The connection between a spiritual experience and a certain religion

[chezlaw]

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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.


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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

[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?

[Taraz]

I was asking this very question in a thread a week ago. I never really got an answer that I found satisfactory.

PairTheBoard claimed at the time that it all just gets wrapped up in the reality of the spiritual experience. You hear these things going into the experience so they become incorporated in it.

I think that something similar is probably going on. You hear all these things about God. You have a religious experience. You start believing all these things about God because he "spoke" to you and you have no reason to doubt the claims.

Maybe later you learn that something you heard about God doesn't jive with what you see in the world. Then you go down one of two paths. You either convince yourself that you were told something about God that is incorrect, or you convince yourself that what you see/hear in the world is incorrect. Depending on how hardcore you are in your faith, you could be in a spot where you think that what you heard about God can't be incorrect because he "spoke" to you and he wouldn't have if you were mistaken about who he really was. So then this subjective reality becomes more real than the objective reality because obviously objective reality was "wrong".

[godBoy]

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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?

[Taraz]

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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?

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This just isn't right, it's no where close to logical or reasonable that mutually exclusive beliefs can co-exist.
This type of belief is just intellectual dishonesty and a perversion of the truth (if such a thing exists). The thing that separates religions is it's theology, it's defining 'facts' about the nature of God that it claims. ptb shouldn't try to make Christianity something it is not, it's nothing more than muddying the waters and perverting the truth.


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I'm not saying that you have to believe it, but I don't really think it's all that illogical. If you believe in God, why would it be illogical to think that all human attempts to reach him have ended up misinterpreting his message in some way? I don't think PTB ever claimed that all religious theologies are compatible, just that they were all trying to get to God in some way.

I mean, Muslims believe that Jesus was from God. Christians believe Moses was from God. But Muslim Theology doesn't jive with Christian Theology which doesn't jive with Jewish Theology.

[godBoy]

It's not right to give equal credibility to all religions.

The very point that mutually exclusive theologies exist amongst religions means you have a choice to make.
I've said myself that i'm sure that there is truth in religions other than Christianity, but to be a 'Christian' is to agree on the points where it differs from others.

[Taraz]

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It's not right to give equal credibility to all religions.

The very point that mutually exclusive theologies exist amongst religions means you have a choice to make.
I've said myself that i'm sure that there is truth in religions other than Christianity, but to be a 'Christian' is to agree on the points where it differs from others.

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Oh, I wasn't arguing at all that PTB's view is a "Christian" view. I just don't think it's a logically inconsistent view.

What do you mean that it's not right to give all religions equal credibility? In this post you seem to be agreeing with my overall point, so I'm not sure what you mean. Obviously some religions are going to seem "more right" to each individual.

And I don't think you necessarily have to make a choice. You can pick and choose like all of us do anyway [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img].

[godBoy]

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Oh, I wasn't arguing at all that PTB's view is a "Christian" view. I just don't think it's a logically inconsistent view.

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What is logically inconsistent is that you believe that all religions are pointing to the same thing - when the individual religions are clearly pointing in very different directions.

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What do you mean that it's not right to give all religions equal credibility? In this post you seem to be agreeing with my overall point, so I'm not sure what you mean. Obviously some religions are going to seem "more right" to each individual.

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I do agree with your main point.
Some religions are just perversions of other religions and they should be seen as such.

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And I don't think you necessarily have to make a choice. You can pick and choose like all of us do anyway.

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I'm not one for making up my own religion, that's intellectual dishonesty and wishful thinking.

[bunny]

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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?

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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.

[Taraz]

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Oh, I wasn't arguing at all that PTB's view is a "Christian" view. I just don't think it's a logically inconsistent view.

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What is logically inconsistent is that you believe that all religions are pointing to the same thing - when the individual religions are clearly pointing in very different directions.

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I disagree. One could easily claim that the reason they are pointing in different directions is because humans have misinterpreted things. Is there anything you have in mind when you say they clearly point in different directions? I'm not arguing that this viewpoint is correct or somehow better, just that it isn't illogical necessarily.

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What do you mean that it's not right to give all religions equal credibility? In this post you seem to be agreeing with my overall point, so I'm not sure what you mean. Obviously some religions are going to seem "more right" to each individual.

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I do agree with your main point.
Some religions are just perversions of other religions and they should be seen as such.

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Or you could say that all religions are just perversions of the same religion/God. That seems to be an equally consistent position.
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And I don't think you necessarily have to make a choice. You can pick and choose like all of us do anyway.

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I'm not one for making up my own religion, that's intellectual dishonesty and wishful thinking.

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I don't see why you keep saying it's intellectually dishonest. Would you mind expanding on that? To me it's seems the most intellectually honest. If none of the religions make sense to you as a whole, why is it wrong to choose to follow the tenets that you agree with? You wouldn't be able to claim that you follow a particular religion, but I don't see how it's dishonest.

I'm 100% fine with you disagreeing with this position, but I think it's a little strange to call it more illogical than any one of the given religions.