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walk with me through the argument

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  • walk with me through the argument

    Carrikature says: The basic criteria are treated as givens despite being anything but. It doesn't really matter, though, because I don't claim there is no warrant or justification for belief. On the contrary, I think there is plenty of warrant. I just think that warrant relies on criteria that, like those you provided in that argument, I don't accept. Your support for them there is 100% appeal to (unspecified) authority.

    let's just walk through it andf see


    Decision Making Paradigm:

    Not proof that God exists but warrant for belief. Justification argument.



    he has some little quip of wisdom of this of course how could he not? there's nothing wrong with informing the reader of what Paradigm I think I'm using.

    God Corrolate: The co-determinate is like the Derridian trace, or like a fingerprint. It's the accompanying sign that is always found with the thing itself. In other words, like trailing the invisible man in the snow. You can't see the invisible man, but you can see his footprints, and wherever he is in the snow his prints will always follow.

    We cannot produce direct observation of God, but we can find the "trace" or the co-determinate, the effects of God in the world.The only question at that point is "How do we know this is the effect, or the accompanying sign of the divine? The answer is in the argument below. Here let us set out some general parameters:

    what here is treated like a given? of course first it might be good to ask are givens always wrong? can't some things be given?


    We can set up criteria based upoIn what we would expect from encounter with the divine: N
    A. Life Transforming and vital in a positive life=affirming sense

    B. It would give us a sense of the transcendent and the divine.

    C. No alternate or naturalistic causality could be proven

    This is probably what he thinks is being presented as a given .,is it? see the part where it says "we can expect...?" Clearly it's not a given but is the result of certain expectations. If those are reasonable then it's not just a given and there's nothing wrong with it. notice he has not reason why they are thought to be givens. I think because he doesn't know what paradigms are or criteria in an argument do.

    obviously they not merely gi en because I justify them right here:



    These criteria are based upon the writings of the great mystics and religious thinkers of history, especially in the Christian tradition, and distilled into /theory by W.T. Stace. The theory is verified and validated by several hundred studies using various methodologies all of them published in peer reviewed journals. The following argument is based upon the findings of these studies. All of this, the studies, the methods used, Stace's theory, these studies and their methodologies are discussed in depth in The Trace of God: a Rational Warrant for Belief by Joseph Hinman, (all proceeds go to non profit) available on Amazon



    they are going to be established and justified by the study findings that I'm going to present.


    ;come to the argument itself I'll deal with it in a second post
    Last edited by metacrock; 04-01-2016, 01:39 PM.
    Metacrock's Blog


    The Religious a priori: apologetics for 21st ccentury

    The Trace of God by Joseph Hinman

  • #2
    .....but none of the above post shows that God is especially interested in homo-sapiens above all the rest of everything.
    Humans are just such megalomaniacs !

    Comment


    • #3
      I don't have to show it. I didn't say it's a Christian argument Christian argument.of course I can show but that's latter. preview, the nature of the experience involves revelation of God's love.
      Metacrock's Blog


      The Religious a priori: apologetics for 21st ccentury

      The Trace of God by Joseph Hinman

      Comment


      • #4
        Read much about the book on the Trace of God blog..

        Argument:
        (1) The affects and effects of mystical experience are real in that they are measurably transformative in a positive sense.

        (2)These affects cannot be reduced to naturalistic cause and affect, bogus mental states or epiphenomena.

        (3)Since the affects of Mystical consciousness are independent of other explanations and the affects are real we should assume that they are genuine experiences of something transcendent of our own minds.

        (4)Since mystical experience is usually experience of something, the Holy, the sacred, or some sort of greater transcendent reality we should assume that the origin of the experience is rooted in transcendent reality.

        (5)Since mystical experience is usually about the divine we can assume a divine origin.

        This fulfills the criteria for the trace: therefore, e are warranted in asserting that mystical experience is the trace of God, and this gives us warrant for belief in God.

        Each of these statement is a premise they either follow out of the previous statement or they are proved by the study findings. this next bit is called analysis because it's going to analyze what's been said. the reader should understand this from the one word "analysis."


        Analysis:

        Real Affects of Mystical Experience Imply Co-determinate

        that means the thing that is always found with God and that indicates God such as the foot prints in snow indicates someone with feet has been there. the experiences are indicative of God just as foot prints are indicative of someone


        now it's going top talk about the nature of the experience and a little about how it's studied.




        A. Study and Nature of Mystical Experiences

        Mystical experience is only one aspect of religious experience, but I will focus on it in this argument. Most other kinds of religious experience are difficult to study since they are more subjective and have less dramatic results. But mystical experience can actually be measured empirically in terms of its affects, and can be compared favorably to other forms of conscious states.

        1) Primarily Religious

        Transpersonal Childhood Experiences of Higher States of Consciousness: Literature Review and Theoretical Integrationm (unpublished paper 1992 by Jayne Gackenback

        • Edited by a Moderator •

        Gackenback website is Spiritwatch
        Quotes:

        "The experience of pure consciousness is typically called "mystical". The essence of the mystical experience has been debated for years (Horne, 1982). It is often held that "mysticism is a manifestation of something which is at the root of all religions (p. 16; Happold, 1963)." The empirical assessment of the mystical experience in psychology has occurred to a limited extent."

        2) Defining charactoristics.

        [Gackenback]

        "In a recent review of the mystical experience Lukoff and Lu (1988) acknowledged that the "definition of a mystical experience ranges greatly (p. 163)." Maslow (1969) offered 35 definitions of "transcendence", a term often associated with mystical experiences and used by Alexander et al. to refer to the process of accessing PC."

        Lukoff (1985) identified five common characteristics of mystical experiences which could be operationalized for assessment purposes. They are:

        1. Ecstatic mood, which he identified as the most common feature;
        2. Sense of newly gained knowledge, which includes a belief that the mysteries of life have been revealed;
        3. Perceptual alterations, which range from "heightened sensations to auditory and visual hallucinations (p. 167)";
        4. Delusions (if present) have themes related to mythology, which includes an incredible range diversity and range;
        5. No conceptual disorganization, unlike psychotic persons those with mystical experiences do NOT suffer from disturbances in language and speech.
        It can be seen from the explanation of PC earlier that this list of qualities overlaps in part those delineated by Alexander et al.

        3)Studies use Empirical Instruments.

        Many skeptics have argued that one cannot study mystical experince scientifically. But it has been done many times, in fact there are a lot of studies and even empirical scales for measurement.

        (Ibid.)

        Quote:

        "Three empirical instruments have been developed to date. They are the Mysticism Scale by Hood (1975), a specific question by Greeley (1974) and the State of Consciousness Inventory by Alexander (1982; Alexander, Boyer, & Alexander, 1987). Hood's (1975) scale was developed from conceptual categories identified by Stace (1960). Two primary factors emerged from the factor analysis of the 32 core statements. First is a general mysticism factor, which is defined as an experience of unity, temporal and spatial changes, inner subjectivity and ineffability. A second factor seems to be a measure of peoples tendency to view intense experiences within a religious framework. A much simpler definition was developed by Greeley (1974), "Have you ever felt as though you were very close to a powerful, spiritual force that seemed to lift you out of yourself?" This was used by him in several national opinion surveys. In a systematic study of Greeley's question Thomas and Cooper (1980) concluded that responses to that question elicited experiences whose nature varied considerably. Using Stace's (1960) work they developed five criteria, including awesome emotions; feeling of oneness with God, nature or the universe; and a sense of the ineffable. They found that only 1% of their yes responses to Greeley's question were genuine mystical experiences. Thus Hood's scale seems to be the more widely used of these two broad measures of mysticism. It has received cross cultural validation" (Holm, 1982; Caird, 1988).

        4) Incidence.

        (Ibid.)

        Quote:

        "Several studies have looked at the incidence of mystical experiences. Greeley (1974) found 35% agreement to his question while Back and Bourque (1970) reported increases in frequency of these sorts of experiences from about 20% in 1962 to about 41% in 1967 to the question "Would you say that you have ever had a 'religious or mystical experience' that is, a moment of sudden religious awakening or insight?" Greeley (1987) reported a similar figure for 1973".

        "The most researched inventory is the State of Consciousness Inventory (SCI; reviewed in Alexander, Boyer, and Alexander, 1987). The authors say "the SCI was designed for quantitative assessment of frequency of experiences of higher states of consciousness as defined in Vedic Psychology (p. 100)."

        "In this case items were constructed from first person statements of practitioners of that meditative tradition, but items were also drawn from other authority literatures. Additional subscales were added to differentiate these experiences from normal waking experience, neurotic experience, and schizophrenic experience. Finally, a misleading item scale was added. These authors conceptualize the "mystical" experience as one which can momentarily occur in the process of the development of higher states of consciousness. For them the core state of consciousness is pure consciousness and from it develops these higher states of consciousness.

        Whereas most researchers on mystical experiences study them as isolated or infrequent experiences with little if any theoretical "goal" for them, this group contextualizes them in a general model of development (Alexander et al., 1990) with their permanent establishment in an individual as a sign of the first higher state of consciousness. They point out that "during any developmental period, when awareness momentarily settles down to its least excited state, pure consciousness [mystical states] can be experienced (p. 310). " In terms of incidence they quote Maslow who felt that in the population at large less than one in 1,000 have frequent "peak" experiences so that the "full stabilization of a higher stage of consciousness appears to an event of all but historic significance (p. 310)."

        "Virtually all of researchers using the SCI are very careful to distinguish the practice of meditation from the experience of pure consciousness, explaining that the former merely facilitates the latter. They also go to great pains to show that their multiple correlation's of health and well-being are strongest to the transcendent experience than to the entire practice of meditation (for psychophysiological review see Wallace, 1987; for individual difference review see Alexander et al., 1987;

        B. Empirical Studies show Long-Term Positive Effects of Mystical Experience

        Research Summary

        From Council on Spiritual Practices Website

        "States of Univtive Consciousness"

        Also called Transcendent Experiences, Ego-Transcendence, Intense Religious Experience, Peak Experiences, Mystical Experiences, Cosmic Consciousness. Sources:

        (1) Studies Wuthnow, Robert (1978). "Peak Experiences: Some Empirical Tests." Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 18 (3), 59-75.

        Noble, Kathleen D. (1987). ``Psychological Health and the Experience of Transcendence.'' The Counseling Psychologist, 15 (4), 601-614.

        Lukoff, David & Francis G. Lu (1988). ``Transpersonal psychology research review: Topic: Mystical experiences.'' Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 20 (2), 161-184.

        Roger Walsh (1980). The consciousness disciplines and the behavioral sciences: Questions of comparison and assessment. American Journal of Psychiatry, 137(6), 663-673.

        Lester Grinspoon and James Bakalar (1983). ``Psychedelic Drugs in Psychiatry'' in Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered, New York: Basic Books.

        Furthermore, Greeley found no evidence to support the orthodox belief that frequent mystic experiences or psychic experiences stem from deprivation or psychopathology. His ''mystics'' were generally better educated, more successful economically, and less racist, and they were rated substantially happier on measures of psychological well-being. (Charles T. Tart, Psi: Scientific Studies of the Psychic Realm, p. 19.)


        this shows the findings of a couple of studies so you know what they say
        (2)Long-Term Effects

        Wuthnow:

        *Say their lives are more meaningful,
        *think about meaning and purpose
        *Know what purpose of life is
        Meditate more
        *Score higher on self-rated personal talents and capabilities
        *Less likely to value material possessions, high pay, job security, fame, and having lots of friends
        *Greater value on work for social change, solving social problems, helping needy
        *Reflective, inner-directed, self-aware, self-confident life style

        Noble:

        *Experience more productive of psychological health than illness
        *Less authoritarian and dogmatic
        *More assertive, imaginative, self-sufficient
        *intelligent, relaxed
        *High ego strength,
        *relationships, symbolization, values,
        *integration, allocentrism,
        *psychological maturity,
        *self-acceptance, self-worth,
        *autonomy, authenticity, need for solitude,
        *increased love and compassion

        (3) Trend toward positive view among psychologists. Spiriutal Emergency MYSTICAL OR UNITIVE EXPERIENCE "Offsetting the clinical literature that views mystical experiences as pathological, many theorists (Bucke, 1961; Hood, 1974, 1976; James, 1961; Jung, 1973; Laski, 1968; Maslow, 1962, 1971; Stace, 1960; Underhill, 1955) have viewed mystical experiences as a sign of health and a powerful agent of transformation." (4) Most clinicians and clinical studies see postive. (Ibid) "Results of a recent survey (Allman, et al,. 1992) suggest that most clinicians do not view mystical experiences as pathological. Also, studies by several researchers have found that people reporting mystical experiences scored lower on psychopathology scales and higher on measures of psychological well-being than controls (Caird, 1987; Hood, 1976, 1977, 1979; Spanos and Moretti, 1988)".


        Last edited by DesertBerean


        now this is arranged so that the worthy opponent says "here's a problem" and I answer it. He was going to just not say. He communed it in a veg way without giving me a change to defend it. he didn't even have the courage to say it in the thread .That is not how the worthy opponent de4alvwith a an argument.
        Metacrock's Blog


        The Religious a priori: apologetics for 21st ccentury

        The Trace of God by Joseph Hinman

        Comment


        • #5
          For anyone interested, my response is here: http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...l=1#post303483.
          I'm not here anymore.

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by metacrock
            We can set up criteria based upoIn what we would expect from encounter with the divine: N
            A. Life Transforming and vital in a positive life=affirming sense

            B. It would give us a sense of the transcendent and the divine.

            C. No alternate or naturalistic causality could be proven
            The highlighted above is the problem! It is most likely the fact that neither a transcendent nor the naturalistic causality may be proven. This too high a bar for anecdotal subjective basis for the encounter. It could be aliens.
            Last edited by shunyadragon; 04-01-2016, 09:03 PM.
            Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
            Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
            But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

            go with the flow the river knows . . .

            Frank

            I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
              The highlighted above is the problem! It is most likely the fact that neither a transcendent nor the naturalistic causality may be proven. This too high a bar for anecdotal subjective basis for the encounter. It could be aliens.
              just because it can't be proven doesn't mean it[s irrational to accept it. it's still warranted. That's just artificial hamstring to give you unfair advantage over the believer.
              Metacrock's Blog


              The Religious a priori: apologetics for 21st ccentury

              The Trace of God by Joseph Hinman

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by metacrock View Post
                just because it can't be proven doesn't mean it[s irrational to accept it. it's still warranted. That's just artificial hamstring to give you unfair advantage over the believer.
                N, it simply makes the argument either way untenable, because neither is subject to proof.
                Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                go with the flow the river knows . . .

                Frank

                I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                  N, it simply makes the argument either way untenable, because neither is subject to proof.
                  what's proven is that it's rational to believe in God and there's good reason to believe. Since no one can prove the existence or lack there of but we can't stop asking it makes to go with the next best thin which is warrant for belief.
                  Metacrock's Blog


                  The Religious a priori: apologetics for 21st ccentury

                  The Trace of God by Joseph Hinman

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by metacrock View Post
                    what's proven is that it's rational to believe in God and there's good reason to believe. Since no one can prove the existence or lack there of but we can't stop asking it makes to go with the next best thin which is warrant for belief.
                    No it's not. As always your argument boils down to unwarranted assumptions. But, as David Hume says, "...any combination of natural events, however antecedently improbable, is antecedently more probable than a scenario involving supernatural intervention."
                    “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Tassman View Post
                      No it's not. As always your argument boils down to unwarranted assumptions. But, as David Hume says, "...any combination of natural events, however antecedently improbable, is antecedently more probable than a scenario involving supernatural intervention."
                      unwarranted assumption warranted by 200 studies' I have 200 academic studies in peer reviewed secular journals in psychology and sociology. That is far more than you have. you have no warrant for doubt. none. Your doubt is based no fact.
                      Metacrock's Blog


                      The Religious a priori: apologetics for 21st ccentury

                      The Trace of God by Joseph Hinman

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by metacrock View Post
                        what's proven is that it's rational to believe in God and there's good reason to believe.
                        As is usual in this type of apologetic you have skipped the step which goes from
                        - it's rational to believe in some form of mystical being
                        to
                        - it's rational to believe in your specific idea of god.

                        Have you got anything that suggests your specific deity is a more likely explanation than ghosts, leprechauns, Unkulunkulu or Ptah?

                        If not, you've merely shown that it's rational to believe that mystical experiences occur, but not rational to believe they have a specific cause.
                        Jorge: Functional Complex Information is INFORMATION that is complex and functional.

                        MM: First of all, the Bible is a fixed document.
                        MM on covid-19: We're talking about an illness with a better than 99.9% rate of survival.

                        seer: I believe that so called 'compassion' [for starving Palestinian kids] maybe a cover for anti Semitism, ...

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by metacrock View Post
                          unwarranted assumption warranted by 200 studies' I have 200 academic studies in peer reviewed secular journals in psychology and sociology.
                          What you have here is a fallacy.
                          Jorge: Functional Complex Information is INFORMATION that is complex and functional.

                          MM: First of all, the Bible is a fixed document.
                          MM on covid-19: We're talking about an illness with a better than 99.9% rate of survival.

                          seer: I believe that so called 'compassion' [for starving Palestinian kids] maybe a cover for anti Semitism, ...

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Roy View Post
                            As is usual in this type of apologetic you have skipped the step which goes from
                            - it's rational to believe in some form of mystical being
                            to
                            - it's rational to believe in your specific idea of god.
                            No because I haven't advocated anything specific. I didn't say this is an argument for the God of Bible. Now granted b\I am a Christian but that doesn't mean that all of my arguments have to be about Christianity. I can link them latter but at this point this argument can support any view of /god.

                            that's why the argument lacks that step not that I CAN'T GIVE IT BUT IT'S NOT IM[PORTAMNT NOW.


                            Have you got anything that suggests your specific deity is a more likely explanation than ghosts, leprechauns, Unkulunkulu or Ptah?
                            (1) the content of the experience is not about those things. So o reason to include them in the argument

                            (2) those are all cotangent and none are creator of all that is not even their own mythology sl they d not apply

                            If not, you've merely shown that it's rational to believe that mystical experiences occur, but not rational to believe they have a specific cause.
                            that's wrong. The content of the experience is about the ground of being (God)
                            Metacrock's Blog


                            The Religious a priori: apologetics for 21st ccentury

                            The Trace of God by Joseph Hinman

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Tassman View Post
                              No it's not. As always your argument boils down to unwarranted assumptions. But, as David Hume says, "...any combination of natural events, however anticedently improbable, is anticedently more probable than a scenario involving supernatural intervention."
                              Hume was most likely correct, but again this does not offer any sort of 'proof.'
                              Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                              Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                              But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                              go with the flow the river knows . . .

                              Frank

                              I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                              Comment

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