"Scientism" on Wikipedia ...

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Why is it then when a theist claims to experience God, the "where's your evidence" atheist responders disregard experience as "unevidenced"? You seem to have no problem accepting experience is valid evidence for art and music. Do you accept it for belief in God as well, when that is what someone tells you why they believe God exists? If not, why not? What's different?

When I equate empiricism with experience, I am talking about my experience, not yours. All I can experience of your experiences are your reports of them.

When another person tells me that they have experienced God, it's not like my experiencing music. I know what I am experiencing - sound waves coming from a device I've turned on - and if for the first time, discovering what kind of experience I am likely to have in the future if I repeat the experience and listen again. That's knowledge, since it facilitates my controlling outcomes.

The theist knows how he feels like I do, but I don't accept his interpretation of what he is feeling. I don't believe he is experiencing a deity, just his own mental state. As I've mentioned, I've had that experience as well, and when I was younger, I interpreted it as experiencing God.

I still have that experience, but no longer understand it to be a god. My spiritual experiences are godless. I still look up at the night sky and am filled with wonder and a sense of connection to the stars (as the song says, we are stardust), but I don't think of deities. I think of a vast and mysterious cosmos of which I am a part, and experience gratitude. Once, it was gratitude to God, but now it's gratitude without an object - just gratitude.

I think I've explained this to you before, but if so, I'll repeat: My understanding of the value of empiricism and the application of reason to experience is to discover what is true about the world in order to correctly anticipate outcomes and in so doing, maximize the desirable ones while minimizing the undesirable ones. This requires an accurate map of reality in one's worldview. When one sidesteps this process and believes without such evidence, he is guessing, and almost certainly has guessed wrong, and usually doesn't know he is likely to be wrong. People who agree with that avoid believing by faith, and recognize that such ideas not rooted in empiricism are likely incorrect.

Fortunately, most such ideas are harmless, such as being a flat earther, since it's hard to imagine making a significant error (more than just making a false statement and being laughed at) because of that belief, but some are harmful, such as believing that the vaccine is more dangerous than the virus, and dying needlessly. That's a person who did not use reason applied to evidence to decide what is true, admitted a false belief onto his map of reality, and made a wrong turn and fell of a cliff that should have been on his map instead of a road saying, "This way."

I have decided that there is only one proper way to acquire knowledge, by which I mean ideas that can be successfully used to predict outcomes - "If I do this, that will occur, and that is (un)desirable, so I know what to do and what to expect when I do it." Ideas acquired otherwise just don't do that. The ability to do that is what makes an idea correct, and the inability to do that is what makes an idea useless or worse.

So what should I do with your report and those of millions of others that report that they experience a deity? Well, one thing I don't do is agree with them, because that would be adding a road to my map not discovered empirically. I would need to have that experience myself. The road I can add is that many people believe as you do. That's a fact gleaned from experiences like participating in this discussion forum, but to believe more is to believe by faith as they do, and while they consider that a virtue (Santa Fe - holy faith), as you know, I consider that a flaw in thinking.

Ask yourself why you're not a flat earther, what it would take to become one, and if that would be an improvement in your mental map. I'll assume that you haven't been taken in by the popular conspiracies. Why don't you believe the election was stolen? Several people have reported that ballots were destroyed and voting machines tampered with. Why don't you believe them? Others consider global warming a hoax. Presumably, you don't. Why? What is the process that you used to come to those conclusions? What is the process that others who buy into those ideas used?

What if your intuition that you were experiencing a God was that you experienced a God who created a flat earth? Would you believe all of it? If you're willing to believe by faith, why not? If you did, you would be accepting an error on your map, the kind that made some people afraid to sail east to get west for fear of falling off of the earth. If your map shows a spherical earth, you will make better decisions based on that. Now that my map has no god in it, I also make better decisions.

Once I understood that, there was simply no place for faith in my world any more.

I believe because of experience. Is that why you don't believe? Because of a lack of experience?

Yes, lack of experience of a god.

I am an agnostic atheist because I have never knowingly experienced a deity. As I indicated, I once thought I had, and was a theist then for obvious reasons, but now that I understand that differently, I can no longer conclude that I have experienced a god, or even that such a thing exists, and so for a strict empiricist who has not had a god experience, only agnostic atheism is rational.

 

[Windwalker]

When I equate empiricism with experience, I am talking about my experience, not yours. All I can experience of your experiences are your reports of them.

That is of course true for anything. Your experiences are your experiences. At best I can try to relate them to my own experiences. If I don't have such an experience, I rely on your telling about them, such as the experience of skydiving, which is something I've never done, nor ever will.

When another person tells me that they have experienced God, it's not like my experiencing music. I know what I am experiencing - sound waves coming from a device I've turned on - and if for the first time, discovering what kind of experience I am likely to have in the future if I repeat the experience and listen again. That's knowledge, since it facilitates my controlling outcomes.

The experience of the Divine, is likewise repeatable. One learns how to 'tune in' to hear the station, so to speak. That then qualifies as knowledge as well. It's something that can be refined, rather than just arbitrary, like hearing a skip signal. It is something which can be developed to better refine the 'receiver' so to speak.

The theist knows how he feels like I do, but I don't accept his interpretation of what he is feeling. I don't believe he is experiencing a deity, just his own mental state. As I've mentioned, I've had that experience as well, and when I was younger, I interpreted it as experiencing God.

So right here, you are stating with a predefined definition of what God is, and evaluating the nature of that experience against that mental concept. I will say this, that I too am an atheist, if I begin with a definition of God as a literal anthropomorphic interpretation of the Divine as adopted from mythic-literal theological ideas. I choose to call that experience "God" as it is a word that expresses absolute Transcendence.

I use God to describe the Ineffable. And that definitely is something that is real, and may be experienced by anyone. I do not see "God" as an 'entity', though language may present it that way simple due to the inadequacy of our dulistic language to speak of the nondual.

I still have that experience, but no longer understand it to be a god. My spiritual experiences are godless. I still look up at the night sky and am filled with wonder and a sense of connection to the stars (as the song says, we are stardust), but I don't think of deities. I think of a vast and mysterious cosmos of which I am a part, and experience gratitude. Once, it was gratitude to God, but now it's gratitude without an object - just gratitude.

I can more than appreciate this. There is something I came across a while back that I found enormously helpful for me in this regards. I too experience "God" as you describe. That can be experienced in 1st person, 2nd person, and 3rd person perspectives. This is relatively short, but very useful. And certainly useful in helping our discussion further along: The Three Faces of Spirit

Basically, what you are describing, I'd consider "God" in a 3rd person, objective, impersonal perspective. Completely legitimate.

I think I've explained this to you before, but if so, I'll repeat: My understanding of the value of empiricism and the application of reason to experience is to discover what is true about the world in order to correctly anticipate outcomes and in so doing, maximize the desirable ones while minimizing the undesirable ones.

I have no problem with any of this. But as you'll see in that article, we experience life in more than just 3rd person perspectives. When dealing with the other aspects of life, such as 1st person subjective experiences, or 2nd person intersubjective relationships, the 3rd person, objective view does not answer that aspect of our being.

Reason cannot penetrate the longing of the heart, or the soul. Music may. Love may. Science? Not so much, if at all. But the mind cannot be ignored either. It's not that any one is 'best'. They are all necessary for the whole, healthy, and happy person. Not even knowing what the heart means, and mocking it as some do, is an imbalance. To me, true spirituality is a balance of all parts of ourselves. We cannot commit intellectual suicide to find truth. That is to do damage to one's spiritual health. So fundamentalism, either religioius or atheistic in nature, is imbalance.

This requires an accurate map of reality in one's worldview. When one sidesteps this process and believes without such evidence, he is guessing, and almost certainly has guessed wrong, and usually doesn't know he is likely to be wrong. People who agree with that avoid believing by faith, and recognize that such ideas not rooted in empiricism are likely incorrect.

I very much agree with this. We need structures to help navigate reality with. But I'd say we need 'functional' structure, or a "map". They are not "The TRUTH", as fixed and rigid in nature, like religious dogma applied to science. But rather, they have utility. But again, in this case, we are talking about objective realities here, not subjective, nor intersubjective realities. We also need a functional map to help navigate those as well. Agree?

Fortunately, most such ideas are harmless, such as being a flat earther, since it's hard to imagine making a significant error (more than just making a false statement and being laughed at) because of that belief, but some are harmful, such as believing that the vaccine is more dangerous than the virus, and dying needlessly. That's a person who did not use reason applied to evidence to decide what is true, admitted a false belief onto his map of reality, and made a wrong turn and fell of a cliff that should have been on his map instead of a road saying, "This way."

Yes, those maps of reality are incompatible with a rational world of modernity and the tools of science. I complete agree that those are both wholly inadequate and dangerous, especially when they try to impose themselves upon society and education to turn the world backwards to the dark ages. In short, they fail to translate reality for the modern, rational world. Our advances were not possible, were it not for the rational modern mind. Premodernity, would never have invented rockets that can fly to the moon, nor create vaccines to save lives. If they want the dark ages, then then can forfeit the advances of moderns, like no electricity, modern transportation, medicines, and such.

I have decided that there is only one proper way to acquire knowledge, by which I mean ideas that can be successfully used to predict outcomes - "If I do this, that will occur, and that is (un)desirable, so I know what to do and what to expect when I do it." Ideas acquired otherwise just don't do that. The ability to do that is what makes an idea correct, and the inability to do that is what makes an idea useless or worse.

All of this is true regarding the objective world. But we also need a good, updated, more functional map of the terrain of the interior landscapes of subjective 1st person reality, as well as 2nd person intersubjective reality. Spirituality, which I'd say is like psychology-plus, or the 'psychospiritual,' needs an adequate map as well to speak to the modern mind, without asking it to accept mythic symbolism in a literalist, prerational way. And in fact, we do have that, once you can get beyond mistaking the finger pointing at the moon with the moon itself, as Alan Watts famously said.

There are ways to understand these things which do not require intellectual suicide, way that can satisfy the rational mind. But to understand them, you have to move beyond using rationality itself. That requires a different set of eyes. The eyes of contemplation, or meditation, for instance.

Continued....

 

[Windwalker]

So what should I do with your report and those of millions of others that report that they experience a deity? Well, one thing I don't do is agree with them, because that would be adding a road to my map not discovered empirically. I would need to have that experience myself. The road I can add is that many people believe as you do. That's a fact gleaned from experiences like participating in this discussion forum, but to believe more is to believe by faith as they do, and while they consider that a virtue (Santa Fe - holy faith), as you know, I consider that a flaw in thinking.

First off, with any report of experience you have to evaluate the nature of the claim. You have to 'test' the claims. In Zen, they don't just take some student saying they experienced Buddhamind. They ask you to describe it. If you say, "I felt warm tinglings in my toes", that will not be considered Enlightenment. So, "Jesus miraculously filled my gas tank when I prayed to him", should be taken in light of the nature of that claim.

If someone said, I experienced an absolute timeless state where my thoughts vanished and I was absorbed into the fabric of the universe, then that would fit somewhere else on that spectrum of experience, compared to the 'gas tank miracle' experience. Considerably further up the spectrum, I'd say. Then you gather all the data from all the reports, evaluate the nature of the claims, and create a map of the terrain. Looking for patterns and such. This all has been done by modern researchers. I can provide references if you care to look further.

What if your intuition that you were experiencing a God was that you experienced a God who created a flat earth? Would you believe all of it? If you're willing to believe by faith, why not?

Generally speaking, experiences of God don't give specific information, like how many days it actually took for the creation to occur. That sort of thing is the imagination running unchecked, and ungrounded. It's delusion.

If you did, you would be accepting an error on your map, the kind that made some people afraid to sail east to get west for fear of falling off of the earth. If your map shows a spherical earth, you will make better decisions based on that. Now that my map has no god in it, I also make better decisions.

If I did start going off beam like that, I'd say that's a problem with the mind, not with the experience itself. If a mind is not well grounded, sometimes transcendent experiences can lead to problems. That's why some individuals are not good candidates for mediation, such as if they have psychological issues. I would not recommend it for some people I know personally for that very reason.

You have to have your feet grounded on earth firmly, before transcending to the heavens, so to speak. "Earth is his footing," as it says in the Upanishads. That's why I believe a firm grounding in modern science is necessary in order to be a more functional spiritual life. Spirituality never asks someone to commit intellectual suicide. That's why I left the fundamentalist version of the Christian faith, with it's anti-modernity stances, and why I adopted atheism to deconstruct it as such.

Once I understood that, there was simply no place for faith in my world any more.

I have a different understanding of the nature of faith, which does not see it as incompatible with reason, evidence, or the rational mind. It's a big word, and means more than just wrong ideas accepted against reason. I don't find that definition to have much utility when evaluate it. See James Fowler's research on the subject.

Yes, lack of experience of a god.

I am an agnostic atheist because I have never knowingly experienced a deity. As I indicated, I once thought I had, and was a theist then for obvious reasons, but now that I understand that differently, I can no longer conclude that I have experienced a god, or even that such a thing exists, and so for a strict empiricist who has not had a god experience, only agnostic atheism is rational.

As I've said, I called myself an atheist because I didn't experience their idea of God. But then I realized, who in the hell are they to define what God is!! Why should I give them that much power?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

The experience of the Divine, is likewise repeatable. One learns how to 'tune in' to hear the station, so to speak.

But that's you. The experience that you are calling the divine is probably the same or similar to the one I called the divine once, but no longer do. The experience is real and repeatable, and it is a pleasant one, so we use reason to facilitate it so that we can experience it more often. I am aware of the circumstances that are most conducive to having such an experience from prior experience (empiricism), and can create the circumstances that are likeliest to reproduce that experience - maybe inspirational music, or the euphoria of the ketosis of prolonged fasting.

The difference we are having here is in the interpretation of what is the source of the experience. When talking about music, whatever our experience, pleasant or unpleasant, we are clear and in agreement of what we are experiencing. If you were to tell me that you were also experiencing God when hearing the music, we would no longer be in agreement. Your experience is repeatable, as is mine, which is presumable similar or the same. That is the empirical aspect. Calling it God is the faith aspect. And calling your spiritual experiences that you interpret as a deity God is also a faith-based to me, as it is equally possible (and in my opinion, more likely), that you are experiencing a psychological state that originated in and was created by your brain that you are calling experiencing a god, and which I call a meaningful and pleasant experience, but one which I haven't decided indicates anything other than that my mind is capable of having spiritual experiences, which I do not equate with spirits or the supernatural.

That then qualifies as knowledge as well.

The part I would call knowledge is knowing how to recreate the experience and knowing that it will be a positive experience. Remember, my definition of knowledge is the collection of ideas that enable one to successfully anticipate outcomes, ideas which are discovered empirically. Calling your experience the experience of a deity does not meet this standard. You could leave the God part out as I have done, and you would have no fewer useful ideas. Or, you could call it anything else and have no more or fewer useful ideas.

Reason cannot penetrate the longing of the heart, or the soul.

That's poetic, but doesn't have a specific meaning to me. I'll try to translate what I think you're saying into my own language - reason cannot satisfy desire, or maybe you mean that reason cannot explain desire. I wouldn't agree with either of those. Whatever it is you mean, reason is a tool for determining how the world works and how to behave to achieve desired outcomes, and successfully manage nonrational conscious experience such as desire.

Imagine a graph of how good or bad you feel, with pleasant moments plotted above a horizontal line, the more pleasant the higher the amplitude, and unpleasant moments plotted below the line - maybe something like this, where the goal is to have as many points above the baseline as high as possible for as long as possible, as is the goal of these people interested in sales. They use reason to maximize sales, and we can all use it to maximize experience, more successfully the more accurate our mental map of how the world actually is:

The goal in life, if one's goal is to have a pleasant life, is to maximize the the difference between the area under the curve above and below the line. Reason is used to do this. Reason is a tool useful to manage the nonrational, which is really what matters. With reason and experience, we learn how to have fun, avoid avoidable illness, keep friends, that a pet makes us happy, avoid the dysphoria of avoidable traffic or the power being shut off, find or prepare a good meal, and on and on. That's what reason can do, why it can be of value if applied properly, and why an accurate map of reality is important. The alternative is to believe without sufficient reason, and put a road in the map that doesn't correspond to observable reality. It's a recipe for making wrong turns and not arriving at your desired destination.

Reason is not an end. It is a means to an end. Reason informs me that empiricism is the only valid way to learn about the world and myself. And it's only alternative is faith (unsupported belief), which can't be a path to truth or an accurate mental map, without which, one spends more time under the line due to ideas that don't work because they are wrong, and they are wrong because were acquired uncritically. It isn't reason vs the longing of the heart. It's reason versus faith in managing the experience so that one's "heart" soars rather than despairs, so that love flourishes rather than dies.

 

[Windwalker]

But that's you. The experience that you are calling the divine is probably the same or similar to the one I called the divine once, but no longer do. The experience is real and repeatable, and it is a pleasant one, so we use reason to facilitate it so that we can experience it more often.

Then it's not just me, but you as well. I have no problem not calling it God too. I just choose to for personal reasons. What it's called is unimportant. The experience of it is. Even if someone wants to attribute it to the brain, would that everyone would experience it! It's transformative.

I know "God" has a lot of baggage with it, but calling it "the amygdala" is far too reductionistic and makes the experience lay flat. "It's just the brain" sort of dismissiveness. But even though we can point to areas of the brain that are activated in such experiences, that does not at all mean "that's all it is", by any possible stretch of the imagination. It's revelatory. It's transcendent. Those are better descriptors. Besides, all experiences no matter how profound or mundane, all have a brain response too. So, so what? "It's just the brain," doesn't really mean anything much.

I'm not sure what you mean by it's facilitated by reason though? The only role I see reason playing is this, "I need to get reason out of the way so it doesn't block the experience". But that's just a recognition that reason and the use of the active cognitive functions can in fact obstruct Awareness, or these higher states of consciousness, "Christ consciousness, or Buddha Mind," or such. These are very real states, and are far more profound than "just the brain" type reductionistic language.

The difference we are having here is in the interpretation of what is the source of the experience. When talking about music, whatever our experience, pleasant or unpleasant, we are clear and in agreement of what we are experiencing. If you were to tell me that you were also experiencing God when hearing the music, we would no longer be in agreement.

Well, I certainly can experience God through music, sure. As a musician and composer, music helps open me up. It can help facilitate the relaxation and inspiration that allows "God" experiences to arise within me. It really depends on what 'tools' help us to be opened that way, to that extent, to that degree. Sound is important to me. Smells also, like incense. All these things do, is to help us relax, to let go. And that letting go of everything, stresses, tensions, worries, concerns, chattering distracting thoughts of the busy mind, results in open us up, making us receptive.

It opens us to meditative states. I always say that meditation is learning how to "allow". It's not that "God" or "Reality", or the Transcendent, etc., is some being or entity (a deity form), outside of us. It's the Nature of Reality itself, which I would describe as Divine - Infinite, Absolute, and a long list of adjectives I could use to attempt to speak of it, that is us, surrounds us, and is all that is. Us getting out of the way, allows that to be known, experienced, and transforming our mind and sprit and very being itself. And there are depths of this, that go on into Infinity and are Infinity itself. Words cannot express this.

It's not one "thing" outside of ourselves, but is the Realization of the Ultimate, or "God" as I choose to call it. As I said, there are "depths of the Divine", and we can move through those through such higher states of consciousness and being. Nature Mysticism is clearly one of these, which you aptly describe, and which I am deeply connected with myself. Then there is Subtle Mysticism beyond that. Then there is Causal mysticism beyond that. Then there is Nondual mysticism beyond that.

For good descriptions of these various states, I'll direct you here. I'd be interested in hearing where you relate to in your own personal experiences: STAGES OF MEDITATION

Your experience is repeatable, as is mine, which is presumable similar or the same. That is the empirical aspect. Calling it God is the faith aspect. And calling your spiritual experiences that you interpret as a deity God is also a faith-based to me, as it is equally possible (and in my opinion, more likely), that you are experiencing a psychological state that originated in and was created by your brain that you are calling experiencing a god, and which I call a meaningful and pleasant experience, but one which I haven't decided indicates anything other than that my mind is capable of having spiritual experiences, which I do not equate with spirits or the supernatural.

The crux of the problem is letting fundamentalist define what God is. Letting them have power of that word to reduce it an image of a vengeful deity in the sky. sort of concept. In no way do I equate what I refer to as God, with that! If you are familiar with Eastern religions, Bhraman is much more compatible with my mental image I create around my personal experiences, then is the image of God from religion you are likely imagining.

It's not a matter of faith for me to call that God, as I don't believe in God in that way. It's stickily a matter of language choice for me.

I can call it by many names: Reality, Ultimate Concern, the Absolute, the Infinite, Love, Spirit, God, the Source, Ground, Nirguna Brahman, Saguna Brahman, Self, Atman, Being, Existence, All That Is, the Transcendent, the Ineffable, the Mystery, etc. God is just a word I like, because it points to the Absolute.

And.... I refuse to let a perfectly good word be owned by and corrupted by fundamentalists. It's like refusing the use the word "love' because people use it to mean sex hormones. Right? It's about reclaiming language, and refusing to let them own that word. They don't deserve that power over that word.

What would might be better to use to describe something as I am with the word God, that begins to convey the transcendent nature of it? I try Divine, Transcendent, and such, but does that cause equal consternation? It needs to point to something beyond 'brain matter', which is absurd to say in context.

The part I would call knowledge is knowing how to recreate the experience and knowing that it will be a positive experience.

Sure. Know which tools work best for you. But try not thinking about it in terms of recreated it. It's not something you do. It's something you are. And the only you are doing is practicing allowing it to come of its own. You don't 'pump it up'. If you are, that's not it.

Remember, my definition of knowledge is the collection of ideas that enable one to successfully anticipate outcomes, ideas which are discovered empirically. Calling your experience the experience of a deity does not meet this standard.

It's seem you are stuck on this idea of God as "a deity". I do not think of God in such terms. God to me is the Absolute, Ultimate Reality, beyond the illusions of the mind. It's not "a god". Think more in terms of Brahman. That is also known as "God", but is not at all "a deity". So, don't get stuck on that idea that that is what I am saying. I am not saying that. If I were, you'd have a point. But I'm not.

You could leave the God part out as I have done, and you would have no fewer useful ideas. Or, you could call it anything else and have no more or fewer useful ideas.

I know it probably causes more headaches than not, since a lot of people automatically associate it with the Sunday School idea of a guy in the sky, sort of deity. But as I've said, it is a perfectly fine word, and would it be better to evolve the understanding of it beyond the mythic-literal image of the Divine? Why should we let them lay claim to that word and deny it to those who are more mature in their realization of the nature of the transcendent then bronze age mythic volcano deity forms?

That's poetic, but doesn't have a specific meaning to me. I'll try to translate what I think you're saying into my own language - reason cannot satisfy desire, or maybe you mean that reason cannot explain desire. I wouldn't agree with either of those. Whatever it is you mean, reason is a tool for determining how the world works and how to behave to achieve desired outcomes, and successfully manage nonrational conscious experience such as desire.

I'll try to put it this way. Existential questions. These tend to go far beyond thinking about it. It's question of being, which involve more than just desires, but sense of connection, of belong, of meaning, and purpose. Reason can only go so far there. It's talking or "thinking about", as opposed to "being as". That's very different in nature. Simply thinking about things, only goes so far. There has to be some experience of being, beyond thinking. Breathing, is not thinking. Being is breathing. Real being, is beyond thinking. And that is connecting with the Source. It's knowing, it's Peace. And that is what people mean when they try to speak of "God", even if they confuse it as something external to themselves.

The goal in life, if one's goal is to have a pleasant life, is to maximize the the difference between the area under the curve above and below the line. Reason is used to do this. Reason is a tool useful to manage the nonrational, which is really what matters.

I agree the rational and the non-rational are complementary to each other. I see the rational like the rudder in a sailboat, and the non-rational as the wind in the sails. Without the non-rational, you'd be dead in the water. Without the rational, you'd just be tossed around at the mercy of the seas. And I suppose to carry the analogy further, having good maps helps to navigate the seas, and having solid structures keeps the boat from collapsing from the force of the wind.

But my problem is "rudder dominance". Only rudders matter. And that is the problem with logical positivism, and it's stepchild Scientism. It elevates reason as the absolute, but forgets to consider the rest of what goes into making the sailboat seaworthy.

Reason is not an end. It is a means to an end. Reason informs me that empiricism is the only valid way to learn about the world and myself. And it's only alternative is faith (unsupported belief), which can't be a path to truth or an accurate mental map, without which, one spends more time under the line due to ideas that don't work because they are wrong, and they are wrong because were acquired uncritically. It isn't reason vs the longing of the heart. It's reason versus faith in managing the experience so that one's "heart" soars rather than despairs, so that love flourishes rather than dies.

Again, your definition of faith is highly limited, and not what actual studies on the subject talk about. Just look at this entry at Stanford Philosophy to show just how broad, diverse and nuanced that topic is. Your definition is inadequate, and probably more distracting than my use of the word "God". Faith (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

 

[RestlessSoul]

It's not just a matter of language.

We can't believe - i.e. conceive of something as true - that which we can't conceive of at all. The only things you believe in are things that fit in your brain.


.

You’re going to need a bigger brain…

 

[joelr]

The folks who are saying "where's your evidence" are disregarding experience. Therefore, they are not following empiricism according to your explanation of it. They are expecting a weight or measurement, a snippet of hair, or a footprint in the fossil record or something. That's scientism, disregarding evidence that isn't 'scientific' enough for them. It's just nothing more noble than cynicism.


Do you disregard personal experience as evidence? If so, why?


I believe because of experience.

So physical evidence of any kind is out. Then you cannot demonstrate this is not just a phenomenon that exists only in your mind. The article about stages of faith is a typical theology approach where "the divine" already exists. A baby gains "trust with the environment and harmony with the divine". Uh, what divine? This is theology so you study the concepts and assume God/divine already exists.
It could also say a baby gains trust with the environment and euphoric feelings about parental figures who then are God-like. Later when told about a metaphysical concept called "The Divine" it also creates positive feelings and experiences which are grounded in earlier experiences. It serves to replace the feelings a baby had when being taken care of by god-like adults. So thinking about this divinity creates all sorts of positive emotions leading to a false sensation that they are experiencing feelings about something external.

Definitions of God that are purely emotional and mental and can only be observed that way may be just that. I can also say Super-fairies are the source of all reality and I know this because of experience. Who cares?
Usually when religious folks speak about God they have a religion in mind as well as ways this God has and will interact with reality and people.

Music and art can be demonstrated. You can play the music as a demonstration. The experience is completely in your mind. It could be the same with this God concept except it's simply all in the mind. The thought and then the reaction.

Why would personal experience be disregarded as evidence?
People have personal experiences with aliens abducting them. Also witchcraft, voodoo, shaminism, ghosts, demonic possession, and any supernatural wu ever. They can also have personal emotional experiences that tell them of race superiority or that some sexual preferances are wrong. Some people have experiences where the divine speaks specific things to them, which tribe to go to war with, how many sacrifices a deity needs.
You can think what you want in your mind all day. Without a proper standard of evidence it will not be thought of as true, effect laws, decisions and so on.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

You misunderstand.

If you want this conversation to continue, you'll quit it with the condescension.

We can attempt to put into words something beyond words that we have experienced. I am not talking about conceptual ideas about God. In that case, you are in fact correct in your argument. If all that God is in someone's mind is an idea, a concept, that that is not an experience that is beyond words. It's defined by words.

But I am talking about not being able to express in language the nature of the experience of the Divine. The word ineffable is being applied to experience. It is the experience itself, that is ineffable.

So you're talking about begging the question, then.

Assuming that a particular experience is "the experience of the Divine" without having established that there's a "Divine" to be experienced is putting the cart before the horse.

I'm not defining the ineffable. I'm using words as metaphors to express in words an experience beyond defining by words.

IOW, defining it.

I am not trying to define the ineffable. I'm dancing it, using words, metaphors, fingers pointing to something beyond the words that words cannot define or explain.

You're using words to do what you claim words can't do. There's an internal inconsistency in your approach. Either you're:

- trying to do what's actually impossible, in which case anything you say about God is meaningless noise that should be disregarded, or

- wrong about the ineffability of God.

Either way, why should I take what you say seriously?

God is a metaphor to speak of the ineffable.

So you are an atheist, then.

I do not see God in literal anthropomorphic terms. It's a word used to express, that which cannot be defined or explained using language. It is the "Mystery" as Einstein called it. I call that God.

... for no reason at all, if we believe your argument.

You're trying to convey something different with "God" than you would be with "mystery." If you weren't, you would have just used the word "mystery."

I hope this helps clarify.

Yes and no.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I have no problem not calling it God too. I just choose to for personal reasons. What it's called is unimportant. The experience of it is. Even if someone wants to attribute it to the brain, would that everyone would experience it!

So then the only difference here is that when you have a spiritual experience, by which I mean experiencing a sense of mystery, awe, gratitude, and connection, you think in terms of gods or go to that word. So what's the benefit of doing that? I leave the god part out and direct my attention to the reality around me. I don't try to guess what the unseen aspects of reality are. What I experience is rich enough without embellishing it based on no information about what more there may be.

I'm not sure what you mean by it's facilitated by reason though? The only role I see reason playing is this, "I need to get reason out of the way so it doesn't block the experience".

Reason, or more fully, empiricism, is the means of determining how the world works. If you want to have spiritual experiences or any other kind of experience, like basking in the sun, you use the benefit of your experience and what it has taught you to facilitate those experiences.

For good descriptions of these various states, I'll direct you here. I'd be interested in hearing where you relate to in your own personal experiences: STAGES OF MEDITATION

Concentration and insight, huh (I skimmed the link)? I do most of my thinking pacing around the kitchen island, composing posts like this, and when lying in bed. My concentrating ability and insightfulness are actually quite satisfactory. I don't utilize rituals or props, or put aside a special time for these activities. It's part of daily living. I'm doing it now.

From the link:

"You start to undercut subject/object dualism, which is the basis of all suffering and illusion. Gradually, higher and higher realms of existence, leading toward the ultimate or nondual dimension, are all made obvious to you. You transcend your ordinary self or ego, and find the higher and subtler dimensions of existence—the spiritual and transcendental."

I don't know what language like this is talking about. There must be something going on in other minds that this speaks to. I don't experience my life as suffering or illusion. I have no incentive to try to change the way I perceive or processes the world around me.

As a musician and composer, music helps open me up. It can help facilitate the relaxation and inspiration that allows "God" experiences to arise within me.

I'm also a musician, and have spiritual experiences with much music - a kind of rapture, a transporting to another mental space. I suspect that this and similar experiences are what people are referring to with words like the quote above from your link. I just don't use that kind of language except maybe in a situation like this one to find common language with another.

I'd like to hear something you've composed or performed. I've played in bands for years, but not in a while. I play lead electric guitar and sing. This is a slow 12-bar blues in a minor key, always soulful. Playing something like this, as I'm sure you'll agree, transports one. The mind is in a different place, not concentrating like it did when practicing and learning chords and scales, but just disappearing and blending into the room and song. Maybe this is what others mean by non-dual thought. I hope you like this:

Incidentally, this is a good example of what I mean when I say that experience and reason can be used to facilitate nonrational experience. What goes into preparing for a moment like that? Concentration, study, practice, all in the service of being able to go into a creative mode absent concentration or even thought in words. Improvising on guitar is like singing with the hands, or flying. I'm glad we found common experiential ground here.

It's seem you are stuck on this idea of God as "a deity". I do not think of God in such terms. God to me is the Absolute, Ultimate Reality, beyond the illusions of the mind. It's not "a god". Think more in terms of Brahman. That is also known as "God", but is not at all "a deity". So, don't get stuck on that idea that that is what I am saying. I am not saying that. If I were, you'd have a point. But I'm not.

OK, but that pretty much is just giving the name God to things unknown. I don't see value in doing that. In fact, one needs to be careful with that word if one wants to be understood. I'm only just now learning what you mean by the word, and it turns out not to be anything that I don't refer to in the kind of language I've used in this post. Look at the mess Einstein created with his use of the word God, meaning something closer to the laws of physics or the universe. The word carries baggage. It implies belief in a conscious creator. I'll give the praise and credit to the universe, whatever its provenance, whatever its nature.

I agree the rational and the non-rational are complementary to each other. I see the rational like the rudder in a sailboat, and the non-rational as the wind in the sails.

Agree. The metaphors I like to use are brush and palette, and rider and horse. This is from a post I left on another thread recently, and probably resonates with you:

• You're misunderstanding my position. When I say that I am a strict empiricist and reject faith-based thought, I am referring to how I decide what is true about the world and how I assemble a mental map over a lifetime that is to manage the rest of conscious experience, all of which is nonrational, and includes pleasant and unpleasant experiences. This is where life is lived. Reason is not an end, but a means to optimizing experience.
  
  Without that nonrational palette of experiences, life has no meaning for many. The anhedonia of severe depression refers to the loss of feeling, and can lead to suicide, even if reason remains intact. If it has no substrate to manage, no symphony of nonrational highs and lows to conduct, it is useless, and life empty.
  
  Thus, the nonrational is really where we live. I haven't missed that fact. My staunch defense of what others call scientism is a statement that only empiricism can teach my rational mind how to do that better, and decisions will come from that process alone.
  
  The nonrational is the palette and the rational the brush. The nonrational is the horse and the rational the rider.
  

I think that we're not so different you and I. We mostly just use different language to describe roughly the same thing, although judging by what follows, I think you don't recognize that. I think you see people like me as incomplete:

But my problem is "rudder dominance". Only rudders matter. And that is the problem with logical positivism, and it's stepchild Scientism. It elevates reason as the absolute, but forgets to consider the rest of what goes into making the sailboat seaworthy.

I disagree.

I'm a logical positivist, and strict empiricist - what you call rudder dominance. Somehow, people who say what I say - empiricism, not faith, is the way to decide what is true about the world - are heard as saying that reason is their only mode of conscious thought, like Mr. Spock from Star Trek, half a person, no soul, no love or sense of the beautiful. This is contrasted with the passionate Captain Kirk. But that's a caricature that describes almost nobody.

And it's consistent with the attitude atheists see from theists and spiritualists quite often - we're empty, lacking purpose, living a black and white existence like a mindless robot: "Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see." This is from Deepak Chopra, and earned a chuckle from me. Look at us atheists, just mindless robotic vacuums, no experience at all, just bumping into walls to take measurements and change direction when it detects an obstruction. I like the way he used the opportunity to demean the religionists on the way :

Again, your definition of faith is highly limited, and not what actual studies on the subject talk about. Just look at this entry at Stanford Philosophy to show just how broad, diverse and nuanced that topic is. Your definition is inadequate, and probably more distracting than my use of the word "God".

I can't find a way to improve my definition of faith. I understand why faith-based thinkers don't like to see faith described as unjustified belief or a guess, but that is all it is to me - a willingness to believe without a good reason to. Remember, I am broadly dividing the ways that people decide what is true about the world into justified and unjustified belief. I have no reason to extol the latter. In fact, I have made a concerted effort to avoid doing that at all, just as I avoid lying and stealing.

With self-actualization, one decides what he wants to be and makes it happen. I don't want to be a faith-based thinker, or a liar or a thief for that matter, because I believe that all of those behaviors would degrade my life. I've made mistakes doing them all at one time, and have purged them from my repertoire.

Theists frequently tell me that I am missing the point, or mis-defining the concept, but then never add anything to make me want to change how I see and define faith. What else is it but the willingness to believe without compelling evidence? What else needs to be added to that definition to include all faith-based ideas and exclude all ideas determined empirically? What better way to divide the category of belief?

Good discussion. Thanks.

 

[Windwalker]

So physical evidence of any kind is out. Then you cannot demonstrate this is not just a phenomenon that exists only in your mind.

Physical evidence of God as an external creature of sorts? No, of course not. That's not what most theists believe anyway, outside of the Mormons who think God has a body and lives on the planet Kolob in the constellation Beetlejuice, or something like that. Most theists see God as Spirit.

Now if you are talking about experiencing God, certainly that experience itself is physical in nature as it occurs in our bodies and minds, just like any experience of life does, like experiencing love. But you'd never say love "exists only in your mind," would you? If so, you say that to your mother next time she tells you she loves you. "Mom, that love 'exists only in your mind'. It's not real". Good job! You made your mother cry!

The article about stages of faith is a typical theology approach where "the divine" already exists. A baby gains "trust with the environment and harmony with the divine". Uh, what divine? This is theology so you study the concepts and assume God/divine already exists.

What study are you referring to? James Fowlers research? That is not what it says at all. The subtitle alone tells you what he means by faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning

The book is about meaning making, not about theological beliefs. In fact, when you get to Stage 4 faith, that is where theological constructs are deconstructed and set aside. His book has absolutely zero to do with believing in a set of predefined doctrines as truth. You must be thinking of something I have never read or referred to. This is the only study I have referenced to the best of my recollection: Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning

Definitions of God that are purely emotional and mental and can only be observed that way may be just that.

Any definitions of anything are cognitive in nature. So what? An idea about God, is mental. An experience of God, is visceral, just like any experience of anything is. The mind simply tries to interpret and translate experiences down two pathways immediately following any experience of any kind: "What was that?' and 'What does that mean'. Cognitions are involved in anything to make sense of experience.

I think it's a good thing for both theists and atheists alike to realize that what they "think" about reality, or their experiences of reality, are in fact mental constructs. We should not be married to our ideas about anything as the "thing in itself". That locks us into dogma, and blocks us from understanding, be that in cases of religious dogma, or "Scientism". Same exact phenomena of the mind.

I can also say Super-fairies are the source of all reality and I know this because of experience. Who cares?

If you said that, I'd need you to share the nature of your experience and take it from there. Maybe you are understanding symbolically using the "super-fairies" symbols, to mean what other mean by authentic Enlightenment experiences? Or maybe you are just describing just some simple personal delusional thoughts that have no correlates with any else's experiences? You have to approach these things looking at the nature of the experience itself, not just simply someone's ideas about those experiences. That's what good qualified researchers do, following scientific approaches to understanding such things.

Usually when religious folks speak about God they have a religion in mind as well as ways this God has and will interact with reality and people.

That depends where you spend your time hanging out. If you're hanging out at a Fundamentalist church in the deep South, that's what you'll get. But to take that and apply it across the board to all theistic views, is hardly using a rational investigative approach. That's just careless and dogmatic in its own right.

Music and art can be demonstrated. You can play the music as a demonstration.

Absolutely. I am a musician myself. But demonstrating what? Concepts and ideas, or something deeply felt and experienced? What is being demonstrated, or better stated, "manifested" or expressed is something real, that cannot be put into words. That is in fact 'spiritual' in nature. Art can be just as much an expression of the Divine, as it is for other intangible human feelings which cannot be expressed in words.

The experience is completely in your mind.

No its not. It's also in my nervous systems of my body, as well as chemical and muscular responses, etc. So what? So is your experience of everything. You think somehow that experience of God is only conceptual in nature? On what basis? Denial?

Continued....

 

[Windwalker]

It could be the same with this God concept except it's simply all in the mind. The thought and then the reaction.

Yes, and no. First with yes. We humans can in fact experience a great many things, solely due to the thoughts we are holding in our minds. Close your eyes and imagine someone is dangling you over the edge of a tall building 50 stories up. Do you feel your palms sweat a little? A lump in your throat? Tensing of your muscles? Emotional fear reactions? Sure you do, if you have a good imagination. That's how movies work and why they make money. They get your to experience things by presenting ideas to your mind.

Now regardings the "idea of God", yes, that too can bring about an experience of sorts. Good experiences, I should add. Positive, energizing experiences. Motivating experiences. etc. Unless, of course, that idea of God is the God of fundamentalists! Then you're talking about the God of Fear, not the God of Love. That God idea creates negative, fearful, worrisome responses, of being watched and judged for all the bad thoughts and ideas you have, and for touching your genitals in 'sinful ways', and such. That idea of God creates a negative life experience, as opposed to a positive energizing life experience.

So just for argument's sake, if a good God, the God of Love idea is able to generate positive experiences, why is that a bad thing, even if it's it's all just in the mind? We harbor all manner of ideas that are all just in the mind all day. Why not populate those ideas with positive ideas? I say that's a rational, and logic choice to make. Take for instance what Ghandi said:

“Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.”​

Nothing wrong with a good active imagination that imagines something positive, if the end result is health and happiness and good in the world, is there?

Final thought to add to this before addressing the "no" part of my response that it's not just all in the head. In a number of the mystical paths found in various religious traditions, you have a practice where they actively hold an image or idea of God, or the Divine, in you mind. It becomes part of a path of transformation, accessing that same process I described above. In Christianity, this is called the Cataphatic approach. It is visually the attributes of God with the mind. As a correlate to Hinduism, this is comparable to Saguna Brahman, or "God with qualities.

That visualization opens and energies the mind and the body in profound subtle ways, that increases the nature of that experience, and result in function and action. Similar sorts of tings are done in sports, visualizing hitting the target. Now that's "all just in the head" too, but the results are astonishing! Why would you dismiss something that works so effectively in producing results? You wouldn't. That would be irrational to do that.

I'll quote something that's a little heady, but it drives this point home. You may have to spend some time unpacking it, but it is quite accurate in what it says. Speaking of the mental visualization of God or a deity form, or God with qualities:

"But this is not God as an ontological other, set apart from the cosmos, from humans, and from creation at large. Rather, it is God as an archetypal summit of one's own Consciousness. John Blofeld quotes Edward Conze on the Vajrayana Buddhist viewpoint: " 'It is the emptiness of everything which allows the identification to take place - the emptiness [which means "transcendental openness" or "non-obstruction"] which is in us coming together with the emptiness which is the deity. By visualizing that identification 'we actually do become the deity. The subject is identified with the object of faith. The worship, the worshiper, and the worshiped, those three are not separate' ". At its peak, the soul becomes one, literally one, with the deity-form, with the dhyani-buddha, with (choose whatever term one prefers) God. One dissolves into Deity, as Deity - that Deity which, from the beginning, has been one's own Self or highest Archetype."
​

~Ken Wilber, Eye to Eye, pg. 85​

Emphasis mine. So as I said, even if it's "all just in the head", than God it is! What that can do for us, can be absolutely transformative. So, imagine away! It's a powerful tool for transcendence!

Now to the "no" response. The other approach to the Realization of the Divine, or "God", is the Apophatic approach. That is no visualization, no imagination, no ideas, no concepts at all! This emptying of any conceptualization at all, frees us from the conceptual, mental word, to pure, raw experience without judgment of any kind. In such a state of "no-mind" consciousness becomes expanded to where you can swallow the whole ocean in a single gulp, as the Buddhist might describe it. That is is the pure, unfiltered and unmediated Reality we 'taste' but do not define. This is Stillness. This is Emptiness. Free from all judgement. The body becomes merged with all of creation and is at perfect ease. The mind clear and aware of everything that arises.

The Christian Mystical, who was the equivalent of a nondualist, said in wonderful paradoxical language, "I pray God make me free of God, that I may know God in his unconditioned being". That was written way back in the 13th century, but it is as true today as anytime in history. That is the nature of moving beyond our mediated "thought world", the world of words and definitions, of ideas and concepts, to pure unmediated "being in the world". What is exposed, is "God beyond God", which is comparable to the Hindu's Nirguna Brahman, or "God without qualities or attributes". Just pure, nature, Being or Is'ness.

In this case, no, God is not just in the head. It is Reality, beyond and before the head. It's the Ocean in which we all "live and move and have our being". So yes to in the head, and no to just in the head. It's both, and neither.

Sorry for the length of all this, but it's a difficult area to penetrate, when all you've ever been exposed to is the mythic-literal idea of God as a person in the sky, sort of entry-level understanding of the Transcendent. Unfortunately, that's where most people's ideas of what this "God idea" is restricted to.

Why would personal experience be disregarded as evidence?
People have personal experiences with aliens abducting them. Also witchcraft, voodoo, shaminism, ghosts, demonic possession, and any supernatural wu ever.

I have no objection to checks and balances. I would absolute embrace them. Just because something is subjective, does not mean it is anything goes sort of affair. And any good, valid, and authentic path or tradition has those checksums in place. But 'scientism" is not qualified for that area! Period. It's not the right toolset. It's not the right set of eyes.

If you are judging claims about the material world, like "The earth is 6000 years old because the Bible says so," now science has an absolute right and obligation to weigh in on that. That IS it's area of expertise. But to say, "I experienced the Transcendent, or God, and I see that all life is beautiful and has Love as the fabric that binds all life together," what the hell does that have to do with science? That doesn't make that statement false, because science is the not right set of eyes to evaluate that statement with. YOu need another set of eyes practicing the same area of expertise or discipline to weigh in on that. "I felt tingling in my toes, so I'm Enlightened now", the Zen master will say, "NO, that's not it." And he would be right. Science is not qualified to weigh in on that.

But Scientism on the other hand, as a religious belief, imagines it is. And that is what is not only irrational, but unscientific itself.

 

[lukethethird]

What comes of all this God woo besides fear and disdain for scientific discovery and atheists?

 

[joelr]

Physical evidence of God as an external creature of sorts? No, of course not. That's not what most theists believe anyway, outside of the Mormons who think God has a body and lives on the planet Kolob in the constellation Beetlejuice, or something like that. Most theists see God as Spirit.

Most theists believe a deity interacts with humans which would effect probabilities and could be shown that way.
Most theists also believe a scripture like the Bible. The Bible has many claims of God physically being on Earth, speaking to humans and miracles, destroying cities and so on.

Now if you are talking about experiencing God, certainly that experience itself is physical in nature as it occurs in our bodies and minds, just like any experience of life does, like experiencing love. But you'd never say love "exists only in your mind," would you? If so, you say that to your mother next time she tells you she loves you. "Mom, that love 'exists only in your mind'. It's not real". Good job! You made your mother cry!

No but we all know that when we say we love someone that we are saying the emotions are in my brain. Metaphorically we also say they are in our heart. Nowhere in there is there any concept of love that exists outside of our minds when this is said. Love in our mind is real? It doesn't invalidate love just because it's in out brain?

What study are you referring to? James Fowlers research? That is not what it says at all. The subtitle alone tells you what he means by faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning

The book is about meaning making, not about theological beliefs. In fact, when you get to Stage 4 faith, that is where theological constructs are deconstructed and set aside. His book has absolutely zero to do with believing in a set of predefined doctrines as truth. You must be thinking of something I have never read or referred to. This is the only study I have referenced to the best of my recollection: Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning

https://www.amazon.com/Stages-Faith...976470&sprefix=stages+of+faith,aps,175&sr=8-1

The Stages of Faith According to James W. Fowler | Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D.
"These personalized experiences, according to Fowler, essentially translate into feelings of trust and assurance in the universe and harmony with the divine. "

Harmony with the divine? No, you have to demonstrate there is a divine? He is a theologian - James W. Fowler (1940-2015) was an American theologian who was Professor of Theology

Theology studies things like scripture, God, the divine.....as if they are real. There is no attempt to find the origins of the beliefs or question if they are true. You assume the subject of study is real. In this case it may not be. You could study the theology of Scientology and talk about the space race humans come from and all the sci fi stuff in Scientology but you would study it as if it's real. It isn't historicity or comparative mythology.

Any definitions of anything are cognitive in nature. So what? An idea about God, is mental. An experience of God, is visceral, just like any experience of anything is. The mind simply tries to interpret and translate experiences down two pathways immediately following any experience of any kind: "What was that?' and 'What does that mean'. Cognitions are involved in anything to make sense of experience.

Yes, I have a visceral experience of Thor after watching the movie and reading some comics. In my imagination he is very real. If I listen to metal and watch clips I feel inspired and full of energy. If I listened to inspirational music and read about a demigod who loved me and was always wanting to help I would be completely taken by emotion and bliss. Yet none of these things are real outside of my mind.

However an experience of music is different because I can demonstrate the music exists outside of my mind.

I think it's a good thing for both theists and atheists alike to realize that what they "think" about reality, or their experiences of reality, are in fact mental constructs. We should not be married to our ideas about anything as the "thing in itself". That locks us into dogma, and blocks us from understanding, be that in cases of religious dogma, or "Scientism". Same exact phenomena of the mind.

Yes but some mental constructs are fiction.

If you said that, I'd need you to share the nature of your experience and take it from there. Maybe you are understanding symbolically using the "super-fairies" symbols, to mean what other mean by authentic Enlightenment experiences? Or maybe you are just describing just some simple personal delusional thoughts that have no correlates with any else's experiences? You have to approach these things looking at the nature of the experience itself, not just simply someone's ideas about those experiences. That's what good qualified researchers do, following scientific approaches to understanding such things.

sam Harris took years to go through the enlightenment process through strict meditation with a guru. He finds it is an interesting state to enter but in no way points to something outside our mind.
There are no studies of experiences that any qualified researchers have that they have all reached some consensus that "this experience is the one that is the Divine" ?
Something like that doesn't even exist a little.
Enlightenment has some correlations and does not in any way provide evidence that there is a God or a divine. It is evidence out mind can reach a state we call enlightenment.

That depends where you spend your time hanging out. If you're hanging out at a Fundamentalist church in the deep South, that's what you'll get. But to take that and apply it across the board to all theistic views, is hardly using a rational investigative approach. That's just careless and dogmatic in its own right.

You haven't explained a theistic view that can be demonstrated to exist outside of our mind. Or a way to investigate it to determine if it's more than just something entirely in ones mind.

Absolutely. I am a musician myself. But demonstrating what? Concepts and ideas, or something deeply felt and experienced? What is being demonstrated, or better stated, "manifested" or expressed is something real, that cannot be put into words. That is in fact 'spiritual' in nature. Art can be just as much an expression of the Divine, as it is for other intangible human feelings which cannot be expressed in words.

You can demonstrate the thing giving you the experience is the music. The feelings you get are in your mind. The mind is capable of a wide range of experiences and none of them are connected to anything outside the mind. People can enact rituals where they intensify intense emotional states and experience states that cannot be described. If it's done in the name of some deity then they may feel they were contacted by something beyond themselves because the feelings were so foreign. But people do this is all sorts of religions and cults, sometimes in sports or at self help getaways or even just climbing a mountain or seeing a nice view from a mountain. These are all states that the brain can probably achieve without claiming them as evidence for some God or divinity.

No its not. It's also in my nervous systems of my body, as well as chemical and muscular responses, etc. So what? So is your experience of everything. You think somehow that experience of God is only conceptual in nature? On what basis? Denial?

Continued....

Sure, in your body. Mind and body. Your brain is taking a concept you have (the divine) and you are saying "this or that feeling or experience is me feeling the divine". That isn't evidence.
My friend in Islam says her personal feelings and experience tell her Allah is the true God and all others are wrong. My ex GF who was Hindu said the same that Lord Krishna was always with her, answered her prayers and she knew this from her feelings. all of this is probably projection of feelings onto some external concept. The only way to demonstrate it's not just in your mind is evidence.
Connect to the divine and gain superpowers. Healing powers, I don't know. If you cannot demonstrate anything then there is no difference between that and things purely in your mind.
I could pretend I talk to Thor and that he hears me and cares and gives me pep talks. Probably would make me feel better sometimes. Thor still isn't real outside of my mind.

 

[joelr]

Yes, and no. First with yes. We humans can in fact experience a great many things, solely due to the thoughts we are holding in our minds. Close your eyes and imagine someone is dangling you over the edge of a tall building 50 stories up. Do you feel your palms sweat a little? A lump in your throat? Tensing of your muscles? Emotional fear reactions? Sure you do, if you have a good imagination. That's how movies work and why they make money. They get your to experience things by presenting ideas to your mind.

Now regardings the "idea of God", yes, that too can bring about an experience of sorts. Good experiences, I should add. Positive, energizing experiences. Motivating experiences. etc. Unless, of course, that idea of God is the God of fundamentalists! Then you're talking about the God of Fear, not the God of Love. That God idea creates negative, fearful, worrisome responses, of being watched and judged for all the bad thoughts and ideas you have, and for touching your genitals in 'sinful ways', and such. That idea of God creates a negative life experience, as opposed to a positive energizing life experience.

So just for argument's sake, if a good God, the God of Love idea is able to generate positive experiences, why is that a bad thing, even if it's it's all just in the mind? We harbor all manner of ideas that are all just in the mind all day. Why not populate those ideas with positive ideas? I say that's a rational, and logic choice to make. Take for instance what Ghandi said:

“Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.”​

Nothing wrong with a good active imagination that imagines something positive, if the end result is health and happiness and good in the world, is there?

Yes Thor inspires me. The issue is this isn't what religion is. Religion is not "hey everyone make an imaginary friend that inspires you and makes you happy"

It asks you to believe certain things are facts without good evidence and avoids teaching critical thinking skills. Then people fall for ridiculous things like voter fraud, Trump is going to save the world, flat Earth, vaccine conspiracies,use religion for different agendas, or a new prophet shows up with new messages that might be God wants a new holy war.

Final thought to add to this before addressing the "no" part of my response that it's not just all in the head. In a number of the mystical paths found in various religious traditions, you have a practice where they actively hold an image or idea of God, or the Divine, in you mind. It becomes part of a path of transformation, accessing that same process I described above. In Christianity, this is called the Cataphatic approach. It is visually the attributes of God with the mind. As a correlate to Hinduism, this is comparable to Saguna Brahman, or "God with qualities.

That visualization opens and energies the mind and the body in profound subtle ways, that increases the nature of that experience, and result in function and action. Similar sorts of tings are done in sports, visualizing hitting the target. Now that's "all just in the head" too, but the results are astonishing! Why would you dismiss something that works so effectively in producing results? You wouldn't. That would be irrational to do that.

I'll quote something that's a little heady, but it drives this point home. You may have to spend some time unpacking it, but it is quite accurate in what it says. Speaking of the mental visualization of God or a deity form, or God with qualities:

Then use visualization? That has nothing to do with religion or God? Or hold the image of an inspirational character as a visualization? I'm sure I could do Saguna Brahman with an image of Thor just as well.

"But this is not God as an ontological other, set apart from the cosmos, from humans, and from creation at large. Rather, it is God as an archetypal summit of one's own Consciousness. John Blofeld quotes Edward Conze on the Vajrayana Buddhist viewpoint: " 'It is the emptiness of everything which allows the identification to take place - the emptiness [which means "transcendental openness" or "non-obstruction"] which is in us coming together with the emptiness which is the deity. By visualizing that identification 'we actually do become the deity. The subject is identified with the object of faith. The worship, the worshiper, and the worshiped, those three are not separate' ". At its peak, the soul becomes one, literally one, with the deity-form, with the dhyani-buddha, with (choose whatever term one prefers) God. One dissolves into Deity, as Deity - that Deity which, from the beginning, has been one's own Self or highest Archetype."
​

~Ken Wilber, Eye to Eye, pg. 85​

Emphasis mine. So as I said, even if it's "all just in the head", than God it is! What that can do for us, can be absolutely transformative. So, imagine away! It's a powerful tool for transcendence!

We are off track now. One's highest self is a great attribute to work towards. This doesn't imply any divinity in reality except the divinity of our highest self and is a metaphor.

Now to the "no" response. The other approach to the Realization of the Divine, or "God", is the Apophatic approach. That is no visualization, no imagination, no ideas, no concepts at all! This emptying of any conceptualization at all, frees us from the conceptual, mental word, to pure, raw experience without judgment of any kind. In such a state of "no-mind" consciousness becomes expanded to where you can swallow the whole ocean in a single gulp, as the Buddhist might describe it. That is is the pure, unfiltered and unmediated Reality we 'taste' but do not define. This is Stillness. This is Emptiness. Free from all judgement. The body becomes merged with all of creation and is at perfect ease. The mind clear and aware of everything that arises.

The Christian Mystical, who was the equivalent of a nondualist, said in wonderful paradoxical language, "I pray God make me free of God, that I may know God in his unconditioned being". That was written way back in the 13th century, but it is as true today as anytime in history. That is the nature of moving beyond our mediated "thought world", the world of words and definitions, of ideas and concepts, to pure unmediated "being in the world". What is exposed, is "God beyond God", which is comparable to the Hindu's Nirguna Brahman, or "God without qualities or attributes". Just pure, nature, Being or Is'ness.

In this case, no, God is not just in the head. It is Reality, beyond and before the head. It's the Ocean in which we all "live and move and have our being". So yes to in the head, and no to just in the head. It's both, and neither.

This is all in Hinduism as well. It's all great stuff but if we change the word God/divinity to just mean everything it's not the topic anymore. It's just a re-wording of what we already know as reality.
The transcendental meditations that strive for no-mind are very deep pursuits but can be done as an atheist and nothing changes.

Sorry for the length of all this, but it's a difficult area to penetrate, when all you've ever been exposed to is the mythic-literal idea of God as a person in the sky, sort of entry-level understanding of the Transcendent. Unfortunately, that's where most people's ideas of what this "God idea" is restricted to.


I have no objection to checks and balances. I would absolute embrace them. Just because something is subjective, does not mean it is anything goes sort of affair. And any good, valid, and authentic path or tradition has those checksums in place. But 'scientism" is not qualified for that area! Period. It's not the right toolset. It's not the right set of eyes.

If you are judging claims about the material world, like "The earth is 6000 years old because the Bible says so," now science has an absolute right and obligation to weigh in on that. That IS it's area of expertise. But to say, "I experienced the Transcendent, or God, and I see that all life is beautiful and has Love as the fabric that binds all life together," what the hell does that have to do with science? That doesn't make that statement false, because science is the not right set of eyes to evaluate that statement with. You need another set of eyes practicing the same area of expertise or discipline to weigh in on that. "I felt tingling in my toes, so I'm Enlightened now", the Zen master will say, "NO, that's not it." And he would be right. Science is not qualified to weigh in on that.

But Scientism on the other hand, as a religious belief, imagines it is. And that is what is not only irrational, but unscientific itself.

You are talking about artistic and poetic senses/feelings that people sometimes have and that's what art is for. It doesn't mean there is a divinity out there it means we have feelings sometimes as if the universe is divine.

"experienced the Transcendent, or God, and I see that all life is beautiful and has Love as the fabric that binds all life together," isn't a thing science would usually study. It is something psychology would study.
It's also possible to study it scientifically. If you did brain scans or blood tests on a large group of people who worked on entering these states you might get data. It's possible you might see elevated ocxtocin, dopamine, serotonin and elevation in natural opiate receptors being filled up. Which would create a state of deep bliss where you feel like the universe is made of love and so on. Chemicals will actually do that.
It doesn't mean the universe is actually held together by love. It means our brains get weird on drugs. I used to meditate on oxycodone (was an addict), both are practices which bring feelings of bliss. I'll just say I can relate to saying something like that but I knew it was more of a chemical reaction. I think meditation gets you there naturally (close).

Again, it's all inside the mind. Nothing here points to any external divinity. We have a poetic sense of the universe being divine (sometimes). That is probably the point. Didn't Carl Sagan say "we are the universe experiencing itself". So then divinity is us having that experience.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

...
The Stages of Faith According to James W. Fowler | Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D.
"These personalized experiences, according to Fowler, essentially translate into feelings of trust and assurance in the universe and harmony with the divine. "

Harmony with the divine? No, you have to demonstrate there is a divine? He is a theologian - James W. Fowler (1940-2015) was an American theologian who was Professor of Theology

...

Okay, as a skeptic and an atheist I don't believe in the divine, yet here is how I understand it as me.

The universe is if you look closer currently not reducible to being only objective, physical and so on. The closest you can get is non-reductive supervenience. I.e. the mental is caused by the physical, but it can't be reduced to the physical.
So the trust and assurance in the universe is in the formal sense the first assumption here:
"...

1. that there is an objective reality shared by all rational observers.[47][48] "The basis for rationality is acceptance of an external objective reality."[49]. "As an individual we cannot know that the sensory information we perceive is generated artificially or originates from a real world. Any belief that it arises from a real world outside us is actually an assumption. It seems more beneficial to assume that an objective reality exists than to live with solipsism, and so people are quite happy to make this assumption. In fact we made this assumption unconsciously when we began to learn about the world as infants. The world outside ourselves appears to respond in ways which are consistent with it being real. ... The assumption of objectivism is essential if we are to attach the contemporary meanings to our sensations and feelings and make more sense of them."[50] "Without this assumption, there would be only the thoughts and images in our own mind (which would be the only existing mind) and there would be no need of science, or anything else."[51] ...

" Philosophy of science - Wikipedia
So belief in the dividine is one way to express that the universe has non-physical properties, as humans are in the universe and a part of it.
All of the bold words are mental and at the base there are at least 3 versions of how to do that.

1. that there is an objective reality shared by all rational observers and that means that the everyday world is natural.
2. that there is an objective reality shared by all rational observers and that means that the everyday world is ontological idealism(God in a sense)
3. that there is an objective reality shared by all rational observers and that doesn't mean that you have to believe in one or the other above as per metaphysics, because you can just believe in the core assumptions.

There is more when you look at logic, epistemology and ethics, but in practice most people share that we can trust objective reality to be epistemologically fair.
The waters then divide over natural, idealism or no claim of what objective reality is in metaphysical terms.

So if you are the one and you can show with evidence, proof, truth or whatever; that objective reality is in fact fair and what it really is in metaphysical sense, then you are the first human in recorded history to do so.

 

[Sheldon]

The universe is if you look closer currently not reducible to being only objective, physical and so on.

Nor is it reducible to purely subjective, so obviously there is a scale from purely subjective claims to objective facts supported by a weight of objective evidence that is beyond any reasonable rational refutation.

The physical universe exists as an objective fact, if someone wants to claim there is more then they'd need to demonstrate something beyond the purely subjective claim, which is the lowest end of that scale.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Nor is it reducible to purely subjective, so obviously there is a scale from purely subjective claims to objective facts supported by a weight of objective evidence that is beyond any reasonable rational refutation.

The physical universe exists as an objective fact, if someone wants to claim there is more then they'd need to demonstrate something beyond the purely subjective claim, which is the lowest end of that scale.

That is subjective. I use another weight system.
As for this: The physical universe exists as an objective fact,... If you can actually show that and not just write it, there is a Nobel Prize in that. You would be the first human in recorded history able to do so.

 

[Sheldon]

Sheldon said: ↑
Nor is it reducible to purely subjective, so obviously there is a scale from purely subjective claims to objective facts supported by a weight of objective evidence that is beyond any reasonable rational refutation.

That is subjective.

No it isn't, clearly.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

No it isn't, clearly.

I can't do your thinking for your. That is where it ends. We in effect for some aspects of the everyday world think/feel differently.

 

[Sheldon]

I can't do your thinking for your.

Ad hominem fallacy. One of the biggest problems with your posts, is how stridently you try to force your ideas onto every conversation.

1. The world is flat
2. The world is not flat.

Those two claims differ, and one of them is an objective fact, now why would that be?