An Experience I Thought of as Impossible

[All-Rounder]

"empirical evidence, information gathered directly or indirectly through observation or experimentation that may be used to confirm or disconfirm a scientific theory or to help justify, or establish as reasonable, a person’s belief in a given proposition. A belief may be said to be justified if there is sufficient evidence to make holding the belief reasonable."

Research and development - Independent Labs

So practically what I understand, you have a thing that happened to you and you have a lead, a belief. You can go on the lead to be able to confirm something else or disconfirm what has been proposed. By gathering evidence for it, you will be able to make it a pretty solid case that will be reasonable. If your evidence exceeds the amount of evidence that exists on the subject, you have more evidence of what you believe and it will be considered the most accurate. You might also already find evidence that is in support of your belief. Or maybe in support of something else.

 

[All-Rounder]

"hijack every Christian thing you see"

I will disprove this accusation by inviting you to see that I don't even care to comment or "hijack" by being an Atheist, every Christian thread in the Religious forums, and you should go and see for yourself where I have and haven't posted, because I have read a lot more threads than I have commented on from the time I was gone off the Forum (I have just returned and didn't return through religious threads but I was part of a lot of other topics and activity), to witness the threads I missed. And even if I would enjoy these threads, that doesn't give you the sole right to be part of every Christian-based thread and the only one with an interest in Christianity, and the rest of things I have my own take on in the Forums other than your specific one or some specific group's.

We are different but we can have our own take, and besides this thread was discussing somebody who was an atheist for many years, not a Christian. I could say that you're contributing to hijacking his atheism, more so. But I don't do that. And I think it's his judgement anyway, what he does believe. If you think you can be influenced to be an atheist you already are one.

 

[Hypnalis]

How can Atheists, who appear to worship their own intellect, understand "a peace that surpasses all understanding"? They are delving into areas they have no experience of, thus they can have no understanding of. This is not to say that dogmatic relgious people do, but those you have one or more inner experiences are not going to be able to "prove" that that experience happened. It seems that Athiests often use a scientific lens in an arena that most of "science" hasn't caught up to yet.

There is nothing attacky in saying that people's experience is neither provable or disprovable via "science".

Sorry. I was responding to the first of these two quotes. Not sure why I got the sequence wrong - either I missed a whole page of posts, or saw "Tuesday" and assumed it was "Thursday".

Anyway, please apply my post from a couple of hours ago to the first one above.

And OFC I agree with the second quote as stated. - though I'd go with "perceived experience".

I have a vague recollection from my school days (I went to religious schools until I was 12 or 13) of being told that faith (in the religious sense) comes from insight and revelation, which continued to make sense for me after I stopped being religious.

(I was a very long time ago though - I can't promise my memories are 100% accurate)

 

[Neri]

Sorry. I was responding to the first of these two quotes. Not sure why I got the sequence wrong - either I missed a whole page of posts, or saw "Tuesday" and assumed it was "Thursday".

Anyway, please apply my post from a couple of hours ago to the first one above.

And OFC I agree with the second quote as stated. - though I'd go with "perceived experience".

I have a vague recollection from my school days (I went to religious schools until I was 12 or 13) of being told that faith (in the religious sense) comes from insight and revelation, which continued to make sense for me after I stopped being religious.

(I was a very long time ago though - I can't promise my memories are 100% accurate)

So what isn't "perceived" experience"? What stands outside the realm of perception?

 

[Neri]

If a theory is correct, shouldn't it be able to be tested?

No one referred to "theories". What was shared originally, was someone's experience.
Someone's insight.

You were the one that took into a realm of ontological "therorization" that the original poster made zero referance to. No one was talking "science", instead, what was being discussed and shared was an inner experience.

They weren't asking anyone to agree or disagree, because that wasn't relevent or appropriate, really.
Meaning making isn't the domain of the scientific rationalists alone, it's everyones prerogative.

We, or they, the OP, don't require your agreement or disagreement, approval or disapproval. It was simply an experience that can, or cannot, be related to.

It's clear that yourself, and @Hypnalis do not relate. So I don't see how your opinions are even relevant in the thread. Please excuse my impudence. I reserve at much right as any know-it-all Aspie to be as annoying and opinioned as any of you (or us, as the case may be).

 

[Hypnalis]

So what isn't "perceived" experience"? What stands outside the realm of perception?

My intention was to make it explicitly more general, because "experience" has many different meanings and nuances of meaning.

"Experience" is used both with knowledge gained in the real-world (e.g. work experience), and with subjective occurrences You can experience fear from something as intangible as a TV jump-scare - i.e. an experience can be subjective too. A spiritual decision doesn't have to be based on an objective experience.

That's why I added the bit about "insight and revelation".

Imagine someone says (as the OP did) "In the past I was an atheist, but now I'm a Christian".
They don't have to justify that change to anyone. It doesn't have to be based on any specific experience, regardless of whether it was objective or subjective.

And if it was an experience that they think was objective but I think was subjective, I still wouldn't question their decision to "change sides".

 

[All-Rounder]

No one referred to "theories". What was shared originally, was someone's experience.
Someone's insight.

You were the one that took into a realm of ontological "therorization" that the original poster made zero referance to. No one was talking "science", instead, what was being discussed and shared was an inner experience.

They weren't asking anyone to agree or disagree, because that wasn't relevent or appropriate, really.
Meaning making isn't the domain of the scientific rationalists alone, it's everyones prerogative.

We, or they, the OP, don't require your agreement or disagreement, approval or disapproval. It was simply an experience that can, or cannot, be related to.

It's clear that yourself, and @Hypnalis do not relate. So I don't see how your opinions are even relevant in the thread. Please excuse my impudence. I reserve at much right as any know-it-all Aspie to be as annoying and opinioned as any of you (or us, as the case may be).

I wasn't discussing "meaning making" at all through evidence, although I would hope there wouldn't be too much self deception included in that. You can have a meaningful life and it can be evidence based, a lot of people do, I mean I think most of us are trying to figure out the truth (correct me if I'm wrong).

 

[NB79]

Yes because Christians love to speak out of their a**. They can bring me proof of a soul and then we'll talk. If a person drops real things then the person can no longer argue reality and logic. Can't argue spirits into reality, need proof for that.

If they wanna believe in Santa Claus they can go ahead but shouldn't look at me like I'm the one who doesn't have an understanding of the world we live in and of proof and evidence. It's dishonest because these are the means we have that discover the world.

Yeah, typical atheist wanting proof, not attacking you, just that is like that a lot of times, the world screams of spirituality, a bunch of rocks in space can't end up as science beauty etc. It's ridiculous also to think an amoeba ended up as a banana, ant, and human, etc, you can meet Jesus, and have proof of the Holy spirit, millions of mentally sane people give testimony. But atheists usually say Christians have low standards for evidence, or are hallucinating etc, is not like that at all.

 

[Neri]

If a theory is correct, shouldn't it be able to be tested?

Not always and if you are looking for evidence, there is ample, but, not, according to some of you "Rational Empiricalists" (not that I think you are coming across particularly rational, you seem pretty "triggered" to me), who cherry pick whose word they take, because they will claim anecdotal evidence is not enough for them, when it suits them. Let's ignore the testimony of millions upon millions of humans throughout history, plenty of which have demonstrated that they will willingly stake their very mortality on their convictions.

Plus "Scientifical rationalism" is limited by the technology that they employ to measure and "prove" things, unless you are talking "The Big Bang" and then we are expected to believe that everything came out of nothing at all, even though who has EVER seen ANY evidence that that is a thing?

 

[Jonn]

You are way ahead of me when I became a Christian. It took me a long time to change my thinking from "what can God do for me?" to "what can I do for God and the world?"

Shades of JFK!

Spoiler

Or more precisely, his script writer.

 

[Jonn]

Not always and if you are looking for evidence, there is ample, but, not, according to some of you "Rational Empiricalists"

No offence, but there is no actual proof.
Nor is there proof to discredit the "Spaghetti Monster in the Sky".

Belief in a god or spirituality is based on faith, not reason.
While the belief in atheism is built on reason rather than faith.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Spoiler

Well, actually, I did.

 

[Jonn]

"The Big Bang" and then we are expected to believe that everything came out of nothing at all, even though who has EVER seen ANY evidence that that is a thing?

So, how did God come about?
Rhetorical question.

The bottom line:
If it works for you, use it.
If it doesn't, don't.

"Whatever floats your boat."

 

[Neri]

So, how did God come about?
Rhetorical question.

The bottom line:
If it works for you, use it.
If it doesn't, don't.

"Whatever floats your boat."

I'm pretty sure that it makes more sense that Consciousness; "All That Is" ~ Prime Creator" (other words for "God"~ the underlying unity that IS; always was, and never not was.

No offence, but there is no actual proof.
Nor is there proof to discredit the "Spaghetti Monster in the Sky".

Belief in a god or spirituality is based on faith, not reason.
While the belief in atheism is built on reason rather than faith.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Spoiler

Well, actually, I did.

In actuality spirituality is about experience. Have you heard the addage "The proof is in the pudding?".
I Keep harping on about experience and it just gets ignored. Cherry picking and dogma of a scientism kind offers no argument as it's actually just supercilious ignorance. Excuse my lack of diplomacy, I'm processing a shittone of childhood trauma at the mo, having returned to my birthcity and my father's home for a brief visit. But your smugness is chalking up zero points with me right now. I really liked you up until this point, but, you've caught me at a bad time.

 

[Hypnalis]

@All-Rounder @Jonn

In general, beliefs in the "spiritual domain" can neither ne proven nor disproven.

But does it matter?
Humans aren't innately 100% rational. (That can be proven
And some form of spirituality is very very common among humans, and it generally has a positive effect on society.

There are many exceptions .to the "positive effect" assertion of course, but it's important to make fair comparisons. For example, one question would be "How do large groups of humans with a common organized religion behave compared with an otherwise similar group without a religion". You can't compare "religious vs perfectly peaceful", because "perfectly peaceful" is almost unknown in groups larger than 100 or so.

Since spirituality and belief in supernatural things is widespread, and seems natural for humans, why should believers need to prove anything?

If the hard-core rationalists could prove humans are innately logical and rational I'd take a different position.
But as we learn more about ourselves, the case for our being innately rational gets weaker /lol.

@Neri
If you'd posted the one above this one before I'd finished this, I'd have included a special section for the other side of this argument. Your position is no more reasonable than the others.

Neither "side" can prove their case. But in terms of probabilities, the rationalists are well ahead in the game. That should be a strong motivator for the believer side to be polite, conservative in their use of language, and very careful with claims of evidence (because those can be disproven, usually quite easily.

If everyone stays in their lane, and doesn't make either of the underlying unprovable assumptions, this can be an interesting topic. Convert those assumptions into axioms and it's "Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia".

 

[Jonn]

Since spirituality and belief in supernatural things is widespread, and seems natural for humans, why should believers need to prove anything?

It is not "natural" for me.
Maybe I am too autistic, an alien, or sumfing.

 

[Jonn]

But your smugness is chalking up zero points with me right now.

"Smugness"?
I think that is inaccurate.
I am simply confident in my own beliefs.

Perhaps we should end this discussion between us.
I usually don't get involved in conversations involving religion/spirituality.
I just thought All-Rounder was being mistreated, hence my involvement.

CIAO...

 

[All-Rounder]

I believe I already addressed such questions, so please quote me separately. It deeply disgusts me.

 

[Neri]

@All-Rounder @Jonn

In general, beliefs in the "spiritual domain" can neither ne proven nor disproven.

But does it matter?
Humans aren't innately 100% rational. (That can be proven
And some form of spirituality is very very common among humans, and it generally has a positive effect on society.

There are many exceptions .to the "positive effect" assertion of course, but it's important to make fair comparisons. For example, one question would be "How do large groups of humans with a common organized religion behave compared with an otherwise similar group without a religion". You can't compare "religious vs perfectly peaceful", because "perfectly peaceful" is almost unknown in groups larger than 100 or so.

Since spirituality and belief in supernatural things is widespread, and seems natural for humans, why should believers need to prove anything?

If the hard-core rationalists could prove humans are innately logical and rational I'd take a different position.
But as we learn more about ourselves, the case for our being innately rational gets weaker /lol.

@Neri
If you'd posted the one above this one before I'd finished this, I'd have included a special section for the other side of this argument. Your position is no more reasonable than the others.

Neither "side" can prove their case. But in terms of probabilities, the rationalists are well ahead in the game. That should be a strong motivator for the believer side to be polite, conservative in their use of language, and very careful with claims of evidence (because those can be disproven, usually quite easily.

If everyone stays in their lane, and doesn't make either of the underlying unprovable assumptions, this can be an interesting topic. Convert those assumptions into axioms and it's "Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia".

I agee with the assertion re "proving" having stated so, ad nauseam.
Why do you insist on putting yourself in the authoritative position?
Convincing no one.
You consistantly mansplain and I wish you would refrain from involving me in any of your soapboxing. I consistantly express disinterest from having witnessed, and being subject to, your supercilliousness and dry worldview, repeatedly.

 

[NB79]

No offence, but there is no actual proof.
Nor is there proof to discredit the "Spaghetti Monster in the Sky".

Belief in a god or spirituality is based on faith, not reason.
While the belief in atheism is built on reason rather than faith.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Spoiler

Well, actually, I did.

You can have proof for yourself, undeniable proof of God, and is not true is not based on reason, even you can have His presence on you every day, anyway even if God appeared on the sky i doubt the world would change much, people are like that, when Jesus was here a lot of people didn't believe either.

 

[Jonn]

You can have proof for yourself, undeniable proof of God,

That is called subjective proof.
Not the same thing.