From your post #17:
“When anyone states that you have to experience something to understand it, any rational discussion becomes impossible.”
Then, in response to my statement in #18, that it’s kind of like trying to explain the color blue to someone born blind, you respond in post #46:
“When something is based entirely upon a personal experience, it is not in the realm of reasonable debate. That does not make the experience false, but you cannot argue with feelings. You can only recognize that certain feelings exist.”
I would counter that the physical senses are not “feelings” in the sense of emotions, but physical feelings based on physical nature. A rational discussion about the senses can take place even if someone lacks the particular sense.
And a rational discussion about religious beliefs can take place, even if someone lacks religious beliefs, or holds a contradictory set of religious beliefs (always presupposing that a rational discussion is desired).
An epistemology that is based upon only subjective “experiences†and not upon objective considerations is not open to a rational debate. Since others can see the color blue (I am using phenomenological language), there is objective evidence that the color blue actually does exist. When someone says that they experienced a unicorn, they are stating nothing more than a subjective emotional feeling, there is no room left for a rational debate. Reason is based upon objective facts or logic. All that one can reasonably say is that a certain person believes that he had a subjective experience. You would simply engage in a series of contradictions and not argument if you tried to debate the issue.