I was having an argument with a few theists on another forum, and they kept saying that their experiences were proof that God exists. This is an argument I hear a lot online, and I was wondering what kind of experiences those might be. So, can any theists here enlighten me with your experiences that might serve as proof?
Though not a theist, I imagine that experiences would include the normal: Religious ecstasy/rapture. Visions. The feeling of being protected in a dangerous situation. "Miraculous" survivals. Recovery (from being a drunk and such). Results in accords to a prayer's request.
They're the same experiences (ie. emotions) every human has. They simply interpret them as religious... especially if they've had a religious upbringing.
It's simple self-satisfying emotionalism that gives them warm fuzzy feelings that they want to believe is derived externally. In its basic form it is self delusion often reinforced by peer pressure, indoctrination, culture emphasis, and similarly deluded members of various support groups.
I think there's a lot to what you're saying, Cris. Some of the same motivations and indoctrinations that we see in superstitions seem to be at work in religion as well: learned primarily from parents, social sharing, belief without evidence, etc. Take knocking on wood, for instance. Probably very few people ever actually do this when they're alone. You "knock on wood," and say it, when others are present as a sort of social announcement and acknowledgment of your wishes or desires, but mostly to gain approval and acknowledgment of peers that observe the gesture. I think much religious participation is like this. I'm sure their are plenty of those that will pray before eating even the smallest meals, say "amen" aloud, raise their hands on high, and other physical gestures of piety. But these are gestures of piety that are meant to demonstrate your piety to others more than they are to seek approval of the supernatural agent(s) involved. I think many of these "experiences" that people go on about as their "proof" of their supernatural agents' existence are likewise public piety, designed more to get peer approval and acknowledgment. Public displays of piety are almost a contest among some believers: little fishes on their bumpers, the number of children being indoctrinated in their families represented by equal numbers of decals on the back windows of their SUVs, crucifix necklaces, carrying a bible to work and school (leaving it in open and obvious at all times), signing the cross, offering a "blessed day" at the end of phone calls, etc, etc.
Lots of people turn to religion out of fear of the unknown, i dont have this problem i'll wait for whatever will be will be at the end, then you have the people who are alcoholics and their minds are pretty weak by this point, thats when they let religion take over, because their own free thinking thought process has been broken down.
womens pain during childbirth,huricanes, tornadoes,earthquakes tsunami floods in which many babies drown,viruses,diseases,droughts and so on are all signs of gods existence...and hes one sadistic bastard it seems!!Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
that's modern for you. Experience has subjective and objective manifolds. On the one hand, I might "experience" God with an inability to explain it to another, but on the other hand I cannot even explain to you what precisely strawberries "taste like" or illness "feels like." Subjective experience does not "prove" God's existence except by accident. Our epoch consists in a paradoxical worship of both subjectivity and objectivity, to the refusal of reality-in-itself and as a whole: either the emotion-worship of New Agery, or the snobbery of scientism. The old way of proving God's existence, by autonomous reason--that forgotten aspect of man--remains unintelligible to modern ears because of the slow and steady corruption bearing upon the mind since the Enlightenment. Since the modern mind has become so indoctrinated by mathematics and the scientific method, it cannot expect to prove God's existence by the only means offered to it, for the scientific method relies on empirical verification, and God is something beyond empirical verification. As C. S. Lewis put it, "If there was a controlling power outside the universe, it could not show itself to us as one of the facts inside the universe--no more than the architect of a house could actually be a wall or staircase or fireplace in that house." Thus, the mind falls back on the only other modern invention it has at its disposal without becoming an atheist: radical subjectivity. Thus Cris is, in a sense, correct when he says it's all just emotional appeasement: for those who cannot break out of the stubborn habits of modernity to see the light that Plato or Shakespeare could see, all they have is emotion to lean on.
Not only that try explaining the difference between "objective & subjective" to some thiest here! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I've been having the worst time with people who are using their own interpretations of those words to convince themselves that EVERYTHING is ultimately subjective and therefore our arguments based on objectivity vs subjectivity are useless in debating the theistic approach vs the scientific approach. Bah.
I know Super, I've been there! It's like speaking to aliens Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! They don't understand or reject to understand
What a poor analogy. The house is the cosmos. The architect is god. God is not a wall or a an interstellar gas cloud. The architect can make his presence unambiguously known to anyone living in the house. God cannot (for obvious reasons). And this light is...? The fact that we have a much more detailed understanding of nature than either of these fine gentlemen somehow limits our real understanding? My oh my. What a ringing endorsement for ignorance.
You only think you're playing violins due to the subjective nature of your own perceptions. I think you have no real knowledge of what you are fiddling with...
SB 11.2.42: Devotion, direct experience of the Supreme Lord, and detachment from other things — these three occur simultaneously for one who has taken shelter of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, in the same way that pleasure, nourishment and relief from hunger come simultaneously and increasingly, with each bite, for a person engaged in eating. purport available on http://srimadbhagavatam.com/11/2/42/en
