It would seem absurd for anyone to question the validity of his claim of the “visit” from Mr. Jones. By describing his “visit” from God in the same language, Lib attempts to make it seem absurd to deny the validity of his claim that he was “visited” by God as well. By choosing words that can be used in a literal, physical sense as well as a more abstract or metaphorical sense, he’s making an extraordinary claim sound the same as a very ordinary claim, and make it seem that unreasonable of the atheist to demand extraordinary evidence to verify the claim.
If the religionist claims to have had a “visitation” from a “deity” in which said deity “imbued” the person with a “revelation” or “spiritual insight,” then it is clear that we’re talking about something on quite a different order than “Mr. Jones” dropping by the house for some chit-chat. The religionist might attempt to emphasise the intimate and all-encompassiong nature of his relationship with the deity by relating an account of his unverifiable, supernatural experience in mundane language–and indeed, this is a common rhetorical device–but even if belief in this relationship is a regular part of his life, that doesn’t make it something banal that others should accept at face value.
Ben and Podkayne, if there are “voices of reason” in this thread, surely they are yours.
I’d like you both to consider, though, that when a subjective experience of God is offered to you as one person’s reason for believing, the point of that witnessing is not to say “here is evidence you cannot deny”, it is “here is evidence I cannot deny”. I think if you look back, Lib’s assertion was that it is wrong of others to deny his experience, not that it’s wrong to disbelieve his interpretation of it.
But Lib, I agree with Ben’s point that your way of summarizing God as Love rather obfuscates your belief in the Person himself.
My goodness, you really did just fall off the truck, didn’t you.
I’ve said it before many times, but I’ll say it again for your benefit. Goodness is the aesthetic most valued by God. Love is the facilitation of goodness. God is Love.
God does not in His discernment divide the world into atheists and theists, but into those who love and those who don’t. Those who love are His disciples. He told me this Himself, and I’ve shared His words numerous times. But here you go:
“I am the Love Everlasting. Whatever men say about me with their minds is vapor. I cannot be known by the mind, but only by the heart. Stop dividing the world between theists and atheists, and start dividing it rightly as I do. There are those who love and those who don’t. Those who love, they are my disciples.”
It’s realy hard to know what to call myself. Many Christians consider me to be a renegade, and “atheist” would be misleading in almost every circumstance. I’m just me.
But there is no conflict in saying that God is Love and God is a Person. He is, in fact, the Living Love, the Facilitator of Goodness.
When God speaks to me, it manifests as a sudden awareness or comprehension — fiat and ex nihilo. It is an alteration of my worldview. There is not necessarily any feeling involved, though sometimes there is. Sometimes there’s a rush of giddiness, sometimes there’s sadness, and sometimes there’s no discernable feeling at all. Whatever feeling there might be is usually epiphanic, likely as a result of seeing things in new ways.
It is hardly a concept foreign to Christianity.
“God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.” — 1 John 4:16
I think, as I’ve often said, that the phonemics are irrelevant. “Jesus” is an anglicization of Hebrew anyway. His name wasn’t even Jesus. That said, I have searched the Qu’ran for what it says about love, and I don’t think it truly represents my beliefs.
Yes, I do.
Yes.
Podkayne wrote:
It’s called a parable. When Jesus spoke of finding pearls in fields, or kings who hired workers for the vineyards, or a prodigal son returning home, it was for the purpose of explaining metaphysical things in a material context. For me, same same.
Xeno wrote:
That depends on what you mean by love. If love is the conduit of goodness, then God is love.
Much better, Lib. I’ll address your last post in more detail later. For now:
Do you believe that the Bible is a special book above all others? i.e., that its authors are communicating God’s will in ways which, say, Shakespeare and the Koran lack?
Do you believe that the OT prophets issued predictions of the future which were given to them by God?
I didn’t say the issue is whether God is Love. The issue is whether God is simply love, i.e. whether love is embodied in a conscious creator entity.
You see, that’s the problem, Lib. People debate whether a conscious creator entity exists, and, if so, whether that entity is the one described by the Christian scriptures, and you consistently change the subject by saying “God is love, God is love.”
This leads to one of two interpretations, IMO:
You’re changing the subject, because you can’t support your belief in Christianity over other religions, or
You honestly believe that love is somehow particular to Christianity, and that when atheists debate the existence of God, or debate whether Christianity is correct, then they are somehow trying to debate whether love is worthwhile.
(And much the same can be said of the other Christians at the SDMB who start talking about love as soon as you scrutinize their beliefs too carefully.)
**
You see? Your experiences can be explained in plain English.
Since you could do it all along, isn’t it a little unfair of you to complain on and on about how the horrible, dishonest atheists are unable to deal with your metaphors?
**
In other words, more dodging. Don’t quibble over the anglicization of Hebrew. You know full well who I am talking about, and I say that because at the same time you quibble, you do give a straightforward answer. You think Christianity is right, and Islam is wrong. The Koran doesn’t speak for God.
**
Can you offer any evidence that your experiences came from the creator, or that the resurrection really happened?
Can you offer any explanation as to why Muslims have experiences which are indistinguishable from your own, but which they interpret in a radically different fashion?
Why do many people not have these experiences? Does God not want to contact them?
Sorry to butt in, but while Ben’s having a go, could you clear something up for me as well Lib?
Do you believe that the universe and everything in it, including yourself, is indivisible from God? That there is no such thing as “physical”, everything is solely divine?
You see? I understand that you have had personal experiences of a presence which you believe to be a conscious entity. But that only gets you to Deism. But it’s so hard to figure out how Christianity figures into this, because you keep saying “God is love, God is love,” as if somehow a Deist couldn’t believe that. For some reason you’ve overlaid your experiences with a layer of Christian interpretation.
It’s particularly difficult given the enormous problems with what is generally described as “Christianity.” (For example, the problems being discussed in the Paine thread, or failed prophecies.) It seems to me that if the core issue is “God is love,” and one really believes that that outweighs all considerations, including atheism vs. theism, then one would jettison Christianity like an old gum wrapper. After all, the historicity of Jesus is but a shoddy trifle compared to the fact of love, right?
Don’t question Lib, Ben. You’re obviously not capable of understanding even the simplest and most widely-understood concept grapsed by everyone who’s had a major power whisper the secrets of the universe in their ear.
It’s patently obvious why Lib is a Christian and not a Deist. It’s as clear as day what ‘love’ and ‘God’ mean. Therefore, you must either be incredibly stupid, or you’re purposely lying about what you know to be true in order to provoke an argument.
You know nothing about logic, reason, or rationality, and you have no cause to be questioning Lib’s deep and meaningful arguments.
No, not really. The Bible isn’t God’s Word; Jesus is. I find His inspiration nearly everywhere I look. In fact, Jesus the Son of Man is as meaningful as the Bible for Christian instruction. According to Jesus, our instructor and counselor is supposed to be His Holy Spirit, not any book.
I don’t know. Maybe. In some cases. I don’t think about it very much.
It is seldom frutiful to dichotomize. I hosted a thread which dealt exclusively with the God is Love theme, and it spanned five pages or so before it was hijacked. There was excellent feedback from people there, and you can find it by searching “Love” in thread titles in Great Debates.
I’m not trying to change the subject or disorient atheists. In fact, quite the opposite. I’m trying to express my opinion of how I focus on the subject and how I consider many atheists to be my spiritual bretheren.
It would be unfair to a stranger. That’s why I’ve explained the same things over and over without any resentment in doing so. But Czar is no stranger. His username used to be Scythe, and he has known me and my views for more than three years. He was an active participant in threads since long ago wherein all these things have been explained. As Xeno indicated, it is the pattern of Czar. He waits until I post my opinion, and then he pretends he doesn’t understand. And then it goes from there.
Your words, not mine. There are some parts of so-called “Christianity” that are wrong and some parts of so-called “Islam” that are right. And vice-versa. The foundational axiom is that God is Love. Whatever might be compatible with that is right. Whatever contradicts it is wrong. God cannot be confined to a book. Or a religion, either. I may as well tell you now my view of religion: it is a body politic that God despises.
I’m just like you. I look at things with as discerning an eye as I can. I judge with the best judgment I can. I apply reason and logic as best I know how. And I thoughtfully consider all evidence as a whole before making up my mind. If you and I make up our minds differently, it is not necessarily ethically significant. There might be all kinds of reasons that we interpret evidence differently.
So, yes, I can offer you my evidence. And in fact, I’ve done that here for three years. But that does not mean that it will be meaningful to you or convince you because you might interpret the evidence differently. I have even offered a logical proof of God’s existence that is universally believed by logicians to be valid, but even that convinced no one.
That’s why I’ve always said that if I were an atheist (and in fact, when I was), there was no miracle or sign or evidence that would suffice to convince me of a metaphysical truth. That would be silly, to seek proof of the metaphysical among the material. “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” — Jesus
Certainly. There is in fact no other interpretation exactly like my own. Consciousness is a closed reference frame. All experience is subjective and unshareable except by mediation. There logically ought to be as many interpretations of God as there are people. You and I can both look at a work of art and come away with vastly differing perceptions.
God’s interest is morality. Goodness is the aesthetic that He most values. Our lives are moral journeys. Each is unique. And they are temporal. You never know what lies around the corner. I was smoking dope with some hippies one moment — the next, my world was turned upside down.
Sentient wrote:
No. I do not believe that the atoms are real. They are a mere shadow of reality. What is real is what is eternal. The spirit is real. And Jesus taught that God is spirit.
I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Word of God, and God Himself made into flesh. I believe that He dwelled among us and that He offers salvation from death. I believe that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. I believe that no one enters the Kingdom of God except through Him. I believe that He was crucified, and that He rose from the dead. I believe that He is the Love Everlasting, and that He has commanded us to love one another. I worship Him.
Heh, heh, well, I think I’ve finally got to know you. You have my undying admiration and regards, my brother. I believe the two of us have had similar experiences in our lives, shared by a tiny percentage of humanity. And yet Ocham’s razor cleaves us so far apart that we might as well inhabit different galaxies.
Love is all that matters, friend. Your God go with you.
Translation: “Why am I a Christian? Because I’m a Christian.”
Do YOU think it will suffice? Would you ever accept such an answer from anyone else?
“So, Ben, why are you an evolutionist instead of an IDist?”
“Because I believe in evolution.”
Thus far, it looks like you believe the following, for the following reasons:
You believe that Jesus was really resurrected, because you got a powerful sensation that it must be so.
You do not believe that the Bible is particularly more inspired than any other book, however. Having examined their contents intellectually and compared them with your experiences, you find that many books contain as much God-truth as the Bible, and the Bible contains much that is without God-truth.
Do you believe that the Koran was dictated to Mohammed by an Angel?
Do you believe that Joseph Smith actually found Golden Plates?
I believe that natural selection is an excellent general explanation for how species evolve. I believe that Darwin’s theory brings an order-from-chaos common-sense way of looking at the origin of species. And I believe that scientific testing again and again falsifies hypotheses that are contradictory to evolutionary theories. I like how evolution is maleable enough to accomodate such major additions as punctuated equilibrium, and yet stable enough to withstand close scrutiny. It thoroughly satisfies my intellectual curiosity with respect to such matters. I’m not a scientist, but even I can understand the concept of evolution.
A powerful sensation? Did I say that?
[…just a moment…]
No, I didn’t.
Substitute “spiritually” for “intellectually” and you will have a faithful statement of my belief on that matter. As I (actually) said, God is not confined to any book.
I’m doxastically neutral in that regard.
I’ve heard of Joseph Smith, but I don’t know what Golden Plates are.
The entire point of the discussion is the distinction between a metaphysical (or supernatural) event, which would require extraordinary proof, and a material (or mundane) event, which requires little proof, since similar events occur frequently within our common everyday experience. Your “parable” seeks to blur the distinction–which, I think, was your point, although I’ve certainly been wrong about your motives in the past.
I can accept that, as a person from whom faith is an important part of your life, your relationship with God is no more extra-ordinary (in the sense of being something outside of your normal, daily experience) than your relationship with a “Mr. Jones,” but I should hope that you recognize that your level of comfort with and acceptance of the idea of God as “ordinary” has little persuasive power to a person who does not believe in God, who does not share this relationship as part of their “ordinary” existence.
Libertarian, your last reply to me contains such obvious weaselling as to be beneath rebuttal. You are fully capable of providing straightforward answers to my questions in clear English. I am giving you a second chance to do so.
—And, like Apos suspects in his/her own case, the knowledge of that connection, and the implications of that connection for others, has affected me on a deep moral level, but has not made me religious.—
In lieu of this thread, I should add a third possibility. If I felt someone was speaking to me in a personal way discernably different from a misidentification of my own internal states (something I am well acquainted with), I would most certainly show it the regard due to all intellegient beings, listen to what it had to say, give consideration to it, etc.
Even if it turned out I was just crazy, and talking to an aspect of myself, why should I fail to acknowledge and respect myself?
When it comes to internal experiences, I am inclined to agree with the idea that there is simply no objective way to conclude that something you experience internally either is or is not an aspect of yourself, something external to “you” but still internal to your biology, or something external altogether. Which of the three it is is a decision you make, not a truth you can discern.
You can find a good biological story that seems to match the internal experience, but that’s not compelling: it doesn’t prove anything to you. Someone with an addiction can know that they have a biological addiction. But it just doesn’t change anything until they decide to disassociate from the “voice” telling them to use. You can’t “prove” that the addicitive voice is not part of you. It’s not true or false to say that it is or isn’t. It’s just a decision addicts can make about how to conceptualize themselves.
I’m not trying to apply this to religious experience directly, or imply anything like the influence of god being a mental condition or an addiction (indeed, that influence is the opposite process: finding that a prescence is speaking to them, not rejecting one). I am in fact simply trying to use those examples to demonstrate that a feeling of a presence or a voice cannot be conclusively dismissed as someone talking to themselves anymore than one can prove to themselves that the commanding voice of OCD is or isn’t part of them.
