Extreme rationality and faith

[LAS in LA]

Extra-biblical accounts?  Anyone????

 

As the OP, could I ask a bit of a favour?  Things are getting a bit personal and a bit heated and I was really hoping that this thread wouldn't go the way of so many others.  I realize I have no right to control or direct this thread so I'll just put out a request to keep the thread on a philosophical/intellectual level instead of an emotional one.  I don't want anyone, from any viewpoint, to feel attacked or like they have to defend themselves.  I also don't want anyone to feel as though they MUST prove themselves and their viewpoint right.  That was never my intent with this thread.  I guarantee - I'm stubborn enough that nothing any one person says or doesn't say will sway me in one direction or another. :D

 

So...

 

Any links for me?  Extra-biblical accounts?

I didn't get through all of the posts yet, but did anyone mention the C.S. Lewis book called Miracles?

[albeto.]

Not at all. You stated that spiritual experiences cannot be repeated under controlled conditions.

 

The phrase I used was, "As a means of explaining reality, science has in fact figured out ways to evaluate, measure and even control what you might call 'spiritual conditions.'" My point was to illustrate how we can repeat experiences under controlled conditions, and thus rule out "spiritual" as an explanation. Unless we have reason to assume this "God Helmet" really did bring spirits into the room, or really did open a portal to Hell, we would be more rational to assume the explanation of "spiritual" or "supernatural" does not reflect what is going on here, whereas the explanation of "material" or "natural" does.

 

I also agree with you that undefined and unexplained phenomena of a possibly spiritual nature should not be used as variables to explain physical phenomena in a scientific setting (I use the word physical rather than "natural" because I would assert that both physical and spiritual phenomena are "natural" and therefore "natural" is not a useful word to distinguish between the two).

 

How are you identifying and defining "spiritual" here?

 

The experiment in the video was supposedly about reproducing a spiritual experience, but it only measured and manipulated physical conditions, not spiritual ones (dark rooms, magnetic fields, and electrical impulses in the brain are all physical conditions).

 

I think you misunderstood the video. The purpose of the research doesn't function to reproduce a "spiritual experience." We know these experiences are produced by manipulating natural elements (certain neurons in certain areas of the brain using certain forces in certain measure). It appears that "spiritual experience" isn't the most accurate way to explain these experiences. There's no information available that allows us to explore the "spiritual" world. However by analyzing the information available, we're increasingly showing that what was once attributed to the spirits is instead understood to be physical in nature. In the same way meteorology replaced the spiritual explanation of thunderstorms, we're finding neurology replace the spiritual explanation of some remarkable, intense, even life-changing personal experiences.

 

The only evidence given in the video regarding the results of the experience is a subjective anecdotal report offered by the participant.

This video introduces an interesting concept in seven minutes for a television show. It shouldn't be mistaken for decades of collaborative research by an entire field of biology. One can easily find out more about this research and others like it. The rest of your critique is arguing against a premise that has not been made.

 

Anyway. 

Yes, research has identified many other mechanics--mostly physical, but with increasing inroads into cognitive and emotional arenas as well--that influence and are influenced by personal experiences. Some, but not all, of these mechanics can be defined, identified, isolated, and explored to some extent, though this mostly applies to physical phenomena since science is still working out how to define, quantify, and examine cognitive and emotional aspects of personal experiences. And the relationships between different aspects of personal experience are still very mysterious, scientifically speaking. In fact, many of the explorations in this field are regarded as "soft" science and not held to the same standards as "hard" science at all because too much of it is still too nebulous. But none of that in any way disproves the existence of spiritual experience.

 

Perhaps I've provided an unhelpful distraction. The purpose of showing that video was to show how science can and does find answers to questions once accepted as religious. You suggest this neurological evidence does not disprove the existence of spiritual experience. It should be understood that it's not trying to disprove anything, it's simply trying to find answers to questions via the scientific method. However, there is, to date, no proof or evidence of any kind that supports the hypothesis that a spiritual reality does exist. How does one disprove what has not ever been proven?

 

I completely agree with you that just because someone experiences something that doesn't mean that their explanation for that experience is accurate. Someone claiming to have a spiritual experience might have had a physical experience, or an emotional experience instead, but mistakes it for a spiritual experience. And just because one is sure their explanation works doesn't mean it does. BUT, this is also true of science. One may collect data. But the conclusions drawn from the data may or may not accurately reflect objective reality. Sometimes data is faulty for whatever reason (human error, faulty equipment, failure to take an unknown variable into consideration, etc.). Sometimes the conclusions are influenced by the researcher's personal biases or expectations. There's really a lot of subjective interpretation when it comes to the part where conclusions are drawn (ask ten researchers). There is a reason that replication and peer review are part of the process of science, and there is a reason that scientific conclusions are ALWAYS open to revision when new data become available.

 

No doubt. This infrastructure of accountability is part of the reason the scientific method is the best tool we have of exploring and explaining the world around us. I'm curious, I know of no objective accountability in religious explanations for events. By that I mean, one can explain a Near Death Experience as a spiritual experience as Christian, Hindu, pagan, new age, or any number of religious and spiritual explanations. Do you know of any objective source of accountability to help determine which explanation is most accurate? For example, would the OP know she'd do well to listen to Joyce Meyers or Deepak Chopra if she wanted to understand more about a NDE outside the parameters of the scientific method?

 

I'm sure it would be comforting to have faith that science is inerrantly accurate and objective, but I've known way too many scientists to be able to look at it that way.

 

Science does not require faith. There's a difference between scientific and religious explanations, one can check to see if the scientific explanation works. There is no need to believe it through faith.

[albeto.]

For those of you with historical knowledge, is belief in the literal resurrection of Christ a modern concept?  Did Christians throughout the ages believe that the entire Bible was allegorical?  Or only parts of it?

 

Jesus was one of many (dozens and dozens) "resurrection gods" believed to have lived, died, and resurrected throughout human history. Arguably, Jesus' own resurrection wasn't any more Christian in origin than the existence of a god was Jewish in origin. 

 

To the best of my knowledge, no community has advocated the idea that the entirety of the implausible parts of the religious texts are allegorical until recently (I think Sprong does this openly, now, but I could be mistaken). To answer your other question about taking claims allegorically and still considering oneself as a member of the believing community, the answer is - self-identity is self-defined. Consider Mormons and orthodox Christianity. Mormons hold some significant differences to orthodox Christians in their understanding of the identity and purpose of Jesus, but they consider the JCoLDS to be a fully Christian religion (if not the most accurate one). Many orthodox Christians are perfectly comfortable with this identity, whereas others are quite adamant about the idea that it cannot be so. That's just one example, but there are many.

 

 Allegorically speaking, any concepts taken from the bible can be found elsewhere. I think that's why people have adopted the identity of "spiritual" over "Christian."

[MamaSheep]

The phrase I used was, "As a means of explaining reality, science has in fact figured out ways to evaluate, measure and even control what you might call 'spiritual conditions.'" My point was to illustrate how we can repeat experiences under controlled conditions, and thus rule out "spiritual" as an explanation.

 

That was not the phrase I was responding to, but the point was similar. I'm pretty sure I understand your point, I just disagree with you. I'm not convinced that you understand my objection.[/size]

 

Your argument (if I understand you rightly) is that scientists can control the physical conditions under which they conduct their experiments, and that by controlling the physical conditions they can rule out "spiritual" as an explanation. My argument is that you cannot rule out "spiritual" as an explanation unless you can control for "spiritual" conditions within the experiment. Let me try another analogy. [/size]

 

Let's say that you wanted to learn about whether sound waves were a factor in a particular physical phenomenon. Then let's say you set up your experiment to control light instead--you can detect the light, you can measure the light, you can tell when light is present and when it is not because you have some sort of photosensor (but no microphone) in your experimental environment. You run your experiment and the desired result occurs. Can you rationally conclude from this that sound is not a factor, and that the result is produced solely by light? No, because sound was not controlled in the experiment. It might have SEEMED that the light caused the effect when, in fact, the effect happened because every time someone turned on the light switch it made a sound, and it was the sound that caused the effect, even though light was what you were measuring and focusing on. [/size]You might not even have noticed the sound made by the light switch because it is just such a routine part of your life that you "read over" it.[/size] [/size]Or perhaps there were people talking in the background whenever you were in the lab performing the experiment. Or perhaps there was some other kind of noise pollution involved. Your conclusion that the light caused the effect and that sound is not a factor may even be correct, but it's not supported by this experiment. In order for a conclusion that sound is not a factor to be valid, the experiment would need to be able to control for sound--you would need to be able to detect when sound was happening, and to exclude it from the experiment, and elicit the same result in a sound-free environment. Maybe a sensitive microphone inside a sound-proof box with the the light switch outside and a light bulb that didn't hum to any degree. That sort of thing. In science, when you want to prove that a particular effect is produced by a specific cause, you have to eliminate all other possible causes--at the very LEAST you have to control for the ones you are trying to rule out as possibilities. If you're trying to rule out sound as a cause, you have to control for sound in order to have anything resembling a scientifically valid conclusion.[/size]

 

Similarly, if one wishes to scientifically prove that "spiritual" is not a factor in the explanation of a phenomenon, one would need to be able to ascertain whether anything "spiritual" was present in the experimental environment. Since science has no way of doing this, it is not scientifically valid to say that "spiritual" can be scientifically ruled out as a cause, or a partial cause in an experiment. Conversely, of course, we cannot scientifically prove that "spiritual" IS a factor in any given experiment. (For example, those pseudo-scientific experiments that conclude that prayer works bug me for the same reason. They have no way to show that "prayer" as a "spiritual force" was present and that it was any different from secular people merely reciting poetry as a physical exercise, which is not the same thing in my experience, having done both.)

 

Unless we have reason to assume this "God Helmet" really did bring spirits into the room, or really did open a portal to Hell, we would be more rational to assume the explanation of "spiritual" or "supernatural" does not reflect what is going on here, whereas the explanation of "material" or "natural" does.

I see no scientific reason to assume the "God Helmet" did anything at all other than sit there emitting a weak complex magnetic field. Since attempts to replicate the results of this experiment have failed, there's no reason to assume that the helmet had anything to do with the experiences reported by the participants at all. 

 

Assuming that the participants aren't just making it up (which I see as a possibility), if the helmet cannot be shown to reliably produce the effect (and so far this is the case), then the more rational conclusion is that the effect was produced by something other than the helmet. It could be physical factors such as the sensory deprivation, which has been shown in other experiments to produce various hallucinatory effects all on its own without any sort of magnetic helmet. (That would be my guess.) But there is no way to prove that spirits didn't just happen to wander through the room either (I'm not sure why you would assume that they would need to be brought in, or come through a portal to hell--though I suspect you were just being dramatic there rather than rational) because there was no control built into the experiment to rule this possibility out. It's just taken as an assumption that the experiment is being conducted in a "spirit-free" environment because the scientist doesn't believe there is any such thing as spirits--which is a great demonstration of the logical fallacy of assuming the conclusion. 

 

Additionally, even if the results of this experiment were replicable (which thus far they haven't been) and there was reasonable evidence that magnetic fields applied to the temporal lobe do produce the same effect that other people call a "spiritual experience", that would not prove that a temporal lobe encounter with a magnetic field is the ONLY possible cause of such an effect. That would be like saying that because fluorescent light bulbs can be reliably shown to produce light, they are the only possible source of light and that any time someone reports having experienced light that means there's a fluorescent light bulb somewhere in the vicinity causing that experience. You would probably have a hard time convincing someone of this who had been outdoors on a sunny day.

 

But that's a moot point because the results are not replicable and are therefore not scientifically valid.  

 

How are you identifying and defining "spiritual" here?

I don't have a scientific definition. I know it when I experience it. 

 

I think you misunderstood the video. The purpose of the research doesn't function to reproduce a "spiritual experience." We know these experiences are produced by manipulating natural elements (certain neurons in certain areas of the brain using certain forces in certain measure). It appears that "spiritual experience" isn't the most accurate way to explain these experiences. There's no information available that allows us to explore the "spiritual" world. However by analyzing the information available, we're increasingly showing that what was once attributed to the spirits is instead understood to be physical in nature. In the same way meteorology replaced the spiritual explanation of thunderstorms, we're finding neurology replace the spiritual explanation of some remarkable, intense, even life-changing personal experiences.

 

This video introduces an interesting concept in seven minutes for a television show. It shouldn't be mistaken for decades of collaborative research by an entire field of biology. One can easily find out more about this research and others like it. The rest of your critique is arguing against a premise that has not been made.

 

I didn't misunderstand the video, I just disagree with its methodology and conclusions. Your statement that "We know these experiences are produced by manipulating natural elements (certain neurons in certain areas of the brain using certain forces in certain measure)" is, in my opinion scientifically invalid (not necessarily incorrect) because the results of this experiment and others like it are still controversial. They are not reliably replicable, which is a necessary condition for a thesis to be considered scientifically valid. That being the case, these assertions have not been proven to my satisfaction. I realize that you are satisfied with the conclusions and assertions of these scientists, and that's fine, you can believe whatever you want. I like my science a little more solid than what is currently available on the subject. And I'm not just talking about your video. Having a child with autism, I have done a little reading about brain research and the physiology and psychology of human behavior. It would be nice if it was as cut-and-dry, black-and-white as you apparently like to believe, and if you want to incorporate that as part of your belief system I'm not going to stop you. I'm sure that you find it comforting to believe that it's that clear-cut, but from a scientific stand point it really isn't. From a scientific standpoint this area of study is wide open and getting wider all the time. Every (reliably established) conclusion opens up more interesting questions. Previous beliefs about how the brain works and doesn't work are being overturned all the time. All the time. It's exciting and fascinating and wonderful, but it is not remotely clear cut and set in concrete. 

 

Perhaps I've provided an unhelpful distraction. The purpose of showing that video was to show how science can and does find answers to questions once accepted as religious. You suggest this neurological evidence does not disprove the existence of spiritual experience. It should be understood that it's not trying to disprove anything, it's simply trying to find answers to questions via the scientific method. However, there is, to date, no proof or evidence of any kind that supports the hypothesis that a spiritual reality does exist. How does one disprove what has not ever been proven?

Perhaps the video has been an unhelpful distraction as you say. The video does not fulfill the purpose you state because it shows an experiment that has been scientifically debunked by at least one double blind study that concluded that the helmet had no relationship whatsoever with the experiences reported by the participants, but that the participants were most likely to experience whatever they thought going in that they were likely to experience--if they thought they'd sense a presence they did, if they thought they wouldn't they didn't--whether the helmet was turned on or not.

 

Regarding how one disproves what has not ever been proven, that is a key function of the scientific method. A scientist formulates a hypothesis regarding something that has not been proven, and then they design an experiment that they think will prove or disprove the hypothesis. Sometimes the experimental process (including peer review and replication of results) shows that the hypothesis was correct and what was formerly unproven becomes considered to be proven (until a better explanation arises). Sometimes the experimental process produces results that disprove the hypothesis, and what has not ever been proven is then considered to be disproven. (And sometimes the results are flawed or inconclusive, and there is no change in status for the hypothesis, it has still never been proven or disproven.) Proving and/or disproving what has not ever been proven is pretty much what science is FOR. There are other methods for examining reality, of course, but science was pretty much invented in order to prove and disprove things that had not previously been proven. And it would be very irrational, not to mention unscientific, to insist that only things that ARE currently proven ever COULD be proven. Gosh, what would be the point of curiosity then?

 

And you're right, to date there is no concretely established scientific proof of the existence of a spiritual reality. But there is also no concretely established scientific proof that there is no such thing either. What science does when a hypothesis has neither been proven nor disproven is to say "we don't know". What science does NOT do is to just pick one because it aligns with one's preconceptions, or because it's the most appealing option for whatever reason, and then insist it's the one and only "right" answer. (However, individual human scientists are still free to choose one or the other if they feel it's more plausible for whatever reason, and to operate on that assumption in their own personal lives. That doesn't make it a scientific conclusion, it's just a personal conclusion made by a person who happens also to be a scientist by profession.) 

 

No doubt. This infrastructure of accountability is part of the reason the scientific method is the best tool we have of exploring and explaining the world around us. I'm curious, I know of no objective accountability in religious explanations for events. By that I mean, one can explain a Near Death Experience as a spiritual experience as Christian, Hindu, pagan, new age, or any number of religious and spiritual explanations. Do you know of any objective source of accountability to help determine which explanation is most accurate? For example, would the OP know she'd do well to listen to Joyce Meyers or Deepak Chopra if she wanted to understand more about a NDE outside the parameters of the scientific method?

It's true that religious people don't agree on everything. It's also true that scientists don't agree on everything. I can't tell the OP who can give her the best explanation of a near death experience from a spiritual standpoint any more than I can tell her who to listen to if she wants the "right" scientific explanation for what causes autism. But lack of agreement about the correct scientific explanation of autism doesn't mean there IS no correct scientific explanation, and lack of agreement about the correct spiritual explanation of a near death experience doesn't mean there is no correct spiritual explanation. It just means that the process of discovery is ongoing in both cases. 

 

I suspect that at some point science will come up with a good explanation regarding autism (actually, my guess is that they will find that autism has multiple causes, just like blindness or deafness can be caused by more than one thing, but that's another discussion), but at present theories and explanations abound, all based on varying degrees of science. I also suspect that when we die we will get accurate information about what death is from a more subjective, internal, "spiritual" point of view. 

 

For the sake of clarity, I want to reiterate that I am not arguing that science and spirituality/religion are the same thing. They're not. Science relies on external, objectively observable evidence. Spirituality relies (at least at present) primarily on internal subjective experience. I have not argued that they're the same thing or that they operate on the same principles. I have only expressed my opinion that an individual person can apply rational thought to both external observable experience, and to internal subjective experience--that one can perform external, objectively observable experiments based on scientific principles, and that one can conduct internal, subjectively observable experiments based on spiritual principles.

 

I've also argued that science doesn't rule out spirituality. I would add that spirituality doesn't rule out science. I love both, I embrace both, they play together nicely for me. Sure, it's hard sometimes to find a scientific explanation for a spiritually observed phenomenon. It's also difficult sometimes to find a spiritual explanation for a scientifically observed phenomenon. But to me, both methods of exploration are still valid when conducted according to the "natural laws" that govern each. And yes, discovery of what those "natural laws" are is part of the process in science, as well as in spirituality.

 

Science does not require faith. There's a difference between scientific and religious explanations, one can check to see if the scientific explanation works. There is no need to believe it through faith.

I more or less agree with you that pure science doesn't require faith. However, in my opinion a lot of people don't practice pure science, and instead substitute a variety of faith. 

 

The fact is, most people DON'T check to see if a scientific explanation works, they just take the word of the "scientific expert" for it BECAUSE he's a "scientific expert" and he says he observed such and such. They also tend to accept the scientist's conclusion (which is the individual scientist's opinion about the data, not the data itself) drawn by the scientific expert without checking to see how well his conclusion actually matches up with the data he was evaluating. (Different scientists looking at the exact same raw data can, and frequently do, come up with several alternate explanations for that data.) But if one "scientist" says that his experiment showed that a magnetic field generated by a helmet causes proprioceptive hallucinations, a lot of people just blindly accept that without checking it for themselves by replicating the experiment, and without applying critical thinking to the scientist's conclusion. They just trust that because he is a scientist and he did an experiment then he must be right. Sometimes this blind acceptance persists even in the face of contradictory scientific information, such as double-blind studies that attempted to replicate the results of that experiment and instead disproved it. 

 

And to me, people who put their trust in a scientific explanations of other people are not practicing science, they are exhibiting faith in the scientists. I'm not saying it's always misplaced faith, I'm just saying that "complete trust or confidence in someone or something" is the definition of faith, whether you're trusting that a scientist saw what he says he saw or trusting that a mystic saw what he says he saw. And if their belief in that scientist's conclusion persists in the face of evidence to the contrary that fits another definition of faith (though I have some problems with this definition, but I won't go into that now). 

 

Another definition of faith is belief in something for which there is no tangible proof. Science does contain a few of these gems too. For example, there is no tangible proof that the processes at work in the universe have always proceeded at the same rate that they now proceed. If there had been a shift of rate for ALL of the processes at the same time, where they all sped up or slowed down proportionally the same amount, we would have no way of knowing that because our measurements are based on the relationships between processes, so if the relationship stayed the same but the rate changed, we couldn't measure that. However, for practical purposes science takes as given that what is happening now has always happened at the same rate that it is now happening. There's no tangible proof that this is the case, but scientists choose to "believe" it anyway, for practical reasons, until someone proves otherwise. For that matter, people can (and do) argue that there is no irrefutable tangible proof of the existence of the physical world/universe in the first place. Some people posit that it's all just a massive computer simulation. And it's interesting that the more we are able to break down "substance" into its component parts, the more we find that each component part of substance is not made up of substance. And yet, science continues to "believe" in a physical existence. 

 

Interestingly, to me at least, no one scientist out there has ever performed all the scientific experiments personally and observed the results. To some degree, they are all believing something based on someone else's reports of their personal observations and experiences. 

 

Conversely, I have had religious leaders tell me NOT to take their word for it, but to explore spiritual reality for myself, and gain knowledge through my own personal experience. I have then proceeded to conduct internal, subjectively (but directly) observed spiritual "experiments", and my results have been consistently repeatable. My results also correspond to reports offered by others who have conducted similar experiments. 

 

Again, I'm not saying that science and spirituality are the same thing. They are not. I'm just saying that in my experience some of the things people label "faith" apply equally well to most people's approach to science, and some of the things people label "science" apply equally well in my personal approach to faith/spirituality/religion.

[albeto.]

That was not the phrase I was responding to, but the point was similar. I'm pretty sure I understand your point, I just disagree with you. I'm not convinced that you understand my objection.

 

Your argument (if I understand you rightly) is that scientists can control the physical conditions under which they conduct their experiments, and that by controlling the physical conditions they can rule out "spiritual" as an explanation.

This might be the point of confusion. This is not my argument. Rather, my position is that through exploring via the scientific method, we can gain knowledge of the world around us, and further, this knowledge does not offer any spiritual or supernatural explanations. It may in time, but as of today, there have been no such explanations. At the same time, the information uncovered suffices to explain quite eloquently what we observe without imposing spiritual components. Again, spiritual and supernatural considerations are simply not a variable of consideration. There's no need to rule out the Christian spiritual explanation any more than there is a need to rule out fairies, kami, or karma.

 

I don't have a scientific definition. I know it when I experience it.

You may trust your judgement, but it's more plausible to attribute your explanation to the fact that the religion familiar to you is naturally applied to explain some of your experiences. It's logical to assume that the common beliefs of your culture have influenced your perception. Being taught to believe there is a spiritual reality, you would naturally attribute that explanation to certain events. Had you been raised in a Native American culture 300 years ago, Hindu culture 600 years ago, or a secular culture today, your perception and subsequent explanations for these experiences would be quite different. 

 

It would be nice if it was as cut-and-dry, black-and-white as you apparently like to believe, and if you want to incorporate that as part of your belief system I'm not going to stop you. I'm sure that you find it comforting to believe that it's that clear-cut, but from a scientific stand point it really isn't. From a scientific standpoint this area of study is wide open and getting wider all the time. Every (reliably established) conclusion opens up more interesting questions. Previous beliefs about how the brain works and doesn't work are being overturned all the time. All the time. It's exciting and fascinating and wonderful, but it is not remotely clear cut and set in concrete.

Just to repeat what I said upthread, I am in no way suggesting this video provides a complete and comprehensive explanation of this concept, nor should it be taken as such.

 

And you're right, to date there is no concretely established scientific proof of the existence of a spiritual reality. But there is also no concretely established scientific proof that there is no such thing either.

Can you share an example of some objectively obtained information that supports the hypothesis of the existence of a spiritual reality? As the OP is looking for this very thing, how would she go about finding it? What sources would lead her (and me) to this information?

 

It's true that religious people don't agree on everything. It's also true that scientists don't agree on everything.

This is irrelevant and misleading to the topic.

 

I also suspect that when we die we will get accurate information about what death is from a more subjective, internal, "spiritual" point of view.

If one does not wish to wait for death to gather information, how would they go about finding out?

 

I have only expressed my opinion that an individual person can apply rational thought to both external observable experience, and to internal subjective experience--that one can perform external, objectively observable experiments based on scientific principles, and that one can conduct internal, subjectively observable experiments based on spiritual principles.

What are these "spiritual principles" upon which one can conduct internal, subjectively observable experiments? Also, in what way are subjective data more valuable than objective data?

 

The fact is, most people DON'T check to see if a scientific explanation works, they just take the word of the "scientific expert" for it BECAUSE he's a "scientific expert" and he says he observed such and such.

This is also irrelevant, and misleading to the topic. The question is, how can the OP (or me or anyone) find out if a supernatural reality exists? How people respond to information, misinformation, or the lack of information is beside this point.

 

Interestingly, to me at least, no one scientist out there has ever performed all the scientific experiments personally and observed the results. To some degree, they are all believing something based on someone else's reports of their personal observations and experiences.

This statement, and the ones preceding it, show a fundamental flaw in your representation of the scientific method and how it is applied in reality. Your premise seems to be that a spiritual explanation can be applied to certain events accurately (please correct me if I'm wrong). My question is, how would one go about identifying and applying this spiritual components? Also, can you share some information that has been gained via this spiritual method?

[Dicentra]

Conversely, I have had religious leaders tell me NOT to take their word for it, but to explore spiritual reality for myself, and gain knowledge through my own personal experience. I have then proceeded to conduct internal, subjectively (but directly) observed spiritual "experiments", and my results have been consistently repeatable. My results also correspond to reports offered by others who have conducted similar experiments. 

 

 

This is the kind of evidence that would be useful to me to help me move towards the level of certainty I'm seeking. :)  Would you mind terribly explaining your experiments?  Would they be something I could replicate for myself?  Where can I find the reports offered by others?

[milovany]

 

For those of you with historical knowledge, is belief in the literal resurrection of Christ a modern concept? 

 

That belief was absolutely part of the faith of the early church.  Absolutely without a doubt. 

 

You had asked earlier upthread for non-biblical writings that discussed Christ and the early church.  Here is a book I've appreciated in that regard.  There are numerous other writings, too, but this gives a good, non-overwhelming exposure to these texts and they show the beliefs and practices of the early church.  The Didache is the earliest of these writings.  Hope this helps. 

 

http://www.amazon.com/The-Apostolic-Fathers-Translations-Christian/dp/0840756615

[MamaSheep]

Sorry to leave you hanging for so long, things got a little crazy around here. :)

This might be the point of confusion. This is not my argument. Rather, my position is that through exploring via the scientific method, we can gain knowledge of the world around us, and further, this knowledge does not offer any spiritual or supernatural explanations. It may in time, but as of today, there have been no such explanations. At the same time, the information uncovered suffices to explain quite eloquently what we observe without imposing spiritual components. Again, spiritual and supernatural considerations are simply not a variable of consideration. There's no need to rule out the Christian spiritual explanation any more than there is a need to rule out fairies, kami, or karma.

If I misunderstood I apologize. If this is your argument then we have a lot of common ground. As I have been saying, science takes, and indeed can take no position one way or the other as to spiritual phenomena. They are not a variable used by science--science has no way to detect them, quantify them, or even prove their existence. 
 
I also agree that scientific explanations for physical phenomena do not at present contain any mention of spiritual components. One place we disagree would be that you seem to require spiritual phenomena to be "supernatural", or separate and distinct from "natural" phenomena, whereas my opinion is that spiritual phenomena are as natural as physical phenomena, and as fully integrated into what we regard as the natural world. This being the case, I would say that all scientific experiments and observations of the nature and behavior of physical reality inherently incorporate spiritual phenomena by default, even though science does not yet recognize it as such. Sort of like scientific observations and experiments incorporated quarks and gluons long before anyone postulated their existence, thought up a name for them, or imposed them as part of the explanation of experimental results.

 

You may trust your judgement, but it's more plausible to attribute your explanation to the fact that the religion familiar to you is naturally applied to explain some of your experiences. It's logical to assume that the common beliefs of your culture have influenced your perception. Being taught to believe there is a spiritual reality, you would naturally attribute that explanation to certain events.

This is another one of those two-edged swords of rational thought that cuts both ways. Being taught by our secular society NOT to believe there is a spiritual reality, you would naturally not attribute that explanation to certain events, and would likely be resistant to alternative explanations. 

Your explanation also assumes that I have not seriously considered alternate possibilities, which is not the case. But I understand that you would trust your speculative judgment of my motivations over my own explanation of my personal motivations for my personal beliefs, because you would have no way of knowing which alternatives I have considered and discarded, or why I have chosen to discard those alternatives. 
 

Had you been raised in a Native American culture 300 years ago, Hindu culture 600 years ago, or a secular culture today, your perception and subsequent explanations for these experiences would be quite different.

 An interesting (and scientifically unprovable) prognostication. 

I would guess that my perception would have been the same, but that my explanations for what I perceived would likely have been different in some ways. Each of these cultures did/do incorporate many of what I would call spiritual truths (yes, even the secular cultures of today--they don't call them "spiritual", but that's what they are, regardless of the label). I would hope that wherever and whenever I was raised I would perceive and embrace what spiritual truths were available to me in my culture, just as I would hope that wherever and whenever I was raised I would  perceive and embrace what scientific truths were available to me. And in the cultures of Native Americans 300 years ago, and Hindus 600 years ago, the "scientific" explanations would have differed from those offered by modern science at least as much as the spiritual explanations would differ from my understanding of spiritual truth. 
  

Can you share an example of some objectively obtained information that supports the hypothesis of the existence of a spiritual reality? As the OP is looking for this very thing, how would she go about finding it? What sources would lead her (and me) to this information?

You keep asking for objective examples of things for which I have said repeatedly I have only subjective examples. God is the best source from which accurate information of this kind may be obtained. Otherwise, what you've got is indirect, third-party reports of other people's subjective experiences--which as you have noted can be confusing and contradictory. Direct experience of God is the best source. 

As for examples of information obtained through spiritual means, anecdotal evidence is in abundance among people from cultures and countries all over the world. 

 

One example from my personal life is guidance that I have received over the years regarding my son's disability(s). Much of it has been in direct contradiction of the scientific wisdom of the experts who were working with us at the time. Most of it has been stuff I would never in a million years have thought up on my own. More than once I have been at a point where I had tried everything science told me to do, and I had tried everything else I could think of to help my son. None of it worked. And then I received, more than once, a sort of "download" of information that gave me a clear course of action, a clear understanding of how to implement it, and a clear understanding of the principles on which it was based and why it would work. And it did. It has never been in a verbal format, and much of it is very difficult to put into words. It has just been pure "downloaded" information, installed complete and ready to use. There is a particular "sensory" experience that comes with this, but it is not experienced with my scientifically recognized senses--sight, sound, touch, taste, smell, proprioception, etc. I have thoughts ABOUT it, but it is, itself, not exactly a thought. Similarly, while I certainly have emotions about it, it is also not, itself, an emotion. It is what it is.

 

You will likely say that these things were just something I thought of--something my subconscious coughed up or some such thing. But you weren't "there" when it happened. There is no way you could have been, because these were personal, internal, "subjective" experiences. But I was there and I observed them directly. I know what it feels like to have a thought drift up from my subconscious, and I know what it feels like to be given new information from an outside source, and I know which of the two these things were.

 

But again, I don't expect you to believe me, because you were not there and you did not observe the same phenomenon I observed. It may well be that you have no frame of reference for this sort of thing in your personal experience (or maybe you do, I wouldn't know) and therefore are not ABLE to believe such a thing could happen. But I'm okay with you thinking I'm nuts, I know what I experienced.

 

As for how you, or the OP, or other people could have a similar experience? I think it's pretty much at the discretion of God. I think it certainly helps to ask--particularly if one asks with a truly open mind, a completely sincere desire to know what is true regardless of whether it agrees with your preconceptions or not, and a willingness to act on the answer, whatever it may be. I think it helps to have patience and not expect instant gratification, instant answers, instant compliance with your demands, as if God were a vending machine--prayer in, answer out; sometimes we benefit from waiting and thinking things over ourselves. I think it helps to be willing to accept answers incrementally, a little at a time, and not expect to be absolutely, irrefutably certain of everything all at once.  I think it helps to build a relationship with God through study, prayer, meditation, practical implementation of spiritual truths and observation of the results, and so forth--but sometimes God just decides, for whatever reason, to provide someone with a "spiritual experience" of Him even if they haven't been doing those things. And I don't think that it's my job to make sure other people have the kind of subjective experiences that "prove" the existence of God or teach about His nature and character. I think that's between each person and God. And I think it's that way for a reason. 

(Interestingly, to me at least, many of the tidbits of information that I have received through "spiritual" channels regarding my son's disability have since become standard explanations and practice from a scientific viewpoint as well--not because of anything I did, as far as I am aware, just because science also "discovered" that these things worked. They work whether the information was gathered through spiritual means or scientific means. But I have been very grateful for the "heads up" from God that helped me implement good practices with my son several years before science managed to get there--even when science was telling me the opposite.)

MamaSheep, on 03 Aug 2013 - 3:54 PM, said:
It's true that religious people don't agree on everything. It's also true that scientists don't agree on everything.

This is irrelevant and misleading to the topic.

 

 It is irrelevant to your topic, but it is perfectly relevant to mine. You want to talk about objective proof of the supernatural. I have been addressing the OP's original question, which was how different people reconcile faith and rationality. One way that I integrate faith and rationality in my life is by recognizing that both faith and rationality have limitations. And also by recognizing that there are some interesting similarities between faith and rationality--for example, religious people don't agree on everything, but neither do people who rely more on rational thought. One thing that helps me reconcile the two is recognizing that many things that are true of one are true of the other. And vice versa.

Your answer appears to be that you DON'T reconcile faith and rationality--instead, you just choose rationality over faith (unless faith can be irrefutably proven through objective scientific data). Which is fine. But that doesn't make my point of view irrelevant to this discussion, it just makes it irrelevant to YOU. Which, again, is fine. But I can talk about my point of view if I want to, the OP asked for different points of view. Not just yours. ;)

[MamaSheep]

Continued from previous...
 

If one does not wish to wait for death to gather information, how would they go about finding out?

 I can think of no way to gather subjective information about the experience of death without dying. Sorry.
 

What are these "spiritual principles" upon which one can conduct internal, subjectively observable experiments?

In my experience their scope and intricacy is similar to that of the "physical principles" on which the physical world operates. They're not the sort of thing that can be stated, or even adequately summarized in a forum post. They are the things which religions and philosophers have studied and debated for centuries. And there is a lot of misinformation mixed in at this point. Also, I don't know them all yet. 
 
Some that come to mind off the top of my head might be something along the lines of: 

* all things that are good, that bring life, growth, peace (even amid turmoil), understanding, etc. are from God. 
* all things that bring darkness, confusion, bitterness, etc. are from God's adversary(s)
* for every good thing there will be at least one counterfeit that "looks" similar but brings different results; learning to tell the difference is important

Also, in what way are subjective data more valuable than objective data?

I don't think subjective data are more valuable than objective data. I think each is valuable in its own way.

I do find that data I have observed myself are more convincing to me, personally, than data I have obtained through a third party, partly because I was better able to observe whatever occurrence the data relates to, and therefore generally have more detailed information about the data and the conditions under which it was obtained than can be communicated to me by a third party who observed an occurrence I was unable to observe myself. This is true of both spiritual and scientific observations.

Objective data is more suited to comparison than subjective data. 

Subjective data regarding God is more plentiful than objective data. 
 
But yeah...each has its place. 
 

 

MamaSheep, on 03 Aug 2013 - 3:54 PM, said:
The fact is, most people DON'T check to see if a scientific explanation works, they just take the word of the "scientific expert" for it BECAUSE he's a "scientific expert" and he says he observed such and such.

This is also irrelevant, and misleading to the topic. The question is, how can the OP (or me or anyone) find out if a supernatural reality exists? How people respond to information, misinformation, or the lack of information is beside this point.

 

The question I was responding to was how different people reconcile rationality with faith.  How people respond to information, misinformation, or the lack of information is EXACTLY the point.

Also, I have said that I believe that "spiritual reality" is a sub-set of "natural reality" and that it is therefore not "a supernatural reality", so I am the wrong person to ask for proof that a supernatural reality exists. 
 

MamaSheep, on 03 Aug 2013 - 3:54 PM, said:

Interestingly, to me at least, no one scientist out there has ever performed all the scientific experiments personally and observed the results. To some degree, they are all believing something based on someone else's reports of their personal observations and experiences.

 
This statement, and the ones preceding it, show a fundamental flaw in your representation of the scientific method and how it is applied in reality. Your premise seems to be that a spiritual explanation can be applied to certain events accurately (please correct me if I'm wrong). My question is, how would one go about identifying and applying this spiritual components? Also, can you share some information that has been gained via this spiritual method?

 

You would be correct, if I were attempting to offer a representation of the scientific method, but I was not. I was offering a representation of faith. Regarding the other questions here, I answered them in my previous post.

[MamaSheep]

This is the kind of evidence that would be useful to me to help me move towards the level of certainty I'm seeking. :)  Would you mind terribly explaining your experiments?  Would they be something I could replicate for myself?  Where can I find the reports offered by others?

The reports offered by others that I was referring to are historical accounts recorded in what I consider to be scripture, as well as verbal reports by other individuals I have spoken with and/or interact with on a regular basis. A lot of the people whose results have been similar to mine also go to the same church I do (though many of them didn't start out there). 

 

My experiments have been many and varied. I don't know if I could explain them well enough for someone to replicate them. I don't know if someone else COULD replicate them, since they depend somewhat on internal personal conditions (everything from health, to frame of mind, to past experience) and I wouldn't think anyone else's internal conditions could be exactly the same as my own at any given point in time. As I say, they are very subjective experiences. 

 

As a sweeping generalization I would say that I pick a thing that is represented as a spiritual principle or truth or whatever, and I try it out to see what the result is. After observing the result for a while, I evaluate what I have observed. Sometimes I make adjustments to my processes, or determine that additional kinds of observations should be made with regard to the thing, and I try again. After I am sufficiently satisfied that my procedures are valid (based on whatever the principle in question happens to be), and that I am accurately understanding the result I have observed, I formulate a sort of conclusion about the principle based on my observations--I decide whether or not I think it is real, or has value, or whatever. I also compare my result to previous observations and conclusions and decide how I think the item I have been studying fits with other conclusions I have drawn, and with the bigger picture formed by the totality of it all. At this point that would be 40+ years of accumulated bits, some of which sort of glom together into "structures" (so to speak) that support and reinforce each other to a high degree, and some of which are sort of floating out there on their own, still waiting for me to figure out how (or if) they fit with the rest of it. 

 

It's not as clean and tidy and explainable as would be nice. 

 

 

[albeto.]

One place we disagree would be that you seem to require spiritual phenomena to be "supernatural", or separate and distinct from "natural" phenomena, whereas my opinion is that spiritual phenomena are as natural as physical phenomena, and as fully integrated into what we regard as the natural world. This being the case, I would say that all scientific experiments and observations of the nature and behavior of physical reality inherently incorporate spiritual phenomena by default, even though science does not yet recognize it as such. Sort of like scientific observations and experiments incorporated quarks and gluons long before anyone postulated their existence, thought up a name for them, or imposed them as part of the explanation of experimental results.

Except there is no evidence for the suggestion that a spiritual reality exists in the physical world. This idea is nothing more than an assumption based on the historical belief that a spiritual reality exists in the physical world. Without any evidence, there's no reason to assume this hypothesis explains a mysterious variable. Considering evidence continues to argue against it, there's no reason to continue assuming it exists. Should some actual evidence be found, or even hinted at, that would be a fantastic place to start. To date, no such thing exists.

 

 

This is another one of those two-edged swords of rational thought that cuts both ways. Being taught by our secular society NOT to believe there is a spiritual reality, you would naturally not attribute that explanation to certain events, and would likely be resistant to alternative explanations. 

 

Your explanation also assumes that I have not seriously considered alternate possibilities, which is not the case. But I understand that you would trust your speculative judgment of my motivations over my own explanation of my personal motivations for my personal beliefs, because you would have no way of knowing which alternatives I have considered and discarded, or why I have chosen to discard those alternatives.

This "two-edge sword" does not exist. What you or I were taught as kids is irrelevant to what reality is. The scientific method is the best methodology we have to familiarize ourselves with reality. This methodology does not support a spiritual variable, regardless of whether you or I were ever taught to embrace or reject one.

 

 

An interesting (and scientifically unprovable) prognostication.

The logic is sound. It's the only plausible explanation. Your explanation, that your perception would have been the same, but your explaations for what you perceived would likely have been different in some ways is a repeat of what I said. Your explanations would have been shaped by the culture in which you were raised, the one whose beliefs were familiar to you.

 

I don't know what you mean by "spiritual truth." What knowledge has been uncovered using the spiritual method? What is this spiritual method?

 

You keep asking for objective examples of things for which I have said repeatedly I have only subjective examples. God is the best source from which accurate information of this kind may be obtained. Otherwise, what you've got is indirect, third-party reports of other people's subjective experiences--which as you have noted can be confusing and contradictory. Direct experience of God is the best source.

 

To answer my last question - none. No knowledge has been uncovered, and this spiritual method is undeveloped. Is there any way to determine what is knowledge and what is opinion using this methodology?

 

At the end of the day, what you're explaining here is the process of deciding how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

 

As for how you, or the OP, or other people could have a similar experience? I think it's pretty much at the discretion of God. I think it certainly helps to ask--particularly if one asks with a truly open mind, a completely sincere desire to know what is true regardless of whether it agrees with your preconceptions or not, and a willingness to act on the answer, whatever it may be....

This methodology has been applied numerous times. To date, a naturalistic explanation for events is still the only reliable one we have. That's not to say supernatural explanations don't exist, but just to say not a single one has been found credible using rational methods to confirm.

 

(Interestingly, to me at least, many of the tidbits of information that I have received through "spiritual" channels regarding my son's disability have since become standard explanations and practice from a scientific viewpoint as well--not because of anything I did, as far as I am aware, just because science also "discovered" that these things worked. They work whether the information was gathered through spiritual means or scientific means. But I have been very grateful for the "heads up" from God that helped me implement good practices with my son several years before science managed to get there--even when science was telling me the opposite.)

If you asked God, do you think he would allow you to use this information to help all people struggling with autistic disorders? I suspect the answer would be no, although there's no logic to that other than this opinion is not an accurate explanation.

 

It is irrelevant to your topic, but it is perfectly relevant to mine. You want to talk about objective proof of the supernatural. I have been addressing the OP's original question, which was how different people reconcile faith and rationality. One way that I integrate faith and rationality in my life is by recognizing that both faith and rationality have limitations. And also by recognizing that there are some interesting similarities between faith and rationality--for example, religious people don't agree on everything, but neither do people who rely more on rational thought. One thing that helps me reconcile the two is recognizing that many things that are true of one are true of the other. And vice versa.

 

What limitation does rationality have? I don't mean what limitations do we have in terms of understanding and communicating information, but what limitation does rationality itself have?

 

I disagree with you there are any similarities. The fact that people don't always agree on an explanation (religious or rational) is irrelevant. They fundamentally differ by offering explanations based on two very different methodologies. One methodology relies on gathering evidence, whereas the other relies on faith (believing without evidence). They are only "similar" in that people utilize both at their discretion.

[Laurie4b]

Extra-biblical accounts?  Anyone????

 

As the OP, could I ask a bit of a favour?  Things are getting a bit personal and a bit heated and I was really hoping that this thread wouldn't go the way of so many others.  I realize I have no right to control or direct this thread so I'll just put out a request to keep the thread on a philosophical/intellectual level instead of an emotional one.  I don't want anyone, from any viewpoint, to feel attacked or like they have to defend themselves.  I also don't want anyone to feel as though they MUST prove themselves and their viewpoint right.  That was never my intent with this thread.  I guarantee - I'm stubborn enough that nothing any one person says or doesn't say will sway me in one direction or another. :D

 

So...

 

Any links for me?  Extra-biblical accounts?

 

The Annals of Tacitus:

Josephus (37-100) :

Josephus XX ch 9 refers to the death of the brother of Jesus

 

Pliny, a Roman official, writing to Trajan around 112 about what to do about punishing Christians, describes that they sang hymns to Christ "as to a god" http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/jod/texts/pliny.html

[albeto.]

Continued from previous...

 

 I can think of no way to gather subjective information about the experience of death without dying. Sorry.

We weren't talking about experiencing death, we were talking about experiencing God.

 

 

In my experience their scope and intricacy is similar to that of the "physical principles" on which the physical world operates. They're not the sort of thing that can be stated, or even adequately summarized in a forum post. They are the things which religions and philosophers have studied and debated for centuries. And there is a lot of misinformation mixed in at this point. Also, I don't know them all yet. 

 

Some that come to mind off the top of my head might be something along the lines of: 

 

* all things that are good, that bring life, growth, peace (even amid turmoil), understanding, etc. are from God. 

* all things that bring darkness, confusion, bitterness, etc. are from God's adversary(s)

* for every good thing there will be at least one counterfeit that "looks" similar but brings different results; learning to tell the difference is important

I don't think subjective data are more valuable than objective data. I think each is valuable in its own way.

These aren't facts, they're opinions based on judeo-christian religious beliefs.

 

 

I do find that data I have observed myself are more convincing to me, personally, than data I have obtained through a third party, partly because I was better able to observe whatever occurrence the data relates to, and therefore generally have more detailed information about the data and the conditions under which it was obtained than can be communicated to me by a third party who observed an occurrence I was unable to observe myself. This is true of both spiritual and scientific observations.

 

Objective data is more suited to comparison than subjective data. 

 

Subjective data regarding God is more plentiful than objective data. 

 

But yeah...each has its place.

Interesting, thanks for explaining.

 

 

Also, I have said that I believe that "spiritual reality" is a sub-set of "natural reality" and that it is therefore not "a supernatural reality", so I am the wrong person to ask for proof that a supernatural reality exists.

By definition, if a variable doesn't exist in the natural world (and there is no evidence to suggest it does), then it has to exist outside the natural world (ergo, "supernatural").

 

 

You would be correct, if I were attempting to offer a representation of the scientific method, but I was not. I was offering a representation of faith. Regarding the other questions here, I answered them in my previous post.

Thanks.

 

:)

[WishboneDawn]

See, this is always a little strange to me, though. Maybe it's because I did grow up with the literal, inerrant Bible POV out in front of me all the time. But I don't really understand how one can believe *parts* of the Christian system without believing in a literally true Bible. (Although that is essentially true of myself, but I don't make any big proclamation of being a Christian and I can't get excited about claiming that label.) So, if someone believes in the Virgin Birth, or that Jesus is God, say, how can they say they believe those things as reported in the Bible, yet they don't believe some other aspect; miracles, say. Or maybe they believe Jesus *Did* do miracles, but that he wasn't raised from the dead. Why believe in one unsubstantiated part when you agree that the whole thing is not the inspired Word of God?

 

 

I'm trying to respond to this but having a hard time. Partly in the way I often have a hard time responding to creationists. :) It's because you're comment is loaded with terms I don't accept or whose meaning I don't agree with, sort of like how creationist might bring up the word "theory" in a discussion about evolution that would be completely different from how I'd use it. And how can we have a useful discussion about evolution if the creationist is unable to understand my use of theory. 

 

So reported? But the Bible isn't an objective piece of journalism. Inspired? Like an artist and his muse or like a secretary taking dictation? And Word of God? Many Christians would say that's Jesus and to call the Bible the Word of God is idolatry.

 

This is hard stuff when we're talking through each other's filters. :D

 

It would be more useful to put aside the question and pick some pieces of the Bible and go through them, like the first creation story or Mark's Gospel and have a discussion about how different people, atheists as well, would view them.

[Laurie4b]

The Annals of Tacitus:

Josephus (37-100) :

Josephus XX ch 9 refers to the death of the brother of Jesus

 

Pliny, a Roman official, writing to Trajan around 112 about what to do about punishing Christians, describes that they sang hymns to Christ "as to a god" http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/jod/texts/pliny.html

 

Argh. Has this happened to anyone else? I've found that when I'm including a link that often big chunks of the rest of my post disappears. I spent a long time writing what I wrote and including links to the sources on the internet. Frustrated. :banghead:

I'll try to reproduce, but not include as much detail:

 

 

 

Chapter 18 of Josephus' Antiquities is linked above. ETA: The link failed. Do an internet search for Flavius Josephus Antiquities book 18.  Once there, you can do a search for Baptist, and there is a mention of John the Baptist mentioned in the gospels. You can also do a search for Christ. That passage is disputed as to whether it was added later. Josephus lived from 37-100.

 

Here is the link to the death of James, the brother of Jesus:

 

http://www.ccel.org/j/josephus/works/ant-20.htm

 

 Tacitus is a well-respected Roman historian. He is a hostile source re: Christianity, calling it a superstition and evil in this passage. However, he relates the basic beliefs of Christians as he recounts Nero and the burning of Rome. This is written about 80 years after the crucifixion. In one sense, that sounds late; in another sense, it's not so long. I recall things I heard my grandparents say about what happened 80 years ago and my parents recall more. As a senator, he would have had access to official Roman writings as well.

 

 

http://classics.mit.edu/Tacitus/annals.11.xv.html

[MamaSheep]

Except there is no evidence for the suggestion that a spiritual reality exists in the physical world. This idea is nothing more than an assumption based on the historical belief that a spiritual reality exists in the physical world. Without any evidence, there's no reason to assume this hypothesis explains a mysterious variable. Considering evidence continues to argue against it, there's no reason to continue assuming it exists. Should some actual evidence be found, or even hinted at, that would be a fantastic place to start. To date, no such thing exists.

For me, my personal experiences are evidence, and for me this idea is based on personal observation as much as on historical belief. You can't see my evidence, so you have no reason for YOU to believe. However, without evidence to the contrary (which science cannot provide at this time) I have no reason for ME to disbelieve.

 

From a scientific standpoint, without evidence one way or another, there is no reason to "assume" either way. Your personal experience includes no direct evidence, so you prefer the hypothesis that there is none. My personal experience does include direct evidence, so I prefer that hypothesis. But from a scientific stand, without scientific evidence both hypotheses are equally possible.

 

 

 

This "two-edge sword" does not exist. What you or I were taught as kids is irrelevant to what reality is. The scientific method is the best methodology we have to familiarize ourselves with reality. This methodology does not support a spiritual variable, regardless of whether you or I were ever taught to embrace or reject one.

Stating that things do not exist doesn't make them not exist. In your last post you felt that what I was taught as a kid was relevant. But if it might apply equally to you it's not?

 

 

The logic is sound. It's the only plausible explanation. Your explanation, that your perception would have been the same, but your explaations for what you perceived would likely have been different in some ways is a repeat of what I said. Your explanations would have been shaped by the culture in which you were raised, the one whose beliefs were familiar to you.

I agree. My EXPLANATIONS would have been shaped by the culture I was raised in. However, as you have just stated, our explanations do not actually affect reality. The fact that my explanations would probably have been different does not disprove the reality.

 

 

I don't know what you mean by "spiritual truth." What knowledge has been uncovered using the spiritual method? What is this spiritual method?

 

 

To answer my last question - none. No knowledge has been uncovered, and this spiritual method is undeveloped. Is there any way to determine what is knowledge and what is opinion using this methodology?

 

At the end of the day, what you're explaining here is the process of deciding how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

 

This methodology has been applied numerous times. To date, a naturalistic explanation for events is still the only reliable one we have. That's not to say supernatural explanations don't exist, but just to say not a single one has been found credible using rational methods to confirm.

 

If you asked God, do you think he would allow you to use this information to help all people struggling with autistic disorders? I suspect the answer would be no, although there's no logic to that other than this opinion is not an accurate explanation.

 

What limitation does rationality have? I don't mean what limitations do we have in terms of understanding and communicating information, but what limitation does rationality itself have?

 

I disagree with you there are any similarities. The fact that people don't always agree on an explanation (religious or rational) is irrelevant. They fundamentally differ by offering explanations based on two very different methodologies. One methodology relies on gathering evidence, whereas the other relies on faith (believing without evidence). They are only "similar" in that people utilize both at their discretion.

 

 

We weren't talking about experiencing death, we were talking about experiencing God.

Lol...you specifically asked about experiencing death, now it's irrelevant. I'm seeing a pattern here.

 

 

These aren't facts, they're opinions based on judeo-christian religious beliefs.

 

Interesting, thanks for explaining.

 

By definition, if a variable doesn't exist in the natural world (and there is no evidence to suggest it does), then it has to exist outside the natural world (ergo, "supernatural").

 

Thanks.

 

:)

Again, we disagree as to whether there is evidence to suggest that spiritual things exist. We're obviously not going to convince each other, so I would suggest that we agree to disagree and let it go.

 

But if we go by your logic and say that nothing exists unless there is evidence to suggest that it does, then 1000 years ago there were no protons, neutrons, electrons, quarks, gluons, strong and weak forces, galaxies outside our own, dark matter and energy, DNA, and on and on and on and on... Or, if they did exist, then they were "supernatural", because there was no scientific evidence of their existence in the "natural world".

 

 

I get it. You don't like my beliefs. That's fine. But the fact that you reject them does not disprove them.

[albeto.]

For me, my personal experiences are evidence....

 

Evidence doesn't mean whatever we want it to mean. Either a hypothesis has support or it does not. The OP is asking about rational thinking as it pertains to faith. In all these examples you've provided, in all the explanations, there is no reconciliation between rational thought and faith. Instead there are explanations about how, and when, and under what circumstances faith supersedes rational explanations for you. I don't have any opinion about your personal beliefs in this conversation. Truly.

[MamaSheep]

Evidence doesn't mean whatever we want it to mean. Either a hypothesis has support or it does not. The OP is asking about rational thinking as it pertains to faith. In all these examples you've provided, in all the explanations, there is no reconciliation between rational thought and faith. Instead there are explanations about how, and when, and under what circumstances faith supersedes rational explanations for you. I don't have any opinion about your personal beliefs in this conversation. Truly.

Direct experience of a thing IS evidence. I have had direct experience (over, and over, and over, and over) of this thing. It supports the hypothesis (over, and over, and over and over). It would be irrational for me not to believe. 

 

However, as I stated up front, I recognize that my direct experiences do not constitute evidence for other people, only for me. That doesn't mean that my belief has no evidence to back it up, it only means that you cannot experience the same evidence I have experienced. If you want evidence you have to go get your own. And I'm pretty sure you have to find your own way to it. Or you could choose to believe that I am lying, or that I am mistaken and there is no evidence. I'm good with that, it's a rational way of looking at it. That doesn't change what I know I experienced, however.

 

In my explanations there is nothing that reconciles faith and rational thought for you. I said up front, in my first post, that this would be so. I stated that I was expressing how these things look to me.  Because of the direct experiential evidence I have, faith seems very rational to me, and for me there is generally no need for faith to supersede rational explanations because the "faith" explanation IS rational--or the rational explanation requires faith. In most cases I see no reason for rational explanations to supersede faith, or for faith to supersede rationality because there is no conflict between the two for me. For me, faith and rationality are more or less two sides of the same coin. They are not the SAME thing, they are different from each other, just as the images stamped on each side of most coins are not the same. But there's a point where the two sides merge, and there are bits of the coin that are neither side. There are areas in which more information is available from the rational thought side of the "coin", and there are areas in which more information is available from the faith side of the "coin". There are areas in which information from both sides is available and they help clarify each other. There are areas in which no solid data is available from either side of the coin, though there is information of some kind from one or the other, or both, that indicates that something fits into that area. I don't feel a need to pick "heads" or "tails", I like the whole coin--including the grey areas in between. And for me that is how the two reconcile. They meet in the middle, so to speak, and shake hands. They have long, friendly conversations in my head where they compare notes. And the three of us get along nicely. The times in my life when I allow faith to supersede rationality are generally the times when I think faith has the better rational argument. 

 

The OP didn't ask how people would suggest that SHE reconcile faith and rationality, she asked how OTHER PEOPLE reconcile them. I am an other person, and this is how I reconcile them. I'm not asking anyone else to reconcile them the same way, and I am not trying to prove that my way is the only right way to do it. I am simply describing my personal beliefs. 

 

And for someone who has no opinion about my personal beliefs, you have certainly expressed a lot of them...lol. 

[albeto.]

And for someone who has no opinion about my personal beliefs, you have certainly expressed a lot of them...lol. 

 

The only reference to your personal beliefs I have mentioned was in response to your claim they were supportive of your claims. By any standard use of the scientific method, they are not. Your comments suggest a lack of understanding of the scientific method, rational analysis of facts, and what constitutes as evidence. Pointing this out by explaining in what way these concepts are being misrepresented should not be mistaken for my opinion about your personal beliefs.