God Argument: God Corrolate (or co-determionate)

[metacrock]

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Decision Making Paradigm:

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

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:

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

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. • Edited by a Moderator •

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.

Analysis:

Real Affects of Mystical Experience Imply Co-determinate

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

http://www.sawka.com/spiritwatch/cehsc/ipure.htm

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.)

(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)".

[shunyadragon]

Too much, too long and loaded with presuppositions. Ten pounds does not fit in a five pound bag.

[metacrock]

Too much, too long and loaded with presuppositions. Ten pounds does not fit in a five pound bag.

I wrote a whole book/ buy the book do us both a favor. if you think there are any groundless assertion why don't you attack one and see what happens?

[Carrikature]

I'm not really sure why you felt the need to create yet another thread in response to my statement about this argument. For the sake of tying up loose ends, I'm going to spell out what my particular objection is.


For starters, let's grant all of this:

Analysis:

Real Affects of Mystical Experience Imply Co-determinate

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.)

(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)".

Let me also explicitly state that I understand and accept this:

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

So let's break it down:

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?

This is a great start. I readily accept that the existence of a deity should have some sort of trace, even if it's as ephemeral as a fingerprint. The question posed here is spot on: how do we know an effect is a trace? Let's see the answer.

The answer is in the argument below. Here let us set out some general parameters:

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

Stop here. Is there any reason to assume a mystical experience must be positive and/or life-affirming? I certainly don't think so. More on this in a moment.

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

This one is good.

C. No alternate or naturalistic causality could be proven.

This one is good, too. Note, however, that this doesn't mean alternate or naturalistic causalities aren't viable. They just can't be conclusively shown as the cause.


So back to A. What's the reason to think it has to be positive or life-affirming?

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.

Religion, and the Christian one in particular. It's supposed implicitly that the experience is with a benevolent entity which gives rise to good behavior.

Let's keep going.

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.

See the bolded words? Those are where the argument falls apart. In fact, this isn't an argument, it's a non sequitur.

Ghost hunters talk about cold spots and magnetic disturbances as traces. What they never do is establish why we should think that paranormal activity would leave these sorts of traces. It's the same thing happening here. Yes, you can 'assume' there's a link. People do this all the time. Is it rational? Is it warranted? No. You can't get there from here. There's a bridge missing, and it's the same one (in my opinion) that's always missing.

Weird things happen to people. They have experiences they can't explain, and no one else can either. I don't question that. What I do question is how we know what the source of those experiences are.

The proposed question was a great one: "how do we know?" The answer we've been given: assume.

[metacrock]

I'm not really sure why you felt the need to create yet another thread in response to my statement about this argument. For the sake of tying up loose ends, I'm going to spell out what my particular objection is.

you weren't answering here you were bad mouthing in a third thread.


For starters, let's grant all of this:




Let me also explicitly state that I understand and accept this:

So let's break it down:



This is a great start. I readily accept that the existence of a deity should have some sort of trace, even if it's as ephemeral as a fingerprint. The question posed here is spot on: how do we know an effect is a trace? Let's see the answer.

Stop here. Is there any reason to assume a mystical experience must be positive and/or life-affirming? I certainly don't think so. More on this in a moment.

It's empirical that the point of the studi9es why I quote those five studies at the end and long lists from Wuthnow and Noble.



This one is good.

This one is good, too. Note, however, that this doesn't mean alternate or naturalistic causalities aren't viable. They just can't be conclusively shown as the cause.

theoretically there is no reason to assert them since you don't have any. I can knock down all they I've heard of.

So back to A. What's the reason to think it has to be positive or life-affirming?

because they are. that is taken from the literature into Stace's theory and then Stace is validated by Hood empirically. There are4 no examples of them being negative. There are negative experiences but they don't fit the characteristics found in the experiences that match Stace's theory. Stace is validated by the M scale that is most modern examples of this kind of thing fit Stace's theory. The negative experiences are only about 4% of the whole (the whole being "spiritual experience" mystical are one type and these negatioves one omne type)/

Religion, and the Christian one in particular. It's supposed implicitly that the experience is with a benevolent entity which gives rise to good behavior.

that id born out empirically in all forms of mystical experience. That's the kind of experience called sense of the numinous.

Let's keep going.




See the bolded words? Those are where the argument falls apart. In fact, this isn't an argument, it's a non sequitur.

Ghost hunters talk about cold spots and magnetic disturbances as traces. What they never do is establish why we should think that paranormal activity would leave these sorts of traces. It's the same thing happening here. Yes, you can 'assume' there's a link. People do this all the time. Is it rational? Is it warranted? No. You can't get there from here. There's a bridge missing, and it's the same one (in my opinion) that's always missing.

Weird things happen to people. They have experiences they can't explain, and no one else can either. I don't question that. What I do question is how we know what the source of those experiences are.

as the argument said the content is of the divine and the experience is about God. The experience is real it's reasonable to assume thye subject matter or the object is real..

The proposed question was a great one: "how do we know?" The answer we've been given: assume.

the whole point is warrant, that assumption is warranted. how do you know your mother loves you? Why should you assume she's realloy your mother?

[shunyadragon]

I wrote a whole book/ buy the book do us both a favor. if you think there are any groundless assertion why don't you attack one and see what happens?

Do not need to buy the book the following highlighted is a problem I brought up in another thread.

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.

[metacrock]

Do not need to buy the book the following highlighted is a problem I brought up in another thread.

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.

no cayusality cab be proven haven't you read Hume?

[Tassman]

Snipped.



as the argument said the content is of the divine and the experience is about God. The experience is real it's reasonable to assume thye subject matter or the object is real..

the whole point is warrant, that assumption is warranted. how do you know your mother loves you? Why should you assume she's realloy your mother?

no good reason to assume that a deity is real. The god-hypothesis has never been verified.

[shunyadragon]

no causality cab be proven haven't you read Hume?

Correct! Proof is a highly questionable high bar regardless. Again . . .

Still no answer . . . 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.

[metacrock]

that's an ideological dictum. I've already proved that SN means mystical experience it doesn't ,mean magic it doesn't mean realms beyond it means the experience of God's power rising u to a higher level of consciousness. That is proved real.

Besides, anything indicated by the evidence is valid as belief. If there is a rational warrant, that's what the argument offers.

no good reason to assume that a deity is real. The god-hypothesis has never been verified.

I have the same thing of God. I have physical aspects of experiencing God['s presence, I have a historical reality of that, I have real physical effects from the experience and they are long term positive and life transforming.

[metacrock]

Correct! Proof is a highly questionable high bar regardless. Again . . .

Still no answer . . . 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.

you are obfuscating. I just said the argument is not about proof so the fact that it doesn't prove is not a problem for the claims it makes.

[Tassman]

that's an ideological dictum. I've already proved that SN means mystical experience it doesn't ,mean magic it doesn't mean realms beyond it means the experience of God's power rising u to a higher level of consciousness. That is proved real.

Besides, anything indicated by the evidence is valid as belief. If there is a rational warrant, that's what the argument offers.

I have the same thing of God. I have physical aspects of experiencing God['s presence, I have a historical reality of that, I have real physical effects from the experience and they are long term positive and life transforming.

[metacrock]

BS. you have no basis for that claim. you have no disproof. you can't answer my arguments. you are begging the question. your argument amounts to saying "there can't be a God because I don't like it."

We do not know what energy is. We don't know what subatomic particles ate made of. you have no basis for doubt just based upon immaterial.

no good reason to assume that a deity is real. The god-hypothesis has never been verified.

I already answered this. The studies prove physical effects from experience of God's presence. you can't prove that "physical" reality is not based upon mental reality.

[shunyadragon]

BS. you have no basis for that claim. you have no disproof. you can't answer my arguments. you are begging the question. your argument amounts to saying "there can't be a God because I don't like it."

We do not know what energy is. We don't know what subatomic particles ate made of. you have no basis for doubt just based upon immaterial.





I already answered this. The studies prove physical effects from experience of God's presence. you can't prove that "physical" reality is not based upon mental reality.

Again, you are clinging to allusive nebulous proof or disproof, which is illogical and irrational. Claims of disproof would require a negative theory or hypothesis, which is impossible. You cannot prove the negative in logic nor falsify it in science.

[shunyadragon]

you are obfuscating. I just said the argument is not about proof so the fact that it doesn't prove is not a problem for the claims it makes.

Does not make sense based on your criteria here:

C. No alternate or naturalistic causality could be proven.