This book takes a theoretical enterprise in Christian philosophy of religion and applies it to
Buddhism thus defending Buddhism and presenting it favorably in comparison. Chapters explore
how the claims of both Christianity and Theravada Buddhism rest on people's experiences so the
question as to which claimants to religious knowledge are right rests on the evidential value
of those experiences. The book examines mysticism and ways to understand what goes on in
religious experiences helping us to understand whether it is good grounds for religious
belief. The author argues that religious language in both Christian and Buddhist traditions is
intelligible as factual discourse and so reports of mystical experience are true or false. The
book contends that those experiences can be fruitfully thought of as perceptual in kind and
that they are therefore good prima facie grounds for religious belief in the absence of
defeating conditions. The work goes on to explore Christian and Buddhist testimony and how the
likelihood of self-deception self-delusion imaginative elaboration and the like constitutes a
defeating condition. It is shown that this defeater has less scope for operation in the
Buddhist case than in the Christian case and therefore Theravada Buddhism is better grounded.
This work will appeal to students and scholars of philosophy and philosophy of religion and
those interested in the study of religious experience.
