serp777
Well-Known Member
Personal revelation in the sense i'm using means that an external, supernatural entity is communicating with you or conveying some feeling whereby nobody else can confirm that it actually occurred.
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Nobody should believe their alleged divine personal revelations
- Thread starter serp777
- Start date
Personal revelation in the sense i'm using means that an external, supernatural entity is communicating with you or conveying some feeling whereby nobody else can confirm that it actually occurred.
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
By what criteria should a believer use to varify his personal revelation if his criteria for validation is false?
My logic is simple. I presume the reality of those experiences which, when I believe them to be real, delivers practical and psychological benefits to me as I live my life. Presuming the reality of the apple that I see and taste delivers the practical benefit of assuaging my hunger. Similarly presuming the reality of God that I experience through meditation delivers the practical benefit of guidance towards constructing an eudaimonic lifestyle. Thus I believe both.
On the other hand, presuming the reality of the entities I see in my dreams provides no such benefits, hence I don't believe on their reality.
Simple.
You have a better proposal? Let's hear it.
This is like saying it's not possible to prove any experience. The experience is real unless you're intentionally faking it.
I don't find that fitting of Satan's character or believe in Hell. And not all "divine personal revelations" are supernatural. One can have spontaneous insight into the nature of reality through a realization of spiritual significance on their own.
Or a deity can reveal it to them in meditation. The source is still from inside themselves though, as deities are reflections of ourselves.
I find it bizarre that people accept whatever they see. They justify that they saw it so must exist, and they know they really saw it because it has to exist to see it.
Isn't that the same kind of thing? Rather, I would offer that revelation is JUST like any other qualia. We have no justification that any empirical phenomena is really happening, after all as you said it could be aliens tricking us by firing off brain cells. It could all be a simulation.
But no, we usually assume any qualia/empirical evidence is real because we can see it, just as those with personal divine experiences usually believe them because they saw them.
I'm a rather skeptical person in general, so I question both directly proportional to how extraordinary of a thing it was I just perceived.
I think @Quintessence just meant that it's better to relate to something we can literally see or feel. It's qualia, experience. It's not qualitatively different than "real" things to those who experience them. All that will differ is if people believe those things were illusion or reality.
If you've ever had a strong hallucination or an extremely vivid lucid dream you will know that it's confusing to know what's reality and what's not. I once had a dream so hyper realistic with someone walking that I woke in real life thinking someone was there but when I did it was dead silent.
Had I had an experience that seemed to be some kind of divine thing to that degree of hyper realism and sensory acuity and definition I wouldn't of for a second doubted it was 100% real. However in my life spiritual experiences and revelations ect are not that vivid. In fact, I'd argue, the ones that are hyper vivid are usually kind underwhelming when compared to fictional depictions in the media.
For a comparision/metaphor, it's the difference of a firecracker going off next to you're ear unexpectedly versus watching it happen to someone else. You can't convey the sensory experience just by watching the real thing, but maybe you could with an epic bright flashy explosion. But nothing short of it happening to you will accurately convey anything at all what it was like.
That's what it's like, from a person who's both skeptical and have have these experiences. Some I believe, some I don't. People can't be in my heads to perceive it but I can always check my revelations against science and later observation or reflection.
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Personally, I'm not much for the terms, but in paganism, people often talk about 'personal gnosis' and 'group gnosis.' Gnosis in this context might be understood as knowing, knowledge, or revelation. Personal clearly refers to something the individual has learned or experienced (such as the Christian "born again" experience), while group usually refers to a group of practitioners, such as a Wiccan coven, but can also refer to any group with shared culture and practice, such as a Christian Church.
Both Personal and Group Gnosis can be Verified or Unverified --that is, if there is evidence from outside the individual or group that what they experienced/learned is actually something that others have experienced, it is called Verified Personal Gnosis (VPG), and VGG for group experience/knowledge. If ONLY the individual has experienced/learned something, it is called Unverified Personal Gnosis (UPG); and UGG for the group version.
If people are saying that they have had a personal experience, then they should be saying they have had a personal experience. Unless they have some solid evidence, they should not be surprised if others are doubtful...well, and even then if they do, if their experience is enough outside the mainstream, then maybe they need more than just "some" solid evidence...
Anyway, except here on RF, I'm not sure I've run into that many situations like you describe, where someone says, ""Well I had a personal revelation and that's how I know", as if its a knockdown argument. They say it shouldn't be justification for others, but if it can't be justification for others than it shouldn't be for yourself." to use your quote above. It sounds kind of straw-mannish, based in my own experience and knowledge.
To close out my rant/response here, it's always been a kind of alert for me when people use terms like "should" and "shouldn't"...because it often reflects someone personal values, their personal preferences...which are based in their own personal experiences and learning. I'm as wary of people saying I should accept their personal or group's gnosis as I am when someone tells me I should reject my personal or group's gnosis...regardless of whose is considered verified or unverified.
thanks for lending your ear...
It can be dangerous sometimes to take faith too seriously, like our faith that a jury sentenced the right person to death for example. Where it's supposed to be serious I suggest more evidence.
The same reasoning applies to anything. What if my whole life is just a mirage, why not give in the solipsism? I believe my experiences with the divine for same reasons I believe I'm typing on a computer and relaying a message to a distinct person(s) on the internet.
My experience with God is frequent.
MonkeyFire
Well-Known Member
I believe AND know.
I'm sorry, but I just have a hard time taking this seriously. Why would I even think that my experiences of the gods are from a deity that isn't part of my religion or space aliens for which there is zero evidence of visitation? I mean, come on... make the comparison realistic and reasonable. A question like "how do you discern if you were experiencing Ares or Hestia" makes sense. As it happens, the answer of how still comes down to trusting yourself.
I don't see why. It's no more circular than assuming that what some human says to you is true. It's called trusting that others aren't automatically lairs, and trusting yourself to know when you're being lied to (or when one of the gods you're working with has a history of lying).
Pardon, but you're not in any position to tell me what I can and can't do. Mysticism - direct experiences of the gods - are routine within contemporary Paganisms. It's just how our traditions work. If I sit down to do a ritual honoring Storm and receive insights about Storm while contemplating that deity,, irrational would be somehow thinking "oh, this wisdom about storms I received came from a city spirit somehow." -_-
It doesn't assume infallibility. It assumes that the sole authority in deciding what my life experiences mean for me is me. I don't hand that off to someone else. Some people do - some religious traditions encourage or even require passing off responsibility for their life story to others - but I do not. Would you rather I not take responsibility for myself?
I find it even more bizarre that people pass judgment on those that are spiritual, negating revelations based on complete ignorance of where one received these revelations and an assumption that one doesn't question them.
Thief
Rogue Theologian
God....by definition is an ET
think about Moses
and Job
then consider your own thoughts
it's really a matter of HOW you sort through them
Why do you not trust your senses 100%? Which faculty of mind-senses is/are most vulnerable to lead to error of judgement and why?
There are a few "spiritual directors" aka gurus who can help.
True, but the Pagan community is not really big on the whole "guru" idea. On the whole, we tend to regard anyone who claims special authority as highly suspect.
DavidFirth
Well-Known Member
It all depends on the source.
Grandliseur
Well-Known Member
I have had a few dreams in my life that were unusual, most have, perhaps. Some of these dreams came true in spectacular fashion; however, I never ever thought them to be things that I believed would lead to anything at all. It is only when reflecting with 20/20 hindsight that I feel these came true, and even saying this, I am not even sure my memories of this can be trusted entirely.
In my mind then, the only things that I trust to be 'divine revelations' - is the Bible. I have had prayers answered that clearly showed me what was the will of God, or gave assistance directly to what was asked for, but that is different than divine revelations in the way you ask for it.
InChrist
Free4ever
God gave us His Word so that personal revelations may be tested to see if they line up with the truth He has revealed in the scriptures.
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 1 John 4:1
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 1 John 4:1
Why? I mean, if you can't take God's word for it, whose can you take?
That's easy: fantasy is not an explanation of anything. The fantasy that aliens are experimenting on me is simply logically insufficient.
Again, fantasy is insufficient. However, if God revealed something personally and directly to me, why would I not believe that God did?
I see that you're battling ill logic in other arguments, but putting that aside, at face value: if a trusted neighbour personally told someone that their garage is on fire, they would believe him. And well they should.
Regardless that aliens are "within the realm of possibility," that reality as I know it now equates to them experimenting on me isn't. Possibility means logically possible, and fantasy does not qualify as possibility. On the other hand, if a revelation happens to someone else, I have no means whatsoever to say whether it was or was not real. If God actually spoke to them, it's personal.
leibowde84
Veteran Member
I agree. That is why evidence of anything should be verifiable. Our own experience has been proven unreliable time and time again. To believe something based on nothing more than personal experience is the very definition of being gullible.