Theists: would you view the truth?

[Ignorant]

Ignorant: Very interesting, thanks for your answer.

I'll probably come back to more points later, but for now:

You say you do things to experience the afterlife somewhat. Does it work? What do you feel? [1]

Do you think this could all be a placebo effect? [2] You said you'd stop if the stories weren't true, so presumably you'd expect this knowledge to ruin the experience. [3] From this point of view, why take the risk of finding out for sure and maybe losing those feelings? [4]

No problem, I'm happy to answer.

1) Yes it works! Sometimes I "feel" the profound presence of divinity. Sometimes I don't. Either way, I know by faith (not experience) that God is present in the liturgy and that I meet him there. My feeling or experience doesn't alter that knowledge. I know its "working" even if I am not directly aware.

2) Sure that is a possibility, but I know by faith that it isn't placebo. It's not a conclusion I reached by syllogism. 

3) Well, no, I wouldn't put it that way. Instead, if Jesus isn't who he said he was and/or didn't do what the Church says he did, it would remove the authority upon which my knowledge is based, and would render the ritual itself as mere motions and words. I would still seek union with God, but now I would know that Jesus is not the way to do that, much less the religion he founded and the liturgical rituals he instituted. So I'd seek other means of receiving that union (like I said, perhaps through contemplation of "being").

4) I don't do the ritual actions for the sake of the feelings. I do them for the sake of the reality which sometimes generates those feelings. I pray and participate in liturgies because I believe they actually draw me toward union with God himself, and that God himself is active within me to pray and participate. I believe that because Jesus promised that is the case. I find that promise trustworthy because he also promised to die and then rise from the dead, and then did exactly that.

Even if I never "felt" a thing while doing any of it, I'd still do it because I think it represents reality. Even if I feel nothing, I know by faith that the experience is truly one of divine life, because Jesus promised that it was.

With that knowledge, I am not wanting to "find out" as if I need to correct for some doubts while at the same time risking my view of reality. Right now, in the rituals and liturgies, I experience the same divine presence that was in Christ and his Passion and Resurrection, here on this earth in 2016, BUT only as the liturgy and the rituals mediate that reality (which I believe they really do). By going back see those events first hand, it would remove the mediation of the liturgy and the signs, and I would be in the immediate presence of God made man, co-passionately suffering every individual human's suffering (i.e. suffering the particular and personal things every one of us suffers, but suffering them WITH us) through his Passion and Crucifixion, and his raising us all from that suffering in his resurrection.

I'm not worried about the possibility that it isn't real (I already know it's real). That's not a reason for my wanting to see it all. It's kinda like Mary. After the angel told her that Elizabeth was already pregnant, Mary went to go see for herself. I don't think she was like, "I wonder if it's true?!?!!?". I'm pretty sure it was more, "I can't wait to celebrate with her!" She wanted to be in the presence of the truth she already held to be true. That's kinda why I want to see it for myself as well.