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Author | Topic: Faith by Definition | |||||||||||||||||||
nator Member (Idle past 2170 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
christiansoldier, do you have any interest in discussing your views on reproductive rights?
If so, let me know and I will begin a new thread.
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nator Member (Idle past 2170 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: I could say the same thing about the first time I had sex. Or got drunk. Or realized that I had fallen deeply in love with someone. And all of those things happened more than 20 years ago for me, yet I remember each moment. Having a unique experience in no way indicates a divine origin.
quote: Obviously you aren't convinced. But why? Why does Occam's razor not apply here?
quote: Obviously it isn't hard for most people. Most people don't think much about their belief. They just believe becasue they were taught to and it is too scary to consider disbelief. They also do get social benefit from the community and the reassurance and comfort that faith can provide, even if it is a baseless faith. For those of us who really have thought a lot about it, though, it becomes pretty difficult to maintain a faith that appears indistinguishable from self-delusion.
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nator Member (Idle past 2170 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: How do you know?
quote: Common misconception, but kind of silly when you think about it. If we only ever use 10% of our brains, why does most brain damage in any part of the brain cause measurable effects? We use 100% of our brains.
More info quote: Eventually, you need to pull up anchor if you expect to ever sail anywhere.
quote: Well, when all you believers finally agree on what God/gods/Spirit/whatever is telling Humanity to do, let the rest of us know, OK? Oh, and please do the same when you have figured out how to tell the difference between God speaking and your own imagination.
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nator Member (Idle past 2170 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
My point is that Phat can't tell the difference between a "real" spiritual experience and one that was imagined by him.
Nobody can.
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nator Member (Idle past 2170 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: My point is that Phat can't tell the difference between a "real" spiritual experience and one that was imagined by him. Nobody can.
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nator Member (Idle past 2170 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
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.
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nator Member (Idle past 2170 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: What "flavor" would that be, exactly? Or, rather, how can anyone tell the difference?
quote: Sure. How does one tell the difference between an authentic or genuine divine experience from an imagined one? After all, we know for a fact that people can manufacture or be induced by various means to produce all sorts of feelings, including ones described as deeply religious, spiritual, or divine.
quote: Or, people who think there is such a thing as a "divine" experience are just telling themselves that, and that every experience is a non-divine experience. How do we tell the difference?
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nator Member (Idle past 2170 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
"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." quote: Why should I take his word for it?
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nator Member (Idle past 2170 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: Of course, that's not true, and you have had this explained to you many times. There are many ways to externally validate someone's existence and the fact that they are participating in an internet discussion. We cannot do that at all for your claim of having had an authentic divine experience. The two claims are not at all identical. Since you have had this explained to you probably dozens of times by now, I must conclude you to be either dishionest or dense since you contine to repeat it.
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nator Member (Idle past 2170 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
OK, so what you are basically saying is some postmodern bullshit like "there is no reality or knowledge."
Howsabout we give you a nice big glass of cyanide to drink? My tools will, I think, accurately predict the outcome you this action, regardless of your lame claims to the contrary. My tools work, and you still appear to be bound to the same rules of reality as everybody else, even if those rules are all in our collective heads Sure, we might all live in the Matrix, but who cares? To say, "Reality might all be nothing like we think!" is just an elaborate effort to avoid the logical consequences of your position. Given the tools we all use to determine what is real from what is fantasy in this reality as we know it, how do we tell the difference between an authentic divine experience and one we've imagined?
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nator Member (Idle past 2170 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
Given the tools we all use to determine what is real from what is fantasy in this reality as we know it, how do we tell the difference between an authentic divine experience and one we've imagined?
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nator Member (Idle past 2170 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: Concering this specific question:
How do we tell the difference between a genuine divine experience and and imagined one? No, I can't tell the difference, and neither can you. Nobody can. Oh, wait, you said that you can. How did you, exactly?
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nator Member (Idle past 2170 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: Well, no that's not at all what I do. If my phone rang and the person on the other end identified themselves as my husband, and I recognized the voice as his and my phone showed me that the incoming call was one of his numbers, I would have enough information to know it was, in fact, him. If my phone rang and the person on the other end identified themselves as George W. Bush, I would need quite a lot more information to verify that the person calling me was, in fact, George W. Bush. I can investigate the authenticity of the person claiming to be George W. Bush in various ways that don't just originate inside my head or require me to "look within my heart" or similar. Anybody can examine my evidence about the caller and independently verify if the caller is really Bush or a prankster. I could believe it really was Bush even if it really wasn't, and even if it was never investigated or the truth never determined. The reality is independent of my beliefs or desires. Those are the tools I use to determine fantasy from reality in this example. How about you? How do you tell the difference between a genuine encounter with the divine and an imagined one? Edited by nator, : No reason given.
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nator Member (Idle past 2170 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: My mother recently underwent heart surgery and suffered from post operative/anasthesia psychosis. For several days, until the drugs all got out of her system, she was convinced that all of the ICU and floor staff at the hospital were showing all of her records to all the other patients, and that she overheard all sorts of dastardly deeds against her being planned by the RN's at the nurses station a few yards away, and that she had to hide her face becasue the government agents were going to see her. She was in general incredibly paranoid, and became incredibly angry and verbally abusive to anyone who didn't sit and listen to everything she said about it as though they believed her 100%.
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