Is Belief in God Superior to Experience of God?

[Sunstone]

Which do you suppose would have a greater influence on your life and behavior:

(1) A firm, conscious belief in god that, nevertheless was not based on any personal experience, or

(2) An actual experience of god that, however, you somehow manage to consciously forget ever happened?

Why?

 

[Thanda]

Which do you suppose would have a greater influence on your life and behavior:

(1) A firm, conscious belief in god that, nevertheless was not based on any personal experience, or

(2) An actual experience of god that, however, you somehow manage to consciously forget ever happened?

Why?

The first. Through your firm belief you will eventually experience God. "No one can be saved in ignorance" - Joseph Smith

 

[Deathbydefault]

Number 2. For personal politics and a slight bit of entertainment.

 

[Sunstone]

Number 2. For personal politics and a slight bit of entertainment.

Your reasons intrigue me. Would you care to elaborate?

 

[Sunstone]

The first. Through your firm belief you will eventually experience God. "No one can be saved in ignorance" - Joseph Smith

What if you had an experience that contradicted your belief? Which would you side with: Experience or belief?

 

[Deathbydefault]

Your reasons intrigue me. Would you care to elaborate?

Well, being an apatheist and all, if I did meet a real god it would give me a cynics inclination to entertainment.
I can only wonder if a god could be offended by words, it's certainly worth a try and see.

 

[rocala]

Number 2 without a doubt. Regardless of the terminology used 1 is a hunch and my hunches are not always right.

 

[Thanda]

What if you had an experience that contradicted your belief? Which would you side with: Experience or belief?

The experience of course. When we look with an eye of faith we see dimly. I can see heave and I know I'll be happy if I get there but I do not exactly know what it is that will be happening there. So if I see it and there are no harps there (for example) I will believe my experience rather than my faith.

 

[LuisDantas]

Which do you suppose would have a greater influence on your life and behavior:

(1) A firm, conscious belief in god that, nevertheless was not based on any personal experience, or

(2) An actual experience of god that, however, you somehow manage to consciously forget ever happened?

Why?

So we are to assume that such an influence would be a good thing? I am attempting to reconcile the OP with the thread title.

I find both options unreliable at best and all-out unadvisable, but if pressed against the wall I would choose 2 by default, because it would at least not be something I chose to believe in.

 

[Mycroft]

Which do you suppose would have a greater influence on your life and behavior:

(1) A firm, conscious belief in god that, nevertheless was not based on any personal experience, or

(2) An actual experience of god that, however, you somehow manage to consciously forget ever happened?

Why?

Point of contention: How can you know that your experience was of god? What objective basis for comparison is there?

 

[Jiddanand]

Mere belief and experience are different things.

 

[Deathbydefault]

Point of contention: How can you know that your experience was of god? What objective basis for comparison is there?

Lets be fair now, there is no possible way for a person to know they are speaking with a god.
He proposed a simple hypothetical, one that has several attachment hypotheticals.

Like us somehow hypothetically being able to identify the deity we speak with as an actual god.

 

[LuisDantas]

Lets be fair now, there is no possible way for a person to know they are speaking with a god.

Not logically, but knowledge of God is not a logical experience.

 

[Deathbydefault]

Not logically, but knowledge of God is not a logical experience.

Still. Whatever "knowledge" you may get could be falsely implanted.
A super powerful deity could put it in your mind that it is an all powerful deity, how could you possibly know otherwise?
There is no possible proof for omnipotence and even if there was it can be falsely implanted in your head by a non-omnipotent deity.


I've yammered on too long.

 

[LuisDantas]

Maybe, but I agree. You are not wrong. Both choices are somewhat poor, to say the least.

 

[Deathbydefault]

Very true, but it's still an interesting question to answer... if you concede whatever you need to for it to be logical.

 

[Sunstone]

Point of contention: How can you know that your experience was of god? What objective basis for comparison is there?

Interesting question! However, it's irrelevant to the scope of this thread. If you wish to discuss that particular issue, you are free to start your own thread on it rather than hijack this one.

 

[Windwalker]

Which do you suppose would have a greater influence on your life and behavior:

(1) A firm, conscious belief in god that, nevertheless was not based on any personal experience, or

(2) An actual experience of god that, however, you somehow manage to consciously forget ever happened?

Why?

A belief about something and an experience of something are two different things. However they can and do influence each other. An experience of something will influence what you think and believe about that thing. And how you think and believe about something will influence the nature of the experience itself. But if the experience is powerful enough it may overpower your beliefs about that thing, to the point you change them altogether. Likewise if your beliefs are firm and rigid it can limit, curtail, suppress, or even deny the experience after it happens.

What has the greater influence depends on the person's emotional willingness to change. For me, I like the idea that my beliefs are not nor can be absolute, and that the experience of the unknowable, the ineffable is worthwhile and beneficial to both my heart and my mind. At the same time, as my beliefs evolve, they do have to maintain some malleable cohesiveness in order to keep one's feet planted on the ground. I strive for a balance of the two: malleable but cohesive ideas, along with a courage to explore the experience of God, or the ineffable without preconceived expectations limiting what that is or should look like.

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

Which do you suppose would have a greater influence on your life and behavior:

(1) A firm, conscious belief in god that, nevertheless was not based on any personal experience, or

(2) An actual experience of god that, however, you somehow manage to consciously forget ever happened?

Why?

In option #1, I suppose you mean that you are raised and socialized into a belief, or that you come to your belief by studying religions and select the one that makes the most sense to you. This happens over a period of time, allowing you to integrate your beliefs into your life in various ways, even if you have no experiences to validate or relate to them.

In option #2, how much time elapses between the experience and forgetting? If you have the experience, and immediately after God pushes your "wipe memory" button, or your mind decides to bury the experience because it is so overwhelming to the conscious mind (think PTSD), I would suspect it would have little or no impact--although PTSD can be pretty severe--but that assumes it was an overwhelming and 'traumatic" experience. What if the experience is overwhelming, but the opposite of whatever "traumatic" is? Is there a syndrome for post-extremely-positive-experience-eustress? If you have time--days, weeks, years--to mull it over and incorporate the implications and your understanding into your life, and THEN you forget about it, I think it could be as influential or more influential than your prior belief.

 

[cambridge79]

The experience of course. When we look with an eye of faith we see dimly. I can see heave and I know I'll be happy if I get there but I do not exactly know what it is that will be happening there. So if I see it and there are no harps there (for example) I will believe my experience rather than my faith.

let's say you're a christian.
Let's say one day Muhammad talks to you and tells you to start worshipping Allah, than performs all sort of miracles and gives you all sorts of proof that you're not allucinating and the experience is true.

how do you know that is in fact Muhammad and it's not the devil trying to deceive you and drag you away from Jesus?