Chevalier Violet
Active Member
Hi everybody, thank you for all your thought, hard work, and efforts. I really appreciate your responses. Let's look and see what people said.
Only one atheist tried by PM, so this will be an analysis of the response of theists.
So to recap, I asked theists to try "seeing God" in a number of different forms - a block of cheese, a parrot, a man, and a woman. Storm pointed out that this is an experiment aimed at deists more than theists, and not very fair to pantheists and panentheists. This point is well taken, so let's look at some of the responses:
One response had no visual representation of God.
Two responses had absolutely no problem changing God's form.
Mark reports some difficulty "changing" God's form. So in other words, Mark reports that only certain objects can properly symbolize or represent God in Mark's mind. More on this later.
The overall thrust of this post seems to be a "no". Gracie appears only able to see God as a parrot in a special sense of the word. I don't want to be too overbearing with this interpretation, and Gracie please let me know if I'm mistaken.
It seems to me, and I may have misread this, that Gracie was unable to envision God as a parrot.
The second half of this post I believe means that Gracie obtained a state of harmony with the universe and inner peace. In this state, the barriers between self and God melted away, and Gracie was able to be in contact with God while going about her normal life.
This seems to me that either Gracie had a pantheistic moment, where all was divine. Or she found an ability to have a conversation with God and go about daily tasks at the same time.
So I believe we can categorize these responses as "I have no visual representation," "yes" and "no."
On another site I was posting on, a two Christians reported that a ball of light was the only way they could see God. The moment they tried to impose an image upon the ball of light, it was no longer "God" but an imagined image. But once they passively saw, the ball of light was God again.
My experience tends to match this latter case. I cannot impose an image on a vision of God, but when I let it passively happen, the image I see, if any, tends to be a ball of brightness.
Normal imagination:
Before we ask what these answers mean, let's remind ourselves the properties of normal imagination.
In normal imagination, if I want to imagine a cup, a cup appears very easily. I can change the shape, size, angle, speed. I can break it and put it back together.
If God were the product of normal imagination, we would expect God's image to be relatively permeable. Any conscious attempt to change this image would supposedly be easy.
Normal dream representation:
Representation in dreams is, highly variable. In my own dreams, characters never look like the people I think they are. My mom doesn't really look like my mom, even though I associate that person with her in the dream. Our mind is immensely creative: it throws us into bizarre landscapes, juxtaposes unlike objects, creates things we have never seen in real life.
Moreover, when we will it we can transform some objects into other objects. My sister had a lucid dream once where she turned a wallet into pure gold out of will.
All this would cause our hypothesis to be that if visions of God are the result of delusions, these delusions were be susceptible to voluntary change.
This creative power extends its reach to the hypnagogic state before sleep, and during delusions, drug-induced hallucinations. These visions rarely repeat in global content or even the content of individual objects. In other words, we dream about a wide and ever-changing variety of things.
If God were a delusion, we would therefore expect a wide variety in how people perceived God.
Here one objection raises its head, namely the notion of repeating dreams. Perhaps God is an example of a self-repeating dream. I don't see this as highly plausible as stated now: even in the clear minority of dreams which are self-repeating, they rarely repeat exactly. More to the point, if a large number of people have this self-repeating delusion, then we would expect its particular content to differ from person to person.
Many atheists raise the objection that certain delusional neurotics speak to imaginary people, imagine objects to be there that aren't, hear sounds that originate in their own mind. There seems to be no immediate objection to this line of reasoning. God could be real, or God could be a delusion, but there seems no way to shed further light on the question.
Indeed, this is the condition I find the world in now. We cannot think of a way to find any way to disentangle a very complex problem, and so we resort talking about something else.
My purpose with this experiment is to suggest another path out of the jungle: intersubjective verification.
Even among the insane, the precise content of their delusion varies widely: some imagine a friend, some imagine a plant. The more our representation of God meshes, the more likely it seems that this thing has a basis in reality.
Considering the immense creativity and breadth of imagination and dreams, widespread confirmation of the form of "visions of God" would seem damning evidence against the imagination model explaining visions of God.
Collective delusion:
This is Freud's explanation of visions of God. The founder of psychology, who claimed all dreams were the result of wishes, viewed God as the ultimate wish fulfillment: the Christian God is an omniscient, omnipotent "Imaginary Friend" who promised immortality, love, forgiveness, and a space in heaven.
Freud would view similarity of content of visions of God as a result of cultural definition. For instance, if everyone saw God as a robed father, this would be the result of Biblical imagery - a cultural suggestion entering minds. We would expect people of different cultures or beliefs to have different precise images of God.
One way the data could contradict this is if visions of God were profoundly different than the model offered. For instance, if a number of Christians reported that they normally saw God as a woman this would seem to contradict this theory.
Also I would like to mention that at this point I long for the simpler universe of the atheist; I really and truly wish that I couldn't see God any time I wanted. My credentials on this point, I believe, are unbeatable. I probably wish God didn't exist more than many atheists. Whatever that thing is is bugging me right now - I just met a gorgeous Christian girl who doesn't want to hold hands until marriage. Isn't that insane? That's just a personal note.
Let's get back to the subject at hand.
--cont'd--
Only one atheist tried by PM, so this will be an analysis of the response of theists.
So to recap, I asked theists to try "seeing God" in a number of different forms - a block of cheese, a parrot, a man, and a woman. Storm pointed out that this is an experiment aimed at deists more than theists, and not very fair to pantheists and panentheists. This point is well taken, so let's look at some of the responses:
:sorry1: I can't visualize my God-concept at all.
One response had no visual representation of God.
Perhaps I'm confused, but I can't find the difficulty in imagining my gods and goddesses in different forms.
I'm with Feathers, I don't see it as all that difficult...
Two responses had absolutely no problem changing God's form.
I think the problem is with imagining God as something silly -- almost comical -- like a parrot.
Try a lion. It works with Aslan of Narnia. Yup, seems Godly.
...
eudaimonia,
Mark
Mark reports some difficulty "changing" God's form. So in other words, Mark reports that only certain objects can properly symbolize or represent God in Mark's mind. More on this later.
CV- i kind of had two reactions to the experiment.
one was "nah, i really can't see God as a parrot."
the other one was "oh wait, yeah, i can!"
insomuch as i believe that when one is kind of in a right place spiritually, whether one wishes to call it mindfulness, grace, or prayerfulness, the apparent barriers between "self", God" and "other" can burn away. leaving one, for example, free to enjoy God's presence and blessings while one is observing a parrot, eating cereal, or talking with someone on their porch.
so i can't really "see God as a parrot" but i can understand something of God with and in the parrot.
The overall thrust of this post seems to be a "no". Gracie appears only able to see God as a parrot in a special sense of the word. I don't want to be too overbearing with this interpretation, and Gracie please let me know if I'm mistaken.
It seems to me, and I may have misread this, that Gracie was unable to envision God as a parrot.
The second half of this post I believe means that Gracie obtained a state of harmony with the universe and inner peace. In this state, the barriers between self and God melted away, and Gracie was able to be in contact with God while going about her normal life.
This seems to me that either Gracie had a pantheistic moment, where all was divine. Or she found an ability to have a conversation with God and go about daily tasks at the same time.
So I believe we can categorize these responses as "I have no visual representation," "yes" and "no."
On another site I was posting on, a two Christians reported that a ball of light was the only way they could see God. The moment they tried to impose an image upon the ball of light, it was no longer "God" but an imagined image. But once they passively saw, the ball of light was God again.
My experience tends to match this latter case. I cannot impose an image on a vision of God, but when I let it passively happen, the image I see, if any, tends to be a ball of brightness.
Normal imagination:
Before we ask what these answers mean, let's remind ourselves the properties of normal imagination.
In normal imagination, if I want to imagine a cup, a cup appears very easily. I can change the shape, size, angle, speed. I can break it and put it back together.
If God were the product of normal imagination, we would expect God's image to be relatively permeable. Any conscious attempt to change this image would supposedly be easy.
Normal dream representation:
Representation in dreams is, highly variable. In my own dreams, characters never look like the people I think they are. My mom doesn't really look like my mom, even though I associate that person with her in the dream. Our mind is immensely creative: it throws us into bizarre landscapes, juxtaposes unlike objects, creates things we have never seen in real life.
Moreover, when we will it we can transform some objects into other objects. My sister had a lucid dream once where she turned a wallet into pure gold out of will.
All this would cause our hypothesis to be that if visions of God are the result of delusions, these delusions were be susceptible to voluntary change.
This creative power extends its reach to the hypnagogic state before sleep, and during delusions, drug-induced hallucinations. These visions rarely repeat in global content or even the content of individual objects. In other words, we dream about a wide and ever-changing variety of things.
If God were a delusion, we would therefore expect a wide variety in how people perceived God.
Here one objection raises its head, namely the notion of repeating dreams. Perhaps God is an example of a self-repeating dream. I don't see this as highly plausible as stated now: even in the clear minority of dreams which are self-repeating, they rarely repeat exactly. More to the point, if a large number of people have this self-repeating delusion, then we would expect its particular content to differ from person to person.
Many atheists raise the objection that certain delusional neurotics speak to imaginary people, imagine objects to be there that aren't, hear sounds that originate in their own mind. There seems to be no immediate objection to this line of reasoning. God could be real, or God could be a delusion, but there seems no way to shed further light on the question.
Indeed, this is the condition I find the world in now. We cannot think of a way to find any way to disentangle a very complex problem, and so we resort talking about something else.
My purpose with this experiment is to suggest another path out of the jungle: intersubjective verification.
Even among the insane, the precise content of their delusion varies widely: some imagine a friend, some imagine a plant. The more our representation of God meshes, the more likely it seems that this thing has a basis in reality.
Considering the immense creativity and breadth of imagination and dreams, widespread confirmation of the form of "visions of God" would seem damning evidence against the imagination model explaining visions of God.
Collective delusion:
This is Freud's explanation of visions of God. The founder of psychology, who claimed all dreams were the result of wishes, viewed God as the ultimate wish fulfillment: the Christian God is an omniscient, omnipotent "Imaginary Friend" who promised immortality, love, forgiveness, and a space in heaven.
Freud would view similarity of content of visions of God as a result of cultural definition. For instance, if everyone saw God as a robed father, this would be the result of Biblical imagery - a cultural suggestion entering minds. We would expect people of different cultures or beliefs to have different precise images of God.
One way the data could contradict this is if visions of God were profoundly different than the model offered. For instance, if a number of Christians reported that they normally saw God as a woman this would seem to contradict this theory.
Also I would like to mention that at this point I long for the simpler universe of the atheist; I really and truly wish that I couldn't see God any time I wanted. My credentials on this point, I believe, are unbeatable. I probably wish God didn't exist more than many atheists. Whatever that thing is is bugging me right now - I just met a gorgeous Christian girl who doesn't want to hold hands until marriage. Isn't that insane? That's just a personal note.
Let's get back to the subject at hand.
--cont'd--