Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
Perhaps if you were a little more intellectually honest, you wouldn't resort to shallow responses.
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Is there solid, verifiable proof that there is a god?
- Thread starter slave2six
- Start date
Perhaps if you were a little more intellectually honest, you wouldn't resort to shallow responses.
Perhaps more exploration of your label of 'hallucination' for THE mystic experience is worthy. Although most 'mystics' would not care what one who has not had the experience labels the 'experience,' hallucination is not appropriate from my perspective. This is due to two reasons: A. hallucination has a negative connotation and B. THE mystic experience cannot necessarily be called a sensory perception.
A. The following are dictionary definitions of hallucination:]
Free dictionary online:
1. a. Perception of visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, or gustatory experiences without an external stimulus and with a compelling sense of their reality, usually resulting from a mental disorder or as a response to a drug.
b. The objects or events so perceived.
2. A false or mistaken idea; a delusion.
MedicineNet medical dictionary online:
Hallucination: A profound distortion in a person's perception of reality, typically accompanied by a powerful sense of reality. An hallucination may be a sensory experience in which a person can see, hear, smell, taste, or feel something that is not there.
When the average person sees the label 'hallucination' it is interpreted with all those negative associations. THE mystic experience should never be labeled an hallucination and when it is the individual so labeling is often trying to degrade THE experience to others by associating it with the negative insinuations.
B. THE mystic experience is not a "sensory perception." Although it is impossible for one to explain it in a way that most others could understand it, one might say it is more like an immediate expansion and shift of awareness. Some say it is an awakening involving intuition. But no words are sufficient and these are just 'pointers.' It is often said that one must experience it to understand it. You see, as Riverwolf has noted, most individuals have a dual perspective on reality and look for God as an object; that is, an object within existence which implies a 'thing' along side all other things. On the other hand, in the case of THE mystic experience, nondual reality has broken through into the human consciousness and one has difficulty understanding this from a dualistic perspective. The very word 'exist' comes into question because of the perspective that most individuals have on it.
McBell
Admiral Obvious
Kettle, meet pot.
I was going by what was actually said.
Not by what he MIGHT have meant.
Seems to me that the problem lies with your wanting to go with what he MIGHT have meant, not by what was actually said.
Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
Since you were originally responding to my post, I know exactly what I meant, and what I said. To post a painting of god, in reponse to my posting a video of an electron, as an apt comparison of proof of existence is at best shallow, and at worst disingenuous. The only reason I even pursue this is that I know you are capable of being intellectually honest, and usually are.
rojse
RF Addict
blackout
Violet.
Aparantely Slave's personal experience (of life)
qualifies your personal experience (of life) as rot. So there.
And take that!
blackout
Violet.
Now WHO'S behind it (ie. Creates it from out of nothing & 'backs it' with nothing tangable)....
and we might just get some REAL answers.
Sounds like god power to me.
Anti-thesisofreason
Explorer
Is that blue cloud thing the electron or is the movement of the cloud evidence of the electrons movement?
How do they know?
Anti-thesisofreason
Explorer
Ideas have the potential/tendency to become Reality.
JMorris
Democratic Socialist
its one thing to claim that your god is a personal god. but you start claiming that your god is a universal god, the god of all people, then thats where clashes of "personal experience" come in. of course an atheist's personal experience is going to clash with this.
i dont know how many times i've heard from christian saying "if you just let jesus into your heart, and blah blah blah". and before people starting fuming over generalizations, how many times do i need to hear this from christians before i can start generalizing?
my point is, when its my personal experience that there is no universal god, and your claiming there is, and all i have to do is "let him in my heart" then your claiming that somehow my experience is flawed. i havent "tried" hard enough or some crap.
at the same time, i realize that the same is true of an atheist experience to a christian experience.
there is no way these 2 types of experience cant be in conflict. but it goes both ways.
i dont know how many times i've heard from christian saying "if you just let jesus into your heart, and blah blah blah". and before people starting fuming over generalizations, how many times do i need to hear this from christians before i can start generalizing?
my point is, when its my personal experience that there is no universal god, and your claiming there is, and all i have to do is "let him in my heart" then your claiming that somehow my experience is flawed. i havent "tried" hard enough or some crap.
at the same time, i realize that the same is true of an atheist experience to a christian experience.
there is no way these 2 types of experience cant be in conflict. but it goes both ways.
Storm
ThrUU the Looking Glass
What if God is universal, and atheists simply lack experience of it?
blackout
Violet.
To me... the UniVerse IS gOd.
(and thus are you)
Not sure how much more UniVersal you can get than that.
(plus I'll bet you believe they both exist :flirt
JMorris
Democratic Socialist
it can go both ways. i have what might be considered a spiritual experience, and i go to a psychologist, where as another might go to a church. who is right? im not saying being religious is a mental illness, im just saying an "experience" can be perceived differently to different people.
in my opinion, if there were a universal god, then we'd all experience him/her/it. not just a select few.
JMorris
Democratic Socialist
To me... the UniVerse IS gOd.
Not sure how much more UniVersal you can get than that.
if there is a god, that is actually the most plausible answer to me. but since i dont know, i dont assume.
Storm
ThrUU the Looking Glass
Oh, agreed. That's why I think there are so many religions. We interpret the incomprehensible in terms of the familiar.
That strikes me an unjustifiable assumption. Unless you assume that God wants worship or whatever, which also strikes me unjustifiable.
JMorris
Democratic Socialist
fair enough. if god dosent actually want anything from me, then it dosent really make any difference to me. if knowing or worshiping god has no positive or negative consequence attached to it, then god's existence is irrelevant to me. if he's real, ill meet him when im dead.
Storm
ThrUU the Looking Glass
Well, sorta.
JMorris
Democratic Socialist
Well, sorta.
please explain
Storm
ThrUU the Looking Glass
I'm somewhere between pantheism and panentheism, so I don't believe there's a separate God to "meet." However, I do believe that between lives, we regain awareness of the whole. Without a brain to maintain the illusion of separation, we shift back to the divine perpective.