(August 17, 2014 at 2:05 am)FallentoReason Wrote: They are all describing different things, but touching the same elephant.

Except, if we go into more detail with different religions, we in fact find that someone is touching and describing an elephant, while another describes what sounds like a tiger.
There's way too many claims being made that are mutually exclusive. A simple example is Christianity saying God can be human (aka Jesus) while Islam holds that God could never do that.

"I'm touching big hoofs"
"Yeah, well I'm touching claws"

The question is whether each religion starts with a genuine religious experience, and the experiencer struggles to find metaphor to describe the experience, or not.

I think for the most part, religion is rooted in such an experience by one person (the Buddha would be a good example), and such an attempt, combined with a kind of transmission by guided emulation: "If you do X, you will experience Y, and then you will fully understand metaphor Z." However, as a religion grows, you'll hit a critical mass where most people have NOT done behavior X, have NOT experienced Y, and do NOT experience metaphor Z. Instead, the spiritual tradition gets usurped by power-seekers and snake-oil vendors.

Now, does that original experience represent actual contact with the divine? I don't know; I wouldn't even be able to define things well enough to form an opinion. However, I suspect that the type of experience at the root of most spiritual traditions is similar rather than dissimilar, and that it is intrinsic to the human experience.

(August 17, 2014 at 2:47 am)bennyboy Wrote:

(August 17, 2014 at 2:05 am)FallentoReason Wrote: They are all describing different things, but touching the same elephant.

Except, if we go into more detail with different religions, we in fact find that someone is touching and describing an elephant, while another describes what sounds like a tiger.
There's way too many claims being made that are mutually exclusive. A simple example is Christianity saying God can be human (aka Jesus) while Islam holds that God could never do that.

"I'm touching big hoofs"
"Yeah, well I'm touching claws"

The question is whether each religion starts with a genuine religious experience, and the experiencer struggles to find metaphor to describe the experience, or not.

I think for the most part, religion is rooted in such an experience by one person (the Buddha would be a good example), and such an attempt, combined with a kind of transmission by guided emulation: "If you do X, you will experience Y, and then you will fully understand metaphor Z." However, as a religion grows, you'll hit a critical mass where most people have NOT done behavior X, have NOT experienced Y, and do NOT experience metaphor Z. Instead, the spiritual tradition gets usurped by power-seekers and snake-oil vendors.

Now, does that original experience represent actual contact with the divine? I don't know; I wouldn't even be able to define things well enough to form an opinion. However, I suspect that the type of experience at the root of most spiritual traditions is similar rather than dissimilar, and that it is intrinsic to the human experience.

Unfortunately, the things we have experienced are by default a private matter. But what we can do is try and piece together the accounts religious people give in order to get a clearer picture, kind of like getting statements from witnesses after a crime. And as far as I can tell, that picture isn't coherent at all, which is unusual because in every other aspect of life we can usually come to an agreement (otherwise, think of what a mess it would be if couldn't do this: we wouldn't be able to coherently discuss e.g. the football match we both just watched if we can't agree on what we experienced). Therefore, it seems like there actually isn't anything to be reported, and that these experiences were mistaken for something else.

Hi FallenToReason,

You say ...

Quote:As a Christian, wouldn't you be compelled to believe the Bible is the absolute truth? The Word of God? I don't think it's possible to believe other religions have any merit, especially when Jesus says "...I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." in John 14:6.

There is a well worn phrase in the Catholic Church, that says 'truth cannot contradict truth'. So we can recognise truth in other religions. You may remember from your Catholic days how the Catechism deals with other religions...

843 The Catholic Church recognizes in other religions that search, among shadows and images, for the God who is unknown yet near since he gives life and breath and all things and wants all men to be saved. Thus, the Church considers all goodness and truth found in these religions as "a preparation for the Gospel and given by him who enlightens all men that they may at length have life."

And then a quick glimpse of the history of Catholic theology shows that it has been quite happy to 'raid' other traditions where useful. Much of Aquinas's writings, including on such things as souls' borrowed heavily from Ancient Greek thoughts. There is no need in Catholic theology to consider the Bible the only source of truth and, indeed, our reading of the bible may be shaped by external knowledge such as science, or 'the book of nature' as Francis Bacon famously coined the pursuit of 'natural philosophy', that which today we call 'science'.

And yet I certainly do hold to Jesus being the ultimate reconciler between man and God, as Paul writes...

Colossians 1:19-20 For in him [Jesus] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

And, finally, just on being 'compelled', I am as fee as you are. I am a Christian because each day I freely choose to follow this path. I can take another path whenever I want (and I did do, for quite a number of years).

Bennyboy, I'm currently reading David Hume's The Natural History of Religion, a short essay, and with regards to your comments on the very subject, I'd highly recommend it if you haven't read it already.

(Next on my reading list is William James' The Varieties of Religious Experience; I expect that will have some pertinent information on the subject as well).

(August 17, 2014 at 3:04 am)FallentoReason Wrote: Unfortunately, the things we have experienced are by default a private matter. But what we can do is try and piece together the accounts religious people give in order to get a clearer picture, kind of like getting statements from witnesses after a crime. And as far as I can tell, that picture isn't coherent at all, which is unusual because in every other aspect of life we can usually come to an agreement (otherwise, think of what a mess it would be if couldn't do this: we wouldn't be able to coherently discuss e.g. the football match we both just watched if we can't agree on what we experienced). Therefore, it seems like there actually isn't anything to be reported, and that these experiences were mistaken for something else.

I think anyone who truly wants to understand the nature of a religious experience has to have such an experience. Ideally, you'd have an experience that you'd call "religious," and then read other people's accounts to see to what degree you recognize in them a good description of what you went through yourself.

Trying to look at accounts of a deeply personal experience as truthful or untruthful does them a disservice, imo. It may be that all those disparate accounts are pointing to some common ground, but that it's impossible to understand the real meaning of the words without getting your own mind to certain places first.

(August 12, 2014 at 9:56 am)FallentoReason Wrote: Now, this is the 'divine plan' according to a loving God, whose will is to be in relationship with us, hopefully for eternity.

Meh, before I fully de-converted I realized the whole plan was a steaming pile of BS.

Adam and Eve were sinless, and yet they didn't last long in Eden.

Neither did Satan and a third of Heaven, and they were perfect.

Christians make the wishful assumption in their own faith-based-system everything will turn out "okay" after their god gives them all amnesia to forget how horrible the fate of the godless, and their godless lives, was.

I give Heaven a mere few decades before the entire Kingdom comes crashing down when someone sins again. Actually according to Jesus' parables, this happens quite often. People are getting themselves thrown out of paradise on a regular basis. The Parable of the Great Banquet demonstrates this much.

Universes will come and go, but god's inability to create a perfect one will remain eternally constant.

(August 14, 2014 at 10:59 pm)FallentoReason Wrote:

Quote:In my experience, truly spiritual people that are deeply seeped in their own faith traditions are remarkably similar with respect to their gentleness and humility.

No True Scottsman. Truly spiritual people have also been remerkably similar in wanting to shed blood.

I don't think NTS applies in this particular case, when the issue about discerning character. People can make all kinds of character judgments without falling into logical fallacy: "A truly humble person is..."; "A truly loving spouse is one that..."; etc.

(August 17, 2014 at 3:49 am)Michael Wrote: Hi FallenToReason,

You say ...

Quote:As a Christian, wouldn't you be compelled to believe the Bible is the absolute truth? The Word of God? I don't think it's possible to believe other religions have any merit, especially when Jesus says "...I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." in John 14:6.

There is a well worn phrase in the Catholic Church, that says 'truth cannot contradict truth'. So we can recognise truth in other religions. You may remember from your Catholic days how the Catechism deals with other religions...

843 The Catholic Church recognizes in other religions that search, among shadows and images, for the God who is unknown yet near since he gives life and breath and all things and wants all men to be saved. Thus, the Church considers all goodness and truth found in these religions as "a preparation for the Gospel and given by him who enlightens all men that they may at length have life."

And then a quick glimpse of the history of Catholic theology shows that it has been quite happy to 'raid' other traditions where useful. Much of Aquinas's writings, including on such things as souls' borrowed heavily from Ancient Greek thoughts. There is no need in Catholic theology to consider the Bible the only source of truth and, indeed, our reading of the bible may be shaped by external knowledge such as science, or 'the book of nature' as Francis Bacon famously coined the pursuit of 'natural philosophy', that which today we call 'science'.

And yet I certainly do hold to Jesus being the ultimate reconciler between man and God, as Paul writes...

Colossians 1:19-20 For in him [Jesus] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

And, finally, just on being 'compelled', I am as fee as you are. I am a Christian because each day I freely choose to follow this path. I can take another path whenever I want (and I did do, for quite a number of years).

But the point I'm trying to make at the end of the day is; how will I know?... How will I know that Jesus is my Lord and saviour? There's so many other things I could instead believe, all of which have their plausible reasons for being the truth.

---

(August 17, 2014 at 3:34 pm)ChadWooters Wrote:

(August 14, 2014 at 10:59 pm)FallentoReason Wrote: No True Scottsman. Truly spiritual people have also been remerkably similar in wanting to shed blood.

I don't think NTS applies in this particular case, when the issue about discerning character. People can make all kinds of character judgments without falling into logical fallacy: "A truly humble person is..."; "A truly loving spouse is one that..."; etc.

Didn't NTS begin out of a place of judging people? "No true Scotsman would ever do ____".

F2R. I don't know if we'll ever know anything for certain. I'm not the best person to talk to about certainty as I rarely have it about anything. Perhaps the only certainly I have is that, at least somewhere, I'm wrong. For me, faith is commitment in the absence of certainty. There's always been a certain agnosticism to my faith. But I also hear this from my friends, the monks. They make an amazing commitment of their life to the monastic way of life, and yet do that in the presence of uncertainty ('doubt', if you will). But I can understand that. I think Keirkergaard understood this all too well - faith requires, and begins with, a risk.

(August 17, 2014 at 11:59 pm)FallentoReason Wrote:

(August 17, 2014 at 3:34 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: I don't think NTS applies in this particular case, when the issue about discerning character. People can make all kinds of character judgments without falling into logical fallacy: "A truly humble person is..."; "A truly loving spouse is one that..."; etc.

Didn't NTS begin out of a place of judging people? "No true Scotsman would ever do ____".

Perhaps. But I don't think of NTS as a truly logical fallacy. If anything it points out to an ambiguity with one of the terms.

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(August 17, 2014 at 2:47 am)bennyboy Wrote: ...I suspect that the type of experience at the root of most spiritual traditions is similar rather than dissimilar, and that it is intrinsic to the human experience.

Agreed. I consider myself a theist after rational reflection on personal experience, which is how all knowledge, even scientific, is acquired. However, I am a Christian by culture, meaning my mindset and understand has been framed by the Western tradition and I cannot help but see through that lens.

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(August 18, 2014 at 1:33 am)Michael Wrote: F2R. I don't know if we'll ever know anything for certain.

I believe in absolutes without which knowledge is not possible. In the absence of these absolutes, "like the idea that a proposition cannot be both true and not truth," the world quickly devolves into indefensible absurdity.