logician
Well-Known Member
Except if you're an atheist, in which case the greatest reality could come from a number of experiences.
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Spiritual activity experience or metaphor?
- Thread starter sandandfoam
- Start date
Except if you're an atheist, in which case the greatest reality could come from a number of experiences.
That's a very good simile.
A similie is just a metaphor that is not cloaked, so it loses a lot of its artistic impact.
Magic Man
Reaper of Conversation
I know. I liked what you said, but it seemed more apt to call it a simile in that case, as you used "like". They're really two different ways of accomplishing the same thing. In any case, that was a good metaphor/simile.
sojourner
Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
Atheists would dismiss spiritual experience altogether, and explain it as something else entirely. Since this thread assumes the existence of spiritual experience, I should think atheists would be unable to participate in the discussion, because the existence of spiritual experience is not germain to their POV.
Guitar's Cry
Disciple of Pan
Metaphor is a communication of the experience, and communication is an experience. So, Yes.
logician
Well-Known Member
It is illogical to assume that an experience of the greatest reality could only be a spirtual experience, even for a theist.
Your personal experience of MEANING in a metaphor (is what) holds power for you, whereas the metaphor unREALized in you, is little more than a potential idea of something outside yourself.
Originally Posted by Willamena
*blink* What is "spiritual activity"?
For me, my whole life is a "spiritual activity". Life is full of metaphor & meaning, sign & symbol, charm & spell, everywhere. Everywhere I look, everywhere I am, everything I do and see, is a potential expression of deeper/hidden/new /personalized meaning. All I need to do is simply live awakened to the EXPERIENCE of each and every moment..... and what I find there. Contemplation, Inspiration, Realization. Far more than a metaphor, but a way of life.
*Nixxie*
It wouldn't be illogical if "the greatest reality" was equated with "God".
BucephalusBB
ABACABB
But then it would again if you would equate "God"with "bus" again.
Then again, both has no use now really..
Edit: and after rereading your post and understanding this time, I would like to withdraw my post
Edit2: If you would equate "God" again to "bus" however, it would fit logicians version more..
I know; but I like my version better.
Personally, espcially at a time of extreme emotional anguish, I would not accept anything I was feeling as spirituality and leave it at that.
I would want to find out what it is. I have almost died once and been in a coma before. I have been to about 10 funerals in my lifetime and was bedside when my step father died. I have never felt a profound sense of anything other then what one would expect. If anything ever happened to me that I would personally consider to be supernatural then it would be come my life long goal to discover what it was. It would be my drive and focus to uncover it. My curouisity and stubborness would never allow me to do otherwise.
I would suspect neuroscience would hold the answer. Some may say psychology or hypnosis but my bets on neuroscience. hehe.
sandandfoam
Veteran Member
Neuroscience is fascinating but I am convinced the idea that mind = brain is flawed.
Runt
Well-Known Member
There is no such thing as an unmediated experience. By that, I (well, actually Katz or King, the author who originally stated it) mean that any and all sensory (or in the case of a mystical experience, supersensory) input is immediately incorporated by an individual into various culturally-constructed schemas about "how the world works". Therefore the interpretation of sensory or supersensory data is part of the experience, and generally speaking, these interpretations generally serve to reinforce, rather than challenge or reconstruct---an already-held paradigm.
So what then is a mystical experience? It is the interpretation of sensory or supersensory data by an individual inbedded in a particular cultural context. In that way, then, mystical experiences are symbolic representations not of reality, but rather are symbols of symbols of reality, in that they are symbols of particular paradigms to which mystics belong. A specific piece of sensory or supersensory datum which helps generate the experience, on the other hand, is a phenomenon, not symbol...
So what then is a mystical experience? It is the interpretation of sensory or supersensory data by an individual inbedded in a particular cultural context. In that way, then, mystical experiences are symbolic representations not of reality, but rather are symbols of symbols of reality, in that they are symbols of particular paradigms to which mystics belong. A specific piece of sensory or supersensory datum which helps generate the experience, on the other hand, is a phenomenon, not symbol...
Guitar's Cry
Disciple of Pan
Or if "spiritual" were equated with "greatest reality."