rationalskepticism.org

Shrunk wrote:

blue triangle wrote: I'm not sure how you could have derived this summary of my words. Please show me your reasoning here. Let me be clear, however. I am not saying that skeptics should begin by conceding anything more than that science may not at present be able to explain all types of personal experience. That is all that is required to begin a civil dialogue with a believer.

Uh huh. Then you have no understanding whatsoever of the claim of which skeptics are skeptical. So perhaps the beginning of "civil dialogue" would be, rather, for you to first understand the position of those with whom you are dialoguing.

Civil dialogue is also assisted when one of the participants doesn't jump to conclusions about what the other participant understands or has experienced.

If you could just demonstrate this marvelous, new, non-scientific means of understanding "spiritual experiences," there would be no need for concessions on anyone's part. Or, as Cito might say, bend a spoon. Then we can civilly dialogue.

Who said it was new? It's simply personal experience, which skeptics reject (rightly) as scientific evidence but which for the experiencer is often compelling, compelling enough for them to change their entire worldview. Therein lies the gap between what experiencers find credible and skeptics find credible. Now many people are too easily persuaded by personal experience. They hear that white feathers are a sign from an angel, then next day they see a white feather on the ground and are convinced their guardian angel was saying hello, when in all likelihood they were simply more aware of feathers because of what they'd just heard. Most people would require more evidence than that. But skepticism can be taken to unhealthy extremes too, as evidenced by the perjorative terms bandied about on this forum and elsewhere for religion and its adherents. This speaks of an entrenched hostility towards religion that rejects a priori any and all claims made by religionists and enters into discussions about them merely to trash them, which is hardly civil. Neither approach - childish credulity or pathological incredulity - is helpful for a reasoned discussion. I'm simply arguing that both sides need to come to the discussion table with a willingness to listen to the other side without judgment and the reason I need to say it at all is because many conversations between theists and atheists, here and elsewhere, quickly descend into little more than mudslinging. There is a wall between theists and atheists but instead of chucking mud over it, we could examine the wall itself. If we did we might see that the bricks are made of lack of experience on one side and lack of scientific knowledge on the other side, and they are cemented by prejudice on both sides.