No one can experience that which does not exist. Therefore, if some people have had religious experiences, they must have truly experienced God. As nonsensical as it sounds, this is an argument formulated by many religious believers, in one form or another. It is known as the argument from religious experience, and in its simplest form it seeks to establish that religious experiences are credible sources of evidence and knowledge. It really doesn't take much effort at all to discover the flaws in these types of argumentation, but because they are so widespread and common among the religious crowd, let's go ahead and address a few of the logical mishaps in them.

I. The Value of Experience

First of all, I should make it abundantly clear that it is not my intent to devalue the impact of any personal experience, religious or otherwise. While some people certainly have lied and will continue to lie about their experiences for attention, fame, power, or other motives, I do not cynically believe all who claim to have experienced God are guilty of such deception. Though it is also possible that an individual's experience may be an actual hallucination, I do not think this accurately sums up all believers either. I am sure that there are many Christians, Muslims, and Jews who are absolutely convinced that they have experienced their god, and I do not feel it necessary to 'explain away' their experiences as hallucination or deception. However, it does not follow that they are entirely correct in how they interpret the experience.

A religious experience may drive you to tears, it may lift you out of the depths of despair and give your life new meaning. The impact of a harrowing experience should be appreciated, never derided. It is understandable that something may move you so deeply that it drastically alters your worldview, but it is crucial that we remember how similar experiences have misled others in the past. Drug-induced hallucinations and lucid dreams feel very authentic to the person experiencing them, but they do not accurately portray the real world or what the observer is actually doing at the time. There is really no reason that we should consider an experience any less valuable because it does not reflect reality. An encounter with an imaginary being may reveal more to you about yourself than an encounter with a physical being. We ought to be careful not to over-analyze our experiences or hold them to excessively idealistic standards.

II. Should We Trust All Experience?

In virtually any circumstance where there are multiple observers, we so often come away with several different experiences and interpretations, and there are inevitably at least a few details in these stories that contradict each other. A native islander who sees a jet fly overhead at night for the first time may interpret the encounter as an experience of a divine being, an alien, the spirit of a deceased relative, or any number of incorrect guesses. The incident could have struck a particularly strong chord with the islander and they may be totally convinced that their interpretation of the passing jet is accurate, but this still does not mean that they did in fact experience what they think they experienced.

Supposing a second islander elsewhere witnessed the same event, his/her story might differ significantly from the initial witness. This is especially problematic for the argument from religious experience, because there are many people around who believe that their god is the one and only god. If we are to take claims of experience as some legitimate evidence of a god, what are we to make of Christians who assert that Allah is not their god, and Muslims who assert that Jesus is not theirs? They can't both be right, so at least one of them must be mistaken about their experience. But when the initial premise is that we can only experience what exists - or that an experience is credible evidence for the existence of x - learning that we can misinterpret reality, based on our own experiences, essentially undermines the argument.

Every now and then I meet a religious person who finds it hard to believe that out of the countless experiences of God that have been claimed, none have ever been legit. Yet when you take into account the wide range of possibilities that may have produced incorrect interpretations of an experience, I don't think it's so difficult to imagine. There are the liars, the hallucinators, and those who have made an honest mistake without realizing it. The concept of God is so all-inclusive and nebulous that there could easily be an equivalent being in existence that is unlike the god described in any of our religions. It is far more likely that every religion has it wrong than that every religion (contradictions and disagreements included) has it right.

III. Behind the Scenes of Religious Experiences

Apparently the wiring of our own brains also plays a role in religious experience. Neuroscientist Vilayanur S. Ramachandran conducted a study on epileptic patients, commenting that...

Findings like these seem to point to the temporal lobe having something to do with our religious experiences, as the epilepsy of Dr. Ramachandran's patients affected this region of the brain. This suggestion is bolstered by discoveries made in transcranial magnetic stimulation experiments. By applying a magnetic field to the temporal lobe, neuropsychologist Michael Persinger has artificially created religious experiences for over 900 patients [2], who have each described experiences corresponding to the gods or phenomenon consistent with their cultures and personal beliefs. If religious experiences are simply due to high levels of electrical activity in the brain, then they may well be physical processes which have no further connection to reality.

One reason why many skeptics and atheists are reluctant to give the benefit of a doubt to any believer who claims that religious experiences are proof of God, is that reliable and solid evidence must be verifiable, and religious experiences are not. Evidence must stand up to testing and scrutiny, but a religious experience typically involves one person, one event, and forces that are allegedly beyond the scope of scientific analysis. The implication that natural processes influence our experiences of God may be controversial and uncomfortable for the religious believer, but they should remember that they are the ones asserting that their experiences are good evidence that the god of their choice does exist.

IV. It All Boils Down to Perception

The philosopher Thomas Hobbes best illustrated the relative nature of religious experience when he asked what the difference was in saying, 'God spoke to me in a dream' and 'I dreamt that God spoke to me'. The fact of the matter is that we are all beings with worldviews that have been shaped by a massive variety of external influences. We are predisposed to think in certain ways, thanks to the time period and culture we live in, among other factors. Perception is inescapable, and it's most likely impossible to separate our own subjective interpretations of things from the actuality of things. With all the various ways our minds can be deceived by optical illusions, close-up magic, and other tricks, we need to be sure that we give any paranormal or supernatural experience a close and thorough examination.

1. Ramachandran, V.S. & Blakeslee, S. (1998) Phantoms in the Brain. p.179.
2. Hitt, J. (1999) This Is Your Brain on God. Wired.com. Retrieved Apr. 18, 2009.