What about Religious Experience?

Callers to online atheist talk shows frequently cite their personal experiences as evidence for the existence of God or a god. That is, they directly perceive God through their sensations. This will not do. What's open to challenge is not the experience itself--we may take the callers at their word--but their interpretation of what they feel. They can be absolutely certain they felt something, but what they may not be regarded as infallible about is their explanation of their experiences. To be taken seriously, their explanations must be open to examination and criticism.

I can witness a breathtaking sunset at the beach and be overcome by a good feeling I never experienced before. But how I interpret that feeling is another matter entirely. If I explain it by the sheer splendor of the sight, that is entirely plausible and worthy of acceptance by others. Not so my claim that I experienced God's presence or something extranatural. If I submit that as evidence for the existence of God or the extranatural, I have engaged in circular reasoning, or question-begging. I would have to independently establish that God or the extratural is a coherent idea, and if it is, I would then have to establish that my explanation is plausible. If it passed that test, I would have to submit evidence that the explanation is the correct one. Occam's Razor would be applicable. The experience itself, however, cannot function as evidence for anything but the feeling itself.

Since the very notion of the extratural is incoherent (because it means being external to being), we never reach the other two questions: is the explanation plausible and does evidence for the extranatural exist. If one rips a concept like be out of its natural-world context from which it is derived, what then does be even mean? Once a concept is emptied of its meaning, it cannot continue to be used seriously.

Religious experience is not evidence. It's what requires evidence.