Status of religion and spirituality forum

Ultimately this is true for all experiences and knowledge since these affect brain chemisty and we wake up alone in bed, trusting or not our memories of science or religion or whatever.

you seem sure that you and we cannot know. Perhaps you could be agnostic about that too.

:smiley: Oh yes, I suppose that knowing is possible, although in the history of Homo Sapiens no one has proven knowing beyond anectdotal “done seen the light” stuff. I think I’m on safe ground with my statements but sure, I could be wrong. I’m waiting…

The debates are typically like this :

Theist : This X is evidence for God.
Atheist : That’s not evidence.

How many times does a theist want to participate in that? Especially since he/she will also likely get accusations of irrationality, delusion, mental illness or general stupidity.

This being the case, I might suggest that we stop calling this supposed God HE. Enough of that already.

I think that the more we continue to represent this thing called God in human form or by human projection, the further away we get at the truth of it all.
By either design or accident, there are already so many things looked at by the scientists which bring us closer to seeing what this thing we call God is all about. … maybe. …maybe not. At the very least, they can tell us what IT IS NOT ALL ABOUT.

In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.
Carl Sagan (1934 - 1996)
:evilfun:

Hi Arc,

So science could tell us what it is not all about? Perhaps I’m missing something but to say what isn’t requires saying what is. If I know what is, then what isn’t is self-defined. Would you please provide some clarification? The logic is a bit out of focus.

What should we call this… thing we traditionally label “father in heaven” or “Lord God Almighty”? Whether he, she, it, or any other label is simply language that makes discussion possible. The term ineffable comes to mind, but then this forum would disappear in a puff of… something.

I’d like to see less debate between Christians and scientific materialists, and more discussion between paranormalists, psychonauts and spiritualists on the one hand, and scientific materialists.

If there is no God, or it doesn’t intervene in our affairs, than still perhaps ancient (religious) spiritual texts from the Bible to the Bhagavad Gita were loosely based on paranormal experiences that did in some form or another occur, not unlike the sorts of paranormal experiences people still report having.

If someone claims to have experienced God we might dismiss the claim out of hand as an impossibility. Or we might ask what the experience was like and why they thought of it as an experience of God. The latter response is a phenomenological approach.

Was the experiencer overwhelmed by a sense of her own nothingness in contrast to a presence of apparently limitless power? Was there a sense of shuttering or dread? Insight or awe? Overwhelming bliss or peace? What about empathic projection in which all living beings or perhaps the whole world is loved?

If subjectivity is truth as Kierkegaard said these could well be called experiences of God. Is it the objective Omni god of orthodox Western religion? That requires an inference which cannot be proved. Is it the god of the Bible? One can point to parallel experiences that are described there but again it can’t be proved.

A more cautious route is to refer to these as experiences of the sacred rather than God. These experiences may be connected to the use of psychedelic drugs like ayahuasca. Or they may be the result of meditation or prayer. Or they may come unbidden and spontaneously.

Are these mystical or spiritual experiences repeatable within the scientific standard of error? Perhaps not. But then neither natural nor human history are repeatable either. Shall we then reject their existence? If so how did we get here?

Nothing is absolutely repeatable, things’re only approximately, or relatively repeatable.

Felix,

Just where is here? Quantum mechanics has already established that we are here, there, and here/there at the same time. The rabbit hole get’s wider and deeper… Chaos theory has provided hints that there might be order at a level even beyond quantum mechanics, but for now, it’s just theory. The point is that if we can’t even be sure of “here”, what do we really know?

I like the use of the term sacred as opposed to all the various religious labels. I suspect that many, if not all, humans have experienced that sacred moment at some point in their lives. The weight of anectdotal evidence is just too great to ignore. Still, it all remains subjective which means that the arguments and debate will never end until humans accept the notion that their sacred moment is also a moment of privacy with the universe. That seems unlikely any time soon.

Hi tent,

It is oh so nice to see you in here. I hope that you have been well.

Yes it can if we choose to see and to listen. Take the rainbow for instance. Science has an explanation for it; ergo we un-learn that it is not about ~ like some magical thing (though it seems to be in a sense) that happens, some superstitious thing which influences our fate.

I was thinking in the other direction. ~ to say/to discover what IS along the way allows us to get go of antiquated thinking and to continue the journey of discovering what is actual and at the same time shooting down the rubber ducks in the water.

Exactly and what then becomes unreal goes the way of the dinosaur and we may even come to realize that if I was wrong before, I can be wrong again. Little by little, we shed the skins of our superstitious and puny beliefs.

People will call this First Cause, if it EVEN is that, whatever they choose to but would it not be a good thing to break with tradition, to break with the beliefs and patterns that our families handed down to us? I suppose that if someone feels the need to use those terms then they will but does that not take away from the sheer mystery and reality of what this idea we call God actually is? Perhaps it is just a kind of laziness not to struggle to find other words which better define what can be quite undefinable. lol

What was it that Paul supposedly said: “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

I can understand using the term God but father in heaven? Where is heaven, tent? Up there? Where is this God which many people call father while at the same time many others know that it is senseless in light of what goes on in this world, the injustice and unbalance, to use that terminology? It does not fit!

,

Great word and that is my point. People become the potters and form and shape their God into some kind of finished product.

Why?

Carpe Diem, tent. Enjoy your life.

This supposes that it is not magical if we know what is happening on some chemical, physical level. The old supernatural/natural binary thinking, which is not, certainly, what many pantheists/animists have asserted. That there are rules being broken or superceded all the time. That’s more an Abrahamic dichotomy.

The God experience is a realization of being at one with all that exists. That the experience is possible from taking certain drugs does not negate the possibility that the Kingdom is within and is available to anyone.

Hi Ierrellus,

Would you agree or disagree that the experience can also come about from the natural chemical cocktails within our brains? We see, think, feel certain things and ~ voila ~ whatever experience our brains and minds are capable of unconsciously conjuring up we will have. I do not see that as a bad thing. It can even be a positive healthy thing unless it does us or others harm.

What do YOU mean by the Kingdom?

The pantheists/animists appear to acknowledge the power of explanation through scientific methodology but apply the caveat of supernatural becomings when convenient. It is just another work-around to say I don’t know. The Catholic church has perfected this ploy over a century or two. No matter how the doll is dressed, the game is, and always will be, the same.

I think what you are describing is something called enlightment. But like all words, it leaves meaning up to the individual as well as the labels we attach to be consistent (comfortable) with our “truths”.

Hi Tent and Arc,
“A rose by any name would smell as sweet.” God experience, enlightenment, the “kingdom within” all point to the same thing. See Aldous Huxley’s two small books–“Heaven and Hell” and “The Doors of Perception”. Written in the 1950s, these books explore the brain/mind’s chemical responses to certain drugs. The experience of these responses can certainly be seen as religious or enlightening. Schweitzer also wrote of the kingdom within or heaven available to all. How much more within can one get beyond responses to brain chemistry? To see God as here and now one must see God as reaching humans through their physical realities, not though some abstract, metaphysical speculations.

Welcome back, Felix.

It’s impossible to know if that is God or not. It could be God or it could be a chemical or mechanical process. It neither provides support/evidence for the existence of God nor does it provide support/evidence against the existence of God.

Hi Phyllo,
I’d suggest that it may provide support/evidence for both God’s existence and our existence in and of matter. Again, we are back at words trying to describe what is wordless. The experience is the proof of it’s reality. No explanatory words can actually confirm or deny a wordless, heartfelt experience. My problem with much that is said in religious debates is that they do not ground their arguments in the natural human experience of evolution, that, in preference for specious metaphysical explanation, such arguments eschew physical reality.