Experiencing God\'s Presence
 

I know this has been touched on before, but I don't remember reading a satisfactory answer.

Can any theist explain to me how they got from experiencing God or having a conversation with God to believing in all that their religion tells them? I understand spiritual experiences and the impact that they can have. What I don't understand is how any of these experiences lead one to believe in the inerrancy of holy texts, that Jesus is our savior, that suicide bombing is acceptable, etc.

I know the atheist/agnostic/moderate position is to say that after having such an experience you just assume that it is from the God that you have heard the most about. In other words, your community has told you all about a specific conception of God, you have this "special" experience, therefore this specific God must have spoken to you. I find that rather weak and I'm hoping that there are some theists that have a better answer for me.

Re: Experiencing God\'s Presence
 

I think what happens for most people is that they are given lessons on a religion and then have a spiritual experience with the concepts of the religion in mind.

However, regardless of prior experience with religious teachings, people naturaly wonder about things like, where did we come from, why are we here, is there a purpose to my life? etc. Out of meditation on these issues people have subjective experiences.

I've heard a lot of people when asked if they believe in God say, "Well, I believe there's something". They have had a subjective experience that's brought them to some state of conviction about these eternal issues. They may seek out others and compare notes so to speak. Thereby gravitating toward one Religious interpretation or another. Sometimes they even invent a new Religion themselves. If Religions were somehow abolished I think you would see more of this.

PairTheBoard

Re: Experiencing God\'s Presence
 

I believe that many people have these subjective experiences and I even believe that they can be very meaningful and valuable. However I have yet to hear of anyone whose subjective experiences have told them anything close to all that many theists believe.

I will grant you that people talk about these experiences, compare notes, gravitate toward one another and toward a religion, etc. But I don't see how this gives them any conviction of certainty about a majority of their religious views.

So let's say I'm given lessons on a religion or I am meditating on a specific teaching/principle. How does the resulting spiritual experience have to do with anything other than that specific teaching/principle? I dunno, I'm just curious as to what kind of experiences people have had.

Re: Experiencing God\'s Presence
 

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I believe that many people have these subjective experiences and I even believe that they can be very meaningful and valuable. However I have yet to hear of anyone whose subjective experiences have told them anything close to all that many theists believe.

I will grant you that people talk about these experiences, compare notes, gravitate toward one another and toward a religion, etc. But I don't see how this gives them any conviction of certainty about a majority of their religious views.

So let's say I'm given lessons on a religion or I am meditating on a specific teaching/principle. How does the resulting spiritual experience have to do with anything other than that specific teaching/principle? I dunno, I'm just curious as to what kind of experiences people have had.

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I think that being persuaded by other people is a big part of the experience as far as accepting specific doctrines.

PairTheBoard

Re: Experiencing God\'s Presence
 

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I think that being persuaded by other people is a big part of the experience as far as accepting specific doctrines.

PairTheBoard

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I'm not sure if I follow you here. The experience is tempered by what they have heard previously? I definitely believe that. But then is it the case that people don't realize this? Because it seems like people take these experiences to reveal truth that comes from a divine source, not from what they heard last week.

I'm just trying to understand religious conviction. I don't understand how anyone can have a high level of confidence in their faith, be it theistic, deistic, or atheistic.

Re: Experiencing God\'s Presence
 

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I'm just trying to understand religious conviction. I don't understand how anyone can have a high level of confidence in their faith, be it theistic, deistic, or atheistic.

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It's that their experiences closely or perfectly match those described in their holy texts.
It's even more compelling when you experience something you haven't read in the text but find it there later. This way you know that you weren't manifesting something because you read it and wanted it to be true - which would be the typical skeptics line of questioning.

Re: Experiencing God\'s Presence
 

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I'm just trying to understand religious conviction. I don't understand how anyone can have a high level of confidence in their faith, be it theistic, deistic, or atheistic.

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It's that their experiences closely or perfectly match those described in their holy texts.
It's even more compelling when you experience something you haven't read in the text but find it there later. This way you know that you weren't manifesting something because you read it and wanted it to be true - which would be the typical skeptics line of questioning.

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Would you mind elaborating on this? With a specific example perhaps. You can PM me if you would rather not post a personal story on a public forum.

I really can't see how I could be sure, or confident even, that my spiritual experience was not a result of what I had heard/read previously. What reason is there to believe that I am not interpreting this experience through the lens of what I have heard previously? And even if some of what was written in a holy text matches my spiritual experience, why does that lend any credence to the rest of the holy text or one specific interpretation of that text?

With regard to finding something in a text after a spiritual experience, how can you be sure that you hadn't just forgotten what you had read or heard?

Re: Experiencing God\'s Presence
 

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I'm just trying to understand religious conviction. I don't understand how anyone can have a high level of confidence in their faith, be it theistic, deistic, or atheistic.

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It's that their experiences closely or perfectly match those described in their holy texts.
It's even more compelling when you experience something you haven't read in the text but find it there later. This way you know that you weren't manifesting something because you read it and wanted it to be true - which would be the typical skeptics line of questioning.

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Would you mind elaborating on this? With a specific example perhaps. You can PM me if you would rather not post a personal story on a public forum.

I really can't see how I could be sure, or confident even, that my spiritual experience was not a result of what I had heard/read previously. What reason is there to believe that I am not interpreting this experience through the lens of what I have heard previously? And even if some of what was written in a holy text matches my spiritual experience, why does that lend any credence to the rest of the holy text or one specific interpretation of that text?

With regard to finding something in a text after a spiritual experience, how can you be sure that you hadn't just forgotten what you had read or heard?

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The connection between the hypothetical experience and the holy text need not be close in an absolute sense for interpretation and loose correlation to make it proof positive to an individual.

There is sufficiently varied text and enough wiggle room to satisfy anyone who wants to believe in something. It doesn't have to be a desire to believe in any specific thing at all, just a Mulder-like desire to believe.

Re: Experiencing God\'s Presence
 

I think if you look at the doctrines as being more along the lines of organizing metaphors you would do better in understanding what's going on. Take the organizing metaphors of science for example. We call them scientific models. We call a photon of light a "particle". Is it really truly in reality a "particle"? What would that even mean? The metaphor "particle" organizes data for experiments in which photons act "like" particles. Then we do experiments where light acts more "like" a wave. Is it a particle or is it a wave? Well, it's neither. What it IS is a photon of light. That doesn't mean the metaphors of "particle" or "wave" are without value. They serve to "point to" whatever it is that a photon really is. Both metaphors may be abadoned completely in the future for better ones. Try to apply this as an analogy to Religious doctrines when you think about them.

I've offered this insight here repeatedly. People seem to be ignoring it.

PairTheBoard

Re: Experiencing God\'s Presence
 

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Both metaphors may be abadoned completely in the future for better ones. Try to apply this as an analogy to Religious doctrines when you think about them.

I've offered this insight here repeatedly. People seem to be ignoring it.

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I, personally, am not ignoring your insight, ptb. In fact I agreed with it before you even mentioned it. Of course the most rapidly religion drops its "god" metaphor and just accept that the world simply is, that the god metaphor for what we don't know, doesn't help at all, in fact is full of dangerous contradictions and delusions, the better off we we all be and, the sooner greater progress in civilization will be made. The universe simply is, duh!

Thanks for your insightful posts.