Opinion of Missionary Dating

[afleitch]

Somebody pontificating about this subject who doesn't know what the 'road to Damascus' refers to is rich. The idea that there's no possible middle ground between completely accepting religious visions on their own terms and accusing people willy-nilly of having 'psychiatric episodes' is itself more than a little questionable and disturbing so I sincerely hope that's not what you're advancing.

I don't really clearly remember the specifics of what jmfcst claimed but as I recall it did sound a little suspect.

Getting back to the thread subject, it's certainly a better reason for religious conversion than some sort of messed-up, dishonest, shambling scam of a romantic relationship.

I think there is a middle ground; one should be instinctively suspicious of any 'vision' that he or she sees, religious or otherwise. Given that claimed visions tend to either be for the benefit of the person who has them (as in jim jams case) and can explicitly contradict the visions of others or defy another persons interpretation (after all one persons devil is another persons pan) it is proper to be dismissive to neutral until you can construct an objective justification for what you have seen, rational or otherwise.

I was curious to read of this man's case if it's true. Obviously the woman is manipulative and he would probably be better off simply walking away. If someones faith or belief system is more important to them than maintaining healthy and supportive interpersonal relationships with others, including their own partner then any relationship is going to be destructive in the end.

[afleitch]

Nathan, posts like that are why we can’t have nice things.

I was going to respond to your response to me as follows;

We probably would part company on extending that to all tenets of religious ‘revelation’; visual or otherwise. As I mentioned in a thread a few months back I am a strong believer in the religious/superstitious v rational/empirical view of the world (if we have to give a neat split) as essentially hardwired based on the noticeable differences between men/women (probably the easiest to measure as many censuses record belief) autistic/schizotypal, evidential/intuitive etc that comes out of studies on religion, belief and spirituality. To me it’s probably very similar to other expressed human traits therefore making both views neutral. Of course that poses more problems for those who argue for exclusivity and ‘truth’ in their own religious or spiritual belief than those who have no belief, because many beliefs that espouse exclusivity often cannot entertain the idea that opposition to it is morally neutral.

I made that digression to help expand my position. Any religious revelation that has been communicated to you can be more suspect than any revelation that you perceive yourself, as that revelation is second hand and therefore should also be treated as either suspect or neutral until an argument can be built in favour of it. Certainly if you are not religious such as myself, then no argument can ever be constructed that meets that criteria but if you are inclined to interpret the world through a religious spectrum it makes sense if you are in search of ‘truth’ or at least the correct path towards something that is real but forever indefinable, is to place on hold your own interpretation of a religious experience or revealed word until you make recourse to other religious/spiritualistic interpretations. What I mean by that in shorthand is Person A raised in a Christian culture and used to Christian spiritual concepts should not assume that whatever religious experience he or she has equates to or confirms the Christian belief. Unfortunately (and I make no accusations towards anyone that posts in this forum) is that if you are culturally saturated by one religion then it’s simply easier to simply accept the tenets of that religion rather than to spend the effort looking at every other conceivable interpretation.

Which still stands, though it makes sense to respond a little to what Joe raised.

Obviously, middle ground aside (which was, I guess ‘advice’ of sorts to those spiritually minded) I would consider that there is a rational explanation for every ‘vision’ that person has (including people who downright lie). I defer to David Hume on that one. There is no evidence that any external sentient actor or agent can either enter ones mind to invoke a vision or suspend the natural order in order to create a literal vision in front of a person. There is no evidence that our mind and our thought processes can be internally altered by external agents other than passive agents such as drugs, certain properties of plants, gases and the side effects of the body’s response to a bacterial or viral illness. So if one perceives a vision that is not consistent with the natural state of affairs he must either be under the influence of passive agents or he is mistaken in what he perceives. That does not mean of course that a person is ‘mad.’

We also know the extraordinary properties of the brain. Our own vision (if we simply focus on one of the senses for a moment) is remarkable; people with partial sight, usually forms of glaucoma that reduce vision in specific spots have reported that the brain tried to ‘fill in’ the spots that remain dark often with what the brain expects to be there but often with the absurd. There was fear of reporting this less they be considered ‘mad.’ Of course this happens to us each and every moment because the optical nerve also produces a black ‘spot’ that the brain has to fill in for us. We can all hear a voice in our heads; we can sing songs in our minds and orchestrate Beethoven even if we can’t sing a note. But it is important to note that evidentially any ‘voice’ heard in your head is a product of one’s own mind, and from the absorption of experiences even if that voice seems disconnected from yourself. I personally find it wonderful that simple electrochemical patterns make up our consciousness and regularly surprise myself at my brains ability to make me experience fantastical things (not to be vulgar but a heightened clash of senses and a tendency to escape from oneself during sex is both a prime and a primal example) But those experiences are internally grounded.

It is wrong to generally categorise these experiences as psychotic or schizotypal, though in many cases they can be but it is equally suspect to grasp at these experiences as some form of external or divine inspiration, even just some of them, when there isn’t evidence that the brain works that way or is receptive to such influences. It’s essentially plagiarising what is a very human experience for metaphysical ends.

[afleitch]

Okay, afleitch, I'm going to get into this in some detail. This might be a little disjointed because I had a glass of white wine and am coming into this religious debate with you straight off a political debate with my great-uncle, but here's a try:

This is only my third Thanksgiving and i've yet to learn that I ought to let the food coma do it's thing!

I don't think what you have argued is disjointed at all. Whether or not my own theory has any traction, atheists still have the easier stance to take by simply saying that there isn't a god. That's all that's really required. If you start to postulate that there is (and I have respect for deism until it starts to structure itself around set concepts) then things become intrinsically more difficult as the world and all it's religious difference attests.

Whether or not my theory has any traction and there is a god, I see no particular disadvantage to me in not subscribing to that belief. If I think of myself, I much prefer people not to know about me than to know about me but misinterpret who I am. Furthermore I would prefer people to not know about me than to assume what my desires are then try to fulfill them in my name. One shouldn't assume a personable creator god is going to hand out brownie points for getting the idea right but not the execution and then create a bigger distance between itself and the people who don't believe that it exists or care to think about it.

So I see no loss to myself in that regard. Part of that is rooted in my own position that I care about myself after my death as much as I care about myself before I was conceived. Which is of course very little (though I am actually more intrigued by the latter)

On the matter of 'plagiarism', I would agree that I cannot say to an individual that it is wrong of them to attest a material interaction with the world as having no 'spiritual' merit particularly as spiritualism itself is not the exclusive domain of the supernatural; one can obtain succour from anything he or she experiences. Why is the act of the refraction of light when sun disappears behind the horizon 'beautiful'? for example? Very recent (as in it's on the interwebs this week) research seems to suggest that viewing things such as pictures of fluffy cats can assist in the learning experience (I'll need to try that!) so beauty seems to open up the pores a little when it comes to acknowledging what is around you. I guess in many ways I have grown to accept that I have quite a 'pagan-scientific' spiritualistic view of the world and my experiences on it without personifying the agents involved. A little digression there. What bad theology can do is to claim for the domain of god the morality of men. It can claim for god the goodness, the nuances, the theatre of human experience, for god as defined by god or given to us by god. That to me also divorces the human experience from the animal experience of which we are family and from which we have obtained many of these values. The tender and selfless love of a parent for a child is not exclusively human. As a 'value' it predates ourselves. Now of course for those who place god right at the very 'start' this doesn't jostle me as much as it would for those who are more literal in their interpretation of humanities beginnings. However what it can also do is to make exclusive to certain deity following humans universal concepts of morality. A believing Christian cannot, comparing like with like be more moral than a non Christian. Being Christian doesn't endow you with anything that a non Christian doesn't have access to in terms of making moral decisions or choices (indeed as practiced by some I feel it can close people off from the human experience by 'moralising' essentially neutral positions but that's a different discussion)That's what I mean by 'plagiarism'; certain forms of Christianity can condition people into thinking that non-Christians have some form of 'deficit' or no basis in their values when those values are often the same and derived from the same impulse.