The Psychological Reasons Maybe

[Rian]

So what are you actually asking?

Well I wasn't asking for the definition of experience: "By experience I mean something that happens to me of which I am aware."

Come to think of it, that's answer enough right there, Moon. What you mean by experiencing God in Christ is "fuck you." Or perhaps I'm just too stupid to understand your very fine and erudite words. Either way, let's call it quits.

I am not sure how you get that from what I said. The problem is if you ask questions about these very fundamental things it's hard to know what kind of answer you are looking for. I'm talking about experiencing the world and myself in a certain way just as your awareness of the world does not include God mine does.

Moon, I understand what you're saying, but I also understand HG's frustration. If you're willing to give it another go, try telling a story about a part of your life where you noticed a change, or became aware of something new, or something like that. Just pick a story about you and share it.

[Moonwood the Hare]

Moon, I understand what you're saying, but I also understand HG's frustration. If you're willing to give it another go, try telling a story about a part of your life where you noticed a change, or became aware of something new, or something like that. Just pick a story about you and share it.

Well I'm more talking about a pervading sense of God's presence and the trouble with stories these days is stuff tends to be fairly confidential and it gets tangled in with a lot of other concepts like Rogers' process, and intuition and the Jungian concept of the self. I'll try to come up with something more concrete.

[Moonwood the Hare]

I was reading your post and then thought, "I should just grant him his worldview".

So I am simply going to do that where you are concerned. Everything you say is specious because you do not know all of existence and until you do, there is no compelling reason to accept that you even exist. Based on the rules of your very own worldview, from this point forward, we can ignore your every post.

No. There isn't a problem about singular existential claims - not at all. Here's the rules about empirical claims
1. Unspecified singular existential claims can be verified but not falsified
2. Specified singular existential claims can be both verified and falsified
3. Universal existential claims can be falsified but not verified.
4. Metaphysical claims can be neither verified nor falsified
5. The above claims are all metaphysical and so cannot be demonstrated but that does not mean they are not valid.
You ought to be able to see the validity of this simply by reflection. If you do you have used your intuition

[Keep The Reason]

I was reading your post and then thought, "I should just grant him his worldview".

So I am simply going to do that where you are concerned. Everything you say is specious because you do not know all of existence and until you do, there is no compelling reason to accept that you even exist. Based on the rules of your very own worldview, from this point forward, we can ignore your every post.

No. There isn't a problem about singular existential claims - not at all. Here's the rules about empirical claims
1. Unspecified singular existential claims can be verified but not falsified
2. Specified singular existential claims can be both verified and falsified
3. Universal existential claims can be falsified but not verified.
4. Metaphysical claims can be neither verified nor falsified
5. The above claims are all metaphysical and so cannot be demonstrated but that does not mean they are not valid.
You ought to be able to see the validity of this simply by reflection. If you do you have used your intuition

No, no, no, no -- really-- you win.

You don't have the experience of all of existence so you cannot possibly support the contention that demonstration or intuition or experience or anything else actually leads to knowledge-- at best, it's merely possible that this is reality. I get it; you win.

I can ignore you now. You likely don't even exist.

[Keep The Reason]

I'll try to come up with something more concrete.

Wait, whoa, hold on thar, pardner. What do you mean by "concrete"? We have no foundation to suggest anything is "concrete". Not even this post. Methinks you're abandoning your worldview for a nonce.

[humanguy]

Moon, I understand what you're saying, but I also understand HG's frustration. If you're willing to give it another go, try telling a story about a part of your life where you noticed a change, or became aware of something new, or something like that. Just pick a story about you and share it.

Well I'm more talking about a pervading sense of God's presence and the trouble with stories these days is stuff tends to be fairly confidential and it gets tangled in with a lot of other concepts like Rogers' process, and intuition and the Jungian concept of the self. I'll try to come up with something more concrete.

Roger's process. The Jungian concept of the self. Do you actually believe that absolutely everyone here knows what those mean?

[Rian]

Yes, try to not use "terms". I know that when you think something, and then have that wonderful sense of discovery that someone else has thought the same thing and there's even a term for it, and it's been studied, etc. etc., that it's tempting to use that term, because it really IS what you mean. But I, for one, don't know all the terms that you use, although it's been informative and interesting to hear about them (and find out that some of them are what I've been thinking but hadn't realized that others had, too, and that it had a formal name) and I would like to see another side of you - the non-term side - because what I do see of you, I like. You have a sense of integrity that I really identify with, and a sense of looking for the truth, which I also identify with. I think that sometimes we'd just like to hear from you without the other guys (you know, Jung, Rogers, etc.)

I know what you say would be more "accurate" if you brought in all the terms, but accuracy isn't always the most important thing. Sometimes you just want a smile, or a touch, or a wink, or a hug. Or a word from someone. I know that I've often held back posting off the top of my head because of the "attack atheists" that, sadly, roam discussion boards (thankfully they are a minority of the atheists, but they cause 99% of the destruction of threads for their side) because they will jump all over something that isn't really accurate and then it's a world of grief to fix and the thread is often destroyed, and you know that they don't really care about real, honest, truthful, open discussion, anyways - they're just into mindless attack of anything that doesn't support their position. But I don't think HG is like that. And you can either ignore the attack atheists or clarify for them.

I guess what I'm saying in this ramble is that there's information, and then there's life - you're good at giving information, but we'd like a little life with our information, please (and perhaps a side of scones )

[humanguy]

With jam.

[Rian]

[Moonwood the Hare]

I was reading your post and then thought, "I should just grant him his worldview".

So I am simply going to do that where you are concerned. Everything you say is specious because you do not know all of existence and until you do, there is no compelling reason to accept that you even exist. Based on the rules of your very own worldview, from this point forward, we can ignore your every post.

No. There isn't a problem about singular existential claims - not at all. Here's the rules about empirical claims
1. Unspecified singular existential claims can be verified but not falsified
2. Specified singular existential claims can be both verified and falsified
3. Universal existential claims can be falsified but not verified.
4. Metaphysical claims can be neither verified nor falsified
5. The above claims are all metaphysical and so cannot be demonstrated but that does not mean they are not valid.
You ought to be able to see the validity of this simply by reflection. If you do you have used your intuition

No, no, no, no -- really-- you win.

You don't have the experience of all of existence so you cannot possibly support the contention that demonstration or intuition or experience or anything else actually leads to knowledge-- at best, it's merely possible that this is reality. I get it; you win.

I can ignore you now. You likely don't even exist.

No, you don't get it at all or I'm starting to suspect that you do get it and you don't like it so you pretend not to. You can claim that demonstration leads to knowledge but you can't universalise that claim and say it is the only thing that lead to knowledge. If you are going to demonstrate something you have to have a demonstration that covers your claim and not part of it. So if you are claiming that all of something has a certain property and are claiming to know that by demonstration then your demonstration has to be of all of that something and not some of it. You can make an all claim that is known some other way, not by demonstration (i.e. a metaphysical claim) or that is tentative and open to being falsified (a scientific claim). It's not difficult and as far as I know not controversial.

[Moonwood the Hare]

Roger's process. The Jungian concept of the self. Do you actually believe that absolutely everyone here knows what those mean?

I wasn't trying to say something specific about Jung or Rogers; I was trying to say it isn't always possible for me to say where something specifically Christian begins or ends in my experience. I'd expect most people to have heard of them though and some people to know something about them, and several people on this site have referred to their ideas in the past.

Rian I take your point. I do tend to say exactly what I mean and leave it to people to get it or not. I also think I have a problem shifting gears between humanguy and Keep the Reason - KTR will look for weak points in an argument and attack the argument at that point - a futile approach but he does do it and I admit I fall into it sometime. I would probably not have this face to face but I know KTR will pick up points addressed to HG or HG will pick up points addressed to you and so on. I also know that if I start describing specific experiences then someone is going to come along and say, not unreasonably, that doesn't have to God, it could have another explanation and that will always be true because it is always possible to interpret any experience from out of a different framework. So I would sooner work at the level of general principles than go through all that. I've always said I don't think my experience can ever be a reason for someone else to believe so I don't know that describing it would be helpful. But if HG thinks it would I can have a shot.

[cleve]

That's part of the power/the struggle in life of becoming "like the one of us" of Gen 3:22, "knowing good and evil."

Mythology.

KTR,
Please, define, explain, and demonstrate what you mean by "mythology".

[Keep The Reason]

No, you don't get it at all or I'm starting to suspect that you do get it and you don't like it so you pretend not to. You can claim that demonstration leads to knowledge but you can't universalise that claim and say it is the only thing that lead to knowledge. If you are going to demonstrate something you have to have a demonstration that covers your claim and not part of it. So if you are claiming that all of something has a certain property and are claiming to know that by demonstration then your demonstration has to be of all of that something and not some of it. You can make an all claim that is known some other way, not by demonstration (i.e. a metaphysical claim) or that is tentative and open to being falsified (a scientific claim). It's not difficult and as far as I know not controversial.

No, my friend, you don't get it. It's very simple. You are setting up the criteria that since we cannot say universal claims (like, "knowledge is only through demonstration"), you cannot then say the UNIVERSAL CLAIM of "demonstration is NOT the only way to knowledge".

You are trapped by your own rules. Your insistence that universal claims are verboten forbids you from adopting one-- like, "demonstration, but also intuition are ways to knowledge".

No. Eh-eh. Sorry-- that is a UNIVERSAL CLAIM and you are forbidden it. So stop doing it; be true to your principles and jettison both positive universal claims, and negative universal claims. Until you do that, you are self-contradicting.

[Moonwood the Hare]

No, my friend, you don't get it. It's very simple. You are setting up the criteria that since we cannot say universal claims (like, "knowledge is only through demonstration"), you cannot then say the UNIVERSAL CLAIM of "demonstration is NOT the only way to knowledge".

You are trapped by your own rules. Your insistence that universal claims are verboten forbids you from adopting one-- like, "demonstration, but also intuition are ways to knowledge".

No. Eh-eh. Sorry-- that is a UNIVERSAL CLAIM and you are forbidden it. So stop doing it; be true to your principles and jettison both positive universal claims, and negative universal claims. Until you do that, you are self-contradicting.

No, it's not that universal claims are forbidden a priori. Universal claims are only forbidden if
1. You accept the validity of the law of non-contradiction
2. You say that all valid claims must be demonstrable
Because you have just made a non-demonstrable claim. It is always possible to make universal claims such as that all valid claims must be non-contradictory as long as one is not claiming that such claims must be demonstrable.

[Keep The Reason]

KTR,
Please, define, explain, and demonstrate what you mean by "mythology".

It beggars belief that you need this to be explained to you but...

Definitions

Definition of MYTHOLOGY
1 an allegorical narrative
2 a body of myths: as a : the myths dealing with the gods, demigods, and legendary heroes of a particular people b : mythos 2 <cold war mythology>
3 a branch of knowledge that deals with myth
4 a popular belief or assumption that has grown up around someone or something

myth
1a: a usually traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon
1b: parable, allegory

Let's cover this as well:

OSTENSIBLE
1: intended for display : open to view
2: being such in appearance : plausible rather than demonstrably true or real <the ostensible purpose for the trip>

Demonstration:

Go to this Link for Lots of Mythological tales

Explanation:

Myths are different from non-fiction in that myths are made up stories, usually to explain something unexplained at the time of the creation of the story, or to offer an allegory as a method of teaching something of value to people.

A book about the gods of Olympus and their adventures would be considered a mythology; a book about the fighting of the US Civil War would be considered historical non-fiction.