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Author | Topic: Introduction | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Riggamortis Member (Idle past 219 days) Posts: 167 From: Australia Joined: |
Is my child being born experience 'just' a magical moment? Or is it a human spiritual experience also?
If I am not mistaken, you were first raised to believe, before a period of non-belief, and then found God, yeah? Edited by Riggamortis, : No reason given.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1693 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I was sent to church as a child but learned just about nothing. I had the familiar experience of becoming an atheist as a teenager, from which most people never return to belief. But thirty years later I did become a believer, a real believer, amazed and awed as I saw God as real for the first time.
I wouldn't call such a magical moment "just" a magical moment. You can call your experience of the birth of your son spiritual if you like. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Riggamortis Member (Idle past 219 days) Posts: 167 From: Australia Joined: |
I was sent to church as a child but learned just about nothing. You were exposed to the idea that you'll live forever for believing a particular story, that by rejecting this story, you'll be punished forever, no? Then you rebelled as a teenager and became an atheist for decades. After researching other religions and some soul searching, you miraculously ended up finding the same God you were exposed to as a child. Forgive me for not being overly impressed, though I am not in doubt of the sincerity of your experience, I don't believe it's source is really God.
I wouldn't call such a magical moment "just" a magical moment. I emphasised 'just' hoping to convey that I didn't mean it literally, just as a side by side comparison.
You can call your experience of the birth of your son spiritual if you like. I can, if I like, but it's not really. That's what you mean isn't it? 🙄
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1693 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I'm not interested in justifying my experience to you. I told it truthfully, you've distorted what I said.
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Phat Member Posts: 18633 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 4.4 |
Does anyone really understand what anyone else feels or believes?
Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain " ~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith
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Phat Member Posts: 18633 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 4.4 |
I don't believe it's source is really God. Seeing as how you have "set God aside for the moment" how would you conclude that the source was human nature and interaction rather than God Himself?Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain " ~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith
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Riggamortis Member (Idle past 219 days) Posts: 167 From: Australia Joined:
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I don't believe it's source is really God. Seeing as how you have "set God aside for the moment" how would you conclude that the source was human nature and interaction rather than God Himself? I have no God to set aside. I only want the religious to set their gods aside in settings where including them is counter-productive to human progression. It's not just gods, however, I made it about religion mostly to make my post more relevant to the forum.Nationalism, patriotism, self-interest, racial differences are all things we need to learn to set aside, for the greater good.
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Riggamortis Member (Idle past 219 days) Posts: 167 From: Australia Joined: |
Just wanted to point out that if you "condition" enough people... you're bound to run into one who's "own HSE" was wanting to be conditioned anyway... But I'm not a fan of conditioning people in the first place In principle I agree, it does lead to a chicken or the egg dilemma, however. Except to the extent that conditioning is part of the way we learn. I'm all for conditioning our children to respect/not hurt others and think for themselves, for example.
Problem: We're running out of recourses within our environment. Suggested solution: Expand our environment so we can get more resources from elsewhere (space). Space is definitely not the solution to our problems, just the only logical thing to do after we have sorted out problems here. So basically we agree on everything 😂😂
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Riggamortis Member (Idle past 219 days) Posts: 167 From: Australia Joined:
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I remember the birth of my daughter in very similar terms, particularly her looking right into my face and then turning her head to look up at her father who was standing beside us. A magical moment. But why compare it to any other magical moment? Discovering God was for me a very big moment indeed after years of not believing. Staggering, breath-taking. You need to ask why, in a thread I made to introduce myself, summarise my worldview and how I formed it, I'm comparing religious HSE to non-religious HSE?Comparing regular HSE to religious HSE is what made me realise it's not God causing the experiences but same things that cause atheists to have HSE's. Faith writes: You can call your experience of the birth of your son spiritual if you like. Rigg writes: I can, if I like, but it's not really. That's what you mean isn't it? I'm not interested in justifying my experience to you. I told it truthfully, you've distorted what I said. The question mark usually means I'm seeking clarification, rather than simply putting words in your mouth. Having said that, 'but it's not really' IS implicit in your post and you didn't deny that's what you meant either. So how did I distort it? I'd suggest, if you want to avoid having me question your experiences, that you don't come into a thread about my experiences and imply that the experience of my sons birth is less spiritual than you finding God. Or not actually spiritual at all. Consider how many people will be in hell if your God does exist, that's a lot of people with an eternity to help Satan figure out how to overthrow God 😂
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1693 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
You need to ask why, in a thread I made to introduce myself, summarise my worldview and how I formed it, I'm comparing religious HSE to non-religious HSE? Comparing regular HSE to religious HSE is what made me realise it's not God causing the experiences but same things that cause atheists to have HSE's. The thing is, you aren't in a position to make the comparison since you would of course admit you've never had a "religious HSE." I'm not going to deny that atheists have spiritual experiences, but I would deny that they are the same as an experience of the reality of God. The apprehension that God is in fact real is, well, it's a real experience, it's not something a person would say who'd had perhaps an amazing experience revealing some kind of great truth but that couldn't be described as knowing God is real. You can say it's not really God, although you have no way of knowing that, but you can't claim it's the same kind of experience atheists have who would never describe ANY experience as knowing that God is real. (There's a video at You Tube of a pastor talking about a big revival he was part of in Saskatchewan, Canada in the 70s, and I remember one incident he described -- I'm not sure how far into the video -- [I found it -- about 25:35] of a young man suddenly carrying on about how "God is real" which he had just experienced. The discovery bowled him over you could say. It's not an experience an atheist would describe, unless it ended his atheism. I guess you can persist in assuming it had nothing to do with God, but you can't very well deny that whatever it is, the person experiencing it strongly believed he'd just discovered God's reality, and that no atheist would carry on in that way.). The distortion I had in mind was your suggestion that I somehow engineered my own experience of belief, perhaps by having learned in church about eternal life and the eternal punishment of Hell. You sarcastically mocked the experience as "miraculous" given your assumption that having had some experience of religion as a child I merely went back to it as an adult. But as I remember it there was very little effect from my early church experience. And as a matter of fact I did not deny your wonderful experience of the birth of your son. That's why I described my own experience of childbirth. I suppose I must have "known" about eternal life and Hell, but very possibly not from my experience of church as a child since it was a liberal church and they don't like to talk about Hell; and I don't recall thinking much about either during the period when I was becoming a Christian; it took a while even to get the message about salvation, what it is and how it happens to a person. What interested me was God Himself, thinking about Him in Himself, I was fascinated with the idea and reality of God, and I'd say that's still true. It's also odd that you would seem not to know about all the people who convert to a religion without the slightest knowledge of that religion in advance. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Riggamortis Member (Idle past 219 days) Posts: 167 From: Australia Joined: |
The thing is, you aren't in a position to make the comparison since you would of course admit you've never had a "religious HSE." See how we can know things about one another sometimes, without them explicitly stating it? Yes, I admit that, but as you so kindly point out, I do have access to testimonials and video to base my comparison on. I could find plenty of Muslim testimonials and their experiences are less valid how?
I'm not going to deny that atheists have spiritual experiences, but I would deny that they are the same as an experience of the reality of God. Great, and many religious people, from many sects/religions, will no doubt say the same thing. Which is exactly why I concluded, that the actual religion/God itself, is not the real source of those experiences.
You can say it's not really God, although you have no way of knowing that, but you can't claim it's the same kind of experience atheists have who would never describe ANY experience as knowing that God is real. Just as you have no way of knowing that a Muslims experience of God is real or not. I'm rational, that's why it'd take a pretty substantial experience for me to say that any particular God is real. I would say that I have had a transcendental feeling before, such as my sons birth, but I cannot attribute it to anything specific. How do you know that there isn't just some mystic force or entity that humans interact with in ways we may never understand? We could be interlinked by quantum brain functions or some other means. A non-intelligent entity could interact with us based on physics we don't understand. Alien mind control. The matrix. Perhaps we're all just animals, looking to bond with others and deriving great joy and experiences from it. Those things can explain all the evidence. Your God being the only God for reals real, can't. I don't know.I don't care. I will live my life, love my family and do whatever I can to make the world a better place for humanity in general. I try not to act on belief, I try to act on knowledge. I know if I am good to my family and loved ones, I can die happy with my life. I know if I can be a part of the change we need to undergo as a species, for our longevity and to become truly enlightened, I can be proud when I die. I know if I were to become an influential figure in the movement that leads to our enlightenment, I would be remembered for as long as we exist and teach history! And thus, even the atheist wants to live forever!
Faith writes: The distortion I had in mind was your suggestion that I somehow engineered my own experience of belief, perhaps by having learned in church about eternal life and the eternal punishment of Hell. You sarcastically mocked the experience as "miraculous" given your assumption that having had some experience of religion as a child I merely went back to it as an adult. I'm particularly allergic to people denying what I say about my own experiences and motivations to substitute their own views in their place. And as a matter of fact I did not deny your wonderful experience of the birth of your son. That's why I described my own experience of childbirth. Rigg writes: Then you rebelled as a teenager and became an atheist for decades. After researching other religions and some soul searching, you miraculously ended up finding the same God you were exposed to as a child. Forgive me for not being overly impressed, though I am not in doubt of the sincerity of your experience, I don't believe it's source is really God. I meant only to convey how unsurprising it is. I do think everyone's experiences are sincere. The adult we become is largely shaped by our childhood, every last one of us. I didn't mean to imply you consciously had anything to do with it. That's why I'm in favour of not forcing anything down childrens throats and letting them explore life with a free and open mind. Anecdote. My step son was waiting for me to get home from work one day. I walked in the door and bang 'do you believe in God'? He must've been talking to school friends about it that day. I told him I didn't and he said he didn't either and began to run off. At that moment, my first thought was 'that's my boy' but then I stopped him. I told him not to just follow what I or anyone else says, that he didn't need to worry about it yet and he could just wait till later in life to even bother thinking about it.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1693 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
The Quran and the Bible contradict each other so both can't be true. There is such a thing as false spiritual experiences. But I don't have any desire to argue with you about them.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
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Riggamortis Member (Idle past 219 days) Posts: 167 From: Australia Joined: |
It's all good. I have nothing to gain from conversing with you. Except tolerance for repulsive ideas I guess. Adis
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frako Member Posts: 2932 From: slovenija Joined: |
Um the quoran and the bible are basically the same, they just slapped an extra testament to the bible.
Christianity, One woman's lie about an affair that got seriously out of hand What are the Christians gonna do to me ..... Forgive me, good luck with that.
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jar Member Posts: 34140 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Faith writes: The Quran and the Bible contradict each other so both can't be true. Of course they can both be wrong and also they can both be both wrong and right.
Faith writes: There is such a thing as false spiritual experiences. And there is absolutely no way to determine which is true or false.
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