Nobody should believe their alleged divine personal revelations

[Quintessence]

I agree. That is why evidence of anything should be verifiable. Our own experience has been proven unreliable time and time again. To believe something based on nothing more than personal experience is the very definition of being gullible.

.... but all experience is ultimately personal. Humans can't operate otherwise; we can't physically transform into some other creature or body swap to experience something from another entity's point of view.

In what way do you perceive humans can escape these intrinsic limitations? Are there different kinds of personal experience?

 

[Jumi]

I've never stopped questioning and change my views according to findings.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

You find it bizarre that people trust in themselves?

I have no words.

Not "trust;" more like "take as given that they can't be wrong."

 

[Quintessence]

Not "trust;" more like "take as given that they can't be wrong."

See Nobody should believe their alleged divine personal revelations last paragraph

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

See Nobody should believe their alleged divine personal revelations last paragraph

IOW, effectively, your response to "how do we know we're right? We're sometimes wrong; how can we tell whether this is one of those times?" is "don't tell me how to think"?

 

[leibowde84]

.... but all experience is ultimately personal. Humans can't operate otherwise; we can't physically transform into some other creature or body swap to experience something from another entity's point of view.

In what way do you perceive humans can escape these intrinsic limitations? Are there different kinds of personal experience?

All I am saying is that personal experience cannot justifiably stand on its own as evidence for anything, as it is unreliable. It must be confirmed via outside sources. When those sources aren't available, a certain amount of healthy skepticism is required.

 

[HeatherAnn]

All I am saying is that personal experience cannot justifiably stand on its own as evidence for anything, as it is unreliable. It must be confirmed via outside sources. When those sources aren't available, a certain amount of healthy skepticism is required.

Then how do you decide to have sex - bring in a committee?

RE: OP:
Good point about not adding specific assumptions based on general intuitive/spiritual experiences. However, that doesn't discount such experiences - only they need to be considered along with context reason, ethics, EQ etc.

 

[sun rise]

All I am saying is that personal experience cannot justifiably stand on its own as evidence for anything, as it is unreliable. It must be confirmed via outside sources. When those sources aren't available, a certain amount of healthy skepticism is required.

The question to me is how much skepticism is healthy. Partly to me that depends on the nature of the personal experience. I don't need anyone to confirm that I feel close to God when I'm in a garden, for example. But if I think God wants me to do something, that's another matter especially when that something is destructive or weird.

 

[Quintessence]

IOW, effectively, your response to "how do we know we're right? We're sometimes wrong; how can we tell whether this is one of those times?" is "don't tell me how to think"?

The strange directions you take with the things I say never ceases to amaze me.

All I am saying is that personal experience cannot justifiably stand on its own as evidence for anything, as it is unreliable. It must be confirmed via outside sources. When those sources aren't available, a certain amount of healthy skepticism is required.

I don't agree at all. That sounds both extremely impractical and functionally impossible to me. I'm very, very confident that my personal experience reading words on this computer screen right now justifiably stands on its own as evidence for the existence of Religious Forums. I need no confirmation of some other human looking over my shoulder and telling me "yes, you are sitting at a computer right now looking at a site called Religious Forums."

 

[Scott C.]

Its simply not possible to prove a divine revelation to yourself. How did you determine that aliens aren't experimenting on you and trying to make you believe a fairy tale? Maybe they are trying to see what they can get humans to believe by messing with certain neurotransmitters. Or maybe its Satan that's revealed himself to you and is tricking you to convince you to believe the wrong thing such that you'll go to hell. The reason these are fair considerations to bring up is because you can't determine what is likely or unlikely when it comes to the supernatural.

I find it bizarre that people always just accept their personal revelations without even questioning them. There's simply no way a personal revelation would prove the truths you supposedly learned from that revelation. Its circular reason: the personal revelation is true because it came from God/ the supernatural, and God/the supernatural exists because I got a personal revelation. Its 100% fallacious.

By that reasoning nobody can be certain that anything they perceive through any source, sense, thought process, or feeling, no matter how logical, scientific, or rational it may seem, is real.

 

[serp777]

By that reasoning nobody can be certain that anything they perceive through any source, sense, thought process, or feeling, no matter how logical, scientific, or rational it may seem, is real.

You and many others have brought up this same strawman over and over again. My actual position is that there's a spectrum of confidence, but that i'm not actually certain about anything.

And whats your position exactly? That all personal experience, no matter what it is, should just be accepted without skepticism or doubt and that we should accept any claim in a personal revelation? What if someone was high on mushrooms and cocaine or had a head injury? I'm pretty sure you hold the same position I do--that not all personal experiences or revelations should have the same confidence. The personal experience that I have a pet dog is vastly different from a personal experience that I was abducted by little green men wearing tutus. I'm going to doubt personal experience and revelation depending on what it is, particularly the content of that experience. Just because I had an experience doesn't mean I should just automatically accept the claims of some voices im hearing in that experience/revelation.

 

[serp777]

I agree. That is why evidence of anything should be verifiable. Our own experience has been proven unreliable time and time again. To believe something based on nothing more than personal experience is the very definition of being gullible.

Thank you. But I can't tell you how many times people have responded to me "Well you can't trust any experience then", as if all personal experiences are on equal footing.

 

[serp777]

Regardless that aliens are "within the realm of possibility," that reality as I know it now equates to them experimenting on me isn't. Possibility means logically possible, and fantasy does not qualify as possibility. On the other hand, if a revelation happens to someone else, I have no means whatsoever to say whether it was or was not real. If God actually spoke to them, it's personal.

No its not just personal. If a God actually spoke to them than that means God is actually real, and we all share one reality. So its not just personal. Also why isn't alien experimentation of you possible in reality as you understand it? We know that humans have performed experiments on humans. We know humans have developed advanced technological societies and space craft. We know that humans evolved on a planet where it seems at least possible that life could have emerged on its own. So its at least possible for an alien civilization to emerge based on all of the facts in the universe. I'm not saying its likely but if you're postulating a being outside of time as an explanation i don't think its unreasonable to consider an alien civilization.

This still doesn't address all the other sufficient explanations, regardless, like Satan tricking you to get you to go to hell by believing something false. I can provide an infinite number of sufficient explanations. Also maybe you're developing schizophrenia--that's certainly within the realm of possibility. A portion of the population develops this mental illness, so if I start hearing voices I think that merits consideration of that diagnosis, not just blind acceptance of what the voice tell me.

 

[serp777]

I have had a few dreams in my life that were unusual, most have, perhaps. Some of these dreams came true in spectacular fashion; however, I never ever thought them to be things that I believed would lead to anything at all. It is only when reflecting with 20/20 hindsight that I feel these came true, and even saying this, I am not even sure my memories of this can be trusted entirely.

In my mind then, the only things that I trust to be 'divine revelations' - is the Bible. I have had prayers answered that clearly showed me what was the will of God, or gave assistance directly to what was asked for, but that is different than divine revelations in the way you ask for it.

In my mind then, the only things that I trust to be 'divine revelations' - is the Bible.

It seems to me that if you're doubting yourself and that you admit human fallibility, there's no reason you should accept divine revelations of the bible.

I have had prayers answered that clearly showed me what was the will of God, or gave assistance directly to what was asked for, but that is different than divine revelations in the way you ask for it.

I would actually consider this as a divine personal revelation. I mean but how do we prove that God was the cause of answering those prayers? I mean how did you rule out coincidence for example? If you're praying all the time some of the prayers are bound to happen to come true even if there is no God. Its just confirmation bias, and all the other prayer attempts you brush off as "God just said no." That same logic would "prove" a God to you in a Godless universe just as well, so it seems to be entirely insufficient.

 

[serp777]

My logic is simple. I presume the reality of those experiences which, when I believe them to be real, delivers practical and psychological benefits to me as I live my life. Presuming the reality of the apple that I see and taste delivers the practical benefit of assuaging my hunger. Similarly presuming the reality of God that I experience through meditation delivers the practical benefit of guidance towards constructing an eudaimonic lifestyle. Thus I believe both.
On the other hand, presuming the reality of the entities I see in my dreams provides no such benefits, hence I don't believe on their reality.

Simple.
You have a better proposal? Let's hear it.

]My logic is simple. I presume the reality of those experiences which, when I believe them to be real, delivers practical and psychological benefits to me as I live my life.

Your logic is simple as well as incredibly fallacious. It might benefit you to believe that little green men in tutus riding unicorns abducted the easter bunny, but that wouldn't give it the slightest bit of credence or confirm that it was true. Do you care about what's true or what will help you the most? Because it may be the case that the facts about reality will negatively affect you, but that will not detract from the fact that they're true.

Presuming the reality of the apple that I see and taste delivers the practical benefit of assuaging my hunger. Similarly presuming the reality of God that I experience through meditation delivers the practical benefit of guidance towards constructing an eudaimonic lifestyle. Thus I believe both.

The magnitude of those claims are enormously different. Acting as if they're somehow equivalent is very questionable. I mean would you believe in the little green men i mentioned if they helped you somehow? I doubt it.

 

[serp777]

By what criteria should a believer use to varify his personal revelation if his criteria for validation is false?

I would say you couldn't validate it and therefore you shouldn't believe it.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

I would say you couldn't validate it and therefore you shouldn't believe it.

If you wanted the person to verify his divine revelation, what would you accept as verification of his experience being true?

Do you have criteria of what is true or false or do you automatically assume there is none; also, if thats the case, how could the believer present his side if you dont consider what he says by his criteria?

 

[sayak83]

Your logic is simple as well as incredibly fallacious. It might benefit you to believe that little green men in tutus riding unicorns abducted the easter bunny, but that wouldn't give it the slightest bit of credence or confirm that it was true. Do you care about what's true or what will help you the most? Because it may be the case that the facts about reality will negatively affect you, but that will not detract from the fact that they're true.



The magnitude of those claims are enormously different. Acting as if they're somehow equivalent is very questionable. I mean would you believe in the little green men i mentioned if they helped you somehow? I doubt it.

What will help me is what is true. Here's the logic.
1)Truth is correspondence with reality.
2) Reality is the most useful way to organize and interpret the lived experience.
Conclusion
3) Truth is correspondence with the most useful way to organize the lived experience.
QED
Indeed I will.

 

[Scott C.]

You and many others have brought up this same strawman over and over again. My actual position is that there's a spectrum of confidence, but that i'm not actually certain about anything.

And whats your position exactly? That all personal experience, no matter what it is, should just be accepted without skepticism or doubt and that we should accept any claim in a personal revelation? What if someone was high on mushrooms and cocaine or had a head injury? I'm pretty sure you hold the same position I do--that not all personal experiences or revelations should have the same confidence. The personal experience that I have a pet dog is vastly different from a personal experience that I was abducted by little green men wearing tutus. I'm going to doubt personal experience and revelation depending on what it is, particularly the content of that experience. Just because I had an experience doesn't mean I should just automatically accept the claims of some voices im hearing in that experience/revelation.

First, I don't completely disagree with you. People can and are often deceived or tricked or fall into wishfull thinking. But I also believe in legitimate revelation from God. I believe that God is capable of revealing himself in ways that provide the same level of certainty to the receiver as one gets from seeing, touching, hearing, smelling, and/or tasting. Certainly if there is a God (which I believe) he has the power to communicate in ways, that while not understood to mere mortals, actually surpass the pedestrian human senses. That means of revelation can and does leave a sure impression on the soul that can equal or surpass any level of certainty obtained in any other way regarding any other fact.

Having said that, there is always that nagging "What if everything I experience of a physical or spiritual nature is a hallucination?" Or, "how do I know that I even exist?" Or, "what if everything I experience from God is real, but coming from a deceitful source who is playing a game or has some unknown motive?" I suppose there is no way to be 100% certain of anything if you look at it that way.

So, I have to assume that what I see and touch is real. The world is real. You and I exist. There is stuff and living things all around and I am a part of that. I bet on the fact that there is no intelligent deceiver who pretends to be God and who is communicating to people on earth. I take on faith that the very real experiences which I have, are real, that the love I feel from God is real, and the whisperings of his Spirit are real. They have proven to be so, in my mind and heart. I'm not sure I could stop believing in God. I could perhaps walk away from God and ignore him or forget him. But the impressions I have are too deep for me to ever really stop believing that he exists.

 

[Grandliseur]

I would actually consider this as a divine personal revelation.

I did not include this in revelation - the two are distinctly different to me.

I have had 4, as in four, encounters with fallen angels, one which was witnesses by about 10 people. I might, don't know, have had two encounters with angels in human form. I didn't impress anybody.