There is often discussion around RGT about how prioritising logic should not be the manner in which one approaches life.
I find I am happiest when I am doing something that satisfies my emotional desires best; and find myself most affected by things which are emotionally abhorrent over those which are logically abhorrent
e.g. despite knowing that using drugs propagates and 'legitimates' all the terrible things involved in the drugs trade I do them because not only do they make me so much happier, but the people I'm with as well. I find this to be a satisfactory judgement; but I am completely on board with the government arresting me if it ever found me doing it- I know i'm doing it wrong, and do feel bad. Just not bad enough. (You may disagree on what i'm saying but I hope the example demonstrates what i mean...)

I will always follow my emotions, and feel I have grown better as a person because of it. I allow my emotions to rule my life.
However I also acknowledge that all they are is reflections of my self.

Logic on the other hand is too important to be disregarded; I may really want a job in finance in the future. I'm not going to be directed by what my "emotions" tell me to. I'm going to go down the statistically most successfull path, with a few variations I feel will make me more employable.

Furthermore, when it comes to other people, I have to use logic. I can't use emotions. I can't use anything I can't objectively justify; as such spirituality, emotions, hunches, etc., have no place in these decisions.

Trying to justify something objective through subjective experience is a jump of reason.

As such, I see the subjective revelation of God as silly.
From personal experience, I truly "believed" and "loved" (infatuated) with God. HOWEVER I could never justify this to other people. I had never been given the ability to spread this truth as the bible is riddled with inconsistency. It was an arbitrary choice. I came to believe/know that this was just an addiction no different to one experienced in any other sort of hero worship.

How can any spiritual experience ever by justifiable, even if it is actually true? Is it not just tempting fate?

Spiritual, to me, is discovery and self-relization. Experiences which reveal something about one self, or allow us to see something in a new light are spiritual and valid. The best spiritual moments I've had were brought on by psychedelics, fwiw. I can justify my use of these because of the perspective I've gained.

I think when people claim to have "found God" they've just re-gained their confidence or lust for life or whatever, and the idea of God is just what they needed for structure/guidance. God keeps them going, keeps them stable. While I think the true source of the revelation came from within, this is another justifiable spiritual experience imo.

Most of the big questions in life are subjective.

http://atheism.about.com/od/existent...bjectivity.htm

I don't think it can. I think the divine is something to be experienced, not something to be believed in. Trying to justify the divine to a skeptical person is like trying to describe a beautiful piece of music with words. It doesn't work well. The divine, like music, is mostly ineffable. I think all you can do is tell people that you've experienced something and suggest that they too might experience something if they search for it. Don't even bother trying to justify your experience because you can't; at least not in terms that will satisfy a skeptical mind.

But, it's often possible to understand why you had this spiritual experience. Further, our brain activity and/or any endorphins released can be quantified and spiritual experiences can be linked to other experiences which affect us the same way physiologically; thus justifying and possibly explaining them.

You cannot just describe a Mozart symphony to someone; but, you can give the sheet music to a musician and he can understand why it was so beautiful. Not just because he can play it, and hear it; also because he can read the way the chords change and understand the brilliance, rationally. Betohven was completely deaf for the latter part of his career, but knew his compositions would be beautiful because he understood, mechanically, how chords worked together and the theory of music.

Yes, and people who have dabbled in mysticism are pretty good at understanding each other but really bad at making themselves understood by people who haven't.

And as far as explanations in terms of brain activity go, all ordinary cognition is subserved by brain activity but we don't for that reason claim that it's unreliable or fails to grasp the world.

My point about the Mozart is that music and art can still be quantified, even though they are subjective. I'm not trying to say, "it takes an experienced theist to understand spirituality", if that's what you're getting at.

Spirituality is a little different I suppose, because it's internal. But I don't think it's a stretch to say we can begin to quantify and understand it.

In other words, my BS detector goes off when someone has a spiritual experience which, coincidentally, can't be described and must be accepted on principal of faith alone.

I don't think spirituality is necessarily different. For over 99% of human history music could only be transmitted experientially. It has only been recently that we have invented an abstraction that communicate music precisely. I think it's very possible that we could invent an abstraction that could communicate spiritual experiences precisely. That is, of course, if there is really something going on.

I think it is a bit of a stetch to say that "music and art can be quantified" when many people can't even agree on what these things are. It seems more appropriate to say that certain aspects of these things can quantified, and the same goes for spiritual experiences. There are actually already a bunch of people working on this front (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurotheology) although it's all a bit shaky and fringy for now.

There is no problem in accepting that someone's had a strange experience of one sort or another; the problem always arises with accepting their interpretation of it's content.