Buddhist Testimony and Christian Testimony

Abstract

Even if religious experiences can provide good grounds for religious belief, the question remains whether someone else’s experience-reports provide good grounds for me to form similar beliefs, and accept their religious claims. Whether it is rational to accept religious testimony, or even irrational not to accept it, depends on whether certain defeaters are operative, which would impugn the testifier’s sincerity or competence. While there is some reason to think that defeaters are often present, there is no reason to believe they always are, so it is sometimes rational to accept religious testimony. Then the question of which testimony to accept turns on the question of which testimony has the least likelihood of being defeated. Comparing Christian and Theravada Buddhist experiences, Christian experiences are more likely to be subject to priming effects and self-deception, so, all other things being equal, it is more rational to accept the Theravada Buddhist experience claims.