How to Authentically Experience God

[Tiberius]

Freedom to ridicule is a freedom of speech. You may not want to, but other people can if they wish.

[Edwardo Piet]

Yes. And ridicule of belief is not ridicule of the person. You are not your beliefs/absence of beliefs.

Just like if you insult and blaspheme God you are not insulting the believer!

I loved it in a Dawkins lecture when a guy in the audience in the Q&A said he was offended and insulted and Dawkins asked why and said "I didn't insult you...I insulted God!." (perhaps slightly paraphrased).

God wouldn't need defending if he existed anyway would he? I would have thought?! I would think the creator of the universe would be quite capable of defending himself!

And if someone's ABSENCE of belief is attacked....then how on earth is that attacking or insulting them...either?

Attacking the argument is not an Ad hom and attacking beliefs is not attacking the person.

EvF

[athoughtfulman]

If this is a go at me,thoughtful man, you are out of order. I genuinely don't understand the last para of the post. ( Frodo hasn't responded to my post so I still don't understand ).

Hey bozo, nah, it's not meant to be a go. Sorry if it seems like it.

And ridicule is needed for someone's beliefs, granted. I suppose I didn't really explain what I meant. I meant that sometimes when we start criticising someone and their beliefs, we tend to get too colloquial and personal, when rather the real goal is deconstruct ideas and beliefs to find out if they are reasonable. Instead of saying to someone who has seen 'spiritual healing' that it's just not true, we should examine why exactly it shouldn't be true. And do it in light of science not always knowing the full truth.

Again, my apologies if I offended you.

Don't get me wrong, let's talk all we want about spiritual healing, premonitions, tongues, etc, and figure out if there is a plausible explanation for them.

I guess I've just seen too many people take cheap shots at each other in real life when talking about religion.

[Demonaura]

This has basically been said already but, there are two different terms on the subject.

One can be anti-religious (such as myself) and be against religion, making fun of religion and the tennants that go with it.

One can also be anti-theist (I am not for the record) and hold a persons religion against them, taking shots at their character for being theistic.

They are seperate as in my case, I hate religions because they limit our species with nonsense but, I don't hate a person if they are christian for example. Unless they give me a reason to do so, to be honest most christians I meet do but, I avoid assumptions whenever possible and I have met christians who are really cool people.

So making fun of theistic beleifs = yes
making fun of the person simply for the fact that they are christian I avoid but, is still making fun of their theistic beleif = yes
making fun of things they cannot help (injury, illness, disabilities, race, sex) = no!

[Edwardo Piet]

I'm exactly the same as you there Aura...

Except that if I do make fun of theists then its only to the extent that I ever make fun of people in general;

Be it theists, deists, atheists, pantheists or whatever.

I don't do that much though....depends how much of a sense of humour the 'victim' has lol.

EvF

[athoughtfulman]

Yeah, sure does depend on their sense of humour.

With that said, how do you explain a religious person's experience of god which they believe is completely true?

[fr0d0]

I've spoken in tongues, the baby like language as a basic expression rather than the other type, speaking in a language unknown to me that someone else in my hearing will understand. I've heard people claim to understand some apparent jibberish, but I don't believe any of those interpreters or speakers, however sincere, were actually doing so.

I'll likely regret asking, but I don't understand your last para. What are you saying? Maybe you're talking jibberish,I know not.

Sorry bozo, did't mean to ignore you.

Talking jibberish is exactly what I'm taking about.

Speaking in tongues has two meanings. The first is sometimes the only definition people know: of speaking in a language unknown to the speaker but known to the listener/s. It'd even be understood in several languages at once I think. What I guess it's referring to is the Tower of Babel story where it says diversion of language occurred. People all spoke the same language up until then.

The second meaning is vocalising in a baby like language, with absolutely no meaning to be taken from the words. This is a form of basal worship. People sing and mutter away in an expression of worship/ adoration etc. You'll see this commonly practiced in Pentecostal churches.

Hope that helps.

[Edwardo Piet]

Yeah, sure does depend on their sense of humour.

With that said, how do you explain a religious person's experience of god which they believe is completely true?

Well they believe is true when its actually just a delusion/hallucination and isn't true at all. For whatever reasons they think its true they think its true - be it whatever they THINK is evidence or a good 'reason', or just 'having faith' and they believe first...facts later, or whatever.

Whether they are crazy/ psychotic, etc, or they just have a delusional belief that they have 'experienced God' in some way.

EvF

[athoughtfulman]

So it would seem. I believe that makes much more sense than any other explanation, if there even is one. It just doesn't seem realistic to me to think that so many people around the world are delusional. Sure, some of them, maybe even most of them. But all of them?

And what about metaphysics? I don't know much about it. Is it an actual science? Or just a crazy bunch of old men? They seem to know a few things about supernatural experiences. If metaphysics is science, maybe some of the religious experiences people are having are actually observable facts (god forbid!.

To those who haven't had a spiritual or supernatural experience, the whole idea seems ludicrous. But the people who claim that they have had a spiritual experience, perhaps some of them have observed it. Because we're talking about something supernatural (which might be natural, yet science is yet to find it), it's hard to use natural facts to disprove it. When we are dealing with the natural world, natural facts are what we use to understand it. When we are dealing with the supernatural world, wouldn't it make sense to think that supernatural facts are what we use to understand it? I don't really know what you'd call a supernatural fact, but a personal spiritual experience would be something of the sort.

But like I said, science is just beginning to delve into these matters now. Indeed, atheistic scientists will always be looking for proof to deny the existence of anything supernatural, and they might very well find it, if what we have already is not sufficient. The supernatural and the spiritual experiences people have around the world, might simply be part of nature, which we don't have to technology to successfully observe, hence the lack of any facts to support such an experience. If it's not observable, then it doesn't exist right? But the blind, deaf, dumb, mute person can't observe the world, yet the world exists because people can observe it with their eyes, ears, etc. Maybe science is simply blind, deaf, and dumb to the spiritual world. Maybe it always will be, and will always seek to refute the existence of it. Or maybe science will one day have the eyes to observe what so many people claim to, that is, the spiritual world of gods, ghosts and demons.

Hope that's easy to understand.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

@Thoughtful:

"And what about metaphysics?"


Metaphysics is a traditional branch of philosophy.

"Metaphysics investigates principles of reality transcending those of any particular science. Cosmology and ontology are traditional branches of metaphysics. It is concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world.[1] Someone who studies metaphysics can be called either a "metaphysician" or a "metaphysicist".[2]" (wiki)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MetaPhysics

To label believers generally as deluded is a view held by many atheists. It's not a view shared by myself or held within the discipline of anthropology as far as I'm aware..