I'm intelligent enough not to make the unwarranted logical leap which they do. — S
According to the logic of the so-called “skeptics,” spirituality and religion is craziness. — Ilya B Shambat
By that definition, the bulk of humanity is mentally ill, as the bulk of humanity has one or another form of spirituality. — Ilya B Shambat
his leaves these people thinking that they are the only sane people out there. If there is such a thing as narcissism, I can think of no more glaring narcissism than that. — Ilya B Shambat
Most “skeptics” are not even scientists. Real scientists are curious, and many are as curious about spirituality as they are about everything else. I am good friends with a distinguished scientist who openly talks about having had very real spiritual experiences. He has a vast body of academic knowledge, is very well-reasoned and uses scientific method to excellent standard. That has not prevented him from having a spiritual life. — Ilya B Shambat
Spiritual experiences happen all the time, at least they do in my life. I've had many experiences with less than a billionth chance of happening; and I am nowhere close to being the only one. Many people either forget the experiences that they have or deny them; but if you dig enough you will find in many cases that they have in fact had very real spiritual experiences. The problem is that they do not know how to make them parse with what they know about the world from science and mathematics. This results in many of them denying these experiences; and toward that effect any number of people have come up with any number of tricks. — Ilya B Shambat
Is science wrong? No, it isn't. Materialist fundamentalism however is completely wrong. I seek an explanation that will be consistent with both scientific fact and the facts of my and other people's spiritual experiences; and I am continuing to look for this explanation in any number of paths. — Ilya B Shambat
I've had many experiences with less than a billionth chance of happening; — Ilya B Shambat
Knowing you’re insane instantly makes you sane. — I like sushi
religion hasn't evolved to scratch the same set of itches that science has, and vice versa. — VagabondSpectre
I partly think science has been infested with financial considerations. It is perhaps easier to apply for research funding, if you have a mainstream research application, which leads to more materialistic research and mindset.......this cycle just promotes materialistic thinking in the scientific community...it's hard I would think for scientists to even break out of this mould in even materialistic research if the reseatch goes at all against the mainstream views......shame really. — wax
↪SteveKlinko are you aware of what Qualia is. I think it is very much what you are saying. The classic thought experiment goes something like this. A person is kept in a black and white room for their entire life, they live in a world without color. But they are taught everything we know about color, they are experts on wave lengths and frequency about how our optics work, how the brain processes it, they know all that can be known about color.
Then they are let out of the room and are amazed by a sunset. The experience of color is different than the knowledge of color. And they are both real. — Rank Amateur
Spiritual experiences happen all the time, at least they do in my life. I've had many experiences with less than a billionth chance of happening; and I am nowhere close to being the only one. — Ilya B Shambat
I've always hated this type of statement, what Stephen Jay Gould called "Non-Overlapping Magisteria," NOMA. Even though he is one of my favorite writers, the idea is bullshit. There is only one world. We are all trying to describe it in our own ways. — T Clark
very real spiritual experiences — Ilya B Shambat
Because Conscious Experience is unexplainable by Science the Physicalists can only say they don't exist. — SteveKlinko
Your experience with the Physicalists might be right but my experience with them has been that they believe Consciousness is just an Illusion and is not even worth studying any further. They say the Hard Problem is solved and there is no Explanatory Gap and that is that. They will not listen to any other arguments. Ok so because of what your experience is I will have to say almost all Physicalists instead of all Physicalists.Because Conscious Experience is unexplainable by Science the Physicalists can only say they don't exist. — SteveKlinko
This is not my understanding of it. Not all physicalists deny conscious experience, they simply go by the assumption that there is a physical explanation of consciousness even though we have not yet and may never figure it out. — Fooloso4
Well I never said there is no overlap, but aren't you missing Gould's point? There's a world of facts and there's also a world of emotions; science approximates the former while religion comforts the latter; different itches. — VagabondSpectre
What's objectionable about that? Do you want me to treat religious ideas as I would treat scientific hypotheses? — VagabondSpectre
Your experience with the Physicalists might be right but my experience with them has been that they believe Consciousness is just an Illusion and is not even worth studying any further. — SteveKlinko
So we are left with 2 rather opposing views on why that is. At one end we have Camus' absurdity. There is no meaning and it is just some absurd quirk of human nature that we seek it. Or on the other end, Karl Rahner's pre apprehension, that all human beings are inherently aware of something greater than themselves- they do not know what this is, but there is some inherent knowledge that it is there. — Rank Amateur
1. It is very difficult to define religion, in the sense of setting forth necessary and sufficient conditions for the correct application of the term, but I agree with Royce's view that an essential characteristic of anything worth calling religion is a concern for the salvation of man. Religious objects are those that help show the way to salvation. The central postulate of religion is that "man needs to be saved." Saved from what? ". . . from some vast and universal burden, of imperfection, of unreasonableness, of evil, of misery, of fate, of unworthiness, or of sin."
2. The Need for Salvation. "Man is an infinitely needy creature." But the need for salvation, for those who feel it, is paramount among human needs. The need for salvation depends on two simpler ideas:
a) There is a paramount end or aim of human life relative to which other aims are vain.
b) Man as he now is, or naturally is, is in danger of missing his highest aim, his highest good.
To hold that man needs salvation is to hold both of (a) and (b). I would put it like this. The religious person perceives our present life, or our natural life, as radically deficient, deficient from the root (radix) up, as fundamentally unsatisfactory; he feels it to be, not a mere condition, but a predicament; it strikes him as vain or empty if taken as an end in itself; he sees himself as homo viator, as a wayfarer or pilgrim treading a via dolorosa through a vale that cannot possibly be a final and fitting resting place; he senses or glimpses from time to time the possibility of a Higher Life; he feels himself in danger of missing out on this Higher Life of true happiness. If this doesn't strike a chord in you, then I suggest you do not have a religious disposition. Some people don't, and it cannot be helped. One cannot discuss religion with them, for it cannot be real to them.
was referring to meaning of life, as in some inherent part of the human condition that we seek a meaning for our existence — Rank Amateur
To me, the experience of god is something that comes before understanding. Before words — T Clark
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