Question(s) for the Religious

[Bad Writer]

-Can I make up something spiritual and officially coin it divine?

Go right ahead. In fact, if you want to make a comparison to religion, you should make up something spiritual. A swimming pastrami creature isn't spiritual, it's corporeal.

The point is that, to us, that's all religion is. You ask for proof of the Spaghetti monster (not Pastrami but same Italian origin) because you cannot take us at our word. It doesn't matter if this thing is spiritual or corporeal, for neither can be proven with demonstrable evidence, as far as we've seen.

You ask us to take a walk in your shoes, to believe in something we can't see, to give faith a try. Many of us have attempted this, and results always vary, or there are simply no results. If you took a look at the world through our eyes, to try and see if your god can be demonstrated to exist by some testable and reproducible means, then you might understand us a little better.

-Is it just as authoritative as any other belief?

No. There are numerous ways to evaluate a claim. I typically start as Frodo did - the very first thing I'll assess is whether the claimant actually believes it himself.

The process of evaluating a claim stays the same whether it's true or not; we should never assume that it's true before we begin testing it. This is exactly how the court system in the U.S. works; a suspect is innocent until proven guilty, and not the other way around. If we assumed he was guilty from the get-go, not only would the process be biased against that person, but if he's really innocent, but it cannot be proven that he is, then we risk sending this person to jail or to the executioner's block.

Bottom-line, your examination process is flawed simply because you are shifting the burden of proof of your claim. We understand that you believe in it, but we can't verify its veracity without evidence, so we don't attempt to believe in it as you do. Doing so is called using faith, and faith is always blind.

You admittedly don't, so why should I? This criterion isn't restricted to spiritual claims. If I tell my kids that there's a turkey in the back yard, they'll run to the window to see it. If one of them sees me wink as I say it, indicating that I don't believe it myself, she won't run to the window.

I don't think that's what WV was postulating. The situation he created, that is, the person making up spiritual claims, is going to try very hard not to wink at the crowd when he gives his spiel. Whether the claim comes from an honest believer or a decidedly conny con man, we still need evidence to demonstrate whether or not what either person says is true.