Thought Experiment (bit of religion, bit of psychology)..

In My Humble Opinion
1

I was having a debate with my fiance’ the other night (FWIW, I’m a guy, she’s a… she)… and we were debating religion.

She’s a self described “practising Christian”, I could be most closely described as a deist. I believe the universe was probably created by an intelligent being, but I don’t believe that any of the thousands of religions that have existed through history are “true”, simply due to the fact that I don’t see any evidence to back such a claim.

My fiance’ argues that she does have evidence for her Christian beliefs, and this evidence is her own personal experiences of God. She talks about a “feeling” in her “heart”, she talks about “just knowing” that certain things that happen in her life are “God’s work”, and unless you have the experience yourself, you can’t understand it.

I countered this by pointing out that there are millions of Muslims (you can insert almost any faith you like here) who also believe that their God is “true”, due to the “feelings” and “experiences” of God that the followers of Islam claim to have. I pointed out that this should prove that this “feeling” my fiance relies on to validate her Christian beliefs, is demonstrably unreliable.

This debate went back and forth for a while… and I eventually dreamed up a thought experiment, which I shared with her. It goes like this:

Let’s say you’re sitting in a room with 6 people. All of a sudden, an elephant comes crashing through one of the walls. No one is hurt, but it’s a truly memorable experience, especially due to the fact that the elephant is wearing a silly party hat.

A week or so later, you’re discussing the incident with the other 5 witnesses, and you all recount that truly memorable and undeniable experience of when the elephant came crashing through the wall. You all recount that it was wearing a silly party hat. Weirdly though, an arguement breaks out as to the colour of the elephant’s party hat. You and two of the other witnesses are certain the hat was pink, you are as certain of this as you are that there was ever an elephant at all. You and the two other in-agreement witnesses all nod knowingly at each other to validate this fact about the party hat colour that you “know” to be true. But the other 3 witnesses are equally convinced that the hat was blue, and they too nod knowingly at each other. As far as your recollection of the experience is concerned, you’re as sure as you can be that the hat was pink, and you don’t shy away from stating this fact. But the other 3 witnesses state they too are as sure as they can be - the hat was blue.

So the question is, would you then:

  • Accept that even though your experience and recollection is telling you the hat was pink, you simply can’t know, and realise that when it comes to knowing the truth about the colour of the elephant’s hat, you simply can not trust or rely on your experience and recollection to tell you the true colour of the elephant’s hat.

  • Stick to your guns. You saw that hat, you “know” it was pink, and no amount of equally convinced but contradictory opinions is going to make you think otherwise.

My fiance’ listened intently and responded by saying that she would stick to her guns, and continue believing that the elephant truly was wearing a pink hat. Myself, I explained that I would be in the camp that I thought was “obvious”, and accept that I now can’t really be sure what colour the elephant’s hat was, in spite of my experience and recollection telling me it was pink.

So… I’d be interested in some more opinions. If you play this thought experiment in your mind through to the stage where you’re arguing with 3 equally convinced witnesses about the colour of the elephant’s hat… what effect, if any, would this have on what you “know to be true” about that damn hat?

2

I’d admit that although I felt certain, it’s entirely likely that my memory was flawed. Eye witness testimony is notoriously bad testimony.

3

The hat was pink and blue. Each person remembers the color that means something to them.

4

The human memory is not nearly as reliable as we’d like to believe. I’m quite confident that I have vivid memories that are wildly inaccurate or completely made up.

I’d probably still believe that the hat was the color I remember it, but I wouldn’t be all that confident about it. If I were a betting man, I wouldn’t put much money on my color.

5

I’d put it down to some flaw in perception or memory, or some other circumstance such as a two-tone hat, colour-blindness on the part of some observers, or some such. Seems like the elephant crashing through the wall is the significant event here - if there’s disagreement on the elephant and the crashing through the wall, we have a problem.

6

Sounds like a variation on the elephant parable.

7

An elephant wearing a party hat crashes into a room, and none of the occupants question their own sanity?

8

As much as I’d like to think I was correct, I would most certainly be easily swayed into concluding I may have remembered it wrong. I have been wrong once or twice before about things. :wink:

9

This is my immediate reaction, and yes, it does seem “obvious.”

One thing I have learned by experience is that, sometimes, people confidently and unequivocably assert as true things that are actually, unambiguously false, and not just because they’re deliberately lying. The likelihood of a statement being true is not proportional to the confidence with which a person asserts it.

But! Some people are more scrupulous about this sort of thing than others. Some people are careful to qualify their assertions with something like “I think” or “If I remember correctly” when they have less than 100% certainty, while others are seemingly incapable of admitting any doubt or possibility of error. I, personally, fall into the former category (or at least I think I do ;)—I try to). If I knew or suspected that the other (blue-hat-asserting) elephant witnesses fell into the latter category, and I was sure about my own recollection of the event, I might insist on pink-hattedness.

10

It’s not like the elephant was pink or blue. :smiley:

11

I believe this was the plot of the film Dumbōmon.

12

I’d probably still be (almost wholly) convinced I saw a pink hat. (Whether the hat was pink on one side and blue on another, or some such, is another question entirely.) However, I don’t think that this is a good analogy for the feeling of religion. The difference is that I have a fair amount of empirical evidence that I can trust what my eyes see when I notice things (and before I talk to someone else about it, which I think you are postulating in your thought experiment). (I very frequently do NOT notice things, in which case I can’t trust my guesses as to what I might have seen at all.)

I have no proof, and indeed some evidence that disproves, that my gut feelings on things are true or accurate. I’ve had “feelings” that I should do X or Y, or that I should be concerned about Z, which have turned out to be baseless suggestions or worries. Therefore, I do not trust my feelings about “just knowing” that religion is true (and I do have them), because “just knowing” that I should check on my baby because she might not be breathing… turned out to be a totally unfounded worry.

ETA: What Thudlow Boink said – I try to be scrupulous about distinguishing between “I know I saw that” and “I think I saw that.” Whether an outside observer thinks I’m scrupulous… I guess is another question :slight_smile:

13

This thought experiment doesn’t actually have much to do with the original discussion, though.

14

Since it is a quasi-religious debate: It’s only a matter of time before they try to force their beliefs on you so act now. Declare war, enslave all blue hat believers and torture them until they renounce their ridiculous beliefs (seriously, an elephant in a blue hat? Those people need help.) Problem solved.

15

It’s not important what color the hat was. A rogue elephant just busted through your wall. You are about to be trampled to death either way.

16

Winner! (And I’m sure glad I wasn’t drinking anything when I read that.)

There have been numerous experiments demonstrating the fallibility of our memory and our powers of observation. I’d want a picture to be sure.

As for the OP, the reasonable response is that her experiences are evidence that she had that experience, not that the experience is related in any way to some God. If God is really talking to her, she should ask for something she wouldn’t know by herself.

17

An elephant crashes into a room and the occupants all say “Hey, look at that hat!”

18

Since you bring up gender, I feel constrained to observe that a woman you are going to marry is a fiancée. If you were marrying a dude, he’d your fiancé. I blame William of Orange for the confusion.

As to the substance of your post, I think you are correct and your fiancée is wrong.

19

The argument from personal hallucination.

Religious experiences aren’t simultaneously had by groups anyway. The reality is more like various different people saying they saw random different animals.

I wonder why it is that people who have these feelings only experience the deities that are endemic to their culture. What a coincidence that people in India see Hindu gods, and people in predominantly Christian populations see (or hear) Jesus, and African tribal shamen see Kokopeli. You would think if Jesus was real, he’s the one they’d ALL see.

20

I recently had a very similar experience with my Dad. I had mentioned a conversation between the two of us that occurred several years ago, and he insisted that the conversation never happened, that the incident I remembered discussing could not possibly have happened, and he was actually insulted that I thought such an incident might have occurred. After going around on this topic for a while, with my Dad getting more and more agitated, I finally conceded that perhaps the incident hadn’t happened, but I still maintained that I had a very clear memory of our conversation. In other words, maybe the elephant wasn’t wearing a pink hat, but I stand by my assertion that I remember a pink hat, whether or not one actually existed.

That dovetails nicely with my faith, which says that my experience of God is real to me, and causes me to be a believer, whether or not God actually exists or my perception is correct. To me, that’s what differentiates faith from scientific evidence. I also acknowledge that God is unknowable enough that different people may experience God in entirely different ways, which leads back to the story of the blind men and the elephant.