blue triangle wrote:kyrani99 wrote:Cito di Pense wrote:kyrani99 wrote:You should consider that a theist, a true theist, not someone parading as a theist (I have seen plenty of them out to deceive others and try to lay down the letter of the law to hurt others).. a true theist does not believe because of reason. They believe because of direct spiritual evidence. They can't explain it but so what? The enlightenment experience, even when fleeting, brings knowledge, but it is not the sort of knowledge that you can discuss intellectually. That is why there are koans, myths, parables and various other metaphors. They are all statements that to point to Truth, but which cannot be understood by the rational mind .
This is a good, nay essential, point. The only real basis for belief in the supernatural is direct first-hand experience.
Oh, does this mean that the six foot cockroach I "experienced" back in 1991 was real?
Except that even back then, before I learned more about insect physiology in
detail, I was aware that what I was purportedly seeing wasn't real. Even while my brain was being cooked at 104°F in the hospital by meningococcal meningitis, I had enough presence of mind to realise that I was seeing something that was most definitely
not real, because even back then, whem my knowledge of insect physiology was less robust than it is now, I was aware of cogent reasons why such an entity could not exist for real. As a consequence, I decided, at that juncture, that since my brain was obviously manufacturing a fairly florid hallucination (though, as is frequently the case with my dreams, several of which were also delightfully unreal, rendered in IMAX cinemascope with Dolby surround sound), I might as well put the incident to good use, and see if I could determine
which species of cockroach I was hallucinating. Recounting this later with the nursing staff led to some hilarious exchanges, I can tell you.
This isn't the only example where purported "experience" does not correlate to real, concretely existing entities. As I said, I have had numerous dreams, involving such scenarios as my being shrunk to six inches in height, and chasing my tropical fish around the living room in a Lego helicopter gunship. Or the time I dreamt about taking part in a scaled-up version of the
Wacky Races cartoon, complete with cars fitted with hilariously improbable cartoon weaponry. Which were all rendered, as my dreams tend to be, in full-bore CGI with all the pyrotechnics. Or the time I dreamt about chasing butterflies through a piece of giant topiary in Papua New Guinea, that was shaped like a live sized Sauropod dinosaur.
Indeed, as a corollary of having such "experiences" (and no,
none of them involved drugs, my own natural brain endorphins can be pretty inventive when they want to be), I'm aware of the manner in which 'personal experience' can be a wholly
unreliable guide to the nature of observable reality. As a corollary, anyone telling me that they have "experienced" their magic man, has their work cut out providing a
rigorous test distinguishing their "experience" from my six foot cockroach, which seemed supremely real at the time I was "experiencing" it.
The human brain is capable of manufacturing all manner of spurious sensory "experiences", it's a supremely equipped virtual reality generator whose prowess is the stuff that the dreams of computer scientists are made of. Which is why those of us who paid attention in class, are deeply suspicious about claims of "experience" of bizarre or unusual phenomena. The idea that every fabrication of the human brain is purportedly informative about real, concrete entities, fails at this hurdle.
There is
no reason for "belief" at all. Because as critical examination of supernaturalist claims repeatedly and reliably demonstrates,
belief consists of nothing more than treating unsupported assertions as fact, regardless of what the
DATA from observational reality has to say on the subject. You wouldn't accept any claims on my part that I could fly like Superman, unless I provided live television footage of me doing so, so why should I accept blind assertions that supernaturalists have "experienced" an invisible magic man?
blue triangle wrote:Knowledge of the divine
How can one possibly have
knowledge of something that is merely
asserted to exist, and which has never once been placed upon a proper, evidentially supported and rigorous footing?
blue triangle wrote:gnosis - is the driving force behind all genuine conversions
Oh really? Please explain to us all once again, how one can have
genuine knowledge about something that has only ever been
asserted to exist, and never once accompanied by genuine
DATA?blue triangle wrote:and true faith involves holding on to that knowledge despite your moods (as CS Lewis said), despite the arguments of others and despite the evidence to the contrary mundane life appears to lay before us.
In short, you're admitting here that
faith consists of "if reality and my favourite assertions differ, reality is wrong and my favourite assertions are right". I'll vgive you three guesses what I think of that approach.
blue triangle wrote:I would argue however that such knowledge can be discussed in an intellectual way, as long as all parties understand that such experiences are normally highly personal and difficult, perhaps impossible, to validate in any scientific way.
Strange how vast classes of entities and phenomena, that the authors of mythologies were incapable of even
fantasising about, have not only been supported by
DATA, but placed within precise, usefully predictive quantitative frameworks by scientists. I wonder why that is? Oh, this might have something to do with those entities and phenomena being more than the stuff of mere blind assertion.
blue triangle wrote:The believer should accept that personal experiences, even in large number, do not constitute evidence for the truth of any religion or even the reality of the supernatural.
Except that this is precisely what a lot of supernaturalists
do assert, namely that the fabrications of their endorphins are genuinely existing entities.
blue triangle wrote:The skeptic should accept that there are some areas of personal experience that may currently be outside the purview of science.
fMRI scanning is becoming a game changer in this respect. I suggest you familiarise yourself with the neuroscience literature.
blue triangle wrote:That could be the starting point for an intellectual discussion of the highest quality.
Please explain to me how trying to turn fabrications of the imagination into real entities, just because it tickles the erogenous zones of those engaging in said fabricating, equals an "intellectual" discussion? Would we be having this "discussion" about the fantasy faeries I depict in my artwork? Er, no. But at least I present those
honestly as fictional entities, despite attempting in said art to give the imagery a realistic visual aspect.