Is it possible to briefly summarize his arguments?

Yes. You're free to make your assertions. Just like Mightyboosh can make his. I can accept that your assertion is "religion sidetracks people" and "truth is found within."

But if you say "the problem of evil" is about freedom from suffering, I'm going to tell you you're wrong and that it doesn't make sense to make that assertion. If you then proceed to talk about "this" and "it" without bothering to say what "this" and "it" are, I'm going to tell you that you're not making sense.

I think it is even simpler than that. I'm certain religion is very often more comfortable than the alternative. People will go to great length to protect their comfort. I suspect the main reason for this comfort is that it gives a sense of control. An analogy could be telling yourself everything is going to be alright before doing something dangerous; it provides a comfortable illusion of control.

And that in turn might rely entirely on a person's psychological makeup. I'm quite uncomfortable with the idea that the universe was created by an individual intelligence (it would actually be quite disappointing to me if that were true) and frankly quite frightened and repulsed by the idea that it would actually be an entity such as that described by the mainstream religions. But then, I've never been comfortable with authority or oversight. I much prefer the idea of everything having arisen from chaos, through elegant systems like evolution and the physical processes.

And this ties in with my discussion with NR. Regardless of whether or not I'm right or wrong, it's not hard for me to provide reasons for why I don't believe in gods. No mysterious and hard to explain absences of certain beliefs in my belief system, I understand quite well why they're not there and why they don't 'fit' me.

Well, I am envious of that. Personally I have to admit that atheism and irreligiosity can fill me with discomfort that I can not remember from when I was religious (though I was also young at that time, which probably also helps).

It is the same sensation I once got from swimming on the open ocean; while technically little different from swimming near land (there were almost no swells) the thought of the depths and not seeing any land colored the experience very differently. Maybe the nearest I can get to describing it is as a sensation of vastness.

I definitely think the universe must be more beautiful without religion. To continue the poetic vein it feels somewhat like hiking long-distance; you might be on your own but when you find something beautiful it is not there because it was made for you; which somehow makes it very wonderful.

I know this post might read as a silly Reader's Digest piece, but these things are hard to describe.

But for many of the beliefs that do exist in your belief system, you've demonstrated throughout this forum that you have an extremely hard time providing reasons for them. Very often, it appears that you're starting from the statement you want to prove and just scrambling around for the barest shreds of evidence to support your preconceived notion.

Fair enough but I didn't mean that. I was answering your question, "what needs to be cured?" Listing suffering, the PoE, and Total Depravity - implying that in the end just about all unanswered questions are answered and all problems are solved.

I distinguish between ego (concerned w/ physical reality) and Self. Communication about this stuff works best Self to Self based on shared experience. For instance, I can communicate and agree upon some things with N_R about a transcendent experience. With someone else, we can maybe agree that consciousness is fundamental and talk about conscious intention or the Law of Attraction. But with this same like minded person, if I start describing this transformational process, since there is no shared experience, they stop communicating through Self and ego automatically jumps in to fill the gaps. And they not only don't believe what I am saying but are annoyed because I'm now communicating to their ego a process of how to destroy the ego, which is threatening. It's not black and white and it still might be interesting for them to talk about but the conversation becomes very sensitive. It's why I believe Jesus used so many parables and figurative language.

Right, to continue with my analogy from before, not only do you have to summon the effort to swim deeper toward the bottom of the mind but you have somebody (the ego) constantly trying to impede you and becoming more resistant the deeper you go. It's hard to convince someone to do this just on faith that it will be worth it.

It's been said a couple of times in this thread that religion is more comfortable and easier. I don't doubt that it's true that people derive comfort from religion (I think we're mainly talking about Christians), and that for many the main purpose is so they feel "have answers" for otherwise discomfiting questions. I don't even think that's entirely a negative thing. But it definitely is (or should be!) pretty incomplete.

It is a "terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the Living God". It is by no means easy to deny oneself, take up the cross, and follow Christ. Or at least not if that actually means anything. To measure greatness in terms of service, to turn the other cheek, to give not only your coat but also your cloak. Etc etc. To me the most pointed criticism of Christianity is not that it's too easy of a way out (in theory) but that many Christians (and I can certainly include myself :P) don't actually even attempt to live according to this way of life.

In what way?

Funnily enough, I'm scared of swimming in the ocean and recently, on a holiday in Turkey, I was swimming across some deepish water but it was very clear and I could see quite a long way down. I realised that the fear I experience is a form of vertigo.

When I look at the milky way, or a beautiful sunset or a breathtaking mountain range, or the open ocean or any of those things that people generally consider awe inspiring and beautiful, I feel a deep sense of wonder that has nothing at all to do with them having been 'created' but instead at the processes that cause them. It boggles my mind that liquid water only exists on this planet because of the ambient temperature and pressure and that other planets also have weather analogues that are comprised of completely different chemical elements but behave similarly, or quite differently depending on local conditions.

If an intelligence had created them, that would feel quite pedestrian and terribly contrived and arbitrary. Don't even get me started on the people who believe that it was all created especially for us.

I think it's difficult to really make sense of the worldview of N.T. authors without understanding at least a certain amount of 1st century Judaism and their view of the world, understanding of God, eschatology, and etc. Of course at the same time I also don't think Christianity should remain static, the child of a Hebrew sensibility and Hellenistic philosophy. And in fact it hasn't. You also can't really appreciate the mystical tradition of Christianity just from reading the Bible alone.

I'm probably guilty of skimming a couple of your longer posts too lightly. I'll go back and look

I guess it's dependent on how generally you are using the term 'Christian' which I automatically think of the Christianity I grew up around. Under your definition, I would consider myself a Christian so I agree with you.

I'm partial to OrP's method of saying that Christians are the people that call themselves Christian.

But if I was going to impose a "no true scotsman"-esque test, for me it would be that Christians are people who recognize and respond to God in and through Jesus Christ, not just as one teacher among many, but uniquely and primarily.

I depart from Christian orthodoxy in that I don't really believe that one must be Christian under such a definition (or call oneself Christian) to experience God or to be "saved", and I put that in quotes because I'm not entirely happy with the soteriology that the word tends to evoke in those familiar with hearing it only from certain evangelical protestants.

So you may still not wish to call yourself Christian. I don't mean to universalize the word to the point where every seeker of spirituality is "Christian", because I don't think it would be useful. But I do think Christianity as a world religion is broader than what you have seemed to think, based on your characterizations

Prior to theologies, anthropologies, dogmas, or moral precepts are such experiences.

What might ultimately lead one to be religious in some way, or not, is how "real" you believe that experience to be, or in what way it is real? One possible etymology of "religion" focuses on ligare, to link or bind. Religion is that which re-links us to a fundamental and ultimate reality. For me, to be religious is to have faith that such an experience is not only real, but in some way constitutive of reality itself. It is foundational.

If you reject a theology centered around a God who seems like merely a "Big Human", an Almighty Engineer, making arbitrary and obscure pronouncements from on High, seemingly disconnected from evils and sufferings that He could change, yet rumored to intervene from time to time: well, I reject that theology also. Although in less cynical presentations I think there is also a lot of beauty to be found. But it is not the only theology, and even within the traditions that give us the most systematic presentations of it, there is also a recognition that it is fatally flawed in some way. Because the Mystery of the experience of God is not reducible to speaking, or even to thinking.

Theologies flow from our attempts to make sense of such an experience as what you describe: Reverence, Awe, a recognition that there is something more, Infinite, Spacious, Silent, sustaining all and binding all together, somehow at once Other to human life but also entirely intimate with it. Maybe I'm reading my own symbols into your words, but hopefully they are relateable.

There is obviously a great distance between such a raw, perhaps fleeting, mysterious and difficult experience and (for example) a dogma of the Total Depravity of Man. As much as the distance between the description of the God of an ontological argument and the Hebrew God. In the process by which such an experience is crystallized into "religion", in the context of a particular culture, worldview, existing religion, there is plenty of room for human error. To me, a lot of the supposed battle between "science" and "religion" is useful towards renewing flawed ways of thinking that have come to dominate systematic religion. I think many criticisms are perfectly valid. What I would suggest though is that if you can recognize something profound and important in the feeling of awe in the contemplation of the reality we participate in, you can understand that as itself as a signpost and symbol of the Divine.

How can you be sure it's not an external entity?

This is exactly my point. Hear me out here. It *could* be my mind playing tricks on me, just like your mind plays tricks on you about pain at times, but even when you have pain that is not rational per se, not caused by a direct agent, it is irrelevant to your discomfort, and to the fact that you feel pain and don't like it.

You can't just ignore pain when you find out that the doctors tells you that you're fine and shouldn't be feeling pain, the very fact that you feel pain means that you hurt, and it is utterly and undeniably convincing, regardless of the cause. I'm saying this is the same with some spiritual experiences, that I believe it is God like I believe that it hurts, and I can't rationalize it away, I have to accept it.

I can't *know* by some standards of knowledge, it could be a self-delusion. It could also be some other God lying to me. I accept all your alternatives as possibilities, it's just easier to believe that it is Christ, because that knowledge is inherent in the experiences.

Again, it is difficult to explain spiritual experiences, but that does not mean that I have no reason behind my beliefs. I can explain why I believe in Christ, because he has revealed himself to me, you simply find that unsatisfactory (which is fine). I tried the comparison to pain, but it's not to your liking. I still think it is apt, especially at the point that you ask me for my reasoning, where I explain that it is difficult to give reasons to believing you're in pain.

It is irrelevant because I still have to deal with the pain. The doctor telling me that I'm healthy and should not be in pain is completely irrelevant to me feeling pain and living with that discomfort, I can't simply pretend the pain is not there, it makes no difference on how I live my life. Simply because I could be delusional is not enough of a reason to ignore Christ.

It doesn't matter how you label pain, you experience it the first time and you don't like it. You have a knowledge of what pain is by experiencing it the first time, it doesn't matter what you end up calling it.

There could be, I've conceded as much, but even when this is right, it's still unnoticed and automatic, beyond my ability to control or detect.

I disagree about how you're describing pain, but it may be irrelevant to our conversation. You don't need to think about pain, or label it, you simply experience it. No amount of contemplation or reasoning will change how you see pain, even if its the first time you touch the stove. If you think we learn to label certain sensations as "pain", can you learn to put it in the "good" category? Semantics aside, when you feel pain, you don't like it, it's inherent.

Fwiw, I agree with you to an extent. I could theoretically be fooling myself about God, without me being aware, but it's as difficult for me to realize this as it is to touch the hot stove and convince myself it is enjoyable. I'm trying to relate that there is some inherent characteristics in the experiences which are convincing.

This is exactly what I'm saying. If this wasn't the case I would not have become a Christian.

Agree with this, the path is supposed to be narrow, after all.

How can I be sure that pain isn't an external entity? Because pain killers work? Because unconscious people don't register pain? Take your pick.

How can you be sure that what you think is Christ revealing himself to you isn't a delusion? If you'd never heard of Jesus Christ, if you weren't already aware of Christianity, would you still be so calmly certain that Christ is talking to you? How would you even know it was Jesus, did he use his name? I'm not being flippant, these are obvious questions wrt to what you think you feel. If you lived in a world where there was only Islam, would you be convinced that Allah had spoken to you instead? What I'm saying is that I think that what you think you feel is more likely to have been put there than to be a genuine revelation on your part.

So how can you be so sure?

Still think this is a false analogy. Can you come up with something that is comparable? Some external force that you might be able to compare to a divine influence. Like I said, all the pain analogy is doing is convincing me that what you feel is probably a product of your own mind.

How is it easier and is 'easier' a good reason to believe something? It's not exactly parsimonious what you believe, so I don't think you mean easier in that sense, so in what way is it easier to decide that the Christians have it exactly right (some of them) and everyone elses' god beliefs are wrong?

Sure it is. I believed something for which I could offer no other explanation than some vague feeling that I can't describe, I would definitely consider delusion as a cause. Try flipping this. Am I delusional because I don't believe in any gods? How would you convince me that I should consider that possibility seriously?

I don't really think that you accept my alternatives as possibilities given the level of certainty that you claim here.

I agree with what I've bolded but generally I agree with hypotheses along the lines of those espoused by people like Hitchen's that religions are simply a throwback to a time when we needed to explain what we were observing but didn't have the benefit of the knowledge we've acquired using the scientific method. I'd like to think that one day we'll outgrow the need for religions but I wonder if they're actually just a symptom of a behavioural trait that has already diverted us down an evolutionary path that we'll never recover from.

I'm not really sure what you mean here. When I'm awed by something like the fact that in an area of space the size of a grain of sand held at arms length, the Hubble Telescope identified nearly 10,000 galaxies and the implications that has for how many galaxies there might be, I'm profoundly awed, but I don't consider anything about it to be 'important'. It just is what it is. When contemplating it, I'm in agreement with LaPlace, and have no need of 'that' hypothesis. What do you mean by "signpost and symbol of the Divine"?

I thought you were using pain as a metaphor when you asked about external entities. Although, I think technically, pain could still have an external entity behind it, but we don't need to go down this tangent.

I can't *know* but it's the best and most satisfying answer, given the experiences. I admit it could be a delusion.

I've heard a handful of Muslims that have converted to Christianity explain that Christ appeared to them in a dream. I don't think it's inconceivable that if God were Christ, he could not show himself to people who had never heard of him. It is not that different than OT saints worshipping Christ, even if they did not call him Jesus.

You could imagine the naturalist rejecting supernatural claims on the basis of the evidence. He has no reason to suppose in spiritual things, because the evidence does not take him there. Likewise, the evidence takes me to God because of these supernatural experiences. I have no reason to suppose they don't exist, it is where the evidence has taken me.

It is easier for the naturalist to embrace materialism, because he has no reason to suppose in spiritual things, it would be strange for me to try to convince him otherwise, in a logical sort of way.

Well, you presumably have not had any spiritual experiences that would lead you to believe in God, so you are acting somewhat logically. Take solipsism. You are aware that it could be true, but will that change the way you live? For you to live in a way where nothing else but your own mind exists, is what it would be for me to ignore God and live like he does not exist.

I accept them as possibilities, just like you accept other explanations for reality as possibilities. I could be wrong, just like we could be wrong about solipsism. (Well, I'm not sure we could *both* be wrong about solipsism, because only one of us may actually exist in this paradigm, but you know what I mean). I could be delusional, I accept that, I just think you do not acknowledge how strong the spiritual aspect truly is. I can't just ignore it, it is not logical for me to do so.

I'll say this - faith is a strange thing, I think it is more complicated than people think. From my own experiences, a little faith takes you a long way. Perhaps in the beginning I simply believed without adequate reasons, (although debatable - see Calvinism, etc.) but at the point where I am now, Christ if very real. If it turns out that along the way I deluded myself, or some other agent deluded me, it is irrelevant to how I live in the present. As a Christian I believe that if you have a little faith, God gives you more faith (which often means revealing things to you). It is impossible for me to relate this to you any other way than simply saying that it is something inherent. What I am not doing is putting my fingers in my ears and humming loudly, even if it appears that way, I am very attentive and aware, Christ is simply the best explanation, even if I could be wrong.

Ok, so it doesnt matter what you call the experience you call god does it? And so there is no way of knowing that it is god, or jesus , or whatever

You have labelled an experience with a whole load of concepts which are in no way inherent to the experience, and cannot be found in the experience alone.

My analogy was meant to show that you recognize Christ as you recognize pain. Pain meaning that you feel pain and it's bad. That "ouch" factor is inherent, you don't need to think about it or label it, it's just "ouch". It's just Christ.

I concede that you learn *about* Christ from the bible, from other people, from spiritual experiences, but I'm saying you can learn it *is* Christ, by the experience alone, and then journey to discover more about him.

How? The experience itself doesnt give you any information about whether its christ or not, its just an experience, a set of sensations. Yes, you "recognise" that set of sensations as in, you are aware of them. But nowhere ( other than in your pre-learned thoughts and concepts) is there a sign pointing to the experience saying "this is jesus". The experience itself is empty of any interpretation, only thought gives it that interpretation.

I've been trying hard to be diplomatic, since it's part of the theme of the forum, and because it's a sensitive topic. Let me take a detour from this metaphor, and ask you if you think it would be possible, if Christ were God, for him to make that known to you?

Are you familiar with Saul's conversion to Christianity? Saul at the time asks "the Lord" who he is, and the Lord answers, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”

You can take that account literally, and conclude that God literally spoke to him, or that this was all non-verbal, and he simply recognized who it was. Either way, Saul walks away from his spiritual encounter with the knowledge that Christ is God. There are other examples of this, but what I've been trying to relate is that it's not uncommon for you to be able to know who is behind the message, and it is often the point. Without Saul knowing that Jesus was behind this encounter, the encounter would not have been used to it's potential. After this initial encounter, Saul/Paul now understands who Christ is, and does no longer have to ask who it is that is speaking, because he knows that it is Christ, and this can be seen in the entire NT, as Paul goes from place to place being led by the Lord.

none of this is relevant. I have no idea what experience paul had, or how he determined that it was jesus, and no way of finding out.

I am asking you, though, because you claim to know.

Its not about being diplomatic. Its a fact, as far as I can tell, that all experience ( sights, sounds, smells, tastes, sensations, feelings) come unlabelled, uninterpreted. The labelling and interpretation happens ( a very very short time ) AFTER the fact, when recognition, learning etc kick in and you label what you are experiencing as "Tree" or "pain" or "god". If you hadnt learned any of these concepts, then you would not be labelling anything as those concepts.

So , as I keep saying, your experience does not come pre-labelled "Jesus", you are doing this labelling, subtly, and un noticed. Which is fine.

If you had never heard of god, and had the experience, then you would be going round saying "wow, I had this awesome experience, it felt so great, I have no idea what it was, it was so peaceful and beautiful". If you had never heard of jesus, you would not be attributing it to jesus, unless there was an actual voice or message there saying "this is jesus" , in which case you would be saying "who"?

You can only recognise who it was, if you have some previous information about them. Otherwise, you would just be like "Who/what the hell was that?"



Depends what you mean? Do you mean christ as a man walking up to me and saying "I am god"?
Or do you mean by some other means?


I realise that this is a delicate subject, and if you want to stay with "I just know" and leave it at that, thats ok with me.