You make a good point. To me whatever the truth is, it is perfectly natural, logical and reasonable. I say that while believeing that the things we say we “know” are a very small percentage of what is knowable. The term unexplained is fine by me. In my mind the term supernatural means this is something outside the boundaries of natural law as we understand it at this time. That is also fine because it is accurate. Lightning used to be explained as supernatural and now it is not.
If you were right progress would be impossible. Our senses are imperfect, our minds are imperfect; but by testing, crosschecking and experimentation we progress. Besides, you still have no evidence that “spiritual” methods work at all; you haven’t even defined them.
No, we can’t live without our brains; Terry Schiavo anyone ? Our bodies might survive, but we are dead.
:rolleyes: “Most people” ? I don’t know anyone who believes that; you sound like you are describing the Borg Collective, not real people.
“Supernatural” is a claim that the subject is magical/miraculous/unknowable; “Unexplained at this point in time” is a claim that we don’t know. One of my problems with words like supernatural is that they cut off further inquiry; if someone believes that a subject is beyond natural law, he stops looking for natural explanations. That’s why I call such belief’s “sterile”; they derail any useful attempt to understand the subject at hand.
The problem with “spiritual seeking” is it doesn’t work, beyond making some people feel good. If that’s your goal, fine; I don’t go up to people at funerals and say “By the way, you realize belief in the soul is stupid and your sister is just rotting meat”; that’s impolite. If you claim to divine the origin of the universe by spiritual means, however, I will simply consider the claim void without evidence by a verifiable method.
To make things clear; I have no problem with the purely subjective parts of spirituality. For example, if you feel an emotional connection to your fellow man, that’s just fine. An emotional connection is a purely subjective, emotional experience, and helps keep people from chopping each other to pieces. I only object to people who claim to know things with no evidence or logic behind them, just feelings/faith. I find that attitude both annoying and unbelievable.
Spiritus’s answer is a great first cut, John. IMO, there is a definable difference between the emotional and the spiritual in terms of the interior perceptions (or conceptions), particularly of the effect on the interior person. Defining that difference with any degree of clarity, though, is something I find it strangely hard to essay.
Well, yes, nothing is so sacrosanct as to be beyond the purview of the scientific method. References to sacredness should be understood in the personal meaning and preciousness of the issue to oneself. Most of us learned at age 10 or so not to insult someone else’s mother in their presence; the parallel idea is that the personal religious feelings of another are entitled to similar respect, regardless of whether you think someone else’s mother to be an ugly fishwife or someone else’s God to be a megalomaniac tyrant, or the creation of a particularly ugly paranoid myth.
However, the methodology to be used is, IMO, not that of the physical sciences. Just as dark matter or neutrinos cannot be detected with virtually any research device (short of a million gallons of tetrachloroethylene), the entities alleged to be “spirit” by religions are not necessarily subject to questions founded in physics.
I know some people really enjoy embracing superstions. Certain religious people enjoy a certain something about their beliefs so that they never seriously examine them. Thats not what I’m talking about. It isn’t a matter of need but a matter of expressing what is, what we think and feel, within the framework of words.
It seems to me like you might say "I don’t feel the need or desire to use those words and I can’t understand people who do. Fair enough, It is* possible* however by avoiding the use of those words and concepts you may be avoiding something that is reality, and not imagined. Choose an explainantion offered by your physical brain if you prefer but that doesn’t make it any more true.
It does huh? from Webster;
1 : of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe
2 a : departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature
You are incorrect. I recignize that some people who have certain beliefs will cling to them in the face of solid evidence against them, however, not everyone that entertains supernatural possibilities stop looking for other explanations. That is a completely unfair and inaccurate statement. I see true spirituality as seeking the truth, something that science attempts as well.
Might I point out that the section I bolded is an example of you making a statement that is unverifiable. You object to others doing it but it works for you huh?
I have a problem with folks who claim to revere the truth and then continue to hold beliefs and suspend reason when faced with ample evidence. In areas where there isn’t suffucient evidence for or against then people make choices based on their own experiences, background, and preferences. I find it annoying when people consider their choice in these areas is the obvious smart one and those with different experinces who choose differently must be inferior or just goofy in some way. It’s BS.
The spiritual experience and the spiritual journey resides within the individual in a place where science may have little to offer. That doesn’t make it less meaningful or genuine. The idea that unless something is verifiable under scientific terms it has no value is just ridiculous.
Thats pretty interesting. It doesn’t do anything to prove or disprove spiritual experiences.
Baba Ram Dass used to try a lot of LSD. He described several of his trips as profoundly spiritual. After a while he decided that the drugs only allowed him to visit a place that he wanted to live in. Living there required a different type of effort.
I don’t quite understand you, but I’ll try to answer. First, you seem to arguing either that there is no objective reality ( solipsism ), or that truth is what you happen to believe ( extreme relativism ). I’m arguing that the world and the truth are what they are, and that our perceptions or lack thereof don’t change them. Our beliefs about the world have become more accurate over time because we have investigated the world, therefore our present beliefs are ( mostly ) superior to those that existed 500 years ago; they are inferior to those that will exist. The Nazis are not a good arguement against this; they were blatently irrational and just plain wrong about lots of things. Miller said that our knowledge was increasing; he didn’t say we had reached some sort of state of perfect knowledge and rationality.
Your comment about the jew and the ghost is just incoherent.
As far as everybody having similar experiences, that’s to be expected. We all have the save basic type of brain, therefore we have the same kind of design flaws. It’s like the eye; we all have eyes with blind spots, which means that we are all subject to the same optical illusions. That doesn’t mean that the illusions are real, however; it just means we are all flawed the same way.
I think you are confusing having respect and Showing respect . Showing respect is something I must do as a civilized member of a civilized society, unless I want to get in fistfights all the time. I may consider person A’s beliefs utter nonsense, but I normally don’t say so for politeness’s sake. If his belief impinges on me or others who disagree, then I feel free to voice my disrespect for it; I feel the same if the validity of a belief is under discussion, like here.
Having respect is different; I do not believe I have an obligation to feel unearned respect for anyone or anything. Just because someone holds a belief does not make it worthy of respect. The fact that a belief is religious does not give it a pass; it just means I have to be careful the person in question isn’t one of the more violent fundementalist types.
My definition and Webster’s seem pretty similar to me. “Unknowable” and “of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe” are rather similar in meaning; magical/miraculous is basically the same as “departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature”.
I didn’t say that spiritual seekers weren’t seeking the truth; I said they stopped doing so in a manner that can succeed.
No; if you claim something exists - like non-subjective results from a spiritual experience - it is your obligation to prove it. It is not mine to prove a negative.
I never claimed that science was the only source of value or meaning, I claimed it was the only effective means we have to discover the objective facts. Spirituality is a dead end when it comes to facts, science is not.
I really appreciate what you said here, especially the lines I bolded. I would point out that as individuals and as societies we have to make choices nearly everyday about things we don’t know. We make choices, as Christians, Muslims, Atheists, agnostics, etc, everyday based on what we believe, without knowing exactly what the outcome will be. I don’t care much about what people say they believe or don’t believe. I do care about the choices those beliefs prompt them to make because that’s where beliefs affect reality.
Um…no. They are only vaguly similar at best. My definition “Unexplained at this point in time” which you made a point to seperate from supernatural seems every bit as valid.{perhaps more so} The one I used in another post " something outside the boundaries of natural law as we understand it at this time" is pretty close to Webster.
then please explain this from your previous post.
Thats where the “at this time” comes in. We may choose certain terminology now for things as yet unexplained but that doesn’t mean the seeker is closed to new information as it is presented. That only helps refine and clarify our beliefs. The concept of yours is false. Your statement that the spiritual seeker cannot succeed in finding truth is only your opinion for which you can provide no credible evidence to support. It seems you are doing the exact thing you critisize those with spiritual beliefs for. There’s a word for that. Begins with H.
Does a mentally unbalanced person, truly believe that his/her perceptions are ‘real’? Not meant as a dig to people of faith, but simply wondering what the difference is between delusion and faith.
Does a tree falling in the forest while no one’s listening make a sound?
Is there such a thing as an ‘objective reality’? And, furthermore, by which means are we currently able to answer said question objectively?
Furthermore, what’s to debate here if we can’t agree on the very premises that need to be granted in the response
I realize the above does not constitute, in any way, a straight-forward response. But I don’t know, given our current limitations, that there is any kind of cut&dried response.
FWIW, while refusing to label them, I’ve a few life-altering experiences. Just don’t think the supernatural had anything to do with them. ‘Spiritual’ as currently defined, is a term that lacks meaning for me – for it means little else that ‘we don’t currently have an alternative valid explanation.’
I made no such claim. If you’re refering to people who present their personal religious beliefs as if they were scientific and historical facts, then I agree, it’s annoying. In this case it is you who made a rather blanket unprovable statement and presented it as fact.
I see. I don’t believe* facts* are limited to the physical world that is testable by science, but that is a tangent for another day. Since this isn’t what the OP is about I have to wonder why you even brought it up.
I’m not being a hypocrite; I’m paying attention. There is an enormous amount of evidence for the success of science; the fact that we are communicating by the Internet not the least.
How many objective facts have been discovered by spiritual means ? Any ? I’ll say it again : It is your obligation to prove something exists, not mine. It is NOT my obligation to prove a negative. You haven’t even proposed a mechanism by which spiritual seeker could discover objective facts, much less evidence that they have.
For thousands of years, people tried to understand the world by spiritual quests and relied on divine/spiritual “revelations”; as a result humanity largely stagnated. This changed with the developement of science, because it works.
And so you choose not to label your experiences with the term spiritual. Fine. Your perogitive. Have you chosen a label or have you decided that a label is unnessecary. Either way is okay. It’s also okay if others prefer the spiritual label for those experiences.
Never said otherwise. We might disagree on what constitutes success but I recognize scientific advances and their usefulness.
As I said,I’ve made no claims about spirituality that require me to provide evidence. I never presented it as a good source for objective facts.
You said "
I agree. It isn’t.
The search for truth has moved slowly forward in the spiritual arena and perhaps more quickly in the scientific arena. Behavioral Science, Sociology, and Phycology have a long way to go to prevent some of the horrors that man perpetrates on his fellow man useing some of our nifty scientific advances. It’s in the area of man’s relationship to man that I find the value in the spiritual quest.
Regardless of whether you agree or not for whatever reasons, there is still a lot more truth to discover about ourselves and our world. In those areas that are as yet unknown,and beyond our current ability to measure I will continue to choose my own beliefs. You are free to do the same, Don’t think what amounts to your unvalidated opinion has any more weight than anyone elses.
I think I understand what you are saying. We depend on our brains to interpret what our eyes see. Our brains store our memory of scents, etc. The entire scientific method is dependent on what is perceived by a number of observing brains.
I have read quite a bit about Dr. Persinger and his ability to stimulate a sense of a spiritual presence with a “helmet.” I can’t provide a link at the moment, but I think that it’s important to note that he does not make any value judgment about the ability to stimulate the brain in such a way as to cause this perception.
I have had one really intense experience. It was as real as any other experience and more memorable than any other. I would have absolutely no problem with believing or accepting that the source of this experience was the stimulation, in some way, of one part of my own brain. That doesn’t make it less real.
I think I missed this in my response.
Anytime I might use the word supernatural it would be another way of saying unexplained.
In my family there’s a story about my aunt. She was doing the dishes when she looked up and saw her Dad, my grandfather, standing in the door. She was surprised and turned to wipe her hands and take off her apron. When she turned around again he was gone. She soon discovered that he had passed away shortly before she “saw” him. I have no explanation but I don’t rule out the supernatural.
The near death experience is the spiritual experience being researched today by more scientists than any other. Their findings are consistent with the beliefs of the experiencers. Unfortunately main stream science chooses to deny this science exists.
Now, main stream science has never produced a valid NDE with any kind of stimulation. The only way possible to do so is to kill the subject, then bring them back to life, and there is no guarantee you will get a NDE that way either.
What the media, skeptics, and main stream science show and call NDEs are only an element or two of the real experiences. After all, if they were to show real experiences they would not be able to explain them away with brain theories. So they don’t go there.
I can understand why they do this, it is simply a matter of vested interests. Understandable they don’t want to give up their favorite theories or the money they get to work with them.
However in good time this oversight will come to the forefront and things will change.
I can’t possible show enough cites to cover what I said here, the material is to extensive. But rest assured I am in posession of it, and can give cites on almost any phase of it.
I thought I would try something a little different instead.
Jane Roberts is the author of the “Seth” books. There are about eight of them, and each is about a thousand pages long. They cover the spiritual world as completely as I can understand. Seth dictated the books to Jane while she was in an altered state of mind. This is some of the most beautiful prose I have ever read and wish to share only a tiny bit.
Sorry I hit the wrong button.
Jesus said:
Luke 17:20: Jesus said:
The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
The pieces of the puzzle fit. The logic is clear.