Guy Incognito
New
I see evidence for the existence of parapsychological phenomena as broadly propitious for religious belief, because-- to varying degrees and in varying ways-- it tends to confirm various fundamental premises of religious worldviews, and specifically premises which are often disputed by practitioners in other fields of science. Of course a great deal hangs on the *interpretation* of these phenomena, which is beyond the scope of scientific research and falls to philosophical and theological reasoning, personal spiritual intuition, and/or simple preference. Much of your post (along with subsequent ones in this thread, I see) is devoted to positing alternative (non-religious) interpretations of psi phenomena, but whether or not these are valid, they are conjectures which a religiously-inclined person may or may not accept. If we are investigating whether or not (insert religion) might be true, then in addition to examining its claims from a historical/philosophical/theological standpoint, we might ask whether there is any empirical evidence that the basic claims it makes (for example, that humans possess an immaterial soul) have any truth value; parapsychological evidence (for example, extrasensory perception and Near-Death Experiences), if sound, can substantively corroborate some such claims.It seems there's this argument that if paranormal stuff is real then it would make people more likely to believe in extant religions.
Is that true though? I mean look at the recent X-men Apocalypse trailer where it suggests a mutant (so human with paranormal powers) was responsible for Hinduism, Egypt's ancient faith, and the Abrahamic faiths ->
So it's entirely possible religious figures had some kind of Psi powers that got exaggerated. In fact the messiness of the paranormal/spiritual worlds suggest to me there would be multiple entities using religion for benevolent and malevolent ends.
Look at reincarnation - the idea that there is some kind of karmic system seems to go against what's actually observed.
NDEs - okay this might be the one place where you could make an argument that some percentage of people meet religious figures and get shown Heaven (and sometimes Hell)...but it seems a good deal of NDEs don't involve traditional religious notions like eternal damnation.
Channeling - it seems the major message of channeling seems to be we are practically gods ourselves, choosing to incarnate and even choose our fates in the mortal lifetimes we experiences.
Alien encounters - Looking at Vallee's stuff, seems like either there are beings masquerading as gods our we are gods trying to remember our own divinity.
Since (as debunkers are wont to remind us) we do not have a full explanation or "mechanism" for psi, your continual refrain that parapsychology may undermine religion by indicating people who manifest paranormal traits, experiences, or abilities are "like X-Men" and not "God-touched" lacks force to my mind. In much the same way that putting the term "spontaneous remission" (a placeholder term for recoveries which have not been explained in normal terms) on apparent cases of medical miracles does not actually meaningfully refute the claim that the event was miraculous, putting the term "psi" on seemingly-supernatural or divine phenomena does not meaningfully refute the claim that they are of a fundamental supernatural or divine character. I think an interpretation of the evidence whereby, as religions would have it, these phenomena are divine in origin and nature is very reasonable.