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Seeing the divine in the world: illusion or reality?

An ultrasound scan

Some religious folk believe that, perhaps with the right training and/or immersion in religious practice - some can become sensitive to meaning and significance in the world - meaning and significance that is lost on atheists. I look out the window and just see the sunset. They look out the window and see the Glory of God. But are they detecting meaning and significance that is really there for anyone with eyes to see? Or are they merely projecting that meaning and significance onto a realty that lacks it?

I suppose it boils down to something like the difference e.g. between 1. seeing the baby or the tumour in those shifting, fuzzy ultrasound scan images - something not everyone can do, and which requires training to get really good at it, and 2. seeing the canals of Mars.

In the 1870s the astronomer Schiaparelli thought he could see the Martian canals through his telescope, and started to map them. Others joined in. They confirmed the existence of Schiaperelli's canals, and even noted that new ones had appeared. Then small black spots at the intersections of the canals were observed and recorded. Eventually, detailed maps of the canals were created and theories about them developed. Lowell famously theorised the canals were a planet-wide irrigation system designed to bring water down from the icy poles. Of course, the canals did not really exist.

My suspicion, of course, is that religious experience of the sort described above are more like the latter than the former. An interesting question is: how can we tell which of these things is going on: detecting real significance and meaning in what’s before us, or merely projecting that meaning and significance into what we see?

With ultrasound images we can at least check against something independent how well we are doing in reading the scans. I thought that was a hand, but it turns out it was a foot. We can now perform similar checks on the surface of Mars. But no such check is possible (I think?) when it comes to the veracity of the religious experience.

Notice that mere agreement among experts doesn’t count for that much, as we have that in the Martian canals example too. On the other hand, defenders of the veracity of such religious experiences may insist that just because there’s no objective independent check possible doesn’t mean what the religious seem to detect isn’t actually there.

Here’s Schiaperelli’s 1877 map, and then a 1962 map, of the canal systems of Mars (it wasn’t until 1965 Mariner fly-by that the canal theory was entirely debunked)
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