Mere Belief? (ritual, beliefs, experience, atheist, dogma)

[PureX]

Originally Posted by Rolling_Stone

Absolutes and infinities are indeed beyond our ability to conceptualize, but not our ability to experience.

Hmmm, ... I would say just the opposite. Obviously we can conceptualize them, as we are having this discussion. What we can't do is experience them in any way that could ratify their existence. A line may be infinite, but no matter what we do, as human beings, we will never be able to verify, experientially, that it is in fact infinite.

Originally Posted by SoyLeche

Unless, of course, you the consider all those who claim to have that experience are deluded or liars. You are falling back to the same logic that one expects from an atheist: you lack the tools, ergo, everyone does.

If "God" stood right in front of you and said that he is God, how could you verify this claim? I can't think of any possible way for a human being to do so.

Originally Posted by SoyLeche

You also seem to miss the bigger point: conceptual interpretations vary as well as the experiences themselves. And since we are finite beings looking to the infinite, we have "no logical right or basis," as you put it, to dogmatically assert they do not know what they claim to know. Like I told Tiberius:
There is a difference between acknowledging the inability to understand something and regarding it as mere belief.

Yet, not knowing remains not knowing. At no point does it magically become knowing, without real objective experiential evidence. And when it comes to real objective experiential evidence of an absolute or infinity, this simply isn't humanly possible.

I don't have to know everything to know that I can't know everything. And I don't have to know everything to know that you can't know everything, either.

[Anti-World]

"For anyone to assume another's religion is mere belief, that what is not known to them cannot be known to anyone, is, IMO, the epitome of superciliousness and arrogance."

That's a terribly odd sentence. If it's not known to anyone but the single person than it can be assumed to be beleif based on it's own definition, which you should already know is: 2.confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof: a statement unworthy of belief.
or
1.something believed; an opinion or conviction: a belief that the earth is flat.
Both definitions tie into the following argument.

If you can not offer proof (As in something that is based off of the five senses and viewable in the same way as people that don't believe in it.) then it's based solely on belief.
Religions are created to fulfill some abstract goal ("Be happier", for example) and, therefore, nothing can come from a religion that isn't belief.
Unless you somehow state that the sujective case is based on the objective then religions will always be completely based on belief.

[Rolling_Stone]

Hmmm, ... I would say just the opposite. Obviously we can conceptualize them, as we are having this discussion. What we can't do is experience them in any way that could ratify their existence. A line may be infinite, but no matter what we do, as human beings, we will never be able to verify, experientially, that it is in fact infinite.

As I see it, the conceptualization of Infinity requires boundries and I don't see how one can wrap Infinity in a box. The experiencing of God cannot, of course, be objectively demonstrated, but interpretation of that experience is entirely subjective. We can chose to believe the prophets, sages and mystics throughout history or not, but there is no reason to dismiss them if what they teach is in some way consistent with our own experience.

If "God" stood right in front of you and said that he is God, how could you verify this claim? I can't think of any possible way for a human being to do so.

If God stood right in front of me I would know it is not God. Something that stands in front of me has being: God is the Source of beings.

Yet, not knowing remains not knowing.

For the observer, not the experiencer. Does an artist have no knowledge of colors because his description of colors carry no meaning for a colorblind person? He does not see the full range of all possible colors any more than he can hear the full range of sound, but does that mean he is therefore totally ignorant of colors? This is the whole point of my post.

Skeptics constantly claim that their inability to know God exists is evidece that no one does. Take a look at anti-world's comments: he might as well be wearing a clown suit...as in:

Please understand that I make an ontological distinction between experience and conceptual interpretation. (I honestly do not understand why this is so difficult to understand.) The God that is conceived is not God; the God that is known is experientially known.








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[Katzpur]

Originally Posted by PureX

If "God" stood right in front of you and said that he is God, how could you verify this claim? I can't think of any possible way for a human being to do so.

Personally, I think the reality of the experience would be undeniable.

Originally Posted by Rolling_Stone

If God stood right in front of me I would know it is not God. Something that stands in front of me has being: God is the Source of beings.

And He can't be both? Why not?

[Willamena]

Originally Posted by Rolling_Stone

Why do critics of religion get away with saying religion is mere “belief”? Do they seriously believe a person's experiential knowledge of, and relationship with, Ultimate Reality is mere belief?

I believe it is. I believe we can no more experience Ultimate Reality than we can experience ourselves.

[Rolling_Stone]

Dang it, Katzpur. I was going to go to bed but both your remarks deserve attention.

Personally, I think the reality of the experience would be undeniable.

The experience would be undeniable, but in my mind God is not a being but Being itself. However, I still have some vague recollections of my Mormon upbringing so I know where you are coming from.

And He can't be both? Why not?

Actually he is both, but the revelation of God is limited by my capacity. What I would be seeing is a representation of God that my comparatively puny mind could grasp, not God.

Which leads to my original point. We can know God is. That much is genuine knowledge. What we say about God is belief. Sad to say, though, not many make that distinction.

[Rolling_Stone]

I believe we can no more experience Ultimate Reality than we can experience ourselves.

I don't understand.

[Willamena]

Originally Posted by Rolling_Stone

I don't understand.

Everything we experience is interpretation in the context of time.

Events that transpire in the world, we observe, but what our senses take in and what our brain recreates and stores in memory is not all that is "out there." This is acknowledged in the phrase "Ultimate Reality" as different from reality that we know. The philosopher David Hume, in the 18th Century, proposed that the same is true of our self-identity, that what we regard as our "selves" is a steady stream of ideas running around in the brain and stored in memory, interpretations of our place in reality.