Have you been touched by the Spirit? [Archive]

Cainkane1

26th April 2010, 05:53 AM

I went to a Walgreens today, during my shopping there was a Black man that was singing hymns to himself a little loud. I paid little attention and went about my shopping. At the checkout counter, he was a ahead of me with an elderly lady who was also ahead of me. He was telling her about how all these people were touched by the spirit, he also said I was touch by the spirit. As though his singing did something to make his god touch me by spirit. It did nothing. I do not know why it is that religious people feel the need to shove their belief systems and their own "version of reality" down other people's throats. I am glad that the line went through very quickly.
Look at it this way. We're in the minority. If you dislike religion then fine but you like me and all other atheists are going to run into this sort of thing all of our lives. No need to get mad or disgusted. Accept the reality and get on with your life.

P.J. Denyer

26th April 2010, 05:59 AM

There were faith healers out in Wycombe on Saturday, and apparently doing good business. Personally I think they should face the same consequences as anyone else publically making a medical claim, put up or shut up.

That said I was filled with the spirit this weekend. And this weekend the spirit was........... Tequilla.

Bikewer

26th April 2010, 06:00 AM

As noted, it used to be pretty acceptable to be whistling or singing in public....Now we tend to think of such displays as signs of mental illness...
However, walking down the street having an animated, arm-waving conversation with an invisble person may just be a sign you have a bluetooth headset.....

Radrook

26th April 2010, 08:31 AM

It's usually a sense of mission based on Mathew 28 where Jesus tells his followers to make disciples of people of all nations that motivates such behavior.

BTW
I was once accosted by one of those Hari Krishna discipes who insisted that I say "Hari Krishna!" What really bothered me was his persistent arm-grabbing as part of his strategy to detain me as the rest looked on with their shaven heads and tambourines still rattling.

Darth Rotor

26th April 2010, 09:08 AM

I went to a Walgreens today, during my shopping there was a Black man that was singing hymns to himself a little loud. I paid little attention and went about my shopping. At the checkout counter, he was a ahead of me with an elderly lady who was also ahead of me. He was telling her about how all these people were touched by the spirit, he also said I was touch by the spirit. As though his singing did something to make his god touch me by spirit. It did nothing. I do not know why it is that religious people feel the need to shove their belief systems and their own "version of reality" down other people's throats. I am glad that the line went through very quickly.
What is it about this vignette that shows us something being shoved down your throat? The volume of his singing?

DR

TheDoLittle

26th April 2010, 09:15 AM

I have never been touched by The Spirit... but either Lamont Cranston or Kent Allard (depending on the medium) once pinched my butt.

Trent Wray

26th April 2010, 10:17 AM

I won't Spirit come anywhere near me unless she's on the pill and one of us has a condom. Stay away from Mayday regardless :)

It's usually a sense of mission based on Mathew 28 where Jesus tells his followers to make disciples of people of all nations that motivates such behavior.

BTW
I was once accosted by one of those Hari Krishna discipes who insisted that I say "Hari Krishna!" What really bothered me was his persistent arm-grabbing as part of his strategy to detain me as the rest looked on with their shaven heads and tambourines still rattling. Tambourines and Hari Krishna's are equivalent to kids with banjoes in the Appalachians :)

Schrodinger's Cat

26th April 2010, 10:31 AM

I went to a Walgreens today, during my shopping there was a Black man that was singing hymns to himself a little loud. I paid little attention and went about my shopping. At the checkout counter, he was a ahead of me with an elderly lady who was also ahead of me. He was telling her about how all these people were touched by the spirit, he also said I was touch by the spirit. As though his singing did something to make his god touch me by spirit. It did nothing. I do not know why it is that religious people feel the need to shove their belief systems and their own "version of reality" down other people's throats. I am glad that the line went through very quickly.

This seems harmless enough to me. I don't really see what the problem is. I also don't really see this as "shoving" anything down someone's throats.

If someone is trying to express their religion in a kind and peaceful way, I am perfectly okay with that.

Spindrift

26th April 2010, 10:37 AM

This seems harmless enough to me. I don't really see what the problem is. I also don't really see this as "shoving" anything down someone's throats.

If someone is trying to express their religion in a kind and peaceful way, I am perfectly okay with that.

How do you think those kind and peaceful people would react if say a Wiccan did something analagous to them?

If I want the Spirit to touch me, I'll open a bottle of Plymouth Gin.

Safe-Keeper

26th April 2010, 10:38 AM

Have you been touch by the Spirit?Yup. Ran straight to the nearest security guard. Pervert got a three-digit fine.

Frank Merton

26th April 2010, 11:02 AM

Robo Sapien

26th April 2010, 11:03 AM

I like to run around Walmart singing viking songs and telling everybody they've been touched by the fist of Odin. Valhalla awaits you, earthly warriors!

Frank Merton

26th April 2010, 11:12 AM

It's usually a sense of mission based on Mathew 28 where Jesus tells his followers to make disciples of people of all nations that motivates such behavior..All religions have missionaries, or at least have had them at some period of their history. Therefore I don't think it can be attributed to something Jesus said: more likely Jesus is reported to have said that as a way to justify the activity.

I would say, to simplify matters a great deal, that we all think we are right (if we didn't we would change our opinion), and our egos tend to compel us to try to persuade others. I can even imagine scenarios where this behavior would have survival value to evolving humanity.

Schrodinger's Cat

26th April 2010, 11:17 AM

How do you think those kind and peaceful people would react if say a Wiccan did something analagous to them?

If I want the Spirit to touch me, I'll open a bottle of Plymouth Gin.

What's your point? If they would be silly and offended, then we should be too? Why would you WANT to emulate the mentality and behavior of the worst of believers? Because I do think the only ones who would be offended would be the worst of them.

I went to college in the south. I was Christian at the time as was an overwhelming majority of people I knew. Sure, you had intolerant Christians, a LOT of them.

There was a Hari Krishna house on campus. Every Friday, they would stand outside on one of the busy parts of campus and dance and sing. And every Friday, there would be Christian fundamentalists there with a giant 10 foot wooden cross screaming at them that they were going to hell. Or sometimes they wouldn't be out there preaching hellfire themselves, just yelling at the Krishnas for singing and dancing.

But myself and most other Christians I knew were extremely offended by the Christians who gave the Krishnas a hard time because they weren't hurting anyone and were doing nothing more than dancing and singing. We regularly told the other Christians how ridiculous they were being when we saw them harassing the Krishnas, or if we heard them complaining about them when they weren't around.

But hey, if you think that the best way to combat immature, mean spirited, and bitter fundies is to treat all of Christians the way the worst of them treat us, that's certainly your prerogative.

I'm certainly not saying one should be expected to enjoy such outward demonstrations. But I don't see how this is any more annoying or offensive than anyone else who is being silly in public.

Frank Merton

26th April 2010, 11:28 AM

What's your point? If they would be silly and offended, then we should be too? There is a thin line between offensive and inoffensive public behavior, and different people will draw the line in different places.

I see the public chanting of the Krishna devotees as on the same order as the public prayer so many engage in, although this is less seen in Christianity because of Jesus' reported condemnation of such behavior as hypocritical--in my view the early Christians went too far here--sometimes such public demonstrations might be hypocritical, but usually they are more genuine than that.

Starthinker

26th April 2010, 11:29 AM

"Can you show us on the doll where the spirit touched you?"

Fnord

26th April 2010, 11:34 AM

Bible magic. Fundie speak Bible. Bible magic make more fundie. Fundie happy. Crazy attack fundie. Fundie happy. Fundie always happy. You want happy? Listen fundie Bible magic. All happy!

(Sorry ... caught part of an old B&W movie about jungle explorers last night. One of the "B'wanas" was trying to explain "White Man's Magic" to the natives. Comical.)

Frank Merton

26th April 2010, 11:37 AM

"Can you show us on the doll where the spirit touched you?"
You probably directed this at someone else, but it gives me the chance to point out that one is better off using the expression "feel" rather than "touched by," since it is not necessarily caused by something external to oneself.

(That should not be interpreted as meaing that the experience is an illusion--experiences are the be-all of sentience--but many experiences are entirely internal to ourselves--especially emotions).

kuroyume0161

26th April 2010, 11:39 AM

"Can you show us on the doll where the spirit touched you?"

LOL!! :D

Speaking in tongues: OMG, OMG, OMG
Tongues of fire: French kiss
As a dove: Oh, no way that's going up my arse!
The Spirit is likened to the "wind that blows where it will" (John 3:8): dangerous sex!

Pup

26th April 2010, 11:40 AM

I "feel the spirit" (I feel compelled to put that in tics because it very much needs definition that I don't think I am able to supply) pretty much every time I enter a Cathedral or Temple, regardless of the religious tradition. About the only time I don't is when I enter a Mosque--I don't know if that is because of my antipathy or if my antipathy comes from Islam's inability to produce "the spirit," at least as I know it.

This is different from the similar emotion I experience when I see a vista or some great work of art, etc. In such cases one feels awe, the same as one feels with "the spirit," but in, say, a Buddhist Temple, even if it is a crude one, one feels the presence of the Buddha (please take this figuratively if you must), and in a cathedral or chuch, one feels the present of the Holy Ghost.

This is of course all very subjective, although it amazes me that so many people profess to not having a similar experience. It is to me as though someone walked into a sauna and was not able to sense the heat.

The problem is that everyone feels heat in a sauna; you can even measure it with a thermometer when no one's there.

Are you saying that everyone should feel the same feeling in the same places you do? Because obviously many people would claim to feel it in a mosque and would be surprised that you didn't.

Or just that everyone should feel the same feeling somewhere?

I expect that most people do feel it at some times and places, if it's a common and normal neurological condition (for lack of a better word). But how they describe and express it would be affected by their outlook and culture, so they might not even identify it as being religious.

Frank Merton

26th April 2010, 11:40 AM

Bible magic. Fundie speak Bible. Bible magic make more fundie. Fundie happy. Crazy attack fundie. Fundie happy. Fundie always happy. You want happy? Listen fundie Bible magic. All happy!

I wonder if you can see that you are doing the same thing, except yours is anti-Bible magic?

Robo Sapien

26th April 2010, 11:46 AM

You probably directed this at someone else, but it gives me the chance to point out that one is better off using the expression "feel" rather than "touched by," since it is not necessarily caused by something external to oneself.

(That should not be interpreted as meaing that the experience is an illusion--experiences are the be-all of sentience--but many experiences are entirely internal to ourselves--especially emotions).

I fail to see the point in that, but it gives me the chance to point out that Christians really do believe they are touched by God. Not touched in the heartfelt sense, as in feeling "touched" after watching Forrest Gump, but literally touched, as in God reached out and laid his hands on them.

Schrodinger's Cat

26th April 2010, 11:51 AM

There is a thin line between offensive and inoffensive public behavior, and different people will draw the line in different places.

Oh, absolutely. This is obviously my *opinion* and nothing more, as there is no set "right" or "wrong" as to what is offensive or not, because that is a largely a matter of opinion.

My opinion is simply that if someone is simply singing and trying to infuse me with the spirit through it, I might roll my eyes a bit, but I also feel that people have the right to express themselves, even if they annoy me by doing so, so long as they aren't attempting to hurt or oppress people with their manner of expression.

Frank Merton

26th April 2010, 12:04 PM

The problem is that everyone feels heat in a sauna; you can even measure it with a thermometer when no one's there.The experience of heat is subjective, often reported when there is no elevation of the room temperature, and we can at least imagine the existence of people who lack the ability to sense heat or people who, for some reason, are utterly convinced that they will not feel the heat, and hence do not. In short, the correlation between the experience of heat and what the thermometer reports is problematic.

I do not say anything about what people "should" feel. I am saying that no more than I am saying that everyone "should" feel heat then they enter a sauna.

I draw no conclousions from my experiences, neither about myself nor about external reality, although of course I would not have bothered to post the testimony if I didn't think it means something. I see such experience as evidentiary, not proving anyting but suggesting a lot.

Fnord

26th April 2010, 12:08 PM

I wonder if you can see that you are doing the same thing, except yours is anti-Bible magic?
No magic to it -- there is no magic in the Bible or its contents, and there is no magic in any criticism of it.

There is no magic.

Trent Wray

26th April 2010, 12:12 PM

I "feel the spirit" (I feel compelled to put that in tics because it very much needs definition that I don't think I am able to supply) pretty much every time I enter a Cathedral or Temple, regardless of the religious tradition. About the only time I don't is when I enter a Mosque--I don't know if that is because of my antipathy or if my antipathy comes from Islam's inability to produce "the spirit," at least as I know it.

This is different from the similar emotion I experience when I see a vista or some great work of art, etc. In such cases one feels awe, the same as one feels with "the spirit," but in, say, a Buddhist Temple, even if it is a crude one, one feels the presence of the Buddha (please take this figuratively if you must), and in a cathedral or chuch, one feels the present of the Holy Ghost.

This is of course all very subjective, although it amazes me that so many people profess to not having a similar experience. It is to me as though someone walked into a sauna and was not able to sense the heat. I think that non-believers experience the same feeling(s) that you would describe as feeling the spirit, and as you say it's subjective and also circumstantial. It's just, a believer claims it is god or the spirit, etc and so forth ... an unbeliever assumes it's just another type of biological response produced by the body. External stimuli effect happiness, sadness, euphoria, etc. Substances introduced into the body can obviously do this, as well as other forms of physical stimuli. But in each case, a non-believer will assume a physical cause that can be known scientifically with evidence and theory. Claiming spirits and gods and universal consciousness, etc and so forth is one theory or hypothesis, but lacks hard evidence and so falls into the realm of "faith", imo.

But the point is, they are different ways of describing the same thing that I think believer and non claim to expereince. I claim that the ball in my hand falls to the ground due to gravity. Someone else might claim it falls to the ground due to Jobu's good nature. If we both describe all other aspects equally but assume a different origin, we are still essentially describing the same thing, it's just the Jobu believer is taking it one step farther by speculating.

Frank Merton

26th April 2010, 12:13 PM

Oh, absolutely. This is obviously my *opinion* and nothing more, as there is no set "right" or "wrong" as to what is offensive or not, because that is a largely a matter of opinion.
My point was that I don't think it is possible to find a formula we can use to define what is acceptable and what is not.

I find homophobic demonstrations at military funerals to be gossly unacceptable--they should be arrested on the spot--but I cannot really point to any harm they do that is not just emotional. However, the inconvenience I experience when church bells wake me up on Sunday morning goes beyond just emotional harm, but I would not censor them.

Frank Merton

26th April 2010, 12:16 PM

I fail to see the point in that, but it gives me the chance to point out that Christians really do believe they are touched by God. Not touched in the heartfelt sense, as in feeling "touched" after watching Forrest Gump, but literally touched, as in God reached out and laid his hands on them.Some Christians believe that, and it makes me wonder how they explain that non-Christians report the same phenomena.

Forrest Gump does not have the same effect, at least on me, as I experience in Temple. Awe and holiness are different, albeit easily confused, sensations.

Trent Wray

26th April 2010, 12:19 PM

My point was that I don't think it is possible to find a formula we can use to define what is acceptable and what is not. I would argue that exercising tolerance and freedom are a "good start" to finding a formula that allows for individuals and groups to decide for themselves what is acceptable or not.

I find homophobic demonstrations at military funerals to be gossly unacceptable--they should be arrested on the spot--but I cannot really point to any harm they do that is not just emotional. However, the inconvenience I experience when church bells wake me up on Sunday morning goes beyond just emotional harm, but I would not censor them. And so, would you agree that in both instances you are choosing to maintain your personal opinions without enforcing them on others? Some would consider this a rational response. Would you?

If so ... you're beginning to base your actions or inaction on a sort of "flexible formula", imo :)

Frank Merton

26th April 2010, 12:21 PM

No magic to it -- there is no magic in the Bible or its contents, and there is no magic in any criticism of it.

There is no magic.You avoided the issue rather neatly with that, so let me put it more explicitly--can't you see that your chant was not qualitatively different from their public singing? It is motivated by the same desire for ratification, and partakes of the same mental devices.

That this stuff is magical is not the real issue, although I imagine most anthropologists would agree it does have a magical element.

Fnord

26th April 2010, 12:27 PM

You avoided the issue rather neatly with that, so let me put it more explicitly--can't you see that your chant was not qualitatively different from their public singing? It is motivated by the same desire for ratification, and partakes of the same mental devices.

That this stuff is magical is not the real issue, although I imagine most anthropologists would agree it does have a magical element.
.
I do not see any similarity at all.

Belief in the Bible as the complete and inerrant Word of God is irrational.

Using sarcastic pidgin to illuminate that fact is satirical.

Equivocation of the two unrelated methods is a fallacy.

Frank Merton

26th April 2010, 12:28 PM

But the point is, they are different ways of describing the same thing that I think believer and non claim to expereince.The fact that the believer and the non-believer interpret the experience differently does not force us to conclude both interpretations cannot be correct. I am feelling the tail of the elephant and you are feeling its trunk.

Buddhist tradition tends to interpret such experiences very much the way you do, but tries to be willing to accept the validity of other interpretations. I personally tend to think that our ability to have such experiences (including perhaps awe but mainly holiness) testifies to something non-material (non-physicalist) about our minds,

Trent Wray

26th April 2010, 12:32 PM

The fact that the believer and the non-believer interpret the experience differently does not force us to conclude both interpretations cannot be correct. I am feelling the tail of the elephant and you are feeling its trunk.

Buddhist tradition tends to interpret such experiences very much the way you do, but tries to be willing to accept the validity of other interpretations. I personally tend to think that our ability to have such experiences (including perhaps awe but mainly holiness) testifies to something non-material (non-physicalist) about our minds, That's cool .... but just be warned, that many a thread can derail and turn into a "what is consciousness" thread. So if it goes in that direction, don't take offense if it gets cut off. There are plenty of threads out there to resurrect just in case LOL :)

Frank Merton

26th April 2010, 12:32 PM

If so ... you're beginning to base your actions or inaction on a sort of "flexible formula", imo Yes--that was my point. Flexibility is unavoidable if one is going to be rational about such things.

I think in the end a democratic society will find a legal structure that it can accept, even though it may go too far to some and not far enough to others.

iknownothing

26th April 2010, 12:35 PM

People who act like that strike me as having an iffy hold at best on mental health. Singing hymns and telling strangers that the spirit is touching them -- it seems like someone who is clinging on to something they think is positive and uplifting. Mostly I'm glad that they are trying to be "nice" but I feel nervous because I don't trust whether something might set them off. (I think there must be some feelings tugging at them in the not-so-nice direction if they feel such a strong need to cling to the nicer stuff, if you follow.)

So that's not the type of person who I feel is "trying to shove their beliefs down other people's throats." It's not even about beliefs so much anyway. Just a person who's got a problem who's trying to keep it under control. I don't get any more upset with them than I did with the guy who was wandering around telling people he controls the weather and can make it snow with the push of a button.

Tatyana

26th April 2010, 12:37 PM

My mother does this crap all the time. Goes about singing songs loudly or speaking scriptures.

Essentially, I believe they think it's like casting spells and charms. By merely saying the scriptures or speaking the words they are expecting "stuff to happen within you," like magic. They think, imo, they are doing you a service. In reality, I think they are really serving their own agenda of making themselves feel as though they are "doing their part for the Lord, spreading the good magic."

I think there should be a set of something akin to Magic the Gathering cards that we carry around in our pockets, so when confronted by those types of spells, chants, and magic ... we can play our "block" or "damage" cards, etc and earn points.

:)

I think that is a Hari Krishna thing, they do the singing Hari Krishna, Hari Krishna, Hari Rama blah blah blah as when someone hears Hari Krishna, they come back as a higher incarnation or something like that.

Tell you mom that, tell her to stick it in her pipe, and tell her to smoke it. ;)

Frank Merton

26th April 2010, 12:43 PM

.
Belief in the Bible as the complete and inerrant Word of God is irrational.

Using sarcastic pidgin to illuminate that fact is satirical.

Equivocation of the two unrelated methods is a fallacy.That plenty of perlfectly rational people do "believe" as you say is a demonstrable fact. How do how do you deal with this? You deal with it by being insulting to them, even though you justify it to yourself by calling your rudeness "satire."

People believe what they believe for reasons you may not be able to fathom, but that does not make them believers in magic nor necessarily irrational.

By the way, I don't assert that there is anything necessarily wrong with being rude, although it never accomplishes anything.

Fnord

26th April 2010, 12:44 PM

There's a guy who occasionally stands outside the doors of the local Asian market, shouting about how Jesus loves us, and that we only need believe in Him to achieve eternal salvation, et cetera...

Simple street evangelism isn't all that bad, as far as it goes. Most folks like that are easy to ignore, and aren't much of a nuisance. But when the guy has soiled himself, spits when he talks, and won't let anyone go around him without getting in their face, that's when when having a cell phone and a friend on the police force come in handy...

Pup

26th April 2010, 12:50 PM

The experience of heat is subjective, often reported when there is no elevation of the room temperature, and we can at least imagine the existence of people who lack the ability to sense heat or people who, for some reason, are utterly convinced that they will not feel the heat, and hence do not. In short, the correlation between the experience of heat and what the thermometer reports is problematic.

Well, that's true, though there's usually some kind of correlation.

But now I don't get what point you're making.

First you said: "it amazes me that so many people profess to not having a similar experience. It is to me as though someone walked into a sauna and was not able to sense the heat."

Now you seem to be saying just the opposite, that you wouldn't be amazed if somebody sensed no heat in a sauna, since heat is so subjective.

Which is it?

Skeptic Guy

26th April 2010, 12:50 PM

"Touched by the spirit"? This guy wasn't a Catholic alter boy, was he?

Frank Merton

26th April 2010, 12:50 PM

That's cool .... but just be warned, that many a thread can derail and turn into a "what is consciousness" thread. So if it goes in that direction, don't take offense if it gets cut off. There are plenty of threads out there to resurrect just in case LOL I am quite capable of deraling a thread, and need to watch myself.

The nature of consciousness, however, was the furthest thing from my mind. We were talking about feelings--the essence of sentience, not consciousness.

Fnord

26th April 2010, 12:54 PM

That plenty of perfectly rational people do "believe" as you say is a demonstrable fact. How do how do you deal with this? You deal with it by being insulting to them, even though you justify it to yourself by calling your rudeness "satire."
If they want to feel insulted, that's their business, not mine.
People believe what they believe for reasons you may not be able to fathom...
Fear. Fear of death. Fear of life. Fear of personal accountability. Fear of the Unknown. Fear of knowledge. Fear of being wrong. Fear of being right. Fear of reality. Fear of growing up. Fear of insignificance. Fear that their personal Sky-Daddy will smite them for doubting His existence.
... but that does not make them believers in magic nor necessarily irrational.
To believe in the Bible is to believe in magic, since the use of magic is demonstrated and proclaimed within the Bible's stories.
By the way, I don't assert that there is anything necessarily wrong with being rude, although it never accomplishes anything.
Then you will see nothing wrong with being put on my 'Ignore' list.

Trent Wray

26th April 2010, 01:00 PM

I think that is a Hari Krishna thing, they do the singing Hari Krishna, Hari Krishna, Hari Rama blah blah blah as when someone hears Hari Krishna, they come back as a higher incarnation or something like that.

Tell you mom that, tell her to stick it in her pipe, and tell her to smoke it. ;) Well, smoking is another one of her problems .... :)

Frank Merton

26th April 2010, 01:09 PM

Well, that's true, though there's usually some kind of correlation.

But now I don't get what point you're making.

First you said: "it amazes me that so many people profess to not having a similar experience. It is to me as though someone walked into a sauna and was not able to sense the heat."

Now you seem to be saying just the opposite, that you wouldn't be amazed if somebody sensed no heat in a sauna, since heat is so subjective.

Which is it?Well I'm hoisted by my own petard. The point I make is that I find it hard to understand how someone can enter a holy place and not feel it. Nevertheless, objectively I know that plenty of people don't, and that others who do have the experience attach self-denying interpretations..

When someone doesn't feel heat when they enter a sauna, we assume that there is some error in their sensory apparatus, or in their belief system. In other words, we look for an explanation--not for the fact that most people feel heat but for the fact that a few don't. The truth is that both the feeling and the not feeling need explanation (if we want to draw conclusios). Still, we naturally tend to look for explanations of events that differ from what we experience.

Frank Merton

26th April 2010, 01:14 PM

If they want to feel insulted, that's their business, not mine.All you do is piss them off and that gains you nothing.

Frank Merton

26th April 2010, 01:21 PM

Fear. Fear of death. Fear of life. Fear of personal accountability. Fear of the Unknown. Fear of knowledge. Fear of being wrong. Fear of being right. Fear of reality. Fear of growing up. Fear of insignificance. Fear that their personal Sky-Daddy will smite them for doubting His existence.

To believe in the Bible is to believe in magic, since the use of magic is demonstrated and proclaimed within the Bible's stories.

Then you will see nothing wrong with being put on my 'Ignore' list.Fear is your interpretation; most Christians show no more fear of death and these other things than most people. In other words, I think your explanation for their belief is not rational--in the sense that it is not supported by the evidence.

Most of the Bible is antithetical to most of the forms of "magic," although frankly I find nothing wrong with magic and would say that our ability to communicate like this over the internet is also magic. Both consist of an effort to manipulate nature.

Whether you choose to ignore me or not is your choice. It is a bit petty, at least to my way of thinking, however, to use this threat in response to what someone posts.

Trent Wray

26th April 2010, 01:47 PM

The point I make is that I find it hard to understand how someone can enter a holy place and not feel it. Nevertheless, objectively I know that plenty of people don't, and that others who do have the experience attach self-denying interpretations. Do you feel guilty when a cop pulls up behind you? Do you feel nervous when meeting certain celebrities? Do you get anxious before public speaking as opposed to speaking in the bathroom to the mirror? I think why we feel certain ways about certain things has to do with issues of reinforcement and memes, etc and so forth.

When I was a practicing Xtian, I felt the "holiness" upon entering churches. At one point I decided that god didn't exist only in a church, but also outside of the church and everywhere. I then felt the "spirit" everywhere, pretty much all the time. Not just in churches. I began to reinforce new associations and thus I responded accordingly.

iknownothing

26th April 2010, 01:53 PM

And I can feel pretty creeped out in a church at night.

But that's just because I've been too influenced by scary stories, not because of any inherent supernatural creepiness in a church itself.

Trent Wray

26th April 2010, 02:01 PM

And I can feel pretty creeped out in a church at night.

But that's just because I've been too influenced by scary stories, not because of any inherent supernatural creepiness in a church itself. This made me realize something else. Does anyone get pissed off when seeing churches? Or perhaps the larger and more expensive looking the church .... the more pissed off you get?

Or does anyone feel the "spirit and holiness feeling" when with another person? I can say that the experience I used to feel that I associated with the spirit and holiness, etc and so forth .... has never been stronger in intensity than a love I have for a certain woman :) And I am separating that feeling/emotion/etc out from other forms of euphoria, but that doesn't mean it's evidence of something originating "spiritually" outside of my body necessarily, even perhaps for those who believe in that kind of thing.

Frank Merton

26th April 2010, 02:03 PM

Do you feel guilty when a cop pulls up behind you? Do you feel nervous when meeting certain celebrities? Do you get anxious before public speaking as opposed to speaking in the bathroom to the mirror? I think why we feel certain ways about certain things has to do with issues of reinforcement and memes, etc and so forth.

When I was a practicing Xtian, I felt the "holiness" upon entering churches. At one point I decided that god didn't exist only in a church, but also outside of the church and everywhere. I then felt the "spirit" everywhere, pretty much all the time. Not just in churches. I began to reinforce new associations and thus I responded accordingly.Every thing you mention goes under the heading of "emotions," and I would say in that frame that a sense of holiness is also an emotion.

The issue we have is probably more of where this emotion comes from--is it entirely self-generated or is there an external factor? Given that it is entirely self-generated, why do we generate it--it could be, as you maintain, because of our belief system, or it could be partly that and partly something built into the human condition to have a sense of holiness.

I think it is undenyable that the emotion (or sensation) is real enough, even though many don't experience it. Is the pertinent question why so many do or why so many others don't?

I don't pretend to explain any of this, except to assert that I think the various psychological explanations do not succeed. I think that we have a "spritual" (without conceding the existence of "spirits," which I doubt) aspect of our being that we tap into when we are involved with things that have been defined to us as holy.

At a minimum, I would say that because of my personal experience, combined with my ruminations about these experiences, that I think various knee-jerk and arm-chair rejections are too simple and that one is better just shrugging one's shoulders than going on an opposing speculative track.

Pup

26th April 2010, 02:06 PM

Well I'm hoisted by my own petard. The point I make is that I find it hard to understand how someone can enter a holy place and not feel it.

And yet you already said that you don't feel it in mosques yourself. I'd suspect you also don't feel it in many the other places that some unknown indigenous people may have found holy over the centuries, when we don't even know what those places are. You feel it in places you think you ought to feel it, and then use that to confirm that those are places you ought to feel it.

Nevertheless, objectively I know that plenty of people don't, and that others who do have the experience attach self-denying interpretations..

Your bias is showing. "Self-denying interpretations" means you know how it should be interpreted, so if they don't interpret it the way you do, they're wrong. How do you know you're not the one denying the real interpretation? Perhaps it's a neurological reaction to a kind of architecture or visual use of space that humans are programmed to react to in a certain way, and you're denying that and instead interpreting it as the influence of an invisible creature?

When someone doesn't feel heat when they enter a sauna, we assume that there is some error in their sensory apparatus, or in their belief system.

In other words, "There's obviously a god, so what's your problem?"

The key difference is that the sauna's temperature can be measured objectively with a thermometer, so we can tell who's right and who's wrong if they say they feel hot or cold.

Until you can come up with an objective measure that indicates "god here" or "no god here" in each location, you're just judging people based on the belief that you're right and if they don't agree with you, there's something wrong with them.

Trent Wray

26th April 2010, 02:15 PM

Every thing you mention goes under the heading of "emotions," and I would say in that frame that a sense of holiness is also an emotion.

The issue we have is probably more of where this emotion comes from--is it entirely self-generated or is there an external factor? Given that it is entirely self-generated, why do we generate it--it could be, as you maintain, because of our belief system, or it could be partly that and partly something built into the human condition to have a sense of holiness.

I think it is undenyable that the emotion (or sensation) is real enough, even though many don't experience it. Is the pertinent question why so many do or why so many others don't?

I don't pretend to explain any of this, except to assert that I think the various psychological explanations do not succeed. I think that we have a "spritual" (without conceding the existence of "spirits," which I doubt) aspect of our being that we tap into when we are involved with things that have been defined to us as holy.

At a minimum, I would say that because of my personal experience, combined with my ruminations about these experiences, that I think various knee-jerk and arm-chair rejections are too simple and that one is better just shrugging one's shoulders than going on an opposing speculative track. Well in this sense, why do we generate other emotional responses to things --- like humor? Why do we feel humor? It doesn't seem as though it's necessary in order to experience peace and security, or even love and admiration? Or why do generate and associate need towards things we don't need?

Perhaps that feeling of holiness is a perverted or misassociated feeling that is projected towards the "wrong focus". Like feeling as though we need a cell phone to survive. Or perhaps it is a remnant of an emotion that we no longer need .... or the beginning of an emotion in it's infancy.

Pup

26th April 2010, 02:18 PM

I think it is undenyable that the emotion (or sensation) is real enough, even though many don't experience it. Is the pertinent question why so many do or why so many others don't?

You keep saying that so many don't experience it. What's your evidence?

I think you may be defining it narrowly and thinking that if an atheist doesn't feel an actual sense of "god," then he/she isn't feeling it. This goes back to the cliche that atheists are unhappy, miserable people who don't feel all the happiness that religious people do.

On the contrary, I'd say that the vast majority of people feel it spontaneously at times, except perhaps for those with profound, persistent depression or other unusual impairments. It can also be induced on command artificially with drugs.

The difference is that atheists don't interpret it as evidence for an actual god. They see it as a feeling, just as real as love, rage, etc., but still an artifact of our brains and not evidence of invisible creatures. It's the same way that dreams and hallucinations are artifacts of our brains no matter how real they seem to the person experiencing them, and not necessarily evidence of actual experiences.

Spindrift

26th April 2010, 02:20 PM

What's your point? If they would be silly and offended, then we should be too? Why would you WANT to emulate the mentality and behavior of the worst of believers? Because I do think the only ones who would be offended would be the worst of them.

I went to college in the south. I was Christian at the time as was an overwhelming majority of people I knew. Sure, you had intolerant Christians, a LOT of them.

There was a Hari Krishna house on campus. Every Friday, they would stand outside on one of the busy parts of campus and dance and sing. And every Friday, there would be Christian fundamentalists there with a giant 10 foot wooden cross screaming at them that they were going to hell. Or sometimes they wouldn't be out there preaching hellfire themselves, just yelling at the Krishnas for singing and dancing.

But myself and most other Christians I knew were extremely offended by the Christians who gave the Krishnas a hard time because they weren't hurting anyone and were doing nothing more than dancing and singing. We regularly told the other Christians how ridiculous they were being when we saw them harassing the Krishnas, or if we heard them complaining about them when they weren't around.

But hey, if you think that the best way to combat immature, mean spirited, and bitter fundies is to treat all of Christians the way the worst of them treat us, that's certainly your prerogative.

I'm certainly not saying one should be expected to enjoy such outward demonstrations. But I don't see how this is any more annoying or offensive than anyone else who is being silly in public.
Not all Christians proselytize in a checkout line, most are polite enough to keep it to themselves. I find it offensive that some think everyone is a Christian or at least should be. This is a big difference from standing outside the store where one can just walk by without being inconvenienced.

I think religion in general is the major cause of a lot of the problems in this world, so I really don't care to hear someone babble about their delusions at any time.

Trent Wray

26th April 2010, 02:24 PM

You keep saying that so many don't experience it. What's your evidence?

I think you may be defining it narrowly and thinking that if an atheist doesn't feel an actual sense of "god," then he/she isn't feeling it. This goes back to the cliche that atheists are unhappy, miserable people who don't feel all the happiness that religious people do.

On the contrary, I'd say that the vast majority of people feel it spontaneously at times, except perhaps for those with profound, persistent depression or other unusual impairments. It can also be induced on command artificially with drugs.

The difference is that atheists don't interpret it as evidence for an actual god. They see it as a feeling, just as real as love, rage, etc., but still an artifact of our brains and not evidence of invisible creatures. It's the same way that dreams and hallucinations are artifacts of our brains no matter how real they seem to the person experiencing them, and not necessarily evidence of actual experiences. Bringing up dreams brings up a good point.

If in a dream, you find yourself flying above the earth and you feel a touch of fear at times, mixed with excitement, etc and you touch down in front of a church to meet your spouse whom you initially are happy to meet but then she gives you bad news resulting in your sadness, in which she turns into a lobster and walks away and you start laughing .... and then you enter the church and feel "holiness" or the presence of god and the spirit, etc. ----- are all other aspects of the dream accounted for as "normal" except for the feeling you get when in the church? (this is mostly directed at Frank Merton obviously).

Frank Merton

26th April 2010, 02:32 PM

In other words, "There's obviously a god, so what's your problem?"

The key difference is that the sauna's temperature can be measured objectively with a thermometer, so we can tell who's right and who's wrong if they say they feel hot or cold.

Until you can come up with an objective measure that indicates "god here" or "no god here" in each location, you're just judging people based on the belief that you're right and if they don't agree with you, there's something wrong with them.Straw man alert! I said nothing about God. Holiness is found in places and situations quite divorced from theistic religions.

Whether or not holiness might be measurable by some physical instrument (and by its very nature that is an unfair demand since holiness does not seem to be a physical thing) is beside the point. If you demand physical measurement for everything, you significantly limit your range, and without a rational basis. I see no edict of nature that stipulates that everything must be physically measurable.

In my experience I have found my personal experience to usually be credible most of the time, for myself, and credit it first and then wait for convincing counter evidence.

By the way, do not ask for proof of things before you will credit them. If you keep everything in the realm of opinion and not of belief, you do not need proof.

Frank Merton

26th April 2010, 02:36 PM

Well in this sense, why do we generate other emotional responses to things --- like humor? Why do we feel humor? It doesn't seem as though it's necessary in order to experience peace and security, or even love and admiration? Or why do generate and associate need towards things we don't need?

Perhaps that feeling of holiness is a perverted or misassociated feeling that is projected towards the "wrong focus". Like feeling as though we need a cell phone to survive. Or perhaps it is a remnant of an emotion that we no longer need .... or the beginning of an emotion in it's infancy.I don't like your use of the word "perverted." What you said would have been better without the loaded word.

Otherwise, I agree with you. The experience of humor is indeed a profound mystery, qute on a par with that of holiness.

Trent Wray

26th April 2010, 02:39 PM

I don't like your use of the word "perverted." What you said would have been better without the loaded word.

Otherwise, I agree with you. The experience of humor is indeed a profound mystery, qute on a par with that of holiness.I can see that being a loaded word. I use "perverted" and "manipulated" and "ignorant" often as neutral words. ;)

Tricky

26th April 2010, 02:40 PM

Bloody right! He still owes me twenty bob!

Frank Merton

26th April 2010, 02:42 PM

You keep saying that so many don't experience it. What's your evidence?

I think you may be defining it narrowly and thinking that if an atheist doesn't feel an actual sense of "god," then he/she isn't feeling it. This goes back to the cliche that atheists are unhappy, miserable people who don't feel all the happiness that religious people do.

On the contrary, I'd say that the vast majority of people feel it spontaneously at times, except perhaps for those with profound, persistent depression or other unusual impairments. It can also be induced on command artificially with drugs.

The difference is that atheists don't interpret it as evidence for an actual god. They see it as a feeling, just as real as love, rage, etc., but still an artifact of our brains and not evidence of invisible creatures. It's the same way that dreams and hallucinations are artifacts of our brains no matter how real they seem to the person experiencing them, and not necessarily evidence of actual experiences.That an atheist experiences it strikes me as testimony that the sensation is quite real in spite of everything. (I conceded that many do not experience it only for the sake of the argument, since I am in no position to assert that those who say they don't experience it are lying).

By the way, don't make conclusions about people of religious bent who may or may not believe in "God." I believe in God on Mondays and Fridays but don't the rest of the week.

Schrodinger's Cat

26th April 2010, 03:07 PM

Not all Christians proselytize in a checkout line, most are polite enough to keep it to themselves. I find it offensive that some think everyone is a Christian or at least should be. This is a big difference from standing outside the store where one can just walk by without being inconvenienced.

I think religion in general is the major cause of a lot of the problems in this world, so I really don't care to hear someone babble about their delusions at any time.

I see your point, and I'm not saying you're wrong because again this is really just a personal opinions thread, not a "there is a right answer" thread.

I just personally don't find Christians who do this any different than, say, the guy on the subway who listens to his IPOD turned all the way up so everyone around him can hear it. Why should he assume that everyone wants to listen to his music, or should be?

It's just that I really don't personally find minor annoyances like this especially offensive so long as they aren't harmful. Again, it's a matter of opinion. I'm sure there are things I find offensive that to you are just a minor annoyance or maybe don't bother you at all.

But my main point in replying to your post was that I just don't care for the argument, "If they would act in a certain way in a certain situation, then we can use that to rationalize acting the same way when the situation is reversed." If you feel offended, hey, feel offended. You have the right to your own emotions. I just don't get the point of rationalizing those emotions by saying it's what the opposite side would feel in your place.

Complexity

26th April 2010, 03:17 PM

These are not people that I want to be touched by.

Fnord

26th April 2010, 03:28 PM

These are not people that I want to be touched by.
.
Look!

(Holds finger precisely 1mm from Complexity's arm.)

I'm not touching you!

:D

Complexity

26th April 2010, 03:31 PM

.
Look!

(Holds finger precisely 1mm from Complexity's arm.)

I'm not touching you!

:D

But close enough for me to smell the spirits.

(runs screaming from near contact with a person who has invaded my personal space!)

Pup

26th April 2010, 03:58 PM

Straw man alert! I said nothing about God. Holiness is found in places and situations quite divorced from theistic religions.

Not a straw man at all. You made a distinction between the sensations you felt in places where there was no particular god (or spirit) present, and where there was a particular god or spirit.

Here's your original post #16:

I "feel the spirit" (I feel compelled to put that in tics because it very much needs definition that I don't think I am able to supply) pretty much every time I enter a Cathedral or Temple, regardless of the religious tradition. About the only time I don't is when I enter a Mosque--I don't know if that is because of my antipathy or if my antipathy comes from Islam's inability to produce "the spirit," at least as I know it.

This is different from the similar emotion I experience when I see a vista or some great work of art, etc. In such cases one feels awe, the same as one feels with "the spirit," but in, say, a Buddhist Temple, even if it is a crude one, one feels the presence of the Buddha (please take this figuratively if you must), and in a cathedral or chuch, one feels the present of the Holy Ghost.

I took that to mean that you were feeling the presence of the Holy Ghost in certain locations but not others; the spirit of Buddha in certain places but not others, and so forth. So you could feel not only a general sense of awe, but the specific spirit that was present.

That would be "magic" or a "paranormal ability" or whatever you want to call it, right up there with dowsing or ghost hunting.

I'd predict that the feeling would immediately become lest trustworthy, if external cues were taken away. In other words, if you visited two identical buildings, one long used for Christian worship and the other just a secular replica, you'd no longer be able to use your ability to say which one the Holy Ghost occupied.

That's not to say your feelings don't seem subjectively genuine to you. Those kinds of emotions are common to most people. For example, if I see my wife walking down the street toward me, I subjectively feel a genuine sense of love for her that I don't feel for any other woman.

But I'd be foolish (and extremely egotistical) if I believed that she therefore radiated some actual objective quality that no other woman had and if I therefore felt amazement that others weren't feeling it when they saw her too. A more rational and less egotistical interpretation would be that love is a common emotion, but other people feel it in their own subjective ways, such as when they see their spouses.

Whether or not holiness might be measurable by some physical instrument (and by its very nature that is an unfair demand since holiness does not seem to be a physical thing) is beside the point.

But it's crucial to the point if you're going to decide when others are feeling the proper feelings, and when you should be amazed that they're wrong. Otherwise, it's all based on ego: I'm normal and you guys are weird.

Frank Merton

26th April 2010, 04:24 PM

A feelling of the presence of the Buddha does not mean that Guatama Siddartha's ghost is floating about. That particular Buddha died 2,500 years ago, and if we are to believe his Enlightenment was real, he is now nowhere about. We all partake of Buddha nature to one degree or another, and this becomes manifest to our internal senses in certain situations. That other religions have similar effects only tells me that they too have what can be called Buddha nature.

The sense of holiness that I speak of is different from the sense of awe that we get from beauty or the sense of humility that we get from contemplating the stars. They are different, just as the sense of warmth is different from the sense of pain. Yes there are overlapping situations, but they remain distinct.

The straw man stands out even more from what you now post. You are refuting something I never said--that the sense of holiness comes from God. Even if we were to experience a sense of holiness from the presence of the Holy Ghost (in Christian terms), the manifestation we feel is not the Holy Ghost any more than the manifestation we experience of blueness when we look at a clear sky is the actual sky or in any way caused by the sky.

It might be that the Christians are right and that faith is an active gift of God, but that is not what I said.

fuelair

26th April 2010, 04:26 PM

Frank Merton

26th April 2010, 04:34 PM

But it's crucial to the point if you're going to decide when others are feeling the proper feelings, and when you should be amazed that they're wrong. Otherwise, it's all based on ego: I'm normal and you guys are weird.Not at all. We each must decide for ourselves. We are all ships in the dark passing each other communicating with flashes of light--languages that are utterly insufficient when it comes to describing our sensations. We can only assume that what others recognize from what we say is the same, but odds are the similarity is never more than only approximate.

Inserting physical measurements into the issue only makes this worse--it introduces an illusion of precision into subjective assessments. Twenty-seven degrees feels one thing to one person in one situation and a different thing to another person in another situation.

Trent Wray

26th April 2010, 06:06 PM

Robo Sapien

26th April 2010, 06:19 PM

If you want to congregate and feel the presence of a deity, just go to an Ozzy Osbourne concert. You can certainly feel the spirit when a packed stadium starts chanting OZZY! OZZY! OZZY!

Trent Wray

26th April 2010, 06:24 PM

If you want to congregate and feel the presence of a deity, just go to an Ozzy Osbourne concert. You can certainly feel the spirit when a packed stadium starts chanting OZZY! OZZY! OZZY! OYE OYE OYE!

Ooops .... sorry ..... bad timing :(

:)

Robo Sapien

26th April 2010, 06:27 PM

We believe in the supernatural because we believe in the natural and we cannot discriminate between the two. We create gods because we are natural-born supernaturalists, driven by our tendency to find meaningful patterns and impart to them intentional agency.

You'd be hard pressed to find a more eloquent explanation for getting the heebie-jeebies.

Frank Merton

26th April 2010, 08:05 PM

If in a dream, you find yourself flying above the earth and you feel a touch of fear at times, mixed with excitement, etc and you touch down in front of a church to meet your spouse whom you initially are happy to meet but then she gives you bad news resulting in your sadness, in which she turns into a lobster and walks away and you start laughing .... and then you enter the church and feel "holiness" or the presence of god and the spirit, etc. ----- are all other aspects of the dream accounted for as "normal" except for the feeling you get when in the church? (this is mostly directed at Frank Merton obviously).The experience I report is real, not a dream and not dreamlike. It is an emotion (I guess--it feels much like other emotions to me, but emotions and sensations are so similar that they are easily confused, so it may well be better described as a sensation). I think the fact of such experiences is evidence of the holy, the divine, the what-have-you.

A typical Vietnamese or Thai (representing the two main branches of Buddhism) might say that it is evidence of the Karma that develops around such places. A Hindu would say it has to do with that and with the presence of minor deities.

I have avoided making that particular assertion (karma), since the Christian interpretation of the Holy Ghost is also available to us, and this is mostly a Western-oriented board. The prevailing interpretation I have seen in the messages here is that it is some sort of psychological phenomenon, based in gullibility or self-deception or maybe insanity.

I know better, but for those who have to find explanations for things that don't fit into their mindset, I guess these approaches work well enough. To me they seem an excessive and unsupported reach.

Trent Wray

26th April 2010, 08:12 PM

The experience I report is real, not a dream and not dreamlike. It is an emotion (I guess--it feels much like other emotions to me, but emotions and sensations are so similar that they are easily confused, so it may well be better described as a sensation). I think the fad of such experiences is evidence of the holy, the divine, the what-have-you.

A typical Vietnamese or Thai (representing the two main branches of Buddhism) might say that it is evidence of the Karma that develops around such places. A Hindu would say it has to do with that and with the presence of minor deities.

I have avoided making that particular assertion (karma), since the Christian interpretation of the Holy Ghost is also available to us, and this is mostly a Western-oriented board. The prevailing interpretation I have seen in the messages here is that it is some sort of psychological phenomenon, based in gullibility or self-deception or maybe insanity.

I know better, but for those who have to find explanations for things that don't fit into their mindset, I guess these approaches work well enough. To me they seem an excessive and unsupported reach. I think you misunderstood me. I wasn't saying that the experience isn't real .... I was asking what your conclusion would be if you felt the same way in a dream. Would you assume that the experience you were feeling was real, even though you knew it was in a dream .... or would you assume, "I must have been dreaming. Therefore, all of the thoughts and feelings I was experiencing while in the dream were only a result of the illusion."

IOW ..... in real life, you understand that happiness, sadness, etc and so forth are common to people. And you do not attribute their origin from outside the human body. But the holiness/spirit feeling you think might come from outside the body.

But in a dream, were you to experience the same feeling ... you would most likely assume that the feeling originated in your body, and not outside of it ... like you usually do with all the other feelings.

So what makes being awake so different than when you're asleep? Assuming you would do this .... why attribute the origin of all the emotions you feel while dreaming to illusionary aspects of the dream and the bodies response, having origins within the body and mind .... but when you're awake, you might think that the holliness/spirit feeling has originated from god, outside your body.

Why the difference? You see what I'm saying?

Frank Merton

26th April 2010, 08:19 PM

I fear I don't see where your dream/reality dichotomy tells us anything. The experience in a dream is in a dream, the experience during wakefulness is in a wakeful state.

Schrodinger's Cat

26th April 2010, 08:23 PM

The most "spiritual" I have ever felt has been on mushrooms. It just flat out surpassed anything I felt at a church, and I was a very devout Catholic in the past. I lived in Florida for awhile, and they just grew everywhere where I lived. It wasn't illegal to eat them, just to sell them. I mean, i don't think so anyways. If it was illegal it definitely wasn't enforced, but where I was they just grew on their own everywhere. It's not like you had to cultivate them.

Once I took them before going on an airplane at sunset. It was the most intense experience I've ever head. I felt something like what I had felt in church as a child...except times a thousand. I can't even really describe it in words. I have to admit that such experiences with mushrooms do make me really wonder if there's something more out there than what we see. I don't necessarily mean a deity, just...something more, something beyond the doors of our perception, as Huxley might say...

but you know, it could have just been the awesome shrooms too.

Robo Sapien

26th April 2010, 08:32 PM

I know better, but for those who have to find explanations for things that don't fit into their mindset, I guess these approaches work well enough. To me they seem an excessive and unsupported reach.

^^^ bold

Did you just imply that blind faith equals knowing better than having a rational explanation based on actual knowledge? Please tell me I got that wrong...

Schrodinger's Cat

26th April 2010, 08:33 PM

^^^ bold

Did you just imply that blind faith equals knowing better than having a rational explanation based on actual knowledge? Please tell me I got that wrong...

that's how I read it as well

Trent Wray

26th April 2010, 08:34 PM

I fear I don't see where your dream/reality dichotomy tells us anything. The experience in a dream is in a dream, the experience during wakefulness is in a wakeful state.
I'll try to explain it one more time, and if I'm being too confusing ... no worries :)

Okay ... when you're awake, you understand that happiness, sadness, fear, etc .... are produced by us, internally, due to responding from triggers. Those triggers might involve visual, auditory, physical, whatever. Yes? But for some reason, that feeling of holy awe and "being touched by the spirit" and whatnot, is something you think could perhaps originate from outside the body and "enter" into the body. Yes?

So in this sense .... all of the feelings are accounted for as being produced BY THE HUMAN BODY .... except the holiness thing. Am I assuming these are your thoughts so far?

Assuming they are .... now imagine you are asleep and dreaming. I don't know about you, but when I have a dream, they are vivid and real, and I often wake up emotionally charged from the dream. My heart might be racing, I might be sad, happy, etc and whatever.

I'm assuming you are the same way. So, considering that in a dream we exceedingly limit the trigger mechanisms that cause our body to produce the chemicals necessary for the feelings and emotions we have ---- pretty much all of the emotions and feelings are triggered from the images and events played out in our minds. Correct?

So .... the feelings and emotional sensations are still the result of our mind. Now, if you experience the sense of holiness/awe/spirit in a dream .... is it also the result of the dream sequence? Or does it come from outside the body from god or a spirit or whatever, even when you're dreaming?

I would assume your initial reaction would be, "of course it all originates in my mind in a dream. Where else would it originate from? It's a dream!"

And that is my point. If you would be willing to acknowledge that the feeling and sensation of being touched by god/spirit/etc originates within the human body during a dreamstate, why not just assume the same is true for when you are awake? Why separate that one out and attribute it to possibly god's spirit floating around and entering you for a moment or something?

Again ... if I'm still not making sense, no worries. You can let it go, I won't take it personally ;)

Madalch

26th April 2010, 08:37 PM

I won't Spirit come anywhere near me unless she's on the pill and one of us has a condom.
Relax- the Spirit won't come anywhere near you.

She always fakes it with you.

Trent Wray

26th April 2010, 08:38 PM

^^^ bold

Did you just imply that blind faith equals knowing better than having a rational explanation based on actual knowledge? Please tell me I got that wrong...
Yeah I caught that too unfortunately. I was trying to keep things civil still and see past it.

Robo Sapien

26th April 2010, 08:46 PM

I'll try to explain it one more time, and if I'm being too confusing ... no worries :)

Okay ... when you're awake, you understand that happiness, sadness, fear, etc .... are produced by us, internally, due to responding from triggers. Those triggers might involve visual, auditory, physical, whatever. Yes? But for some reason, that feeling of holy awe and "being touched by the spirit" and whatnot, is something you think could perhaps originate from outside the body and "enter" into the body. Yes?

So in this sense .... all of the feelings are accounted for as being produced BY THE HUMAN BODY .... except the holiness thing. Am I assuming these are your thoughts so far?

Assuming they are .... now imagine you are asleep and dreaming. I don't know about you, but when I have a dream, they are vivid and real, and I often wake up emotionally charged from the dream. My heart might be racing, I might be sad, happy, etc and whatever.

I'm assuming you are the same way. So, considering that in a dream we exceedingly limit the trigger mechanisms that cause our body to produce the chemicals necessary for the feelings and emotions we have ---- pretty much all of the emotions and feelings are triggered from the images and events played out in our minds. Correct?

So .... the feelings and emotional sensations are still the result of our mind. Now, if you experience the sense of holiness/awe/spirit in a dream .... is it also the result of the dream sequence? Or does it come from outside the body from god or a spirit or whatever, even when you're dreaming?

I would assume your initial reaction would be, "of course it all originates in my mind in a dream. Where else would it originate from? It's a dream!"

And that is my point. If you would be willing to acknowledge that the feeling and sensation of being touched by god/spirit/etc originates within the human body during a dreamstate, why not just assume the same is true for when you are awake? Why separate that one out and attribute it to possibly god's spirit floating around and entering you for a moment or something?

Again ... if I'm still not making sense, no worries. You can let it go, I won't take it personally ;)

Trent, that was entirely too wordy.. it can be summed up in one word: "Woooo!"

Alternately:

It can be attributed to ideomotor response to sensory data that are highly relevant to pre-existing beliefs that have been deeply ingrained largely due to cognitive dissonance dispensing with more rational explanations that do not jibe.

ATM: I had to reword that last bit

Frank Merton

26th April 2010, 08:57 PM

Audible Click

26th April 2010, 09:04 PM

I was touched by the spirit tonight so I switched to coffee. ;)

Frank Merton

26th April 2010, 09:07 PM

It can be attributed to ideomotor response to sensory data that are highly relevant to pre-existing beliefs that have been deeply ingrained largely due to cognitive dissonance dispensing with more rational explanations that do not jibe.What is "more rational" to one person (say, operating under a socially reinforced need to use a physicalist explanation for everything) will be utterly irrational to someone else (say myself, since I tend to think the very existence of mind-type phenomena (especially sensations) breaks physicalism.

Please note that there is no religious indoctrination in my history and therefore no "pre-existing" belief that needs defending (unless [grin] you are referring to possible previous lives.

Robo Sapien

26th April 2010, 09:17 PM

What is "more rational" to one person (say, operating under a socially reinforced need to use a physicalist explanation for everything) will be utterly irrational to someone else (say myself, since I tend to think the very existence of mind-type phenomena (especially sensations) breaks physicalism.

Please note that there is no religious indoctrination in my history and therefore no "pre-existing" belief that needs defending (unless [grin] you are referring to possible previous lives.

I was Pauly Shore in my previous life. Wait, he's still alive. Oh no, PARADOX! Everyone tuck your head between your legs and prepare for the implosion of all existance.

Frank Merton

26th April 2010, 09:27 PM

I was Pauly Shore in my previous life. Wait, he's still alive. Oh no, PARADOX! Everyone tuck your head between your legs and prepare for the implosion of all existance.
I put the "[grin]" in there to make it clear I was being silly.

tsig

26th April 2010, 09:32 PM

I put the "[grin]" in there to make it clear I was being silly.

If the" very existence of mind-type phenomena (especially sensations) breaks physicalism" then why is reincarnation silly.

Frank Merton

26th April 2010, 09:34 PM

If the" very existence of mind-type phenomena (especially sensations) breaks physicalism" then why is reincarnation silly.Reincarnation is not necessarily silly, but in the context I was using the idea of previous life, it surely was.

Trent Wray

26th April 2010, 10:12 PM

Trent, that was entirely too wordy.. it can be summed up in one word: "Woooo!"

Alternately:

It can be attributed to ideomotor response to sensory data that are highly relevant to pre-existing beliefs that have been deeply ingrained largely due to cognitive dissonance dispensing with more rational explanations that do not jibe.

ATM: I had to reword that last bit Dude you're preaching to the choir :). I wasn't asking a question, I was trying to over explain to make a point ;)

Trent Wray

26th April 2010, 10:21 PM

Our reactions to things are a combination of stimuli and what we are--tlhat is, our personality, genetic makeup, history, and so on (plus inputs from our will).

We can make a rough association between the experience of certain emotions (I am aware of work done in WU on the association between feelings of obligation and certain chemicals, so I am basing this on this work). However, this tells us nothing about how it is that these chemicals bring about subjective experiences.

I don't know what theory of dreams you are working under, but what you say makes no sense to me. What we dream might be compared to what we experience under psychedelic drugs (as described in another message on this board) and must be viewed as illusary. There is strong reason for thinking that they are illusions, and therefore not comparable to emotions we experience when sober, mindful, and awake. The highlighted portion is my point exactly. They are illusions. We are responding to illusionary stimuli. And it is comparable to what we experience when we are awake.

You are essentially treating your brain like it's a reality box that gets filled with stuff. When we're awake, it gets filled with real stuff. When we're asleep, it gets filled with illusions.

I'm trying to point out there is little difference here. Our brain is still a sensory processing machine, regardless of whether or not we are awake or asleep.

I'm sure you are familiar with ghost limb phenomena, yes? A person can be fully awake and feel a limb that is not there. They are not sleeping and imagining it. This is a perfect example of how feelings and sensations can be created, by our bodies, from absolutely nothing .... pure illusions. Do you agree?

At any given moment, you will only be capable of understanding reality to a given degree. You will only see so many colors visually, and you will only be able to process things at a certain speed, and contemplate on the near now ... but not THE now. You feelings of touch might betray you, your response of fear might be unfounded. Etc and so forth. Go into solitary confinement for five days and your reality might be turned upside down. You will feel a variety of sensations and feelings that are completely irrational and unrelated to your environment in ways that you would normally react. Reality and illusion will start to merge together and be difficult to differentiate.

So, my point is .... there is no reason to attribute the sensation of "holiness" and/or "the spirit" to an outside source entering the body. There is a trigger ... and you respond. Sometimes you prepare a response in anticipation. But it's all within your body. Just like in dreams, just like when you're awake. I was hoping you'd see my dream analogy as evidence that you will actually agree with yourself that the feeling of holiness and the spirit comes from within when you are dreaming ... and so when you are awake it must come from within as well, considering your brain is still the same brain (albeit it does function differently, but only a variation on a theme so to speak). But I don't think you're understanding me. So it's allright :)

ETA: And my entire posting concerning the "dream state" was done with the assumption that you are considering attributing the sensations and feelings a person experiences when "being touched by the spirit" to a spirit entering their body from outside the body, causing the reaction.

Andrew Wiggin

27th April 2010, 12:11 AM

"Can you show us on the doll where the spirit touched you?"

Should have figured someone would beat me to that. Glad I read all the way through the thread before I tried to be clever...

A

Manopolus

27th April 2010, 12:21 AM

Touched by which spirit? I prefer vodka, but rum is okay too.

Steelmage

27th April 2010, 01:23 AM

Look at it this way. We're in the minority. If you dislike religion then fine but you like me and all other atheists are going to run into this sort of thing all of our lives. No need to get mad or disgusted. Accept the reality and get on with your life.

What is it about this vignette that shows us something being shoved down your throat? The volume of his singing?

DR

This seems harmless enough to me. I don't really see what the problem is. I also don't really see this as "shoving" anything down someone's throats.

If someone is trying to express their religion in a kind and peaceful way, I am perfectly okay with that.

The problem is not the singing in the aisles, the problem is hearing someone preach at the checkout counter. Sing what you want, but do not preach to me or when I am checking out my items.

"Can you show us on the doll where the spirit touched you?"

It touch me in all the bad spots.

27th April 2010, 01:31 AM

Have you been touched by the Spirit?

no, never, nor by a Priest!

they shall keep their fingers of my body.....

Pup

27th April 2010, 04:42 AM

The straw man stands out even more from what you now post. You are refuting something I never said--that the sense of holiness comes from God. Even if we were to experience a sense of holiness from the presence of the Holy Ghost (in Christian terms), the manifestation we feel is not the Holy Ghost any more than the manifestation we experience of blueness when we look at a clear sky is the actual sky or in any way caused by the sky.

It might be that the Christians are right and that faith is an active gift of God, but that is not what I said.
Okay, then I'm totally lost about what you're saying. I wonder if you're talking about something that I'd call art appreciation (or architecture appreciation)?

If I look at a painting, I can certainly claim that I feel a sense of the artist's awe at looking at that mountain, or if I enter a building, I can claim to feel that the designer wanted a sense of grandeur or warmth or whatever.

And yes, it's subjective. An artist/designer can genuinely feel something and try to express it, but it's all tied up in culture. What looks cozy or majestic or creepy to one person might look just the opposite to another. What causes deep emotion in one person can just be "meh" to another.

So I think the sense doesn't come from god or anything supernatural; it comes from an innate sense we have of reacting to things subjectively, combined with our culture. In other words, virtually every normal person can feel awe, inspiration, love, hate, fear, creepiness, etc., and there are probably some types of things which produce those feelings in a majority of people, but not all.

So in most cases, I think that how and when we feel a sense of holiness comes from culture. There might be some inborn sense of what kind of architecture produces that feeling and it looks like it has to do with height and size in many cases--even a humble little country church tries to be as tall as possible with a steeple stuck on top, though the builder doesn't have the resources to build a cathedral.

But I think one needs culturally taught that a cathedral means holy and a big hotel means luxury and a huge warehouse means capacity and efficiency, before one learns to feel the right emotions in each one. Which is why some people here are saying churches look creepy or intimidating or whatever--their experience has taught them a different reaction to the architecture.

So now I'm wondering if you're approaching this like some poets and artists and musicians I've met, who really, really feel their art and others' similar art with an intensity they think no one else can feel--and therefore believe that makes them superior and anyone else who doesn't "get it" is somehow wrong, lesser, deprived, whatever.

They're too full of themselves to realize that what they feel is really a fairly common thing, except that other people just happen to feel it in reaction to different things.

the_bunkologist

27th April 2010, 05:35 AM

I've experienced what one could call spiritual or mystical states of consciousness a few times in my life, sometimes chemically induced but sometimes spontaneously in totally sober, non-stressful conditions. So yes, I've been 'touched by the Spirit'. The creepiness of that phrase is appropriate to describing the experience, imo. It can be quite disturbing, even violating. The normal texture of reality drops away and something 'other' impresses itself very strongly on one's experience.

I think that strong sense of 'otherness' is important to keep in mind. It is (at the time) wholly convincing that something outside of one's normal experience has intruded, and in fact that feeling is one of the primary contents of the experience. Without understanding that, it will be very difficult to appreciate why people say the things they do about it.

We are all used to doubting our senses. I can easily doubt that the black looking car is actually black: perhaps in different light it would look blue, or dark green. But what I am doubting there is the intentional content of my experience. I doubt that my experience matches up with the objects that it is about. In a so called spiritual or mystical experience, what changes isn't necessarily the intentional content of experience. Sometimes people see 'visions' (illusory objects), but I don't think that is what is essential. The core of the experience is a shift in the non-intentional content of experience, the very texture or fabric of reality shifts. The experience of being a subject, separate from objects, for instance, is very commonly described as breaking down or being altered. And doubting the reality of that kind of experience is not something we are practiced with, and don't necessarily have the linguistic tools to talk about. It's much harder, I submit, because it isn't the same as doubting that some state of affairs, some configuration of objects, obtains in the world.

So I think if we're to help people from going woo over these fairly common experiences (William James suggested that they were about as common as the flu) we need to step up our appreciation of their depth and complexity.

Darth Rotor

27th April 2010, 06:35 AM

The problem is not the singing in the aisles, the problem is hearing someone preach at the checkout counter. Sing what you want, but do not preach to me or when I am checking out my items.

Annoying, yes.

Robo Sapien

27th April 2010, 07:34 AM

I put the "[grin]" in there to make it clear I was being silly.

I put the reference to Pauly Shore in there to make it clear I was being silly. And weezin the juice bu-uuuuddy.

Frank Merton

27th April 2010, 11:29 AM

They are illusions. We are responding to illusionary stimuli. And it is comparable to what we experience when we are awake.

As has been noted, you are rather verbose, and I don't have time to respond to all you say and still respond to others,so I will llimit myself to the above.

You seem to me to be operating under a huge non sequitur--that the fact that we sometimes experience illusions proves that all is illusion.

That we sometimes have illusionary experiences while asleep does not allow you to infer that waking experiences are illusions. We can define the difference quite readily. At other times we have more difficulty defining the difference, and then it seems to me that it behooves us to refrain from assuming that phenomena that seem quite real to us are illusions just because doing so fits our ideology.

These things are entitled to the benefit of the doubt--in other words, I think those who deny the reality of such experiences have the burden of proof, and merely pointing out that illusions occur is not sufficient.

Frank Merton

27th April 2010, 11:59 AM

Okay, then I'm totally lost about what you're saying. I wonder if you're talking about something that I'd call art appreciation (or architecture appreciation)?

So now I'm wondering if you're approaching this like some poets and artists and musicians I've met, who really, really feel their art and others' similar art with an intensity they think no one else can feel--and therefore believe that makes them superior and anyone else who doesn't "get it" is somehow wrong, lesser, deprived, whatever.

They're too full of themselves to realize that what they feel is really a fairly common thing, except that other people just happen to feel it in reaction to different things.It does not seem that you've read all the posts on this thread, since you raise an issue I thought had been closed. Still, since I also commit that offense often enough, I will respond again.

I maintain--and this is pure assertion on my part of my own experience--that, although they are similar, the experience of "holiness" and the experience of "awe" are different--almost as different as the experience of heat and the experience of pain. I can no more describe in words the nature of the difference than I can describe in words the difference between "blue" and "green." I have to rely on your having experienced both of them too, and if not there is little more to be said.

This, however, is a side-issue. The main point is that one often has an experience--"feels" something--has a certain emotion--whatever--when one is in a place that for some reason is deemed holy.

Many interpretations of this are possible--that it is an illusion brought on by cultural expectations seems to be the popular one on this board. This is easy to claim but I don't think possible to convincingly demonstrate.

Many Christians offer the idea of the Holy Ghost as an interpretation. Most people who hold to India-originating religions will refer to the presence of karma in such places. These, again, are easy to claim but again not convincingly demonstrable.

My personal experience is that I experience it in most Christian places and certainly all Hindu, Buddhist and Caodai places, but not in Muslim places and not in secular buildings, no matter how grand. I am inclined to think that this demonstrates that Islam does not partake of karma the way Christianity does, and perhaps this is not unexpected, since Islam does not treat the Mosque as anything particularly holy.

I have a great deal of difficulty with the cultural expectations theory--it just does not fit the phenomenon. If this theory were correct, I would experience it only in the places I think are "right" (which would be Therevada Buddhist temples), but this is not what happens. Besides, I am a poor Buddhist, since I am agnostic even about karma (even though I see it as perhaps the best explanation, I am far from "believing" this). Further, there is no personal cultural expectation here--my Buddhism is an adult achievement, not one of childhood indoctrination.

One final point--the fact that what I describe is a common experience testifies to its reality, and I think few if any are so "full of themselves" to deny that almost everyone can have the experience. That an doctrinaire physicalist atheist can have the experience in a cathedral seems to me to bely the cultural expectations theory.

Frank Merton

27th April 2010, 12:22 PM

So I think if we're to help people from going woo over these fairly common experiences (William James suggested that they were about as common as the flu) we need to step up our appreciation of their depth and complexity.
The Buddha story tells us that after sitting in meditation under the Bodha tree for an extended period of time, the young Guatama entered a state called "Enlilghtenment," described variously as recalling previous lives, understanding all of reality, and so on. What followed is rather an anticlimax, since the resuting teaching was essentially to follow the "middle way" between aesceticism and indulgence. It seems to me most people understand that easily enough without extended sitting. but then I presume Guatama's (now the Buddha's) understanding was more profound than mine, since I am not Enlightened.

Such ecstatic or "ah-ha" moments are indeed common, and vary in their intensity from "the llight bulb came on" to life-changing conversions and religious visions. A problem arises when one considers that the teachings or ideas that, through history, have come out of these events are so often so contradictory with each other. As a mechanism of revelation, then, they seem to leave much to be desired.

It doesn't follow that all such experiences are flawed in some way. What follows is only that the individuals experiencing them, for various reason, make different interpretations of whatever it was that happened, and that some are more rational than others.

Greatest I am

27th April 2010, 12:22 PM

Fnord

27th April 2010, 12:46 PM

Frank Merton

27th April 2010, 01:12 PM

While you two may actually believe with all your hearts that what you say is true, you provide no evidence of claim other than your own subjective faith. And as we all know, Faith Proves Nothing.I think you miss the point. The theme asks for testimony of this sort and they provide it. Whether or not you believe them or think they are lying or deluded or whatever is up to you.

I would paraphrase what you say--"faith proves nothing," with "nothing proves anything." Demanding "proof" is a neat way of avoiding real discussion: and it is beyond doubt that testimonial evidence of this is indeed "evidence" (or why do we call it "testimonial evidence").

Robo Sapien

27th April 2010, 01:56 PM

I think you miss the point. The theme asks for testimony of this sort and they provide it. Whether or not you believe them or think they are lying or deluded or whatever is up to you.

I would paraphrase what you say--"faith proves nothing," with "nothing proves anything." Demanding "proof" is a neat way of avoiding real discussion: and it is beyond doubt that testimonial evidence of this is indeed "evidence" (or why do we call it "testimonial evidence").

"I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto.. this looks like a skeptics forum"

Trent Wray

27th April 2010, 02:56 PM

As has been noted, you are rather verbose, and I don't have time to respond to all you say and still respond to others,so I will llimit myself to the above.

You seem to me to be operating under a huge non sequitur--that the fact that we sometimes experience illusions proves that all is illusion.

That we sometimes have illusionary experiences while asleep does not allow you to infer that waking experiences are illusions. We can define the difference quite readily. At other times we have more difficulty defining the difference, and then it seems to me that it behooves us to refrain from assuming that phenomena that seem quite real to us are illusions just because doing so fits our ideology.

These things are entitled to the benefit of the doubt--in other words, I think those who deny the reality of such experiences have the burden of proof, and merely pointing out that illusions occur is not sufficient. Yes I can be long winded. I don't even like that about myself :) My dry humor is short and to the point, my points are epistles and essays.

And I wasn't saying that since we sometimes experience an illusion then that's proof that all is illusion. I was trying to show you another side of the coin that could be an explanation to describe ONE sensation ... "the spirit" ... that is more along the lines of an Occam's Razor deduction than assuming a spirit is floating around outside my body, waiting until I enter a church to enter me. That's all. I am actually not making it an "either/or" .... I am trying to show you a valid conclusion and how your conclusion requires additional speculation. I don't think your conclusion is "better", as you previously stated. And for the record, I honestly haven't even stated my personal opinion on the matter in any of these posts.;)

Frank Merton

27th April 2010, 03:52 PM

Yes I can be long winded. I don't even like that about myself :) My dry humor is short and to the point, my points are epistles and essays.

And I wasn't saying that since we sometimes experience an illusion then that's proof that all is illusion. I was trying to show you another side of the coin that could be an explanation to describe ONE sensation ... "the spirit" ... that is more along the lines of an Occam's Razor deduction than assuming a spirit is floating around outside my body, waiting until I enter a church to enter me. That's all. I am actually not making it an "either/or" .... I am trying to show you a valid conclusion and how your conclusion requires additional speculation. I don't think your conclusion is "better", as you previously stated. And for the record, I honestly haven't even stated my personal opinion on the matter in any of these posts.;)
When I posted that remark about your verbosity, it occurred to me I should also say that this is a very black pot saying it, but I couldn't find a good place in the flow of the message, so I didn't, but do now.

Ok, we agree that the experience of holliness could be a delusion, or could be several other things, including a dream, a confusion of the experience of awe, a visitation by some deity or spiritual force, or an indication of the presence of karma or some other holiness vapor.

At this point different people, based on their different personalities and different world views, will come down in different places. So what is a reasonable approach? Are we forced to conclude that no conclusion is possible?

If one wants certainty, or even to be in a position of being willing tro post a major wager on the issue, then there is probably no way to come to such a strong resolution. However, if one is willing to think of it as opinion, subject to possible (if perhaps unlikely) rethinking and opinion change, then I think quite a lot is possible.

I have been arguing against various proffered explanations, what I see as "physicalist" offerings--illusion and misidentification with awe being the main ones.

Pup

27th April 2010, 04:56 PM

At this point different people, based on their different personalities and different world views, will come down in different places. So what is a reasonable approach? Are we forced to conclude that no conclusion is possible?

I can't tell what claims you're making for this experience. That would make a difference in whether they're just opinions or are testable.

Let's say there were two buildings, one that was a Christian church worshipped in by faithful people, and an identical building that was just built for a movie set that no one cared about in a religious sense and that had never been worshipped in, but that resembled a real Christian church in every physical way. And let's say that someone who clearly feels this sense of holiness in Christian churches visits these two buildings.

Here are a few options (anyone feel free to add your own--there could certainly be lots more):

1) The real church would give a sense of holiness but the movie church wouldn't, because of something infused in the real church by the worshippers or the presence of god or something spiritual/supernatural.

2) Both would give a sense of holiness regardless of the spiritual history of the building, because Christian church architecture has that effect on a lot of people regardless of their cultural background.

3) Both would give a sense of holiness if the person assumed they were both real churches, but once he/she was told that one was fake, he/she would no longer feel holiness in it.

Then let's say someone from another culture who's unaware of Christianity visits both buildings.

4) Both buildings would probably give an equal sense of holiness to that person because Christian architecture tends to elicit that reaction.

5) Neither would probably give a sense of holiness, because the person wouldn't have a clue they were considered holy by anyone.

6) The real church would give a sense of holiness but the fake church wouldn't, since something spiritual or supernatural would have been infused in the real church, even though the person didn't know which building was which.

Some of those options and conclusions are testable, some aren't, some reflect a more physical viewpoint and some a more spiritual one. Personally, I'd agree with number 3 definitely, maybe 2 if it was a particularly impressive building, and either 4 or 5, leaning toward 5.

Frank Merton

27th April 2010, 05:18 PM

I can't tell what claims you're making for this experience. That would make a difference in whether they're just opinions or are testable.So as not to repeat myself, I refer you to message 106.

Trent Wray

27th April 2010, 05:53 PM

When I posted that remark about your verbosity, it occurred to me I should also say that this is a very black pot saying it, but I couldn't find a good place in the flow of the message, so I didn't, but do now.

Ok, we agree that the experience of holliness could be a delusion, or could be several other things, including a dream, a confusion of the experience of awe, a visitation by some deity or spiritual force, or an indication of the presence of karma or some other holiness vapor.

At this point different people, based on their different personalities and different world views, will come down in different places. So what is a reasonable approach? Are we forced to conclude that no conclusion is possible?

If one wants certainty, or even to be in a position of being willing tro post a major wager on the issue, then there is probably no way to come to such a strong resolution. However, if one is willing to think of it as opinion, subject to possible (if perhaps unlikely) rethinking and opinion change, then I think quite a lot is possible.

I have been arguing against various proffered explanations, what I see as "physicalist" offerings--illusion and misidentification with awe being the main ones. Okay, I want to isolate out the following:

Ok, we agree that the experience of holliness could be a delusion, or could be several other things, including a dream, a confusion of the experience of awe, a visitation by some deity or spiritual force, or an indication of the presence of karma or some other holiness vapor.

At this point different people, based on their different personalities and different world views, will come down in different places. So what is a reasonable approach? Are we forced to conclude that no conclusion is possible? Lets take your examples quickly and examine if there is any evidence to support them:

* it's a dream: I still don't think you understood that I was NOT claiming it was only a dream. If you're awake, it's most likely not a dream. My reason for using the dream comparison was to point out a comparison. So I don't think the dream idea is correct, since there are obvious difference between being awake and alert and dreaming (although I suppose various feelings could be attributed to daydreaming of some form, idk)

* a confusion of awe: quite possible, or perhaps an intensity of awe. Awe exists as an emotion/feeling, so there is evidence for this

* visitation of deity or spirit: it's an idea, but no evidence to support it. the only evidence is the idea itself.

* karma / holiness vapor : it's an idea, but no evidence to support it. Karma can be linked to synchronicity, and holiness vapors can be linked to gas causing hallucinations. The former has not been proven fruitful in pursuing further, the latter would have to be investigated further.

So, which origin has the most practical evidence to support it? Those with little to no evidence require faith to believe in them. This is NOT equal to fact, or theories based on probabilities and/or inference. Thus, the more evidence there is to support an idea, the more rational it is to side with that conclusion. The less evidence there is to support an idea, the more faith it requires to believe in that idea.

So in answer to this:

At this point different people, based on their different personalities and different world views, will come down in different places. So what is a reasonable approach? Are we forced to conclude that no conclusion is possible? Would you prefer a society that leans towards rational explanations and takes speculation more lightly, or would you prefer a society that does the reverse? Looking back through history, which has seemed more beneficial?

And we are not "forced" to conclude anything. You are free to conclude what you wish. In my opinion, leaning towards a rational explanation (in the absence of a definitive one) would prove more fruitful. Leaning towards a faith based one leads to more speculation and guessing, which can cause confusion.

To claim they are both equal isn't practical, however. You would either need to replace both methods of approach, or combine them somehow. But until you do that, it would be like giving two separate groups a math problem to solve ... and telling one group to use logic and rational thought to solve the problem, but the other group was to make wild guesses. They are not likely to come to the CORRECT answer with equal probability.

Faith based and speculative thought has it's place, but should be used in context. That's all I'm saying. It is not "better" than staying safe within the limits of rationalism. If you hit gold, then great. If not .... I hope you make it back alive.

Schrodinger's Cat

27th April 2010, 06:08 PM

My personal experience is that I experience it in most Christian places and certainly all Hindu, Buddhist and Caodai places, but not in Muslim places and not in secular buildings, no matter how grand. I am inclined to think that this demonstrates that Islam does not partake of karma the way Christianity does, and perhaps this is not unexpected, since Islam does not treat the Mosque as anything particularly holy.

In Spain, while a catholic, I was very moved not only by cathedrals but also by the old mosques I visited.

But that was nothing compared to the feeling I had when I saw the Alhambra in Granada, an old Moorish citadel, not a religious building at all. It was largely used as a harem. I felt a very very spiritual connection with the place, I'd say probably more than any religious building I've ever been to save for the Sistine Chapel.

My take on it (even at the time, when I was a Catholic) was not that I was being moved by the religious aspect of the religious buildings I went to, but by the artistic beauty found there. I felt I was moved by the beauty of art, just as I was at the Alhambra. Perhaps the reason you don't feel the same emotions in a Mosque is because you just aren't as moved by that artistic style. This is just a guess of course.

honestly, there are times I think we really may have souls. That there may be mysticism and magic in the universe. I definitely recognize the difference between thinking maybe that's possible and actually thinking it's true, but I'm not going to be like others and say there's no genuine spiritual component to what you felt. I don't think there is. But I don't rule out the possibility.

But even if we did have souls, I still, even when religious, and fiercely believed in a soul (instead of thinking as I do now that maybe we do, but probably not), that it was beauty moving my soul, not anything religious.

But that's just my personal take on it of course.

Robo Sapien

27th April 2010, 06:12 PM

At this point different people, based on their different personalities and different world views, will come down in different places. So what is a reasonable approach? Are we forced to conclude that no conclusion is possible?

That is precisely what we are forced to conclude. The only thing that is absolutely certain is that there is no absolute certainty. That is why religion is dangerous, because it posits to be certain and thus leads people down a path blindly, whereas those who are aware of uncertainty will keep their eyes forward.

I have been arguing against various proffered explanations, what I see as "physicalist" offerings--illusion and misidentification with awe being the main ones.

We live in a physical word, why shouldn't we seek physical explanations? You brand it "physicalist" as if putting a label on it somehow brings it down to a level below unexplainable mysticism. The same way environmental debaters label each other warmers or deniers. I get the impression that you reject realistic explanations because reality destroys the awesome feeling of the mystical, and you do not want to let that feeling go. That is understandable, it is not an easy thing to face stark reality, but that passes with time as genuine wisdom takes hold. As the old saying goes, "the truth shall set you free."

Frank Merton

27th April 2010, 06:16 PM

* karma / holiness vapor : it's an idea, but no evidence to support it. Karma can be linked to synchronicity, and holiness vapors can be linked to gas causing hallucinations. The former has not been proven fruitful in pursuing further, the latter would have to be investigated further.I always cringe when I see someone asserting that there is "no evidence" favoring some position. I think physicalist-inclined people commit this error way more often than one would think they would from their rational pretentions. It is always possible to come up with evidence for practically anything: indeed, I think it is an error to say there is "no credible evidence," too, since credibility is a personal judgment. All one should say is that there is insufficient convincing evidence, and I don't think you would be qualified to say that since it is unlikely you have spent any time analyzing the various claims. (Nor should you be expected to--life is too short--but we should refrain from making assertions about things we haven't studied).

You are free to conclude what you wish. In my opinion, leaning towards a rational explanation (in the absence of a definitive one) would prove more fruitful. Leaning towards a faith based one leads to more speculation and guessing, which can cause confusion.What is "rational"? Isn't it a bit much to conclude that your opinion set is "rational" and someone else's is not? That said, I understand but do not agree with faith as a basis of belief, but I would not assert that it isn't rational. It is based on certain premises, and faith-based belief then follows from those premises. This is perfectly rational.

Robo Sapien

27th April 2010, 06:21 PM

In Spain, while a catholic, I was very moved not only by cathedrals but also by the old mosques I visited.

But that was nothing compared to the feeling I had when I saw the Alhambra in Granada, an old Moorish citadel, not a religious building at all. It was largely used as a harem. I felt a very very spiritual connection with the place, I'd say probably more than any religious building I've ever been to save for the Sistine Chapel.

My take on it (even at the time, when I was a Catholic) was not that I was being moved by the religious aspect of the religious buildings I went to, but by the artistic beauty found there. I felt I was moved by the beauty of art, just as I was at the Alhambra. Perhaps the reason you don't feel the same emotions in a Mosque is because you just aren't as moved by that artistic style. This is just a guess of course.

honestly, there are times I think we really may have souls. That there may be mysticism and magic in the universe. I definitely recognize the difference between thinking maybe that's possible and actually thinking it's true, but I'm not going to be like others and say there's no genuine spiritual component to what you felt. I don't think there is. But I don't rule out the possibility.

But even if we did have souls, I still, even when religious, and fiercely believed in a soul (instead of thinking as I do now that maybe we do, but probably not), that it was beauty moving my soul, not anything religious.

But that's just my personal take on it of course.

Well said. I find myself in awe of the carvings and artwork in Vatican City, even though I despise everything it stands for. Human creativity is truly amazing. One get the same sense of awe, though, by visiting some of the monuments in our nation's capital. The Lincoln Memorial is truly awesome, and yet decidedly non-religious.

the_bunkologist

27th April 2010, 06:22 PM

:bs:

:bs:

While you two may actually believe with all your hearts that what you say is true, you provide no evidence of claim other than your own subjective faith. And as we all know, Faith Proves Nothing.

What precisely did I claim that you attribute to 'subjective faith'? I claimed that I had a kind of experience that people call 'spiritual'. I use the term to indicate a certain kind of phenomenology. That I had some experience, I presume, is not up for debate. I'm telling you I experienced something - that's it.

As for the leap from my experience to some metaphysical conclusion - I didn't make it. You did.

For the record, I'm an atheist. I don't believe in supernatural spirits, and I'm not religious. In fact, I'm not advocating any metaphysical position here. If I had to, I'd likely describe myself as materialist.

Your eagerness to call ******** on what you apparently don't understand is disturbing. We're here to encourage critical thinking, not stereotyped responses.

Frank Merton

27th April 2010, 06:22 PM

But that was nothing compared to the feeling I had when I saw the Alhambra in Granada, an old Moorish citadel, not a religious building at all. It was largely used as a harem. I felt a very very spiritual connection with the place, I'd say probably more than any religious building I've ever been to save for the Sistine Chapel.I must visit Spain some day.

You say you were "moved." How exactly were you moved? Was it in admiration of the beauty or grandeur of the place, or perhaps by contemplation of the history? There are many ways to be "moved."

I have already made this point a few times: there are different experiences--and "holiness" differs from "awe" or "admiration."

the_bunkologist

27th April 2010, 06:29 PM

Such ecstatic or "ah-ha" moments are indeed common, and vary in their intensity from "the llight bulb came on" to life-changing conversions and religious visions. A problem arises when one considers that the teachings or ideas that, through history, have come out of these events are so often so contradictory with each other. As a mechanism of revelation, then, they seem to leave much to be desired.

It doesn't follow that all such experiences are flawed in some way. What follows is only that the individuals experiencing them, for various reason, make different interpretations of whatever it was that happened, and that some are more rational than others.

I agree. No experience bears its proper interpretation on its face. That is, incidentally, one of the primary lessons of 20th century philosophy of science. The 'theory ladenness of observation' is now generally accepted amongst those who think and write on how rigorous observation is done.

Robo Sapien

27th April 2010, 06:31 PM

"holiness" differs from "awe" or "admiration."

No it doesn't. It is awe or admiration of the power of a deity. When you walk into a church, you "feel" it because common knowledge says that churches are the houses of God, and you expect him to be there.

Trent Wray

27th April 2010, 06:42 PM

I always cringe when I see someone asserting that there is "no evidence" favoring some position. I think physicalist-inclined people commit this error way more often than one would think they would from their rational pretentions. See immediately below:

It is always possible to come up with evidence for practically anything: I almost want to say, "exactly." It's why I could just as easily say that the spirit of leprechauns was trying to guard against the church and prevent me from experiencing the True Spirit that resides within the priest. Afterall, I have evidence.

indeed, I think it is an error to say there is "no credible evidence," too, since credibility is a personal judgment. All one should say is that there is insufficient convincing evidence,And that is essentially what I was saying. I did not say faith was ridiculous or based on absolutely nothing. I was drawing a distinction between the two ..... and I used the terms "leaning towards," etc and so forth. I did not say toss out faith. Just keep it in context.

and I don't think you would be qualified to say that since it is unlikely you have spent any time analyzing the various claims. (Nor should you be expected to--life is too short--but we should refrain from making assertions about things we haven't studied). Really (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=5771278#post5771278)? and really (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=5605998#post5605998)? and again, really (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=5591512#post5591512)? These are not even the tip of an iceberg. Your presumptions are irrational .... because you are making them based on little to no evidence. I don't really like it when someone posts their "credentials," but I have been examining phenomena just like this for essentially the last 17 years in over 25 countries, in countless circumstances. So whatever method you just used to size me up lead you to a wrong conclusion. This is precisely why I think it is more beneficial to draw conclusions based on evidence, and keep speculation in their proper place. Because if you speculate and guess and build from that, you are more likely to be wrong, misinterpret, and miss something. Sometimes, what you miss will be OBVIOUS.

What is "rational"? Isn't it a bit much to conclude that your opinion set is "rational" and someone else's is not? That said, I understand but do not agree with faith as a basis of belief, but I would not assert that it isn't rational. It is based on certain premises, and faith-based belief then follows from those premises. This is perfectly rational. It is irrational to base a belief on little to no evidence. I did not say it's evil, wrong, stupid .... I am using irrational in a neutral sense.

My child's fear that Spongebob dies when the TV turns off is irrational. It is based on evidence which is being misinterpreted. It is normal to (oftentimes) start from a point of irrationality or confusion when beginning to explore the explanation behind something. And sometimes accepting completely unfounded ideas and examining them is rewarding and leads to discoveries ... like with works of fiction, imagination, etc.

Trent Wray

27th April 2010, 06:48 PM

What does this picture make you feel?

http://i969.photobucket.com/albums/ae174/trentwray/Vienna_StephansdomCathedral_Wallpap.jpg

It is St. Stephansdom Cathedral in Vienna. I took it. I only enhanced the color and made the image softer. I didn't really touch the lighting at all. And I took it with a crappy camera ...

Pup

27th April 2010, 07:37 PM

So as not to repeat myself, I refer you to message 106.

I'm really trying to understand where you're coming from, so it's a shame you couldn't give a simple answer to help me. Now I'll have to guess and you probably won't like what I guess.

The only relevant thing I can find in that post is this:

My personal experience is that I experience it in most Christian places and certainly all Hindu, Buddhist and Caodai places, but not in Muslim places and not in secular buildings, no matter how grand. I am inclined to think that this demonstrates that Islam does not partake of karma the way Christianity does, and perhaps this is not unexpected, since Islam does not treat the Mosque as anything particularly holy.

I take that to mean you think you'd probably feel it in the "Christian place" (the real church) but definitely not in the fake church, since it's a property of karma or something having to do with a supernatural attribute of the church and not just the physical appearance of the building.

If so, that would be falsifiable.

This reminds me of those tests one reads about occasionally in which a museum hangs a painting secretly done by a child or monkey and art critics praise it because they think it was done by a famous artist. When the truth is revealed, the results are usually spun in a cynical way to embarrass the critics, as if it proves they're only influenced by peer pressure and can't really recognize what's good or bad on their own.

I've always felt that the conclusion was wrong, and in fact what it proves is that fine art really is all around us in unexpected places, if only we could break free from peer pressure to recognize it and not wait for someone to put it in a museum.

If such a test were performed and failed, I'd think the same thing--that it would show people were limiting themselves to feeling certain things only in places that they thought should be holy and missing out on so many other opportunities.

Complexity

27th April 2010, 07:46 PM

Schrodinger's Cat

27th April 2010, 07:56 PM

I must visit Spain some day.

You say you were "moved." How exactly were you moved? Was it in admiration of the beauty or grandeur of the place, or perhaps by contemplation of the history? There are many ways to be "moved."

I have already made this point a few times: there are different experiences--and "holiness" differs from "awe" or "admiration."

It was really just lovely, it's one of the most beautiful countries I've been to. :)

Really, the way I felt at the time was that it touched my soul. That's the best way I can explain it. I felt as if my soul was moved, as if I felt an almost ethereal feeling. It's hard to put into words. Like what I've felt with mushrooms only less intense. Definitely a feeling of awe. And a feeling of connection with the people who build those things. And it's strange because even now that I doubt I even have a soul, that is still the only language I can use to express how I felt at that time. But I should also say that I am an artist (not professionally, though i do sell stuff occasionally) so that is definitely a possible reason I felt so connected. But I still think that art has the ability to move us in a way that can feel "spiritual" even outside of a religious context.

Schrodinger's Cat

27th April 2010, 07:57 PM

Trent, wow, I love that picture!

Frank Merton

27th April 2010, 08:10 PM

Frank Merton

27th April 2010, 08:18 PM

Frank Merton - I've skimmed over your posts. They contain nothing of interest as far as I can see.

The feelings that people experience say something about them, not about the places or the superstitious beliefs associated with the places.

That is all.I would say, off hand, that the fact that you were motivated to try to put me down like that testifies against your assertion that what I have said contains nothing of interest.

You are certainly right that what people experience does reveal a lot about them. That does not logically exclude it also saying things about the places, if nothing more than that a given place is beautiful..

Robo Sapien

27th April 2010, 08:52 PM

Karma is just the woo version of "guilt"

Complexity

27th April 2010, 08:57 PM

I would say, off hand, that the fact that you were motivated to try to put me down like that testifies against your assertion that what I have said contains nothing of interest.

You are wrong. Think of my post as a signpost warning people away from a plague zone.

You are certainly right that what people experience does reveal a lot about them. That does not logically exclude it also saying things about the places, if nothing more than that a given place is beautiful..

You are full of woo, I fear.

Frank Merton

27th April 2010, 08:57 PM

Karma is just the woo version of "guilt"It is said that Western culture operates with guilt while in the East it is shame (face).

godofpie

27th April 2010, 09:12 PM

deleted-got busy making pizzas and leaped when I should have looked.

Trent Wray

27th April 2010, 10:00 PM

Let me try to be succinct without leaving myself open to distortion. I suspect (I would not elevate it to the level of opinion) that karma is a real thing and that it does tend to accumulate in certain places--in particular, places where things like peace and compassion are taught. This is my own theory of karma--but I think it is reasonable given the usual ideas about it.

(Another possibility that comes to me as I type this is that the sensation of holiness that I experience in such places comes from the behaviors building karma in oneself when one is in such a place--the meditative mode, the charity giving, etc. If that is the case then "holiness" would be the wrong word to describe it.)

Can this be tested? I suppose you could blindfold me and then lead me to a place and ask whether or not I feel "holiness" (or karma according to this interpretation). All sorts of difficulties with such an experiment come to mind, but I suppose if one were clever enough one might overcome most of them enough to make the outcome reasonably persuasive. Indeed, I think I will venture some personal experiments along these lines when I get back to Vietnam next month.

It would take volumes to explain why I find this explanation more credible than the "rational" ones. I don't really think I would find it worthwhile to try to persuade others here of this--it doesn't really matter anyway--I don't have the ego commitment and there is no harm to anyone that I can see in other opinions. This no doubt sounds like a cop-out (it sure does to me) but I can think of no other way to express it. This is the basic barrier that greets anyone who sees that they are up "against" someone's world-views. Why didn't you just say this from the beginning? You don't think we can "sense" the cat-mouse game?

I suspect you probably won't open up a thread for discussion on karma, because I think you summed up your motive in what I highlighted. You weren't interested in discussion ... you were interested in persuading others to your POV and if we aren't open to being persuaded to it, then why waste your breath .... right? Time to cop-out, which you know you're doing. In other words .... you already think you know the answers (as displayed by some of your posts and your own words), and so you project this onto some of us as well while "feeling us out."

I think you know what a poster who does this type of thing is commonly called :)

ETA: and btw, if you want to read up on an alternative view to karma, read Man's Search for Meaning by Frankl. Perhaps try to read it with a more open mind than you exhibited here in this thread.

Trent Wray

27th April 2010, 10:04 PM

Trent, wow, I love that picture! And I can't get over your avatar! It's so cute *teenie bopper squee* :)

Frank Merton

27th April 2010, 10:11 PM

Why didn't you just say this from the beginning? You don't think we can "sense" the cat-mouse game?

I figured someone would distort what I was trying to say. The simple fact is that different people have different world views, and we are fools if we think we can change anyone's mind on anything in the context of a message board. The best we can hope for is to open a mind a little here and there.

The myth is that when the Buddha found enlightenment, his first reaction was to enter Nirvana right then and there--he knew (as part of being enlightened I suppose) that he could never explain it all to someone who had not shared the experience.

What I was saying was that I had said all I had to say, and that the responses I was getting were only repeating themselves. Therefore, since the record is now in place, I was laying the foundation for removing myself and not having to go around and around any more. We all will llive and die the same regardless of the outcome of these little discussions.

Trent Wray

27th April 2010, 10:47 PM

I figured someone would distort what I was trying to say. The simple fact is that different people have different world views, and we are fools if we think we can change anyone's mind on anything in the context of a message board. The best we can hope for is to open a mind a little here and there. So in other words you don't want to be challenged. You were planting seeds for your belief, and then leaving. It's called trolling and makes a person's credibility equal to that of a snake oil salesman or less.

The myth is that when the Buddha found enlightenment, his first reaction was to enter Nirvana right then and there--he knew (as part of being enlightened I suppose) that he could never explain it all to someone who had not shared the experience.

What I was saying was that I had said all I had to say, and that the responses I was getting were only repeating themselves. Therefore, since the record is now in place, I was laying the foundation for removing myself and not having to go around and around any more. We all will llive and die the same regardless of the outcome of these little discussions. We were only repeating ourselves? Did you read any of those links I provided?

If you said all you had to say, then goodbye. Nice chatting with you. I learned something.

Pup

28th April 2010, 06:22 AM

Why didn't you just say this from the beginning? You don't think we can "sense" the cat-mouse game?

Exactly. I'm all for claiming that something is merely opinion and untestable, when it really is. I wouldn't expect anybody to "prove" that Shakespeare actually sucks but Twilight is great literature, or vice versa--it really is just opinion.

But don't try to claim you have demonstratable supernormal powers but we all gotta just take it on faith. If it's a testable claim, I expect proof.

I've seen too many people claim that places or things radiate something tangible, when it's actually the people projecting their own feelings on the places. When blinded, their accuracy is no better than good guesses. Dousers being affected by water come to mind. I see this as the same category of claim.

Geez, why can't we all just enjoy the amazing capabilities of our brains to create emotions, without making them into something they're not?

tsig

28th April 2010, 08:13 AM

I went to a Walgreens today, during my shopping there was a Black man that was singing hymns to himself a little loud. I paid little attention and went about my shopping. At the checkout counter, he was a ahead of me with an elderly lady who was also ahead of me. He was telling her about how all these people were touched by the spirit, he also said I was touch by the spirit. As though his singing did something to make his god touch me by spirit. It did nothing. I do not know why it is that religious people feel the need to shove their belief systems and their own "version of reality" down other people's throats. I am glad that the line went through very quickly.

I was touched by the Spirit once and I can assure you he won't be touching anyone else there for a long time.

Frank Merton

28th April 2010, 12:33 PM

So in other words you don't want to be challenged. You were planting seeds for your belief, and then leaving. It's called trolling and makes a person's credibility equal to that of a snake oil salesman or less. .You are engaging in ad hominem character assassination, not a genuine examination of the arguments but an attempt to discredit the messenger. Tlhis is okay, I guess, except that you should not claim to be rational is this is your practice.

Karma need not mean anything more than "what goes around comes around." Criminals tend to end up in jail; hypocritical politicians tend to get exposed; people who do risky things tend to end up in hospital. To be sure the world is complicated by chance events, but to the extent that there is order in things, karma is demonstrable.

India-originating idea systems tend to put a physical or "spiritual" tag on this natural tendency, and call it karma, but that is not necessary to realize the reality.

I do note that Westerners have more difficulty seeing this obvious thing than others. I think this is probably because they have not completely escaped Christian or Muslim or Jewish indoctrination--and therefore have a Zoroastrian perspective of good and evil, with evil ruling the present world.

Frank Merton

28th April 2010, 12:44 PM

But don't try to claim you have demonstratable supernormal powers but we all gotta just take it on faith. If it's a testable claim, I expect proof.

I've seen too many people claim that places or things radiate something tangible, when it's actually the people projecting their own feelings on the places. When blinded, their accuracy is no better than good guesses. Dousers being affected by water come to mind. I see this as the same category of claim.

Geez, why can't we all just enjoy the amazing capabilities of our brains to create emotions, without making them into something they're not?I get the feeling I am being bandwagoned. If so, that is a propaganda techinque avoided by rational people.

I don't think your demand for "proof" is rational. All we have a right to do is ask for the evidence, and if testimony is all the evidence we have, then that we have to live with it and, if we are not persuaded, we have to remain agnostic on it. I think it irrational to dismiss things that are otherwise reasonable only on the ground that there is no "proof."

By the way, at no time was my testimony brought into question, because it is obvious that many people experience the same things. That is, I think, the reason I was given so many possible alternative explanations. That these alternative explanations do not seem to hold up very well when looked at closely may well be the reason the responses have now turned nasty.

I will admit that I do not really believe that temples and churches accumulate karma--this was my speculation--which I made clear at the time. I wiill also say that the discussion has been useful to me in causing me to think about it more closely, and I realize that such a notion really does not hold up. Now I am more inclined to think that the sense of what I had been calling "holiness" is instead a reflection of the positive spirit of being in such a place (which might or might not reflect personal accumulation of positive karma).

coalesce

28th April 2010, 12:51 PM

I have never been touched by The Spirit... but either Lamont Cranston or Kent Allard (depending on the medium) once pinched my butt.

What about Will Eisner?

Michael

Trent Wray

28th April 2010, 01:58 PM

I get the feeling I am being bandwagoned. If so, that is a propaganda techinque avoided by rational people. And I feel as though you've used forms of paralipsis throughout your posts. Now do you want to continue discussing the phenomena or do you want to switch to analyzing each other's motives?

Frank Merton

28th April 2010, 02:08 PM

And I feel as though you've used forms of paralipsis throughout your posts. Now do you want to continue discussing the phenomena or do you want to switch to analyzing each other's motives?
You make me grin; you already made that switch.

Trent Wray

28th April 2010, 02:31 PM

You make me grin; you already made that switch. I recognize when I'm analyzing. I also recognize when I'm choosing to respond based on emotion. I have no issues distinguishing between them or admitting to them.

Why does this make you grin?

Frank Merton

28th April 2010, 02:37 PM

I recognize when I'm analyzing. I also recognize when I'm choosing to respond based on emotion. I have no issues distinguishing between them or admitting to them.

Why does this make you grin?
I would think it would be obvious. You respond to my one remark about method and ignore my slubstantive points. Besides, you several messages ago reverted to ad hominems. Now you have the gall to ask me.

Pup

28th April 2010, 03:12 PM

I don't think your demand for "proof" is rational. All we have a right to do is ask for the evidence, and if testimony is all the evidence we have, then that we have to live with it and, if we are not persuaded, we have to remain agnostic on it. I think it irrational to dismiss things that are otherwise reasonable only on the ground that there is no "proof."

Evidence would have been a better word than proof, certainly, but I don't see why I have to remain agnostic in this case (if I'm correctly understanding the hypothesis--more on that in the last two paragraphs below)

Obviously, we disagree on what's "otherwise reasonable." I think it's absolutely unreasonable to think that a person has the power to tell whether believers have worshiped at a location, unless the person gained that knowledge through normal means--noticing physical evidence, being told, etc.

Seriously. That would be an absolutely extraordinary ability. Anyone who could do it would win the million dollar challenge, for starters. It's that big.

By the way, at no time was my testimony brought into question, because it is obvious that many people experience the same things.

Absolutely. I've never questioned that people feel a sense of holiness under certain conditions, and buildings with impressive architecture and/or strong cultural meanings seem like they should be among the most common places where it would happen.

What I've questioned all along is that there's something in the building itself that causes the feeling, whether it's a spirit, karma, the presence of god, an "unknown thing which produces holiness," or whatever. I realize that that's a fairly common claim among people, but I think they're mistaken. I think they'd quickly fail a double-blind real-church/fake-church test, just like dousers fail double-blind dousing tests.

That wouldn't diminish the sense of holiness. That sensation would be just as "real" and feel just the same. However, it would show that the sensation is caused by physical architecture and personal associations, and not by an outside entity--just as the sticks still seem to move in dousers' hands, even after we learn that the movement is coming from their own knowledge and muscles, not some outside knowledge-imparting kinetic force.

I will admit that I do not really believe that temples and churches accumulate karma--this was my speculation--which I made clear at the time. I wiill also say that the discussion has been useful to me in causing me to think about it more closely, and I realize that such a notion really does not hold up. Now I am more inclined to think that the sense of what I had been calling "holiness" is instead a reflection of the positive spirit of being in such a place (which might or might not reflect personal accumulation of positive karma).

If you mean that the "positive spirit" is something that the viewer subjectively applies to the place, we're in whole-hearted agreement. It's pretty much untestable but is such a common human experience that I'd see absolutely no reason to doubt it, if somebody told me they felt it.

If you mean that the positive spirit is in the building itself and could be used to tell that building from an otherwise-identical building, I'll wait till somebody uses that power to win the million, before I'll believe it.

Robo Sapien

28th April 2010, 03:27 PM

I get the feeling I am being bandwagoned. If so, that is a propaganda techinque avoided by rational people.

"Bandwagoning" is not a technique, it is the effect of multiple people endorsing the ideas of one person or group based on status alone. Think of it as mass argument from authority. I find that statement equally absurd to your other one about ad hominem. You have repeatedly demonstrated a complete void of understanding when it comes to logical fallacies. Sorry, but you need to do a little more than skim through a list of bad argument types before you can start calling people out like that. Any time someone points out your failures in an embarassing way, you point your finger and cry ad hom. Putting quotes around "proof" is a flimsy attempt at undermining the value of real evidence, only to empower yourself to make presumptuous claims without having to back them up.

I don't think your demand for "proof" is rational. All we have a right to do is ask for the evidence, and if testimony is all the evidence we have, then that we have to live with it and, if we are not persuaded, we have to remain agnostic on it. I think it irrational to dismiss things that are otherwise reasonable only on the ground that there is no "proof."

Wrong on both points. 1.) A rational conclusion is never drawn on assumptions without evidence. If there is no evident conclusion, then a rational person must deem an investigation inconclusive. 2.) Testimonials are called anecdotal evidence, and are not considered valid in any argument, unless that argument is made in regards to the opinions of those giving testimony. If a testimony is all we have, we do NOT have to accept it as evidence. Lack of tangible proof does not default a testimonial to validity.

By the way, at no time was my testimony brought into question, because it is obvious that many people experience the same things. That is, I think, the reason I was given so many possible alternative explanations. That these alternative explanations do not seem to hold up very well when looked at closely may well be the reason the responses have now turned nasty.

Your testimony was never brought into question because, as stated above, anecdotes have no weight in an argument. Further, you have no valid grounds to claim that these "alternative" explanations do not hold up. Each and every last "alternative" provided to you is supported by case studies. You know, those things that yield real evidence?

I will admit that I do not really believe that temples and churches accumulate karma--this was my speculation--which I made clear at the time. I wiill also say that the discussion has been useful to me in causing me to think about it more closely, and I realize that such a notion really does not hold up. Now I am more inclined to think that the sense of what I had been calling "holiness" is instead a reflection of the positive spirit of being in such a place (which might or might not reflect personal accumulation of positive karma).

So in other words, you recant your original assertion, but insist that you were correct in making said assertion? Because why? Sorry, but it doesn't work that way. You are trying to create a huge grey area (i.e. "might or might not") in between right and wrong through which you can escape your fate of losing this argument. And you think people are supposed to respect your opinion when you can't even admit you were wrong about something AFTER acknowledging that you were?

Take note, also, that your statement in quote #3 directly contradicts your statement in quote #4 -- First these "alternative explanations do not hold up" and then in the next paragraph you say you are inclined to think that the "holiness" of a church is a reflection of personal attitude towards the environment. Which, is exactly what we've been saying to you the whole ****** time.

Game over man, game over.

Trent Wray

28th April 2010, 05:35 PM

I would think it would be obvious. You respond to my one remark about method and ignore my slubstantive points. Besides, you several messages ago reverted to ad hominems. Now you have the gall to ask me.
At first I thought you weren't understanding my POV at all because you were refusing to acknowledge certain aspects of it. But you've misjudged my motives and made assumptions about the reasons behind my posting this entire conversation that have distracted you from my own points.

I have not been ignoring your "substantive posts". I have been addressing them and considering them and trying to look past the apparent ad homs that you yourself were tossing out there subversively, trying to give you the benefit of the doubt. When you came out with the karma idea, but then began to make even more assumptions about the nature of the overall posts directed towards you and explained why you were finished .... I pointed out what I was trying to see past in your posts all along. I was "considering another angle" in giving you the benefit of the doubt. But I don't think you've understood where I have been coming from this whole time. You are seeing some of my own opinions expressed about your own motives ... but you are misinterpreting my own motives. It's like you are seeing an oak tree, but calling it a maple tree. And I think this also explains why you're not understanding the overall points (or at least my points) about the topic in the first place. You are not seeing the basis for how I'm suggesting the conclusions that I am .... about the "spirit phenomena" and your own motives for posting. And I am actually trying to give you the benefit of the doubt that you're not just playing some cat-mouse game using troll like tactics of poking bee-hives and then back-peddling, otherwise I would have just sided with Robo Sapien and others and called you on some of your own posts and let it go.

Frank Merton

28th April 2010, 05:45 PM

The bandwagoning is in full effect, and is counterproductive. It serves only to sour my attitude about the participants and their unwillingness to even try to see things from a different point of view. Instead they resort to the standard tactics of demagogues everywhere of insult, distortion and propaganda. Sheesh. I very much regret joining this board, but in a sense you have succeeded. I will go away.

Trent Wray

28th April 2010, 05:52 PM

You apparently came to these boards with preconceived notions and were looking for evidence to reinforce those notions. Of course you are going to find what you were looking for. It's called confirmation bias.

If you want to discuss your own or ours, I suggest opening up another thread.

Other than that, take care of yourself.

Tatyana

28th April 2010, 05:56 PM

In the spirit is what the ancients called it.
In today's language, I call it telepathy.

I have initiated telepathy twice in my life.
The second time, I reached the Godhead that I identify as a cosmic consciousness. I have no proof to offer as to the reality of this contact any more than anyone else can prove for their Gods so don't bother to ask for any.

Prior to this experience I was a good skeptic and non believer. I still know that Bible God is a myth only and believe that the Godhead was what the ancients found and unfortunately built Him up to the point of the silliness and impossible attributes that we now give Him.

I would not believe the reality of telepathy except for the fact that the first time I did it it was to my wife. Because of her and our experience, I must and do believe in telepathy and the Godhead.
It is not supernatural and to me is just our next evolutionary step.

It is not to be prayed to or adored by me any more than a tadpole would adore the frog he will become. It is just there and not particularly impressive as compared to the non existing miracle working God.

Regards
DL

Check out flow or peak experiences. I like Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi best.

When you learn the technique, you can put yourself 'into the zone' at almost any time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mih%C3%A1ly_Cs%C3%ADkszentmih%C3%A1lyi#Flow

Touched by the spirit? Yes, many times over the course of my life, it still happens, I quite like it,I am moved to tears of joy quite often (or that peak flow thing) but it isn't evidence of anything besides a brain phenomena.

Have we arrived at the conclusion that we should punch the annoying publicly loud spirit christians and hippies in the head yet?

:)

Trent Wray

28th April 2010, 06:06 PM

Check out flow or peak experiences. I like Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi best.

When you learn the technique, you can put yourself 'into the zone' at almost any time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mih%C3%A1ly_Cs%C3%ADkszentmih%C3%A1lyi#Flow

Touched by the spirit? Yes, many times over the course of my life, it still happens, I quite like it,I am moved to tears of joy quite often (or that peak flow thing) but it isn't evidence of anything besides a brain phenomena.

Have we arrived at the conclusion that we should punch the annoying publicly loud spirit christians and hippies in the head yet?

:) OMG .... what a great link. What other stuff is there along these lines?

Tatyana

28th April 2010, 06:13 PM

OMG .... what a great link. What other stuff is there along these lines?

I was introduced to it when I was doing an Open University Psychology class, and the concept of situational awareness, peak experience and flow were all presented.

It was one of those 'wow' moments for me too.

I am fairly positive you will be able to find more information on the net or a book, there were bits about this in our textbooks and we also got some great handouts from the lecture.

It really is amazing the number of things that people/scientists have actually studied.

Robo Sapien

28th April 2010, 08:19 PM

I was introduced to it when I was doing an Open University Psychology class, and the concept of situational awareness, peak experience and flow were all presented.

It was one of those 'wow' moments for me too.

I am fairly positive you will be able to find more information on the net or a book, there were bits about this in our textbooks and we also got some great handouts from the lecture.

It really is amazing the number of things that people/scientists have actually studied.

Thanks for sharing that, I love that kind of stuff. Especially when it coincides with my little theories I cook up during my smoke breaks, makes me feel halfway smart. I've never heard of the flow before as an actual cognitive theory, but I've always been interested in the study of situational awareness. I've been reading up on what our brains do during our sleep, which plays a big part in development of intuitive responses, I'll bet there's a connection between that and the flow.

As a long time player of shooter games, I know the zone well :)