(April 26, 2012 at 6:00 am)FallentoReason Wrote: …fits with what I see as the 'absence' of God, or in other words, your understanding of the nature in which God communicates has been moulded around what you 'observe' per se.To me it looks like both you and Undecievied have similar experiences. The only difference is to what you see as the cause of that experience. Undecieved believes God initiates a physiological response to devotional activities. You see a physiological response to valued mental constructs. Taken from a dualist perspective, Undecieved appears to invoke an unnecessary element, God, to describe the experience.
In my own case I have had physical experiences indistinguishable religious ones. For example, when I see veterans marching with the stars and stripes, I feel intense respect and gratitude for their sacrifices and pride for the liberty they secured for this nation. My heart pounds and I get that familiar shiver down my spine. That’s a purely secular experience and if I attribute that to God I have a problem. The grief of some North Koreans over the death of Kim Jong Il suggests that even people in the most brutal dictatorships get the same feelings. I find it hard to believe God would inspire people’s devotion to such an evil man.
What exactly is the difference between the emotion a person feels when they ‘hunger for the Word of God’ and infernal fire that drives lustful impulses? I see both as confirmation that you have made something an important part of your being, for good or evil. The only test I can currently imagine for telling one from the other is to evaluate the effect it has on one’s life, i.e. the ‘fruits’.
