(February 23, 2017 at 6:31 am)Adventurer Wrote: Hello all,

I would like to inform all that I have theistic inclinations. When I apply rationalism, I am clearly an atheist. When I let go of rationalism and let my emotions run, I feel lightened up with thoughts about god.

Regardless whether god exists or not, it is good to live with imagination at times. These times, my imagination includes god.

Deliberate rationality leaves me depressed and feeling empty. Ideally, I'll limit use rationality to only times when I am handling scientific issues, addressing humanitarian issues and dealing with the reality.

I hope that this can spark a good discussion,

Regards

When I let my imagination conjure up imaginary beings it usually conjures up Groucho Marx. Groucho usually  cheers me up and sets me on the true path.

(February 23, 2017 at 12:14 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote:

(February 23, 2017 at 11:34 am)Whateverist Wrote: I can't tell if you a taking exception to something implicit in what the OP had said or meaning to agree with him.  

But would you really put the preparations for divine experience on the same level as for scientific practices (as indicated where I bolded).  In the case of scientific practice there is the possibility of replication and peer review.  We're talking about third person phenomena available to others.  But even if religious practitioners follow the same carefully prescribed procedures there would not seem to the possibility to review each other's results, no?

Yes, I do believe they are equivalent. Suppose I told you and another friend about an elusive black swan that lived in a pond in rural Norway. You and my friend are incredulous but he goes to Norway while you stay home. When he comes back he tells you that, yes, he too saw the black swan. In essence he qualifies as a peer who has replicated my observation. In the same way, if I tell you that in order to find God you must spend 20 years in earnest meditation under the guidance of an acknowledged guru and you choose not to because it would require a serious commitment that does not undermine the empirical nature the experience. That's actually what empirical means - capable of being independently observed and experienced.

Similarly if you want to find a Higgs Boson you have to build a multi-billion dollar particle collider  (sp) It would be rather silly to say that before accepting the results you have to build a second multi-billion dollar collider to replicate the results.

Now to continue the analogy, my friend and I not only directly observed the black swan, we have photographs to share. The photos still are not immediate verification; but rather mediated, so your acceptance of them as evidence of a black swan requires acceptance of a whole host of conditions not required by direct observation, such as the veracity of photographic evidence, your confidence in our truthfulness etc. Likewise, those who practice contemplative prayer or practice Eastern meditation or sudden epiphanies have profound experiences that on-their-own justify their beliefs. Holy scripture, rational demonstrations and the like are supplemental to such experiences - tools to make sense of those primal experiences by drawing on the testimony and reflections of others.

I am perfectly willing to accept that believers of other religious traditions have had direct experiential access to the Divine. That does not mean I must also accept doctrinal interpretations of those experiences or not use reason to discern differences and similarities between them. It seems to me, that even many atheists on AF have prayed the sinners prayer, had a profound experience, and then later dismissed it. I often wonder to what extent they compared and contrasted those experiences not only with their fellow parishioners but also against reports such as the The Cloud of Unknowing, Saint John of the Cross, or even Sri Ramakrishna or Rumi to try and truly understand what they experienced, using tools appropriate to that task, and not immediately turned to the methods of natural science to explain it away.

Applying a null hypothesis;
Your methodology impairs cognitive function setting the conditions for hallucinatory experiences which are then misclassified as `divine`.

(February 23, 2017 at 12:14 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote:

(February 23, 2017 at 11:34 am)Whateverist Wrote: I can't tell if you a taking exception to something implicit in what the OP had said or meaning to agree with him.  

But would you really put the preparations for divine experience on the same level as for scientific practices (as indicated where I bolded).  In the case of scientific practice there is the possibility of replication and peer review.  We're talking about third person phenomena available to others.  But even if religious practitioners follow the same carefully prescribed procedures there would not seem to the possibility to review each other's results, no?

Yes, I do believe they are equivalent. Suppose I told you and another friend about an elusive black swan that lived in a pond in rural Norway. You and my friend are incredulous but he goes to Norway while you stay home. When he comes back he tells you that, yes, he too saw the black swan. In essence he qualifies as a peer who has replicated my observation. In the same way, if I tell you that in order to find God you must spend 20 years in earnest meditation under the guidance of an acknowledged guru and you choose not to because it would require a serious commitment that does not undermine the empirical nature the experience. That's actually what empirical means - capable of being independently observed and experienced.

Similarly if you want to find a Higgs Boson you have to build a multi-billion dollar particle collider  (sp) It would be rather silly to say that before accepting the results you have to build a second multi-billion dollar collider to replicate the results.

Now to continue the analogy, my friend and I not only directly observed the black swan, we have photographs to share. The photos still are not immediate verification; but rather mediated, so your acceptance of them as evidence of a black swan requires acceptance of a whole host of conditions not required by direct observation, such as the veracity of photographic evidence, your confidence in our truthfulness etc. Likewise, those who practice contemplative prayer or practice Eastern meditation or sudden epiphanies have profound experiences that on-their-own justify their beliefs. Holy scripture, rational demonstrations and the like are supplemental to such experiences - tools to make sense of those primal experiences by drawing on the testimony and reflections of others.

I am perfectly willing to accept that believers of other religious traditions have had direct experiential access to the Divine. That does not mean I must also accept doctrinal interpretations of those experiences or not use reason to discern differences and similarities between them. It seems to me, that even many atheists on AF have prayed the sinners prayer, had a profound experience, and then later dismissed it. I often wonder to what extent they compared and contrasted those experiences not only with their fellow parishioners but also against reports such as the The Cloud of Unknowing, Saint John of the Cross, or even Sri Ramakrishna or Rumi to try and truly understand what they experienced, using tools appropriate to that task, and not immediately turned to the methods of natural science to explain it away.

External experiences are useful for verifying external phenomenon. Internal experiences are useful for verifying internal phenomenon. You're using internal experience for verifying external phenomenon. That simply doesn't work. All you can learn from internal experiences is your common psychology. Anything else is wildly prone to error and misattribution.

Quote:I hope that this can spark a good discussion

Any chance of it being a discussion in which you'll participate?

Boru

Personally, I'd be depressed if I had to willingly lie to myself, unless I am in mafia...

(February 23, 2017 at 7:58 pm)Mr Greene Wrote: Indeed the characteristics of what you are attempting is inherently non-replicable.  
It's more akin to describing hallucinations under the influence of narcotics, which vary considerably between individuals being 'good' or 'bad' at random.

Not so. If two or more people do the same thing and experience the the same result then the results have been replicated. It is no different that testing antidepressant or pain relief drugs. If people take the same medicine and most experiece relief then there has been independent replication.

That said you point is well taken. Even if the experiences are equivalent how are they to be interpreted? The question remains as to whether or not the phenomenon corresponds to any object independent of the subject. I would ague that this is true of all phenomena since no one can step outside themselves and their first person relationship with reality. The external existense of nearly everything, and especially what we call physical, is infered.

if their relief is greater than can be accounted for by the placebo effect, regarding pain medication.

I used to think gods were an interesting idea, and spent some time playing around with polytheism. (Never could wrap my mind around monotheism and never cared for it.)

Then one day I realized that I would not testify under oath that any gods were real, and that was that: Agnostic theist to agnostic atheist in about 5 seconds.

I later realized that my brain simply does not accept religious/supernatural claims -- it classifies them as unproven and probably imaginary, thereby preventing me from having genuine religious faith. At most I can be a cultural practitioner, indulging in ceremonies and festivals, but with those things having no more reality to me than a movie or book or role-playing game.

I do not feel empty, though, despite having "only" reality to play with. I obtain meaning through that reality, seeking out interesting experiences and developing new skills, and occasionally just sitting quietly and mindfully and watching the universe do its thing.

You just had the wrong set of gods.  Fucking aesir.  

On the realz tho (lol). Theistic traditions are, to me, deeply meaningful. A veritable treasure trove of human human gruntwork on the various subjects they attempt to approach. I don't need to imagine that gods are real to feel that. Unfortunately, what I take -from- those stories is rarely what people who imagine gods take from those stories...which, to my mind, is an awful shame. They're missing out. The message of myth as communication is lost in the adherence to folklore as truth.

Agree that there's a lot of good stuff in theistic traditions -- They're repositories for mythic teachings and part of cultural transmissions. Religion is when we worship the stories instead of listening to them and learning from them.