Near Death experiences and the scientific method.

[Ben Dhyan]

Different wording, same circular logic.

I guess that once you believe this, it isn't hard to accept it is real. Unfortunately you have zero evidence to support your belief.

I don't deal in belief!

 

[Ben Dhyan]

But I have tried. As part of my lifelong interest in religion, I have prayed to gods, I have read their scriptures, I have participated in their rituals. Nothing.
Why do you thing all those gods and spirits are ignoring me?

If you are going to claim that I am not trying with enough belief or conviction, then you are just proving my point. Without existing belief, there is nothing there.

Worthiness is an important part of getting the door opened, keep trying, humbly.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Still relying on circular reasoning, I see.
"You can't find god until you believe god can be found".

You don't truly understand understanding until you understand not understanding. You will realize spiritual understanding when you understand what is not spiritual understanding.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Unfortunately that appears to be what happened to you.

Haha...

 

[Ben Dhyan]

No. Riding a bike is an aspirational, practical skill, so not the same at all. It is like saying to you "If you try being an atheist, you will realise that the idea of god is nonsense".
Go on. Try being an atheist for a week. Trust me, knowledge will be revealed.
You can't just pretend though, you need to actually accept that there is no god, then you will understand the truth of atheism.

It is not possible to unrealize what has been realized, it like asking someone who speaks English fluently to unlearn it.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

The problem you have here is that there is evidence and rational argument that supports the "no gods" position, whereas belief in gods relies on existing belief rather than evidence and rational argument - as you have admitted yourself. No one arrives at belief in gods through scientific and evidential means.

Given this, it is reasonable to assume no gods, and unreasonable to assume gods.

But I don't deal in assumptions, I am not assuming spiritual knowledge, it exists.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

So all those people who have claimed NDEs when "dead" for say 5 minutes in the ER were just imagining it? We can dismiss all such claims?

Awareness is not imagination, where did you get that idea?

 

[KWED]

Do you not know the difference between belief and experience?

They are not necessarily different at all.
Many people believe that they experience things which are purely in the imagination.

 

[KWED]

I don't believe in God, I know there is according to my understanding of the reality represented by the term 'God'. There is a difference between belief and experience.

IOW, you believe that your belief is real.
Psychiatry and psychology are full of people who genuinely believe their delusions are real. By your argument, they therefore are real.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

They are not necessarily different at all.
Many people believe that they experience things which are purely in the imagination.

If you have actually had a certain experience, belief that you had it is not necessary, you just say you experienced it. The meaning of the concept 'belief' has nothing to do with the meaning of the concept 'experience', they are not the same.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

IOW, you believe that your belief is real.
Psychiatry and psychology are full of people who genuinely believe their delusions are real. By your argument, they therefore are real.

Also the meaning of the concept 'belief' is not the same as the meaning of the concept 'knowledge'. Sheeesh!

 

[KWED]

Well experience is just experience. delusion can come as a result of not understanding properly what it is and the context, etc.. Like all understanding, spiritual understanding comes with mistakes, delusions, etc., but they can and mostly will be corrected so long as one does not dive in too deep initially, and after..

IOW, "Other people might be deluded, but I am not".

And they might say the same about you, with equal conviction.
So where does that leave us?

 

[KWED]

When one has, as a result of a long period of efficacious spiritual practice, realized within themselves a higher consciousness beyond their ego thinking mind, and spend more and more in that 'space', just as the conditioned ego mind self identifies with the body, a new higher self identity emerges that expresses this inner higher spiritual source. The lower ego mind still functions as appropriate (when and if not deluded which will happen if it thinks it is the higher state).
I understand that it is impossible to convey a subjective experience to someone who has not had the same or similar experience, so feel free to be skeptical.

IOW, "If you really believe that you have had a spiritual experience, the you have had a spiritual experience".

Is there any part of your argument that does not rely on circular logic?

 

[KWED]

So show me an atheist who accepts in spiritual knowledge?

André Comte-Sponville. He has written several books on the subject.

18% of American atheists say they believe in some kind of higher power (Pew Research).

 

[KWED]

Now that is a belief, I deal in reality.

There is no evidence that the historical character of Jesus had any miraculous powers, was resurrected, etc. "Magic Jesus" exists only in the belief of Christians.
We have already detected enough planets that have the potential to sustain life in the tiny fraction of the universe that we can observe closely enough, to make the existence of extraterrestrial life an almost certainty.

 

[KWED]

I don't deal in belief!

Of course you do. Everything you have argued on here is based entirely on belief. You have presented zero verifiable evidence for any of your claims.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

IOW, "Other people might be deluded, but I am not".

And they might say the same about you, with equal conviction.
So where does that leave us?

I did not imply I have always at all times understood what my experiences involved, and I suspect it is universally a truism that this is how learning is, both in this world and the expanded universal one.
So that leaves us with the goal to find out what and who we really are in the context of the one universal existence, at least imho.

 

[KWED]

Worthiness is an important part of getting the door opened, keep trying, humbly.

What does any of that actually mean?
How does one become "worthy" of god's response? Presumably being open-minded and requiring evidence rather than blind acceptance is "unworthy".
And what does humility have to do with anything? Why would that affect god's response?

Once again, you are essentially saying that you need belief in able to believe.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

André Comte-Sponville. He has written several books on the subject.

18% of American atheists say they believe in some kind of higher power (Pew Research).

So why are they not considered agnostic?

But in any event, I like to hear from the horses mouth, not some statistical impersonal source, you are an atheist and it follows logically that you do not accept spiritual knowledge, yes?

 

[KWED]

You don't truly understand understanding until you understand not understanding. You will realize spiritual understanding when you understand what is not spiritual understanding.

So how do you know you truly understand understanding? How do you know that it is not merely delusion, or simple misunderstanding of understanding?
It seems that one needs a very high opinion of one's own abilities in order to truly understand - which contradicts your claim that humility is required before understanding is revealed.