The stereotype I'd say is a shift in what philosophically helps you to survive in this world based on experience. One must look at why the OP shifted to theism and what events were happening in his/her life

ModusPonens wrote:Also, I became a theist because of personal experiences I actively choose to believe were spiritual. You might just say I have an overactive imagination.

Imagination exists to be overactive. Thanks for sharing that post; it's an interesting and frank take on belief.

I've had many spiritual experiences. (I define spiritual as something incorporeal that feels real.) But they've been triggered by everything from movies to music, in locations that range from windswept crags to cathedrals. I don't believe the apprehension of incorporeal reality is anything but an illusion, but even if I thought different, I couldn't invest my subjective and internalised experience with objective weight. It's true to me, in that moment, but I can't go further.

Which is why I can never pass agnosticism. Atheism is closer to the mark, with the personal God as commonly understood. Faith demands that I trust my subjective experiences are something more. If I concede that, how do I make meaningful distinctions between the immaterial and material?

Agrippina wrote:

Loren Michael wrote:

Agrippina wrote:...particularly if they find that they are rejected on theist websites for their high intellect or education.

I seriously doubt that happens to any degree worth mentioning. Unless you're using "high intellect or education" as code for "political differences".

No, nothing at all to do with politics. I actually mean people who are well-educated but religious and they profess to be atheist in order to not be questioned by atheists for their religious beliefs so that they are able to discuss whatever their discipline is without their religion being called into question. Atheists can be bullies as much as believers can. I 've actually seen posts where someone who lets it be known that they belong to some religious group being questioned about their religion while they are discussing science. Hiding behind a pretence of atheism when the subject you want to discuss is not religion, is a good way to avoid the religion questions.

Is that just a typo that you missed or something? Because your reply has nothing to do with mine.

Byron

I was mulling over your definition of the spiritual as 'something incorporeal which feels real'. The spiritual is certainly a pretty vague notion, and I suppose, covers everything from the experience of beauty to crying at rom-coms.

I think in the main mystical traditions you could define it as a different reality. I've always assumed this means not an ego-based reality, such as we normally assume (divided into self and other), but a non-dual reality, where the self/other distinction has collapsed.

OK, this can still be accused of being subjective, or a brain quirk, but then ego duality itself comes under suspicion, doesn't it? What's so special about that?

Of course, it gets pretty interesting, since for the Buddhist the non-dual involves no God, whereas for the Abrahamic mystics, it does. How come?

nunnington wrote:Byron

I was mulling over your definition of the spiritual as 'something incorporeal which feels real'. The spiritual is certainly a pretty vague notion, and I suppose, covers everything from the experience of beauty to crying at rom-coms.

I've prompted a mull? Cool.

Chambers takes up half a page of close-set type defining "spirit" and its derivatives, and doesn't get more specific than "not material". I like your description of a "different reality", which is a similar angle to mine. Acres of trees and barrels of ink have been put to work debating ontology (the Stanford page looks like a decent summary) and I'll say only that the self/other distinction can be demonstrated in objective, material terms in a way that spiritual experience can't. From the simplest method of knowing things that others don't know, to comparing a variety of subjective perceptions of an objectively recordable event. (All consumed subjectively ultimately, but hey, it's an imperfect world. )

The Buddhist/Aramaic split is interesting, but perhaps not so far apart as it seems, since both traditions accord spiritual matters objective weight, although they differ on the details.

Byron

'Objectively recordable' gets interesting. Yes, we can relate that to inter-subjective testing, and so on, however, we start getting heavily into reification here, don't we? Nothing wrong with that at all, of course, but we have to say that it is reification.

I think one Buddhist view is that reality is neither subjective nor objective, it just is. But Christians tend to freak out at that, with the exception of a few mystics. But to say that it is subjective presupposes there is a subject; for Buddhists, no; for Christians, there must be, since the subject is the one who is saved.

I don't think many Buddhists would say they accord spirituality objective weight, would they? They would say that both 'spirituality' and 'objectivity' are not experientially available. There are no characteristics, and so on.

nunnington wrote:Byron

'Objectively recordable' gets interesting. Yes, we can relate that to inter-subjective testing, and so on, however, we start getting heavily into reification here, don't we? Nothing wrong with that at all, of course, but we have to say that it is reification.

If you believe that consciousness has only a material (bio-chemical) basis in the brain, then it's less reification than recording, since you're not materialising something, simply finding a way to measure pre-existing materialism.

With Buddhism (which I'm not really up on), while it may employ the interesting mingling of subjective and objective, it claims objective reality for spiritual matters. For example, with reincarnation, according to some adherents, disabled children are suffering from bad karma, due to bad acts in a previous incarnation. That's making objective, ontological claims, even if Buddhists don't call it that.

Interesting point about orthodox Christians balking at the erosion of subjectivity, although that may be more protestants, since Christian individualism really took off with the various reformations, and cutting out the church as middle-man in the relationship between man and God.

byron

Something that always amuses me is that the rejection of the separate self by many Buddhists is treated with horror by many Christians, as there is no-one left to save!

However, there is a radical mystical strain in Christianity (I think you find it in Eckhart), that being taken up into the great One is itself salvation. So here, Buddhism and Christianity find a meeting point, in that loss of ego is found in both.

I take your point about reincarnation and so on. I have done a lot of Zen practice, which is based on what is. Of course, as soon as you start to describe it, you have lost it, which is also quite amusing. Or indeed, there is simply a different what is. But this is why we get the famous 'Kill the Buddha' stuff in Zen, since it is only another concept.

And yes, there is a Christian equivalent - that we must give up conceptions of God. I think one Buddhist phrase is 'empty of all characteristics', that is, when the cognizing mind ceases.

As they say in Zen, apologies for all this nonsense!

nunnington wrote:I have done a lot of Zen practice, which is based on what is. Of course, as soon as you start to describe it, you have lost it, which is also quite amusing.

The best description of zen I've heard is "transcendent profundity". A shame the discipline has had its reputation knocked by bullshit merchants; I've found the approach fascinating. (From my little experience of it through Aikido.) Zen seems related to Apophatic Theology, in that the latter seeks to define god by what he isn't, since what he is lies beyond the limits of our understanding. Not an exact match with zen, but not so far apart.

Byron

Yes, quite similar to negative theology. I think both let go of conceptual descriptions, and focus on what is. But Zen is more rigorous in an experiential sense, I assume.

You can also see it as emptying out. You just keep emptying everything out. The interesting thing is, if you empty everything out, including your previous notions of yourself, and the world, is there anything left? Well, results vary of course, but often what's left, curiously, is everything, but this time, not separate from me, but the same. Then the world is my body.

Quite scary stuff, and people get very frightened about it, angry, upset, guilty, blah blah blah, so you just keep going. It's like a huge drill.