(November 10, 2016 at 7:19 am)robvalue Wrote: Using our emotions as a measure of truth is simply unreliable, no matter how well we are.
Anyone can sit around saying how certain they are about something. It makes no difference. If something is true, and usefully so, it can be demonstrated in some way. If it requires someone else just taking your word for it, it's not going to be very useful.
Meditation can achieve all sorts of strange feelings. If you want to associate feelings with stories, then you will. That doesn't make it valid.
I can meditate, or experience profound emotions, in many different ways without needing to think I'm talking to God or some such. So I still don't know why I should care about any of this. It seems to be just people telling me about their own experiences and what they think they are about. If God continues to make his communication indistinguishable from various other well understood phenomena, then it's too bad for him I guess. He should try harder. I communicate with people just fine without having them do a ritual first.
God can't be argued and is not a thesis or hypothesis. It's a reality that can be experienced or known. If God means a being that is anthropomorphic and can be detected with science as some being, then I too disbelieve.
"I can meditate, or experience profound emotions, in many different ways without needing to think I'm talking to God or some such."
Agreed! But in our post scientific world you are trying to question whether it's a matter of natural cause or supernatural. And I confess it's natural.