Well, if someone is face to face with a panther, saying “I saw a panther” is appropriate. If you saw a blur, though, some doubt in your statement seems warranted. Remember the True Witnesses (if that was what they were called) in Stranger in a Strange Land? If you asked them if there was snow on a mountain, they’d answer, “on the side I can see.”
My statements about meeting god would be very different between the case where I thought I was inspired, and from having the Bay parted. Even if I heard voices in my head - and I don’t appear to have the kind of brain that does - I’d look up causes before thinking it was God or Darth Vader.
Well, you once told me in a prior thread that you saw spirits and regularly talked to a “spirit guide”, so perhaps your definition of ‘normal’ is a little off.
But, as I said before , the thing that makes you scary is your unblinking adherence to a story while refusing to even recognize that there are other possible explanations*. It’s not like you said, “Oh, well, I suppose it could have been a dream, except that <insert objective evidence it wasn’t a dream here>”. No, the real possibility that your experience might not have been what it seemed appears to bounce off of your closed mind without even rattling the hinges. This would be denial of reality, or an inability to perceive reality for what it is.
What was the definition of insanity again?
But then again, I have only the personal experiences of my interactions with you to assess you by, so maybe you are not as you have appeared to me to be. I don’t know that my perceptions and conclusions are correct. They might be wrong.
And you don’t actually have to strap a bomb to yourself to scare people. Religious fervor (or non-religious fervor) has long been recognized as a precursor for scary and unfortunate events (for those not sharing the same type of fervor). If you are the exception to the perceived rule, then you still might be reacted to as if you weren’t; after all, you don’t have “exception to the rule” tattooed to your forehead. Do you?
Oh, and that perfect self-confidence in your personal interpretation is the egotism I mentioned before, for your information. I know of nothing so prideful as absolute in-spite-of-everything certainty of one’s own correctness.
I thought it was a well-made point also. There is a great deal in the conventional notion / understanding of “God” that is not compatible with anything in my experience, and yet there is something which is part of my experience which could not only “by a stretch” be mapped onto the general mythos of God, but also represents, I think, the original kind of experiences that gave rise to the mythos in the first place.
And, as with rhinoceroses, those experiences would not be as alien to most folks (atheist and otherwise) as the face-value God mythos would have to be. Just as you can readily believe in rhinos even if you have never stood next to one, and can imagine how occasional tales of them might get corrupted into unicorn tales.
I think this is an excellent point. My own God belief is built upon personal spiritual experiences. That doesn’t mean I think I understand the nature of God or whatever it is I refer to as God. It’s enough experiences with a certain unexplained transcendent other that compels me to believe it’s worthy of considering and exploring.
I think for many people their God belief is a certain part personal experience , a certain part programing from others, and another part made of a hope.
There’s also the ugly part in which some people realize they can manipulate people’s belief to serve their purposes.
Even with that confusing and often disappointing mix I think it’s a mistake to dismiss the reality of the spiritual experience and what it may lead us to. When people dismiss all religion and spirituality to easily I think they are doing just that.
Let’s imagine a person who has seen and experienced a real rhino, while having no idea what it is, and is trying to describe it to those who have no concept of it. What confusion might follow? Does that confusion make the rhino less real?
I refrained from getting involved in this thread because I’m going out of town and won’t be able to participate, …but this point was too good to resist commenting on.
I am not religious, don’t belong to any religious organization. Why would I doubt my own experiences? Do you doubt yours? There are millions of people who are aware of their spirit guides, nothing new here. Are you afraid of all people that don’t think as you do? Maybe so. Have you been taught to fear everything religious? Now that may make sense. Probably be a good idea to learn some more about what you are so afraid of, I am just not that scary to most people.
I believe you got in on the middle of a conversation and don’t know what was going on. Do you really think I should doubt that I had toast for breakfast or that it was morning when I got up? strange.
As for fear, it was not expected that I would be feared as a religious fanatic, when I am not involved with any religion. But fear is the foundation of doubt, dislike, anger, hate, and all other negative emotions. Remove fear from yourself and you will be a positive person.
I believe you got in on the middle of a conversation and don’t know what was going on. Do you really think I should doubt that I had toast for breakfast or that it was morning when I got up? strange.
As for fear, it was not expected that I would be feared as a religious fanatic, when I am not involved with any religion. But fear is the foundation of doubt, dislike, anger, hate, and all other negative emotions. Remove fear from yourself and you will be a positive person.
If you find me irritating it might be good to question your own motives as to why. I think you will have a tough time with the answer, at least a logical answer.
Of course, but for some believers (example: lekatt) expressing doubt would be a false representation of the experience he completely believes he’s had. That’s my problem here - that there seems to be some expectation that people will tailor their expression to accommodate the doubt of their audience, not their own.
How about considering it from the other angle? - I (I assume you too) completely believe men walked on the moon; when talking about it to a moon landing conspiracy theorist, we’d say “men walked on the moon”, not “we believe men walked on the moon” - for most things, we express our belief simply and baldly - to prefix it with “I think…” or “I believe…” lends it a tone of false doubt that is not actually present in our thinking - because we’re trying to describe what happened, not what we think about it.
Of course if there is uncertainty, then it’s only right and proper to express it, but lekatt doesn’t seem to possess any such uncertainty - so it’s entirely appropriate for him to baldly state ‘I met God’ (and everyone else to react to that however they like).
I agree that it’s foolish to not question your own experiences. But does it need to last for the rest of your life? Doesn’t there come a time when you can decide that it was real and live your life based on that assumption?
I’d say no. You should at no point say “Eh, enough time has passed, i’ll just accept it”. You should always question your experiences. OTOH, questioning doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t live your life as though it were true. It just means keeping an open mind and not most importantly not ignoring any other evidence or experiences that might come your way.
OYAH, I personally don’t consider personal experiences alone to be evidence enough. That said, while I think “I believe” is still a much better term than “it is certain”, i’m not really all that bothered by lekatt’s use of it, other than the potential inaccuracy. His assigning bad motivations to anyone who disagrees with him, though…
Certainly, but as I understood you, you were questioning towards it rather than stating it. You said “Doesn’t there come a time when you can decide that it was real and live your life based on that assumption?”. What does that mean if not “just accepting” it? As I understand your question, it was saying “It’s alright to question your experiences, but should there be a point after a certain amount of time when you should just accept it as true?” If i’ve interpreted you wrongly I apologise and i’ll have to ask you to spell it out for me.
Neither implying that another poster is insane nor making odd claims that another poster fears you are really appropriate in this Forum. Leave the personal stuff out of this discussion.
You must think this stuff is far harder to follow than it actually is. But at least you don’t think I’m scared.
Questioning whether you had toast for breakfast this morning is strange, but not questioning your interpretation of a near-death experience is normal?
On this particular subject? What’s the need for certainty, other than our desire for it? And what would certainty be? How would you get a fix on something like that, and wouldn’t it just demand questions on a ton of other fronts?
Actually, that is a good policy. All of us tend to fool ourselves. When writing a scientific paper, you try to write to convince the reviewer, not yourself. I learned to go over the first draft and remove all words that imply a level of certainty that isn’t warranted.
Bad example for me, since I saw an Apollo launch with my own eyes, and felt the ground shake. There is ample evidence for this. Maybe a better example is that I believe Oswald acted alone in shooting Kennedy, but I have nowhere near the level of certainty I do about moon landings.
His level of skepticism about anything he feels he has a personal stake in is amply demonstrated by many of his posts. I’d say it’s not surprising he expresses it that way, but not appropriate - in the sense of discourse, not morals.
