To follow are my critical comments on the article by Ken Miles, entitled “Is the presence of God merely an illusion? A scientist investigates”
KM1: But what does it mean to feel the presence of God in an age of science?
GW1: Feeling the presence of God could be a hallucination, dream, illusion, or delusion in any age! We now know that God does not exist; this has been proven. And so, the “presence of God” is a psychological experience with no objective referent.
KM1: For example, in the Old Testament, Elijah experienced God as a “still small voice” (1 Kings 19:12, RSV)...
GW1: This was very likely an auditory hallucination.
KM1: or in other translations “a sound of sheer silence” (NRSV)...
GW1: Sound and silence are contradictory.
KM1: or “a low whisper” (ESV).
GW1: Probably an auditory hallucination.
KM1: In the New Testament, two disciples reflect on how their hearts had burned during an encounter with the risen Jesus on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:32).
GW1: If the story is not a fabrication, then this is probably a description of mistaken identity, and the “burning hearts” is just an emotional reaction.
KM1: More recently, scientific studies have recorded changes in the activity of the brain and autonomic nervous system during religious experiences.
GW1: These “religious experiences” were nonveridical. In other words, only one person at a time had the experience.
KM1: ...speaking in tongues, a practice which St Paul considered to be a form of communication with God (1 Corinthians 14:15).
GW1: Paul was mistaken. First, God does not exist, and this has been proven. Secondly, “speaking in tongues” is just gibberish. Anybody, even atheists, can produce it.
KM1: Swiss researchers Yoshija Walter and Andreas Altorfer have showed that the heart rate and breathing of 60 volunteers increased when they experienced God’s presence during worship, especially when accompanied by music.
GW1: Nonsense. Nobody has experienced God’s presence since God does not exist. We now know this. Probably the changes here were due to the music.
KM1: One possibility lies in the strange domain of quantum mechanics, where it seems that the behaviour of an electron can be influenced by the mind.
GW1: It only seems that way to some investigators. That is just one hypothesis. Besides, there is no proven connection of quantum mechanics to alleged spirits or a spiritual world. Neither of these has even been proven to exist.
KM1: Philosopher Nancey Murphy has proposed that the mind of God could determine the behaviour of electrons in a similar way, while avoiding any violation of the laws of nature.
GW1: If God did exist and he caused changes in energy-matter, it would be nice to know the mechanism, but this is a moot issue at this time since we know that God does not exist. If he did exist, he would be supernatural which means that he could create or alter natural processes at will.
KM1: Many biological systems demonstrate a phenomenon known within chaos theory as the ‘butterfly effect’. The term refers to the way a small change in the initial conditions of certain systems can produce a considerably larger downstream effect.
GW1: Since God does not exist, there is no small change in biological systems which can be attributed to God for the butterfly effect to work on.
KM1: We should expect to find within these practices elements that enhance the changes in the brain and autonomic nervous system described above. And this is very much the case.
GW1: Any practice at all, including any religious practice, will be correlated with changes in the nervous system, even without the existence of God.
KM1: Furthermore, the changes in brain activity associated with the sense of God’s presence have been shown to be greater when receiving prayer from someone perceived as having influential authority.
GW1: Similar changes are associated with other practices which do not involve a sense of God’s presence. And God doesn’t exist anyway; this has been proven.
KM1: There are many reasons for believing that the sense of God’s presence is not merely an illusion.
GW1: There are more reasons for believing that this sense is an illusion, hallucination, or dream.
KM1: These encounters often have very significant effects on people’s lives and the communities in which they live.
GW1: What encounters of a religious nature affected the lives of the 9-11 hijackers?
KM1: By opening up the possibility of God interacting with the human brain and body without interrupting the laws of nature, quantum mechanics and chaos theory make it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled theist.
GW1: You have identified no mechanism for this. But how could you? God does not exist, and this has been proven.
GW1: By the way, Mr. Miles failed to provide an opportunity for comments following his article. This is unethical. Why would he evade discussion of his ideas?
Editor’s Comment:
Thank you for your interest in my article. If the non-existence of God had been proved (as you claim), I doubt so many people would spend so much time debating the issue. The Argument from Experience has been an important part of that debate and my article intends to show that this argument is compatible with science (re-interpreted without the methodological assumption of naturalism). I did not have the space to present the Argument from Experience in any detail. In any case, there are others who have elaborated the argument more effectively than I possibly could.