RE: God, Santa, and The Tooth Fairy
December 7, 2021 at 12:57 am
(This post was last modified: December 8, 2023 at 7:20 am by arewethereyet.)
(December 7, 2021 at 12:18 am)LadyForCamus Wrote:(December 6, 2021 at 11:47 pm)Belacqua Wrote: Open-mindedness! Here in the 21st century! This makes me happy.
One good book on this subject is The Experience of God by David Bentley Hart. He is an academic, Eastern Orthodox Christian. This book avoids unreadable jargon and provides an introduction to what you're asking about here.
I predict it will NOT make you a theist, but it will show how the God = tooth fairy argument is naive. The quote from the Guardian on the Amazon page is accurate, I think:
"Hart marshals powerful historical evidence and philosophical argument to suggest that atheists—if they want to attack the opposition's strongest case—badly need to up their game."—Oliver Burkeman, The Guardian
https://www.amazon.com/Experience-God-Be...filtered=1
Out of a spirit of Christian charity, I suspect Dr. Hart would be OK if you pirated a copy:
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Will check it out, thank you. 🙂
Thanks for that, I'll see if I can get hold of a copy.
Most religions, including Christianity have a mystical tradition. This mysticism is about union with the divine and is invariably described as blissful at the every least. I have no problem with the notion of bliss. I have a big problem with concluding that such experiences are in fact a direct experience with the divine.
The reason for my scepticism is because I have experienced bliss in this sense twice in my life. The first time was in 1963 at age 16. I was on a weekend retreat with all the boys in my class, to a local Passionist monastery. We were in the chapel with the rite of benediction of The Blessed Sacrament***. The priest was behind us giving a homily on the mystery and joy of the Eucharist****. It was then I was suffused with utter peace and joy. The feeling lasted only a few minutes.
***Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, also called Benediction with the Blessed Sacrament or the Rite of Eucharistic Exposition and Benediction, is a devotional ceremony, celebrated especially in the Roman Catholic Church, but also in some other Christian traditions such as Anglo-Catholicism,[1][2] whereby a bishop, priest, or a deacon blesses the congregation with the Eucharist at the end of a period of adoration.[3]
Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament - Wikipedia
****Eucharist (from εὐχαριστία, "thanksgiving") here refers to Holy Communion or the Body and Blood of Christ, which is consumed during the Catholic Mass or Eucharistic Celebration. "At the Last Supper, on the night he was betrayed, our Savior instituted the Eucharistic sacrifice of his Body and Blood, ... a memorial of his death and resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a Paschal banquet 'in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us.'"[1] As such, Eucharist is "an action of thanksgiving to God" derived from "the Jewish blessings that proclaim – especially during a meal – God's works: creation, redemption, and sanctification."[2]
Eucharist in the Catholic Church - Wikipedia
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The second time was ten years a later. I was walking to my car on the way home from work. A walk o about 1/2 a mile. The army has an apt description of my mental state at the time "thumb in bum, mind in neutral" Without prior thought, I solved a Zen koan which I had heard about five years earlier and promptly forgotten. The feeling was similar to the other experience, but more intense, "an expansion of consciousness' doesn't really cover it. The feelings lasted for only a few minutes and has never returned. The idea of the experience being a joining with divine did not occur to me.
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My position as an atheist is that I do not believe in god(s) Nor do I except personal experience as demonstrating the existence of god. I demand empirical evidence discovered with scientific method. IE it must be repeatable