Experiencing God

[sojourner]

Which again, doesn't make any of it true.

It doesn't make any of it factual, but, as we know, "fact" and "truth" aren't the same thing.

 

[Cephus]

It doesn't make any of it factual, but, as we know, "fact" and "truth" aren't the same thing.

Actually, the definition for "truth" is that which is true or in accordance with fact or reality.

 

[sojourner]

A god which you have no good reason to think actually exists.

YET AGAIN: When have I ever made here an ontological argument for God as an existent being???

You can no more talk about God than you can talk about Harry Potter, except in terms of the stories from which you draw your ideas.

That's not true at all. I can talk about God in any way I choose that has meaning for me. "God" doesn't have to fit with any other story.

It comes from four anonymous sources, clearly not from eyewitnesses, which directly contradict each other.

No they don't. There are difference of placement and time frame, but those differences don't necessarily contradict each other. You're also conveniently forgetting the oral transmission of information about Jesus. Can I "prove" his existence? No. But I can establish that it's reasonable to think that some such person did exist.

Are you saying that God isn't an existent being?

No. I'm not making an ontological fact claim for God of any sort. I am saying that, in my particular constructive theology, God is not particularly an existent being.

One that you can't back up. You're welcome to believe it, I just don't think you can prove it.

No, I can't. But I'm comfortable enough with the evidence at hand to proceed on that assumption.

Note, you didn't say a physical being, you said an existent being. So does God not exist at all?

Do you understand the difference between a fact claim and a theological claim? Because you keep running the same argument past me that simply isn't cogent.
I'm making no ontological fact claim about God. I don't need to. My theological claim is that God is not an existent being; God is Being, itself. There's this state called "existence," yes? You and I exist. We are existent beings. "God" is that state in which you and I (and every other existent thing) find ourselves.

Sure he does, he can bring in tons of eyewitnesses who can testify that they call him Lucky.

I can "call" anyone anything. But that doesn't mean that's their name. A baby will call a mailbox "Ba!" But that doesn't mean that "Ba!" is the name for a mailbox. And no one can prove that "Ba!" is the name of the mailbox, even though that's what the baby calls it.

t's very easy to prove that people call him that.

Just because they call him that doesn't mean that that's his name.

Ancient histories were never just histories, there are tons of examples of historians breaking into descriptions of gods and dragons and monsters in the middle of their supposed historical narratives. That's why modern historians look for multiple independent sources that agree on the details and why so much of ancient historical lore is simply unreliable. History, to ancient people, wasn't a separate and distinct discipline, it was a part of mythmaking and storytelling.

I think you're beginning to get it! The thing is, this isn't "breaking into mythology in the middle of a story." These are histories surrounding this particular person, and how he affected the world. While some (or many) of the details may be mythic, the core truth is that, likely, they were talking about a real person.

Then just like you can prove that Lucky is his nickname, you ought to be able to prove God exists.

I can't prove that, though. I can prove that that's what I call him. But that's not his name.

There's no such thing as "true to me".

Of course there is.

It's either true or it is not true.

Truth is relative.

You can't decide that something that you claim exists in factual reality is real for you and not for other people.

ONCE AGAIN: I'm Not. Making. A. Fact. Claim. I'm Not. Claiming. That. God. Is. An. Existent. Being.

Then your sense of the world is factually incorrect.

Oh? How? How is my sense of the world "factually incorrect?"

You keep saying God is as real as the universe

I never said "God is as real as the universe."

And I've pointed out where your reasoning is fallacious. I can't help it if you don't care.

My reasoning isn't fallacious, because I'm not making fact claims. However, your reasoning is fallacious in claiming that I'm making fact claims.

 

[sojourner]

Actually, the definition for "truth" is that which is true or in accordance with fact or reality.

All facts are true. But not all truth is factual. How is "love" a fact? You can't prove love. Yet it exists. It is true that I love my wife, even though there's no way to prove that I love my wife.

 

[Cephus]

All facts are true. But not all truth is factual. How is "love" a fact? You can't prove love. Yet it exists. It is true that I love my wife, even though there's no way to prove that I love my wife.

Sure you can. Put the person in an fMRI. You can see the parts of the brain that register love light up. Love, indeed all emotion and all thought, are just electrochemical reactions in the brain. But do keep trying.

 

[sojourner]

Sure you can. Put the person in an fMRI. You can see the parts of the brain that register love light up. Love, indeed all emotion and all thought, are just electrochemical reactions in the brain. But do keep trying.

That doesn't prove anything, because love is more than an emotional response. But do keep trying.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

That doesn't prove anything, because love is more than an emotional response. But do keep trying.

exactly, the same atheist argument can be applied to the software and hardware running this forum, it operates on mere automated electrical impulses too, therefore it must have accidentally created itself for no particular reason.

 

[Cephus]

That doesn't prove anything, because love is more than an emotional response. But do keep trying.

Really? Prove it. There's no evidence that it is any more than an emotional response. You say you're rational, prove it.

 

[sojourner]

Really? Prove it. There's no evidence that it is any more than an emotional response. You say you're rational, prove it.

Methinks you're confusing love with something else. Like "infatuation," for example.

 

[Cephus]

Methinks you're confusing love with something else. Like "infatuation," for example.

No, I'm expecting you to back up your statement. You said that love was more than an electrochemical reaction in the brain. Produce evidence for that claim.

 

[sojourner]

No, I'm expecting you to back up your statement. You said that love was more than an electrochemical reaction in the brain. Produce evidence for that claim.

The evidence that people remain committed to a love relationship, even though difficulties outweigh the feelings of infatuation.

 

[Cephus]

The evidence that people remain committed to a love relationship, even though difficulties outweigh the feelings of infatuation.

So in other words, you're full of crap. That's all anyone needs to know. Thanks.

 

[sojourner]

So in other words, you're full of crap. That's all anyone needs to know. Thanks.

Building a love relationship on something other than chemical reactions is not "full of crap." What's full of crap is insisting that love is only some chemical reaction, and that it has no real, immeasurable meaning for us other than that. You're grasping at some very loose straws here in order to push a bad position, out of some misplaced belief that only those things that can be measured or quantified are real. If that's the case, try measuring beauty (or ugliness, for that matter). Try measuring the value of life. Try measuring friendship.

 

[Jeremy Taylor]

Or, given that we are all the same species, it might just mean that we are all subject to the same quirks and misfirings of our psychology. More is needed to establish that these experiences access anything external and real.

I largely agree. I think in the abstract, without any other suppositions, subjective religious experiences are not necessarily proof to a third person. For he who is the experiencer, the import of such experience would depend upon their content and quality (for example, whether they included noetic knowledge, or knowledge of truths in themselves).

However, I certainly think some of those criticising religious experiences here are almost cutting the branch from under them. Personal experience and knowledge, both our own and that of others, is indispensable in our lives and even in our intellectual pursuits, and it is not necessarily fully testable in the scientific or even analytical sense.

Besides, knowledge is ultimately subjective. It is known by a subject and must be assimilated and directly known by it. The proofs and testable, falsifiable aspects mentioned are not the truth itself but prompts and scaffolds to it, and it wouldn't do to mistake the finger pointing towards the moon for the moon itself.

 

[outhouse]

However, I certainly think some of those criticising religious experiences here are almost cutting the branch from under them. Persona experience and knowledge, both our own and that of others, is indispensable in our lives and even in our intellectual pursuits, and it is not necessarily fully testable in the scientific or even analytical sense.

Personal perception has never been credible because the human mind is so weak.

Religion did not start from divine connections or supernatural rhetoric.

Mythology is mythology, and if you don't study it you have no business making comment about it period.

 

[Jeremy Taylor]

You are ignoring content by this member.

 

[Looncall]

By your account, how does one distinguish knowledge from delusion?
One needs to fact check one's experiences against reality, never mind convincing another person.

 

[Jeremy Taylor]

By your account, how does one distinguish knowledge from delusion?
One needs to fact check one's experiences against reality, never mind convincing another person.

I'm am not sure what your point is here and which part of my post it is referring to.

 

[sojourner]

Personal perception has never been credible because the human mind is so weak.

Religion did not start from divine connections or supernatural rhetoric.

Mythology is mythology, and if you don't study it you have no business making comment about it period.

Credible to whom? it only needs to be credible to the individual having the experience.

 

[Cephus]

Building a love relationship on something other than chemical reactions is not "full of crap." What's full of crap is insisting that love is only some chemical reaction, and that it has no real, immeasurable meaning for us other than that. You're grasping at some very loose straws here in order to push a bad position, out of some misplaced belief that only those things that can be measured or quantified are real. If that's the case, try measuring beauty (or ugliness, for that matter). Try measuring the value of life. Try measuring friendship.

And off you go moving the goalposts and hoping nobody notices. You got caught in a claim that was demonstrably factually wrong, yet instead of admitting your error, you're changing your argument. Oh wait! Love didn't work? Let's try beauty!

Yeah, I think we're done here.