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I have made no appeal to false authority nor emotive chrs. The statements I have made are all true and can be verified by research.
You are setting up a strawman argument. Let me illustrate. You are claiming that I cannot directly apprehend the non existence of god, but that people can apprehend the existence of god, maybe you? But god is an immaterial being as such both sides of your scales are empty and I'm afraid my experince is just as valid as any religious experience. We are still both left holding an empty argument, which is good for me because I wouldn't seek to use it to demo the non existence of god.
If it helps here is M.Theresa describing her athiestic experience but ultimately dismissing it. Her Confirmation bias. It wasn't my experience but I can see parallels. I still can't see why you deny atheistic experiences? Unless you are trying to deny them to bolster your argument that personal experience form some sort of evidence but only for ones where a god is apprehended.
“I want to say to you something but I do not know how to express it. I am longing ... to be all for God, to be holy in such a way that Jesus can live His life to the full in me. The more I want Him, the less I am wanted. I want to love Him as He has not been loved - yet there is that separation, that terrible emptiness, that feeling of absence of God. I am not complaining - I only want to go all the way with Christ. Tell me what your child should do. I want to obey at any cost, and if you tell me to continue like this till the end of my life, I am ready to obey cheerfully.
Quote:there's what's real to an individual and what's real to others and what's real to everyone else. The court of public opinion has a great influence over what the general populous accepts as reality. Delineating delusion from evidence I agree is tantamount to a valid perception of reality.
But I still sense, tack, that you think your personal experiences are less delusional than the guy who killed his kid. They are not. They are (perhaps) merely less extreme.
I cannot evaluate your "personal experiences" as evidence. That's why they are your PERSONAL EXPERIENCES. As I said at the outset, you could simply be delusional and imagining that 'god' is talking to you. You might have acid reflux or a brain tumor both of which would be more convincing than any fucking god. In any case, even if you attempt to convey your personal experiences you can not prove that they are valid to anyone else and are thus useless as evidence of much of anything....unless you kill your kiid and then everyone would agree that you are batshit crazy.
(August 14, 2010 at 5:44 pm)Captain Scarlet Wrote:
I have made no appeal to false authority nor emotive chrs. The statements I have made are all true and can be verified by research.
You are setting up a strawman argument. Let me illustrate. You are claiming that I cannot directly apprehend the non existence of god, but that people can apprehend the existence of god, maybe you? But god is an immaterial being as such both sides of your scales are empty and I'm afraid my experince is just as valid as any religious experience. We are still both left holding an empty argument, which is good for me because I wouldn't seek to use it to demo the non existence of god.
If it helps here is M.Theresa describing her athiestic experience but ultimately dismissing it. Her Confirmation bias. It wasn't my experience but I can see parallels. I still can't see why you deny atheistic experiences? Unless you are trying to deny them to bolster your argument that personal experience form some sort of evidence but only for ones where a god is apprehended.
“I want to say to you something but I do not know how to express it. I am longing ... to be all for God, to be holy in such a way that Jesus can live His life to the full in me. The more I want Him, the less I am wanted. I want to love Him as He has not been loved - yet there is that separation, that terrible emptiness, that feeling of absence of God. I am not complaining - I only want to go all the way with Christ. Tell me what your child should do. I want to obey at any cost, and if you tell me to continue like this till the end of my life, I am ready to obey cheerfully.
You said it yourself "It wasn't my experience but I can see parallels". She can't be an authority on your personal experiences, therefore a false authority. If you're saying it's indicative then that's fine, but why not use someone else rather than such an emotive and popular character as her with very emotive imagery? Regardless all that is not my point. I DO NOT DENY any experiences (atheistic or otherwise). If I can not validate them I can't afford them any weight in an argument, but I do not deny them. What she's expressing here is a longing and sadness. The statement "feeling of absence of God" is a misnomer unless you've actually felt God and then is only a colloquialism for saying I don't feel him now not he doesn't exist. You can't see darkness. It's the semantics of experiencing nothing I'm talking about, I've rehashed it twice past the point I said I would, You didn't even have the courtesy to answer directly my very plain 3 questions. I've attempted to see things from your perspective ingested them and rephrased them and pointed out our differences, that's all I can do is attempt to see your side of it and evaluate your points. I'll bow out of this discussion with you until such time as they are answered, you've obviously stuck in your own ideas.
(August 14, 2010 at 6:37 pm)Minimalist Wrote:
Quote:there's what's real to an individual and what's real to others and what's real to everyone else. The court of public opinion has a great influence over what the general populous accepts as reality. Delineating delusion from evidence I agree is tantamount to a valid perception of reality.
But I still sense, tack, that you think your personal experiences are less delusional than the guy who killed his kid. They are not. They are (perhaps) merely less extreme.
I cannot evaluate your "personal experiences" as evidence. That's why they are your PERSONAL EXPERIENCES. As I said at the outset, you could simply be delusional and imagining that 'god' is talking to you. You might have acid reflux or a brain tumor both of which would be more convincing than any fucking god. In any case, even if you attempt to convey your personal experiences you can not prove that they are valid to anyone else and are thus useless as evidence of much of anything....unless you kill your kiid and then everyone would agree that you are batshit crazy.
And while I agree it could be all personal bias and illusory, I don't feel it's delusional and I don't think any definition or semantics will change your mind. You feel I'm delusions, irrational and completely biased and that's your entitled opinion. Personal experiences can be corroborated and peer reviewed but I agree they alone can not be proof of anything.
"There ought to be a term that would designate those who actually follow the teachings of Jesus, since the word 'Christian' has been largely divorced from those teachings, and so polluted by fundamentalists that it has come to connote their polar opposite: intolerance, vindictive hatred, and bigotry." -- Philip Stater, Huffington Post
always working on cleaning my windows- me regarding Johari
(August 12, 2010 at 6:12 pm)theVOID Wrote: I can only speak for myself, but my rejection of God claims has to do entirely with my wanting to be consistent and rational in my beliefs.I reject all claims that have no logical necessity or evidence in indication. It's not an argument directly for disbelief rather it's an argument against the validity of the claims being made.
Personal experience is useless, it leads to a potentially unlimited number of contradictory conclusions. If a standard or methodology for arriving at your answer can lead to contradictory conclusions when applied in the same way by other people (such as my personal experience said x=1 yours said x=2) it is not sound, therefore i do not accept it as sufficient.
Great & clear post as usual TheVOID. Thanks for that.
I don't know how you can dismiss personal experience logically. Yes, it may not be corroborated, backed up by all other observers convincingly: so that you can make a definite statement about it; but it is a definite and positive experience never the less, and can't be dismissed as "no experience" ...because it clearly is "experience".
Also, those making the assumption (in Mainstream Christianity) all agree on the fundamentals. I think I can confidently state that I agree with all my fellow Mainstream Christians here on their observations. So assuming 'A', I and others assuming 'A' all agree that x = 1. Those not assuming 'A' don't agree.
with your own personal experiences and the experiences of others, some of which are obviously in congruent with mine. Then the differences have to be evaluated and as much biases removed as possible. I understand this won't fly with you because subjectivity alone is probably the biggest bias to a materialistic perspective. He is right to himself. He obviously doesn't see a problem internally with his morality. Comparing that to our shared societal morality and each individual morality exposes that as "He's just a perv who wants to bang little kids". Even if you take a theological aspect and try and reason God as an absolute morality with evidence from religious writings you can see that it's immoral and he's either, lying, self deluding, hallucinating, crazy and/or amoral.
"There ought to be a term that would designate those who actually follow the teachings of Jesus, since the word 'Christian' has been largely divorced from those teachings, and so polluted by fundamentalists that it has come to connote their polar opposite: intolerance, vindictive hatred, and bigotry." -- Philip Stater, Huffington Post
always working on cleaning my windows- me regarding Johari
But the FSM is real. I know this through personal experience!
I have been touched and blessed by His Noodly Appendage.
Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree...
