But how can you determine that the spiritual is real enough to know by any method of understanding, versus a construct of our physical minds? Sure there are many ways of understanding, but much of our understanding is wrong. Science is all about testing to see if your idea is correct or not. The way to get to an idea varies from purely logical deductions from observations to dreams. All of those are valid ways of constructing a hypothesis - but none guarantee a true hypothesis.
I would say that is where you stopped looking because that particular explanation made you happy, but science is not about what it is that makes you happy so you reject it.
Really my emotions have nothing to do with it. Or anyone’s emotions. But I guess I’ve gotten tired of speaking this alien language to you all.
Man, it really is, to me anyway. I have no idea what you really mean by “the Divine”, I’ve never experienced that kind of thing at all. If this is meant as an argument to convince me (as per the OP), it’s not that effective.
Speaking of the OP, I feel ghosted.
Maybe translating it first would have helped.
It was alleged that Paul had missed out on all the miracles. Whether or not he did, those were some of those he professed to have experience of.
Feel free to Pit God, there’s a forum for that.
What about pitting the concept of certain gods? Is it a pitting if what is being discussed is an idea?
You used to be a mod, you tell me.
I haven’t been a mod for a long time and I am not about to junior mod here.
Not entirely alien. I think I know what you mean; but I can’t think of a good way to phrase it, at least right now.
Nope. Not trying to convince anyone of anything. Just sticking my oar in as usual.
There isn’t one available. If there was, what a different world we would have.
Well don’t that just say it all.
Moderating:
I’m not entirely sure what’s intended by making this comment, but it’s starting to feel quite personal. Let’s dial it back, please.
All the best, Actual Moderator
What is the purpose of bringing up terms you are certain we won’t understand and which you refuse to explain? Could you at the very least point to a website that might guide us?
No, Huitzilopochtli never existed more than any other god has. And I see no reason to believe the old argument that religion is somehow a “different way of knowing”, as opposed to a baseless assertion. A baseless assertion that the believers insist on forcing onto other people whether they want it or not.
Huitzilopochtli exists in the same way Yahweh or Thor or Ganesha does; for that matter, as do Hamlet, Frodo Baggins, and Homer Simpson. I have no doubt that @Ulfreida has a subjective experience of something she describes as “the Divine”, but since that experience is ineffable and incommunicable, to the rest of us it’s functionally fictional. (The Divine, I mean; @Ulfreida’s word is sufficient evidence to me that she actually has this experience.)
I’m not refusing to explain them, I just CANNOT in your terms.
You might read some books. I recommend the Tao Te Ching (Taoist) to start with. Also the poetry of Rumi (Sufi), the Cloud of Unknowing (Christian), and there are thousands of others. All religions contain this quality, although it is always a minority of people who find their way to it. And I use the word ‘contain’ purposely – it is part of the role of religion to frame and control mystical experience, which always tends escape boundaries and is hence inherently dangerous. Earlier cultures created social roles for people like this – “shaman” is one word for them.
Dismissing this experience, which is common to (although never common in) every culture I can think of back into prehistory, as childish nonsense, is in my view part of the sickness of modernity.
Dreams, tales, poetry, jokes, and idle fancies are also common to every culture back to prehistory. That doesn’t mean that they have any objective existence outside the minds of those creating or experiencing them. I don’t think anyone in this thread has dismissed mysticism as childish nonsense; just dismissed the notion that it can be used to convince others of the existence of God. Which you yourself admit.
The burning question of this thread is, what arguments can be used to convince others of the existence of @philipdalton, or that he’ll ever return to his thread to discuss it?
You know what else was common to (and common in) every premodern culture I can think of back into prehistory?
Infant mortality. Starvation. Death by infection. A million and one mortal threats that modernity has made trivial.
Modernity isn’t a sickness; it is a cure.