the underworld let alone the sky gods! How barmy is that?
Science insists upon consistency. Preferably absolute consistency, but relative consistency is the absolute minimum required. It is from the communal exchange of this consistency that constitutes a degree of proof. But for many of us we don't recognise such a machine world. Even people who don't believe in religion or the supernatural often reject the idea that science can explain everything. They are like the tribes people staring at the money. Yeh it works,........ but at the same time its crazy and unconvincing.
So in the end. watching a convinced group from the outside isn't always convincing. There has to be a personal aspect, and that includes whether we are a part of the superstitious trust of the likes of science and money, or the superstitious trust of the likes of religion or synchronicity.
Or to put it another way ...... If being alive isn't proof enough of the spiritual dimension, then what lesser proof should concievably be elevated above it?
