Religious experience a Simulacrum

[Justin108]

Simulacrum(simulacra): Something that replaces reality with its representation.
Jean Baudrillard in "The Precession of Simulacra" defines this term as follows: "Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being, or a substance. It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal.... It is no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor even parody. It is a question of substituting the signs of the real for the real" (1-2). His primary examples are psychosomatic illness, Disneyland, and Watergate. Fredric Jameson provides a similar definition: the simulacrum's "peculiar function lies in what Sartre would have called the derealization of the whole surrounding world of everyday reality" (34).
https://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theo ... acrum.html

This video does a good job explaining the concept of a simulacrum and how it applies to religious experience (starting at 4:49)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbXJC6KsYWs


Is religious experience nothing but a simulacrum?

[marco]

Is religious experience nothing but a simulacrum?

I find explanatory videos irritating but I listened. I don't know why the word simulacrum has been used here. In Latin it was commonly used to mean an image, a likeness and in later Latin it meant an ideal. It could also mean a shadow or a ghost.

I assume that the hypothesis is that religious experience is a mirage. People take guidance from a source they have endowed with a reality. To a great extent the God people believe in is a humanised being, angry, jealous, cruel, kind, merciful. No one has direct experience to validate this. Nor can we invalidate it.

The underlying axiom would be that there is no divinity that reflects its image on believers. If we accept this, then of course anything religious is a sham. But we don't know if there are beings beyond us or dimensions that we have no access to.

For believers there's nothing unreal in what they believe.

[Kenisaw]

Simulacrum(simulacra): Something that replaces reality with its representation.
Jean Baudrillard in "The Precession of Simulacra" defines this term as follows: "Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being, or a substance. It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal.... It is no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor even parody. It is a question of substituting the signs of the real for the real" (1-2). His primary examples are psychosomatic illness, Disneyland, and Watergate. Fredric Jameson provides a similar definition: the simulacrum's "peculiar function lies in what Sartre would have called the derealization of the whole surrounding world of everyday reality" (34).
https://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theo ... acrum.html

This video does a good job explaining the concept of a simulacrum and how it applies to religious experience (starting at 4:49)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbXJC6KsYWs


Is religious experience nothing but a simulacrum?

I can't say for sure. The problem with the question is that personal experiences aren't transferable. As such, they are not made up of empirical evidence or data. So I can't say for sure what someone experienced, and why they did. There are no doubt many possible explanations for someone had a religious experience:

- Their brain misinterpreted the input received and reached a conclusion that is based on expectation instead of raw data.
- Their brain received faulty data because of an error in the data input system (their eyes were watery from allergies for example which affected how they see) and therefore could not interpret reality correctly.
- Faulty memory.
- Optical illusion.
- They actually had an experience with a god or the supernatural.

We can't discount the last one either. I think any intellectually honest atheist will tell you that they cannot say, with 100% certainty, that gods or the supernatural do not exist. So it's entirely possible that someone did actually have that exact experience as they think they did (I feel it is important to clarify that this does not necessarily make it plausible that it could happen).

Which is why, conversely, personal experience is not acceptable as evidence for anything. Every single person could be lying, or every single person could be telling the truth. No one can know.

[Danmark]

Like Marco, I find videos less than the ideal way to learn, mainly because they are too slow. I have to wade thru the 'entertainment' aspect to get to the meat of the idea. The 'meat' I saw here was that the narrator was able to see the beautiful illusion of his faith because the professor was respectful and open.

I think we are today discovering a new threat to this illusion, artificial intelligence. I'm going to bring that up in a separate thread.

[Divine Insight]

Is religious experience nothing but a simulacrum?

My answer to this question is yes. However, I would like to be quick to point out that this does not make religious experience meaningless, or useless. That is to say that I reject the idea that a simulacrum itself is meaningless or useless. In fact, to the contrary, I suggest that our imagination is both a very powerful and useful tool.

The only thing I hold to be important it so realize that a simulacrum is what it is and not to lose sight of that.

In other words, if believing in a faith-based religious paradigm adds value to our lives in any way, then there is absolutely nothing wrong with employing this faith-based simulacrum, as long as we understand that this is what it is. And as long as our simulacrum isn't having an adverse affect on others.

How could anyone argue that a simulacrum that produces positive productive results in the real world could not be a good thing? Especially if it produces no negative side affects?

Another way of putting this is that our imagination is real. What we imagine has a real affect on how we view the world and how we behave and interact with it. Because of this, and since a simulacrum is a product of our real imagination that affects how we behave in the real world, this give "reality" to the simulacrum itself.

Not a reality to the object of the simulacrum, but a reality to the idea the simulacrum represents. In other words, I agree that the simulacrum represents nothing more than an idea. The question then becomes the question of whether or not this idea itself has any positive value. Never mind whether there is any reality behind the facade that the idea represents.

In other words, as many religious people claim, if they did not believe in their God (i.e. their simulacrum) they would have no reason to be a decent person.

Well duh? If that's true then this simulacrum that they have created is a valuable "idea" that brings positive value into the world by causing them to be a decent person when they clearly wouldn't be a decent person otherwise.

Thus a simulacrum clearly can have a positive result in the real world even though the simulacrum itself is just an idea.

I will grant that it would be far better if a person could find reasons to be a decent person without a need for the crutch of a simulacrum. In fact, it would be even far better yet if they just wanted to naturally be a decent person without any need to have rational reasons for why they should be decent.

Unfortunately there are people who simply aren't naturally decent people, and therefore they need to have "reasons" to be decent. And this is where the simulacrum of religion tends to fill a role in human society. Religion helps people who aren't naturally decent to have a reason to behave in a fairly decent manner.

So in this sense a religious simulacrum can have positive value.

Unfortunately the simulacrum of religion also has a nasty habit of causing some people to do horrible things in the name of their simulacrum. So religion is unstable and undependable overall.

It would be nice is people were just naturally decent and didn't need an excuse like religion to behave themselves. But unfortunately many people find it extremely difficult to be decent (even after they have found religion!).

And those are people who don't even realize that the religion is a simulacrum. They think that God is real and they STILL can't behave themselves.

[Justin108]

I don't know why the word simulacrum has been used here. In Latin it was commonly used to mean an image, a likeness and in later Latin it meant an ideal. It could also mean a shadow or a ghost.

I'm not so much interested in the word as I am the concept. Whether you want to call it something other than a simulacrum, I'm interested in discussing the concept as it is described here.

For believers there's nothing unreal in what they believe.

That's exactly what a simulacrum is. An unreal experience experienced as though it were real. It is real for them, but could the reason it's not real for everyone be explained in it being a simulacrum to the religious?

[marco]

For believers there's nothing unreal in what they believe.

That's exactly what a simulacrum is. An unreal experience experienced as though it were real. It is real for them, but could the reason it's not real for everyone be explained in it being a simulacrum to the religious?

You have read my words as: "For them there's nothing unreal in what they believe AND THEY ARE WRONG. " I didn't say this. Those of us who do not see may simply be blind. When some people view an Esher drawing they can see only one thing no matter how hard they try.

Here we explore why some see and why others do not see. It isn't a given that we, who do not see, are possessed of Truth. It may well be so. Or we may be wrong.

I accept that placebos often effect a cure and it may be that religious belief helps and strengthens people though there is no substance to it. In all our discussion here I don't think we have driven out God with our pitchforks.

[Wootah]

[Replying to post 1 by Justin108]

What is belief in God replacing?

Also what simulacrum do you think you may have?

[Danmark]

[Replying to post 1 by Justin108]

What is belief in God replacing?

Knowledge of the natural world and an effort to understand it. When ancient man did not understand what caused rain, thunder, and lightning, he imagined a creator being, a 'god' as an explanation. Not being able to control the weather, he imagined a God who he could then placate and make burnt offerings to in order to try to control that god. Perhaps if he played nice enough and gave the god gifts, the god would reward him with better weather. God was created by man for appeasement.

This imagined god was a substitute for discovery, for science, for the search for truth. But some men were not satisfied with a 'god of the gaps.' Those men continued to search, to study, to learn. Those men put away childish things and sought genuine answers for their questions about how the world works.

[Wootah]

[Replying to post 1 by Justin108]

What is belief in God replacing?

Knowledge of the natural world and an effort to understand it. When ancient man did not understand what caused rain, thunder, and lightning, he imagined a creator being, a 'god' as an explanation. Not being able to control the weather, he imagined a God who he could then placate and make burnt offerings to in order to try to control that god. Perhaps if he played nice enough and gave the god gifts, the god would reward him with better weather. God was created by man for appeasement.

This imagined god was a substitute for discovery, for science, for the search for truth. But some men were not satisfied with a 'god of the gaps.' Those men continued to search, to study, to learn. Those men put away childish things and sought genuine answers for their questions about how the world works.

I seem to remember asking two questions (maybe I am simulcrating two questions?).

Anyway, can you see the mote in your own eye and identify a simulacrum?

Is it possible a simulacrum is an ad hominem in another form? Or worse an appeal to authority where one is claiming to perceive reality and asking others to believe them?