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Science doesn't "tell us that gods and spiritual experiences are not things that happen." Science provides a methodology that tests the nature of observable reality.
If you tell me there is a God that exists that is outside any means of testing his existence, and you have spiritual experiences that no one who is not you can verify, science doesn't, strictly speaking, say "That's not real." It says "There is no way to verify that."
People can of course choose to believe in things that cannot be verified. I imagine if I had a spiritual experience that I was convinced was real, I would believe it was real regardless of whether it could be detected by anyone else.
Since I don't, however, and since such experiences fall outside anything explainable with what we know about the universe using observable and testable criteria, you can get offended that I disbelieve, but why should I believe?
I'm not saying you should believe. I'm saying people treat it not as "science says it's not verifiable" but "science says it's not real". And you're logical chopping there with "I believe you believe you experienced that".
Why should 'observable and testable criteria' be limited to what we currently have in our toolbox? This is the same "love is only oxytocin" reasoning that gets us tangled up in the same kinds of arguments about what is real/actual and why then it degenerates into "all that romance crap is stupid, Valentine's Day is only commercial opportunity, you don't love that woman, it's evolution acting on you to fuck her to spread your genes nothing more and certainly nothing special" kind of fighting.
I'm not offended, I'm just tired of the fight.
I'm not trying to fight! But what am I supposed to say to 'you're logical chopping there with "I believe you believe you experienced that"?
Let's say you say you saw an angel. I can:
It seems only (1) will not offend you. Problem: I don't believe in angels. You cannot convince me angels exist. What do you want from a non-believer that doesn't get your back up?
Love is at least a relatable experience. And we know humans experience emotions because even sociopaths do. Love can be explained as an evolutionary adaption in our neurology, but that doesn't make it not real.
Sure, but two out of your three options are based on "angels not real" and that's the position you're starting from, so we have nothing to discuss. This is not like "which recipe for roast chicken is best, let's test these three out", it's "there is no such thing as a chicken but I'll be nice and pretend I believe you can cook an imaginary bird".
Again, it's not about offence. It's about this is not an impartial, let's start from positions of neutrality so neither of us hold a strong opinion pro or con the premise "is the supernatural real?" exchange. You don't believe it is, I do believe it is, we're not having a good faith discussion of "we don't know for sure so let's lay out the arguments and see what gives us that delicious flavour of crispy skin and moist meatiness".
EDIT: Imagine that I respond to you with "uh-huh, now I'm not trying to trigger your over-sensitive, fragile little ego here, but come on now, how can you expect me to believe there are no angels? I can give you three options when you say you never saw an angel:
Do you think that is me being neutral on the topic of "do angels exist (the answer is self-evidently yes)"?
I am not sure where you got the idea I was claiming to be neutral on the existence of angels. I am not neutral. I do not believe in angels. Of course that is going to be my baseline.
So if we talk about angels and you tell me angels exist, what do you want me to say? The most respectful and charitable thing I can say is "I believe you believe." I mean, sure, I might be interested in why you believe. I would listen with what I think is an open mind. But open minded doesn't mean I'm starting with the premise that maybe they exist and maybe they don't. What else would you ask of me? I
I did not say anything like"I'm going to trigger your over-sensitive fragile little ego.' If you took that approach towards me, well, I'd assume you weren't really trying to discuss anything.
What I'm getting at is that discussions of this type, even on here, are not going anywhere except in circles. None of us are starting from the ideal scientific position of agnosticism until we have evaluated the empirical evidence.
So while OP can legitimately ask "believers, why do you believe?", we are not going to get any further than "so you are basing it on subjective experience", because either the philosophical and metaphysical explanations as to 'this is my chain of reasoning here' will be dismissed as irrelevant or even nonsense, or the whole 'okay yeah but Science' gets invoked as with you and "no way to verify it objectively".
Hence, "you say you saw an angel, well I believe you believe it was an angel" (but it was not so). Eyewitness evidence isn't, personal experience isn't enough, yet if I said I saw Joe Malone smashing the window of O'Malley's chemist shop and grabbing stuff out of it, I would not be interrogated on "well I believe you believe you saw that, but since you're basing this on nothing other than subjective feeling of signals your eyes sent to your brain, how can we ever know it was indeed Joe or that Joe was there?" grounds.
Some things are taken as a priori existing and possible, others dismissed as a priori impossible, and here we are back where we started.
If you only think a discussion could be worthwhile if you start from a position of genuinely having no priors, then it will be very difficult to discuss anything. Where are you going to find someone who genuinely has no priors on "Do angels exist?"
Only if you assume the objective is to convince someone what you believe is true. Maybe someone just genuinely wants to understand what your experiences are and why you find them convincing. I might not believe you've actually seen an angel, but I would be interested in what you actually saw and why you don't think other explanations are convincing. "Dismissed as irrelevant or nonsense" is uncharitable- yes, some people would do that, but no one is asking you to justify yourself to a hostile non-believer.
"but it was not so" is framing it as an arrogant atheist presuming to be able to state the nature of reality with absolute certainty. I wouldn't say "You definitely did not see an angel." I would say "I very much doubt whatever you saw was an angel, and it will take more than your subjective experience to convince me." You may think that's "logic splitting," but if you reject anything but uncritical acceptance of your experience as truth, then yeah, you won't be able to discuss it with anyone without going in circles.
No, because we know it's possible for Joe Malone to smash a window. We might inquire as to whether you'd have any reason to lie about seeing Joe Malone smashing a window, but there is no argument that we don't even know if smashing windows is possible. These are two entirely different categories of claims.
Again, "dismissed" is rather harsh, but yes, people are going to begin with priors. You think it's unfair to begin with a prior against angels, yet I'm sure many other supernatural and metaphysical beliefs, you'd begin with very strong priors of skepticism and doubt.
Remember that position the next time you are modding somebody for "we don't say the Democrats are demons round these parts".
EDIT: By which I mean, if someone has the priors "Democrats are all demons", they are still expected to abide by the "boo outgroup" rule and express their argument about any particular act, speech, or other story in the media on the merits of the act etc. itself, and not "Given that all Democrats are demons, look at this awful thing they just did which demonstrates that they are demons".
But that suddenly does not come into play here? We can all go in with "Given angels do/don't exist, here is evidence for them existing/not existing" and that's fine?
I'm not asking for anyone to convert to any religion. What I'm saying is that the OP can ask religious people on here "why do you believe?" and get answers, but that's as much as we can do. If we go deeper into a discussion, inevitably it will end up "yeah but that's stupid/okay you think you believe that but the real explanation is a natural one" on one side, and "I know this is true by the burning in my bosom" on the other, and nobody is going to convince anybody out of their settled positions.
And we don't need another round of pointless fighting and name-calling.
What are you even arguing here? Are you equating "Angels don't exist" with "Democrats are demons"? Are you trolling me?
ETA to your ETA:
Yes. You still haven't answered my very simple question: what is, in your view, an acceptable way for atheists to express disbelief, since you now seem to literally be arguing that it should be a bannable offense?
Someone saying "Angels do not exist" is not booing their outgroup. (Unless angels do exist, in which case I guess they could be offended?)
People are allowed to tell you there are natural explanations for your beliefs. I have actually banned people for calling religious believers stupid.
It is perfectly possible to have religious discussions with believers and atheists without name-calling. If you think it's "pointless fighting" because minds rarely change, welcome to the Motte. Which other subjects do you think we just shouldn't talk about?
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