METAPHYSICAL EVIDENCE

 Materialists and their opponents, whom I will call "idealists" for convenience, have both written a great deal of irrelevant nonsense about the purpose and meaning of religion. But on one aspect of religion they are on the same page. Both believe that religion depends on human interpretation of the universe. That page then gets torn in half from the groups' respective valuations of that interpretation. Materialists believe that human interpretation not based in physical evidence amounts to no more than projection, wishful thinking, and that therefore gods cannot exist if there is no physical evidence for them. Idealists believe that human interpretation is absolutely necessary for humans to understand their position in the universe, and that to extol physical evidence above human intentionality is what Georges Bataille termed "the worship of dead matter."

While materialists are almost all on the exact same page with respect to physical evidence, idealists may have varying opinions on what constitutes "metaphysical evidence," that is, evidence of anything that transcends the physical, which can include anything from Plato's Forms to the Christian creator-god to the entire panoply of the Greek pantheon. Since there are so many multivalent rationales, I won't attempt to cover them all here, but instead will just discuss two forms of metaphysical evidence that do not depend on the materialist's fetish for dead-matter evidence.

The first is the rationale of PARALLEL EVOLUTION of religious concepts, which suggest a continuity of concepts used by worshipers who are not in direct contact with one another. 

For instance, the 19th through the 21st centuries made available to modern analysts the many Indian variations on the practice of yoga. Of particular interest is the discipline of kundalini, in its current form a synthesis of assorted yogic schools, and whose essential concept is that through breathing techniques a practitioner can summon up energies that manifest upon the spinal column like a rising cobra.

To a dogmatic materialist, this is just an airy fantasy, at most a self-deception brought on by derangement of the senses. But to an idealist it means something if an entirely separate culture evolves a parallel metaphysics utilizing similar imagery. I'm far from the only person who's noticed parallel imagery between that of the Indian yogis and the god-imagery of Dynastic Egypt from about 2500 BCE. Here's one such online comparison:

I'm interested in the possibility that Egyptian religious
ideas were transmitted to India and eventually became the
source or a contributing source for what we now call kundalini
yoga. I know there has been some vague New Age and
Theosophical speculation along these lines, but now I'm
beginning to wonder if it might just possibly be an actual
historical fact.

The associations would be between (1) the forehead uraeus
and the brow (ajna) chakra, and (2) the Egyptian solar disk
above a figure's head and the crown (Sahasrara) chakra.

This is obviously not the sort of evidence a materialist wants, because one can't subject either an Egyptian worshiper of Ra or a 6th century yogi to close analysis. But to a comparative idealist, the recurrence of imagery is relevant to what Mircea Eliade called the magician's "techniques of ecstacy." To the comparativist, it's unimportant as to whether the magician/yogi/worshiper actually contacts a god, or whether any of them manifest supernatural powers (Sansrkit siddhi). Parallel mythopoeic concepts of this kind, such as a magician's power manifesting as a serpent cresting upon the magus's skull, are not explicable by the sort of aimless fantasizing that materialists attribute to all religion.

The second rationale is that of WIDESPREAD AFFIRMATION. Materialists like to claim that archaic religious experiences were fantasies thought up by clever con-men who tricked the rank and file into believing their wish-dreams of benevolent gods. This facile condemnation, though, is a little harder to sell in modern times, when the scientific theories beloved by materialists have gained so much persuasive power. The results of a 2002 Gallup poll show a wide dispersion of American citizens-- 1,509 in all, contacted via telephone interviews and thus not restricted to one area-- testifying as to religious experiences.

In a June 2002 Gallup survey*, Gallup asked respondents to rate the statement, " I have had a profound religious experience or awakening that changed the direction of my life," on a scale from 0 to 5, with 0 standing for "does not apply at all" and 5 for "applies completely." Forty-one percent of Americans -- which projects to about 80 million adults nationwide -- said the statement completely applies to them.

In the latest survey, as in previous surveys on the topic, women and people without a college degree were somewhat more likely than others to give ratings of ‘5', but there was little difference by age. Religious experiences are not tied solely to those with formal religious involvement. For example, even 25% of people with no religious preference said the statement completely applied to them, as did 27% of people who said they rarely or never attend religious services.

Gallup first polled on this topic in 1962, when 20% responded, "yes," when asked, "Would you say that you have ever had a ‘religious or mystical experience,' that is, a moment of sudden religious insight or awakening?" In subsequent measurements of this question over the last four decades, the percentage has hovered near the one-third mark.

Why should there be, according to Gallup, an increase in such experiences in comparison to a similar Gallup poll in 1962? Given the familiar claim that Americans aren't going to church very much in the 21st century, why should there be any increase in testimonies of religious experience? Again, this is a form of "metaphysical evidence" that the materialist cannot countenance, because there is no way to prove it with the tools of the laboratory. To materialists, if you cannot place a phenomenon under a microscope, it must not exist-- and of course, their fancied "evidence" for this posture remains entirely tautological.