In your beloved and honorable opinion, are there any reasonable grounds for asserting that any knowledge of deity imparted during a religious experience[1] is certain to be true knowledge of deity?
For example: Let us suppose, you and I, that one day you were hiking in the mountains when suddenly your most favorite god in the whole big, wide world spoke to you in a booming voice, saying "Go now to the peoples of the earth and proclaim to them, 'The Lord your God has spoken to you, and She is an atheist who practices Tibetan Buddhism'."
If something along those lines actually happened, would you have reasonable grounds to conclude that it was certain your god was an atheist and Tibetan Buddhist?
As for myself, I think the answer is that you can NOT be certain that anything you learn during a religious experience is true knowledge of deity. I think there are several reasons why that is so, but one of those reasons is this: You are somewhat in the same epistemological relationship to the deity that you are experiencing as you are in to a photon that you are experiencing.
You do not experience the photon as it really is: That is, as a photon. Instead, you experience the photon as light. In the same way, it is possible when having an experience of your favorite god that you do not experience the god as he or she really is (which we will call here "X"). Instead, you experience them as "God".
Put a little differently, just as a photon does not have a color, but instead color is only a property of our experience of a photon, X might not be an atheist who practices Tibetan Buddhism, but instead our experience of X as an atheist who practices Tibetan Buddhism might only be a property of our experience of God.
Thus, one cannot be certain that a religious experience imparts true knowledge of deity.
EDIT: This argument is further laid out in post #30 in this thread.
EDIT: Anyone genuinely interested in this argument should take a look @scott C's posts #24, #35, and #58, and my post #66. Scott C raises an important point (An omnipotent deity could theoretically create a state of affairs in which it imparted true justified belief [knowledge] about itself to someone) that I believe qualifies and informs my argument, but does not refute it.
[1] A religious experience is not to be conflated with a mystical experience. A religious experience is distinct from a mystical experience in several ways, not the least of which is that a religious experience is an experience of something that's of a religious origin or nature. For instanc e, Jesus Christ is a deity according to the Christian religion. Therefore, to have an experience of Jesus Christ as a god is to have a religious experience.
For example: Let us suppose, you and I, that one day you were hiking in the mountains when suddenly your most favorite god in the whole big, wide world spoke to you in a booming voice, saying "Go now to the peoples of the earth and proclaim to them, 'The Lord your God has spoken to you, and She is an atheist who practices Tibetan Buddhism'."
If something along those lines actually happened, would you have reasonable grounds to conclude that it was certain your god was an atheist and Tibetan Buddhist?
As for myself, I think the answer is that you can NOT be certain that anything you learn during a religious experience is true knowledge of deity. I think there are several reasons why that is so, but one of those reasons is this: You are somewhat in the same epistemological relationship to the deity that you are experiencing as you are in to a photon that you are experiencing.
You do not experience the photon as it really is: That is, as a photon. Instead, you experience the photon as light. In the same way, it is possible when having an experience of your favorite god that you do not experience the god as he or she really is (which we will call here "X"). Instead, you experience them as "God".
Put a little differently, just as a photon does not have a color, but instead color is only a property of our experience of a photon, X might not be an atheist who practices Tibetan Buddhism, but instead our experience of X as an atheist who practices Tibetan Buddhism might only be a property of our experience of God.
Thus, one cannot be certain that a religious experience imparts true knowledge of deity.
EDIT: This argument is further laid out in post #30 in this thread.
EDIT: Anyone genuinely interested in this argument should take a look @scott C's posts #24, #35, and #58, and my post #66. Scott C raises an important point (An omnipotent deity could theoretically create a state of affairs in which it imparted true justified belief [knowledge] about itself to someone) that I believe qualifies and informs my argument, but does not refute it.
[1] A religious experience is not to be conflated with a mystical experience. A religious experience is distinct from a mystical experience in several ways, not the least of which is that a religious experience is an experience of something that's of a religious origin or nature. For instanc e, Jesus Christ is a deity according to the Christian religion. Therefore, to have an experience of Jesus Christ as a god is to have a religious experience.
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