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Spirit Realm Investigator
Spirit Realm Investigator
1:40 AM
@NotThatGuy - Could you please cite a source that presents the strongest version of an argument against the inner witness of the Holy Spirit?
 
 
10 hours later…
NotThatGuy
NotThatGuy
11:20 AM
@SpiritRealmInvestigator I'll probably reference Matt Dillahunty:
This focuses more on how an atheist might explain spiritual experiences. It's a bit more focused on experiences in church, but it generalises: youtube.com/watch?v=MRZTn7ChgTk
This is about skepticism of "inner witness" spiritual experiences in general, and why "thoughts and feelings" are unreliable (although it doesn't really discuss how you'd go about verifying or testing "thoughts and feelings"): youtube.com/watch?v=D-Xa4WBzBwc
I seem to recall him also expanding on the ghost saying how much money you have in your wallet analogy (which I guess was in another video), by saying that even if you confirm that one can reliably tell how much money someone has in their wallet, you've now demonstrated that ... one can reliably tell how much money someone has in their wallet. You have demonstrated neither that this is due to a ghost, nor that anything else this ghost says is true (but it would be a first step, at least).
 
Spirit Realm Investigator
Spirit Realm Investigator
12:21 PM
@NotThatGuy - Thanks for the links. They raise some good points. I might ask a question about those videos during the week when I have more time. In the meantime, what are your thoughts on my answer here: christianity.stackexchange.com/a/92673/50422 ?
 
NotThatGuy
NotThatGuy
12:53 PM
@SpiritRealmInvestigator Experiences that "cannot reasonably be attributed to a psychological phenomenon or random chance" (e.g. words of knowledge) would indeed be a step towards reasonable belief that it's "genuine" - I'll paraphrase what Matt said above, which is that we're happy to accept that someone had some experience, but not the supernatural explanation they give for that experience. We should be careful to consider exactly what the experience proves, as per my comment above.
I already responded to the specific experience you linked to (twice). I can't find my original detailed response, but here's a brief reiteration: chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/61837000#61837000
 
NotThatGuy
NotThatGuy
1:04 PM
@SpiritRealmInvestigator Ah, found my original reply to that spiritual experience: chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/60574412#60574412 (and I also addressed a number of other spiritual experiences in that thread).
 
NotThatGuy
NotThatGuy
1:16 PM
My comment above may, or may not, have been a bit unclear. What I mean is, if someone claims to have experienced the Holy Spirit, we have basically 3 possibilities: (1) they experienced the Holy Spirit, (2) they had some sort of delusion/hallucination/emotional high, i.e. a known natural explanation, or (3) they experienced something else that's not yet known (whether natural or supernatural).
If #2 is sufficiently unlikely (which I don't consider to be the case for any spiritual experiences I've heard of), that may be a big step towards #1, but we'd still have the option of either #1 or #3. The mere fact that someone believes they experienced the Holy Spirit is not sufficient justification to dismiss #2, but even if we managed to dismiss #2 in another way, that also isn't sufficient justification to dismiss #3.
 
 
2 hours later…
Spirit Realm Investigator
Spirit Realm Investigator
3:35 PM
@NotThatGuy - What are your thoughts on this one: youtu.be/njKNjMNAl98 ?
 
 
1 hour later…
NotThatGuy
NotThatGuy
4:39 PM
@SpiritRealmInvestigator I've already given you a response to that video as well, in the same thread linked above: chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/60584735#60584735 (I believe it was video 2 there)
 
 
1 hour later…
Spirit Realm Investigator
Spirit Realm Investigator
5:44 PM
@NotThatGuy - Right. You said: "I can't know the exactly details of what happened there, but it's not too difficult to communicate on a basic level with someone who only speaks another language (speaking from experience), to pick up a few words and to mirror back what they're saying to make it sound like you know the language to a non-skeptical third party. Having this happen when one person is desperate to be understood certainly supports this hypothesis."

According to their testimony (taken at face value), there was a fourth person who witnessed their conversation and was utterly surpris…
(*) I fail to see why they wouldn't be able to replicate the same behavior the very next day.
 
Spirit Realm Investigator
Spirit Realm Investigator
5:59 PM
3) If you are picking up words and mirroring back what the other person is saying, you have to make a conscious effort in order to accomplish this. In other words, you have to be consciously aware that you don't speak their language and make an effort to spot key words and mirror back. In contrast, the missionary couple explained that their fluency was spontaneous and unconscious. They never realized until the next day that they spoke in Esan. They even prayed in Esan and the person they prayed for understood everything.
 

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