Contradiction in terms, no? I was wondering about this, though: say an atheist has a vision or dream experience in which they meet God, or angels, or transcend somehow the physical world, what “truth” content can that have for them?
If one follows the doctrine of Scientism–which in broad stroke reduces all possible experiences to material conditions which have been in theory determined since the beginning of time–then one must step back from such experiences, process them “rationally”, and then reject them. You must kill the idea they might have actual validity, and erase the positive emotions associated with them.
As I have long said, though, true skepticism is equidistance from both belief and and disbelief. You neither take peoples word for it, nor reject anything out of hand as impossible. You investigate. That is what scientists–real scientists, who are a subset of that class we call “scientists”–do.
And in the case, say, of a dream, let us say it leaves a lingering positive effect. It makes you feel better, in ways which are hard or impossible to articulate. From the perspective of Pragmatism–understood here formally both as a philosophically method, and in the broader sense of something that is simply useful–such as experience is true, because it yielded a desirable result. Empirically, you feel better. This cannot be disputed. The MEANING and ORIGIN can be disputed, but not the actual feelings.
Let us further posit that, in the end, our atheist determines–in perfect congruence with his philosophy–that some biochemical event has happened, which in its wake left a series of positive neurotransmitters or chemicals that enabled this experience.
Even so, does that eradicate the value of such an experience? Even if, ex post facto, it is determined not to be “really real”, is such a thing not desirable? And what if you pursued religious faith, not out of conviction, but because it often engendered such neurochemical responses? Would that be wrong?
Plainly, many hippies have used LSD, mushrooms, mescalin and other such drugs to the effect of facilitating mystical experiences. There is, I am told, even now research going on as to the use of such drugs to treat things like chronic depression, alcoholism, and even a sense of meaninglessness. We know they hit certain parts of the brain, objectively, and subjectively that when used in the proper conditions they are life altering events.
Is this wrong?
What I am always at pains to do is build pathways for qualitative improvement. I personally believe that such experiences ARE real, in some sense, but I don’t want to part company with people who are unable to share that belief.
We need, I think, always to be keeping what is useful, and trying–within the flexibility integrity permits–to improve on it.