Faith by Definition

I think that one could do both by trusting the latter.

"My point is that Phat can't tell the difference between a "real" spiritual experience and one that was imagined by him."Nator, you didn't answer the question.

I don't know what a real spiritual experience is, or if such a thing even exists.I thought that was abundantly clear in my last two replies to you, but I hope it is now.

Unless of course it is of divine origin. In which case it would be unique (in the sense of not having the flavor of the non-divine). There is little point in asking for clarification here- given that experience of the divine requires experience of the divine in order to compare to the non-divine. Indeed, it is experience of the divine that permits you to realise that there is such a "league" as the non-divine. Permits you to categorise all what you say into the mundanity called "human experience" Perhaps this might suffice? William of Ockham (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Huh?Exactly how do you tell the "flavor" of the non-divine? Huh?Exactly how does one tell a divine experience from the non-divine experience?Experience of the divine requires experience of the divine?Do you post such nonsense often?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

"I don't know what a real spiritual experience is, or if such a thing even exists.
I thought that was abundantly clear in my last two replies to you, but I hope it is now."If you don't know then how can you dispute Phat's experience?

Don't pull the analogy too much out of shape but:..in something like the same way as one tells rotten from fresh. That is: by stark comparison. If you have only been exposed to fresh all your life and not rotten (to assign terms randomly) - then you won't (of course) be able to tell the difference between rotten and fresh.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Sorry but that tells us nothing.You need to present something that anyone can use to tell a divine experience from a non-divine experience.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

You ever had an orgasm? Assuming so:What instrument do you suppose would suffice to indicate orgasm to one who had never had one? In some meaningful way I mean. A needle banging to the end-of-scale would not (to my mind) suffice.

That is totally irrelevant and yet another example of the Biblical Christian tactic of trying to change the subject, of trying to misdirect attention so no one notices you palming the pea.The question is "How do you determine if an experience is of divine or non-divine nature?"

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

How do I? I don't. The divine does. To think that a mere human could be the decider on what is the divine and not divine is (to use a fav word of yours) silly.Homocentric to give it its official title.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

So it comes down to you admitting you do not know if you have ever had a divine experience.How utterly useless.If you cannot determine what is divine then how can you tell if you have ever experienced a divine event?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Er..I know I did have a divine experience. The divine made it so that I know it was divine. Can we agree that the divine (as classically defined: omnipotent and all that) can rearrange whatever it is in me that "knows" or "knows not" into "I know"*.*lets suppose "molecular arrangement of some portion of my mind" for the sake of argument

And how can you tell that it wasn't Loki tricking you into "knowing" it was a devine experience when it actually wasn't?

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Live every week like it's Shark Week!
Just a monkey in a long line of kings.
If "elitist" just means "not the dumbest motherfucker in the room", I'll be an elitist!
*not an actual doctor

Interesting philosophical question. The simple answer is that I cannot. No more that your knowing you exist and are partaking in an internet discussion means you are acutally doing so.If you suppose(I think correctly) your flavor of 'knowing' to sit on some throne of "objectively happening in the reality that is" then know that I know God exists according to that precise same flavor.I'm not asking you to believe me. I'm just saying that your knowing suffers from the same problems as does mine - when it comes to demonstrating itself absolutely Edited by iano, : No reason given.