G.Rajeswari
Atheist Writer
Related articles
(…continuing from the previous issue)
Personal experience and Religious Vision:
Personal religious experience is generally cited as the proof of existence of God. People claim to have seen divine figures; heard supernatural voices; experienced revelations; and witnessed spiritual presences.
If an object truly exists in front of several people, others should also be able to observe it. But in personal religious experiences, the experience is purely personal.
Let us understand personal experience through the experience of our dreams. Dreams are personal experience. Human beings dream vividly. During dreams, impossible events feel completely real. From where does one get the vision in his dream? Essentially from his stored-up memory. He gets those images, sounds, ideas from his memory, either as such or in jumbled up and distorted forms, but definitely not from an outside source. All the data, images and ideas enter our memory only through our senses.
Can a person who is blind from birth, see images or colours in his dream? Or would it be just an audio-only dream? Can a person who is deaf from birth, hear sounds in his dream? Or would his dream be just silent images? These questions point to the sensory origins of all our mental imagery.
Hallucinations, memory distortions and neurological disorders can also produce convincing personal experiences. We often observe elderly people suffering from Dementia insist that someone familiar to them standing in front of them, when actually no one is present. It is their personal experience which is not real. But to them, the experience is utterly real, just like the dreams feel real to us while we are asleep.
Therefore, an important distinction exists between personal (private) experience and publicly verifiable evidence.
A person can experience a vision of Krishna or Jesus or images shaped by Islamic tradition and interpret it as seeing God, only because such an image already exists in the mind. That image must have been formed earlier through pictures, icons, stories, or descriptions and stored in memory labelled as ‘God’ according to the tradition in which the person was raised. The so-called vision is not a revelation from outside, but a reproduction of pre-existing mental content as in a dream.
Thus whenever an experience is ‘personal’ (the experience not being pain or emotion), be it in dream or awake, it is not real. It arises only from our stored up memory which entered our mind through our own senses. Therefore, an experience is real only if it is public and verifiable.
Anyway, how do these personal experiences prove the existence of God and explain the origin of Universe and Life?
The idea of God as Energy or Cosmic Force
Many believers do not have faith in the traditional religious imagery, but assert the existence of a Force or Energy greater and more powerful than humanity. This higher Force or Energy and its undeniable presence are what they call as God.
Of course, many such forces exist like gravity, electromagnetism, nuclear energy, cosmic radiation and many more. But none of these energies and forces has awareness, intention and intellect to answer our prayers or devotion and to make moral judgement. They just function according to the laws of physics. Dawkins once said, “If your God is Energy, then He is in a lump of coal. No use of praying to it.”
Einstein occasionally used the word ‘God’ poetically to awe at the mathematical elegance of the Universe. But it was not the personal Creator God worshipped in religion. Calling the laws of physics “God” may express awe, but it does not establish the existence of a supernatural being that listens to prayers.
Miracles
Miracles are presented as the strongest evidence for the existence of God. We hear countless claims of miracles by godmen and read of many more in religious history. At the same time, skilled magicians perform astonishing feats like walking on the River Thames, escaping from chains under water and similar spectacles.
When such feats are performed by magicians, we readily accept them as achievable within the laws of nature, even if they appear extraordinary. They are understood as illusions whose mechanisms are unknown to the audience. Yet when identical or comparable acts are performed by religious figures, they are immediately classified as “miracles,” and considered supernatural. Why is this double standard? Is it simply because we accept the performer’s claim without scrutiny?
Every species has specific potentials and inherent limitations. Human hearing operates only within a limited range of frequencies; sounds that are too faint or too loud, lie beyond our perception. Human vision is similarly restricted. We can see only a narrow portion of the electromagnetic spectrum known as visible light. Many animals, however, can see ultraviolet light or sense infrared radiation. Dogs can detect smells that are completely inaccessible to human senses.
Thus, there are many phenomena that human senses cannot detect, though other species can. But the sensory range of all humans is broadly similar. If a dog reacts to a smell that cannot be perceived by us, it is acceptable. But if one human claims to sense something that cannot be perceived by others, the most likely explanation is illusion or delusion. If such a perception is described as a revelation, it must necessarily be a public experience to be considered real. Otherwise, as discussed earlier, it can only be a retrieval of stored memory, not an encounter with an external reality.
Let us, however, assume that a person genuinely performs an act far beyond normal human potential— a “miracle,” so to speak. There is a popular YouTube show by Adam Moran of the channel Beard Meets Food, where he consumes a 4,000-calorie, 65-item English breakfast in about twelve minutes. This is undoubtedly far beyond ordinary human capacity. It is, in that sense, a miracle. But so what? Does it prove the existence of God? Does it explain the origin of the universe or life? It does neither. Moran monetizes his extraordinary ability transparently; he does not dress in traditional religious costumes, claim divine sanction, or mislead people into believing he is God-sent. We have to genuinely appreciate all the Magicians of the world for their honesty!
Consider another example. Parrots can sometimes be trained to utter a few words like “Rama Rama,”. Ordinarily, a parrot’s natural capacity is limited to screeching. A parrot that speaks human words would be considered miraculous within the parrot world. Other parrots would be astonished. Yet what does this accomplish? Does the parrot understand what it says? Can it engage in meaningful conversation with humans? Does this add any value to its life or to the parrot species as a whole?
Likewise, if a human performs something beyond the normal human ability, we call it a miracle, build a temple around him and worship him. A talking parrot is a similar miracle in the parrot world. Is there any sense if all the other parrots build a temple around the talking parrot and worship it?
Let us, however, assume that a person genuinely performs an act far beyond normal human potential— a “miracle,” so to speak. There is a popular YouTube show by Adam Moran of the channel Beard Meets Food, where he consumes a 4,000-calorie, 65-item English breakfast in about twelve minutes. This is undoubtedly far beyond ordinary human capacity. It is, in that sense, a miracle. But so what? Does it prove the existence of God? Does it explain the origin of the universe or life? It does neither. Moran monetizes his extraordinary ability transparently; he does not dress in traditional religious costumes, claim divine sanction, or mislead people into believing he is God-sent. We have to genuinely appreciate all the Magicians of the world for their honesty!
Consider another example. Parrots can sometimes be trained to utter a few words like “Rama Rama,”. Ordinarily, a parrot’s natural capacity is limited to screeching. A parrot that speaks human words would be considered miraculous within the parrot world. Other parrots would be astonished. Yet what does this accomplish? Does the parrot understand what it says? Can it engage in meaningful conversation with humans? Does this add any value to its life or to the parrot species as a whole?
Likewise, if a human performs something beyond the normal human ability, we call it a miracle, build a temple around him and worship him. A talking parrot is a similar miracle in the parrot world. Is there any sense if all the other parrots build a temple around the talking parrot and worship it?
In these above two examples, how does such a “miracle” establish God’s existence?
It may simply be an instance of a creature exceeding the usual limits of its species’ potential, a phenomenon that over millions of years, could contribute to evolutionary change. Thus an extraordinary potential of a species, seen as a miracle, is again within the Laws of Nature, and not an evidence of the existence of God.
Conclusion:
Science does not claim absolute certainty. On the contrary, it advocates scepticism. It proceeds through observation, analysis, testing, evidence, revision and so on. It is open to correction. Science has not yet explained everything. But throughout history, scientific explanations have consistently replaced supernatural explanations and not the other way round.
Lightning and thunder was once Lord Indira’s anger. Disease was divine punishment. Especially, small pox, chicken pox etc were considered Goddess entering human body. Eclipses and comets were considered supernatural omens to humanity.
As Science developed, knowledge expanded. Scientific explanations replaced the mystical ones. Faith is centred around conclusions like existence of Creator God and Soul, already accepted as sacred truths. Atheism, on the contrary, accepts the scientific realities and refuses to believe any of the above unproven ideas. Therefore, Is Atheism NOT more scientific than Faith?
