The connection between a spiritual experience and a certain religion

[JussiUt]

I'm very interested in hearing how this connection is born. If you experience a spiritual experience/mystical experience or whatever you want to call it how do you draw the link between that feeling and one particular religion? How do you know that that experience was exactly the product of Allah or a product of God?

I know the most logical explonation here is that you "choose" the religion which is around you. If you live in a Christian country or in a Christian community or you have Christian parents you are most certainly going to believe that the experience was related to that particular religion. That's logical. What I'm interested in is that how do believers explain to themselves that their religion is the correct one and the others are nonsense?

I know that at least PairTheBoard has played with the idea that all religions are attempts to understand God and that all religions are "related to" the same God and that people just interpret things differently. I would think this would be the most logical and rational position for a believer. If however you truly believe that your religion and its dogmas are absolutely true how do you explain it to yourself logically?

I guess the simplest question would be "what makes Christianity special"? How do you "know" that your spiritual experience indicates that there is a Christian God and not Brahma?

The Christians who believe Christianity is correct is naturally the group who can answer this the best but others are welcomed to chime in.

I just think it's fascinating that people truly say they "know" that Christianity is right and other religions are wrong. What do they think about the origins of the other religions? Are they just illogical and stupid or what is their justification for this belief?

[AWoodside]

Meh, I think it's psychological conditioning, plain and simple. Either they've been indoctrinated to some particular faith from the time they were born, or they switch gears mentally at some point in life due to a traumatizing experience. This statement is mostly from personal experience, but I've never met a mid-life convert that just started believing for no reason. Every single one (and I've met a fair amount) convert after some traumatizing or emotionally scaring event and they turn to whatever faith is most convenient at the time and then get hooked because of the psychological comfort it provides.

My first instinct was to write that these people are simply intellectually bankrupt, irrational, and lack any semblance of personal courage, but after a few minutes of thought I don't think that's fair. I was raised Catholic and indoctrinated pretty heavily when I was young so I know first hand how effective the mental conditioning churches excel at can be. It took me a long time to remove the last vestiges of said conditioning, so I sympathize with those currently suffering from it.

I agree that in some respects the question you ask is "fascinating" but I have a feeling the answer, if we can ever satisfactorily arrive at it, will be less earth-shattering than you might hope. When I was a Christian and I knew deep down in my heart that Christianity was correct it was nothing more than the result of highly effective psychological conditioning performed on an impressionable young child. Church and Sunday school every week, prayers before bed, prayers before sleep, discussion of faith in the classroom (catholic school), threat of eternal torture for not believing, etc. etc. During this time I even had what I thought were spiritual experiences, where I heard God talking to me, but I was an imaginative kid and my experiences with God, looking back, were not qualitatively different than any of the experiences I had with any of my other imaginary friends.

[goodgrief]

Christianity is not special. The answer to your question is that your vision aka mystical experience tells you what it's about. It is not just a warm fuzzy feeling. It is a complete experience that seems as real or more real than any other experience. As a child, I had a classical "enlightenment" experience down to the flash of light that broke open my skull. In that experience, I was "informed" that adults were just pretending to believe in God, just as they did with Santa Claus, because it was a game we have to play in our society to be accepted and not be accused of being a communist. I was informed that all intelligent people knew the secret, that God did not exist, but that we simply don't talk about such matters if we know what is good for us. How was my vision any different from the vision desccribed by Paul on the road to Damascus? (Flashing lights, voice, important message from our sponsors, etc.) It was exactly the same, it just carried a different message. People's susceptibility to such visions seems to be linked to activity in their temporal lobes. I was experiencing some very severe headaches of unknown origin over a period of a couple of years at that time. It is annoying that subjectivity reality can sometimes feel so much more "real" than objective reality, but no use letting it go to your head and kidding yourself that it has anything to do with some guy who may or may not have lived thousands of years earlier. The guy who gets the message from Jesus may be more socially acceptable than the guy who gets the message from Allah that "white people are the devil" or the guy who gets the message that he has been contacted by the Space Brothers for genetic testing, but his message isn't any more real and shouldn't be taken any more seriously. We have an agreement in our society to tiptoe around and pretend that Christianity is somehow special and entitled to special respect because we are, as a society, cowards afraid to point out that nonsense is nonsense. It isn't anything deeper than that. If you ever had a vision, you would quickly realize that they all seem real.

[godBoy]

Use multiple paragraphs please,

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We have an agreement in our society to tiptoe around and pretend that Christianity is somehow special and entitled to special respect because we are, as a society, cowards afraid to point out that nonsense is nonsense. It isn't anything deeper than that.

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Is that a fact or an opinion?

[Bigdaddydvo]

I'll do my best to answer from personal experience. Spiritual experiences are significantly different than other human emotions. To narrow it down a bit, I'll contrast spiritual joy with happiness derived from earthly events/accomplishments. I have a whole host of terrific "worldly" events to draw from for this example (meeting my wife, kids being born, running the Boston Marathon, my West Point graduation day, winning big poker tournaments, even seeing U2 in concert, etc) All those things felt awesome, were exciting, and are among my most treasured memories. Yet they all lacked something present in my most joyful spiritual experiences.

I'll use a recent example. When I was deployed the last time, there was a significant shortage of Catholic priests in the AO. Thus I was unable to attend Mass for a long period time. During that stretch, I developed an intense spirtual hunger, especially for reception of the Holy Eucharist. Later through some good fortune, I was able to attend Mass for the first time in the deployment. From the moment the priest began Mass "In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit" to Communion and the closing prayer, I felt a spiritual high that rivaled many in my life. Spiritual joy is the purest form of happiness there is. As you feel God's love radiate in your soul, you feel no desire to be anywhere else. No happiness derived from any drug, earthly relationship, or accomplishment could ever mirror it. The happiness I felt was not self induced from years of "conditioning" as some suggest but an absolutely real experience. As I've said, in my life I've had some absolutely kick ass non-spiritual experiences, yet none can compare with those of the spiritual realm.

If you're curious, I recommend reading the biographies and writings of several well known Catholic mystics of the last century and the recounting of their spiritual experiences. Among them are St. Faustina and St. Padre Pio.

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
I'll use a recent example. When I was deployed the last time, there was a significant shortage of Catholic priests in the AO. Thus I was unable to attend Mass for a long period time. During that stretch, I developed an intense spirtual hunger, especially for reception of the Holy Eucharist. Later through some good fortune, I was able to attend Mass for the first time in the deployment. From the moment the priest began Mass "In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit" to Communion and the closing prayer, I felt a spiritual high that rivaled many in my life. Spiritual joy is the purest form of happiness there is. As you feel God's love radiate in your soul, you feel no desire to be anywhere else. No happiness derived from any drug, earthly relationship, or accomplishment could ever mirror it. The happiness I felt was not self induced from years of "conditioning" as some suggest but an absolutely real experience. As I've said, in my life I've had some absolutely kick ass non-spiritual experiences, yet none can compare with those of the spiritual realm.


[/ QUOTE ]
I've had this as well, its amazing. The suns shining, the anticipation, that jingle, Richie Benaud's dulcet tones welcoming us to the first morning of the first test of the summer. God is in his heaven.

chez

[bunny]

I think there is no rational way to determine the correct religion, although there are rational grounds for excluding some (those which make claims contradicting known facts).

Personally, I think subjective experience is good grounds for thinking there is something there, but claiming you know much more about it (other than it induces a subjective feeling) is not justified. I never struggled with this as a believer. I considered myself a christian who was probably following the wrong religion.

[godBoy]

[ QUOTE ]
I considered myself a christian who was probably following the wrong religion.

[/ QUOTE ]
Sorry, Did I read this correctly?

How can possibly follow something you 'probably' believe to be wrong?

[bunny]

[ QUOTE ]
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I considered myself a christian who was probably following the wrong religion.

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Sorry, Did I read this correctly?

How can possibly follow something you 'probably' believe to be wrong?

[/ QUOTE ]
Most people do it all the time. I have a bunch of beliefs regarding science for example, but given the nature of scientific theories I am pretty confident that they are not true representations of the world. I dont see this as a problem, do you?

With regard to christianity, of course, what I mean is that I assume that my interpretation of the bible is incorrect (after all, how could I possibly expect to get it exactly right?). That doesnt change the fact that it "seems right" to me.

[bunny]

In case it's not clear what I meant, I am referring to beliefs like:
It's impossible to travel faster than the speed of light, there are a bunch of fundamental particles which combine in various ways to make "bigger" sub-atomic particles, natural selection accounts for the variety of species in some nebulous, half-understood way, the universe expanded from an infinitely dense point, a variety of half-remembered things from astronomy and astrophysics regarding the formation of stars, planets and black holes, etc etc

While I believe each of these things, I am very confident that we dont have them all right. I cant say which ones of course, yet I am left believing in a bunch of statements but confident that they aren't all true. It sounds peculiar, but I dont think it is an uncommon position if you think about it. My religion is the same.