How to Reconcile Spiritual Experiences with Religion

[Scepcop]

[Craig Browning]

Please stop torturing yourself (and us) with all this stuff, Winston. It's unhealthy!

Find yourself a nice, comfy Buddhist group and work with what they offer and toss the rest of this arm-chair rhetoric in the trash, where it belongs.

[Scepcop]

What's wrong with you Craig? These are high quality videos. Why don't you give them a chance? Are you not an intellectual and deep thinker?

I would never post trash, unless it was entertaining.

Note: Please do not comment in threads about videos unless you watch the videos first. Doing so is annoying.

[Craig Browning]

Winston, can't you see how most of the other members view all of this stuff you put up? More so, how can someone that buys into this rather "low" mode of New Age rhetoric, call himself a "skeptic"?

Yes, I am a "believer" on many levels but I'm also 93% skeptical on about 99% of it all; I've simply been around the New Age/Pagan stuff far too long to not see the horse shit... it's nearly as thick as the layers of bull shit fed the world by Tv Evangelists.

If these clowns have it right, get published by a legit publisher and get legit endorsements from qualified sources. If were to see such support I'd probably give things a look, but as most folks realize any fool with a video camera and PC can be a star on YouTube or any number of similar on-line resources. I have at least three such channels of my own (but never use them).

My view in this case, is that I'm watching someone flush themselves down the drain by spending far too much time on line and wherever else, digging this sort of crap up. You need to actually get out more and get back in touch with the real world and real human beings... not "yes men" that are just as paranoid and crazy as some of the cases you're been sharing, but down to earth "normal" folk... they don't even have to be intellectuals, just plain middle of the road folk.

Sorry if my concern offends you, but I simply think, you have an addiction here and need someone to kick you in the rubber parts in hopes of waking you up and inspiring you to do something about it.

[Twain Shakespeare]

I "enjoyed" this, although the closest analogy I have for the pleasure is of what it might be to be an alcoholic at AA.
Instead of alcohol, AA offers god. This guy offers mysticism as a replacement for religion. As one who found my own debate to be between Jewish atheism vs polytheism, I appreciated that he noticed there is more than one alternative to monotheism. Studying polytheism, I discovered the Brahmins regard, ritual, philosophy, and mysticism as equally valid religiously. Just about all metaphysical philosophers, including atheists, look religious in the Brahmins' sense to me (including you, Craig, although yours is a rational epistemoligical and referential philosophy (Mensa cap again. I try to keep it off, Craig. It is good advice you gave me and the newbies Peace

[Scepcop]

[Craig Browning]

Why am I "wrong" and "closed mined" for disagreeing and calling a spade a spade?

This guy is about as skeptical as someone at a tent revival rolling on the floor. I can't buy it. Sorry if that upsets you Win, but I chose to distance myself from this sort of material years ago by looking beyond the packaging and seeing what was really being "sold".

[critusodem]

What is meant by reconciliation of religion and spiritual experience?

[Twain Shakespeare]

Apparently, critusodem, you didn't watch the video, or it made no sense to you. I don't remember it myself, so I don't know what he meant, but it is a fundamental problem of my life.

In my previous post, I mentioned Hinduism. Hinduism understands children need a Santa Claus, and some adults never grow out of this. Hinduism says such people's spiritual side is best cultivated in a "personal religion" with what atheists would call an "imaginary friend"

The Catholics understand and have incorporated this understanding into their practice. They offer such people Mary and saints.

Most young adults the Hindus fail, recommending a Zen-like concentration on the tasks of daily life and ritual, as do the Catholics. But then, the main spiritual concern of young adults is usually to properly brainwash their own children.

At some point in life, most often once the kids are old enough to ask really uncomfortable questions, people have a tendency to start thinking. Some people actually start thinking as kids. For such people, the Hindus have philosophy. The catholics used to, but have largely sibstituted theology, since Catholicism is less philosophically justifiable than so many alternatives.

Finally, in old age, nearly everyone gets concerned with spiritual questions. For these, the Hindus developed mystical exercises that substituted retirement and health care with voluntary beggery. Caths used to just burn such people at the stake. The point made in the video was, more fuzzily expressed than I have put it here, there are different ways of approaching the divine, and some are more compatible with rational intellect than others. (Most non Abrahamic religions, for example)

[Twain Shakespeare]

Do-It-Yourself Deity

What is God?

In an attempt to resolve any disagreement surrounding the meaning of the word "God", TPM has assembled a crack team of "metaphysical engineers" who have devised a new computer-modelling virtual environment in which to test the plausibility of different conceptions of God.

Here's how it works. You are invited to select from the list below the attributes which you believe God must have (or the attributes that a being deserving of the name God must have). Metaphysical engineers will then model this conception of God to check out its plausibility.

Please select from the list below. You may choose as many, or as few, attributes as you wish. Then press the submit button.

Omnipotent (all-powerful, able to do anything)

Omnibenevolent (all-loving)

Omniscient (all-knowing)

The Creator (of all that exists)

The Sustainer (if God ceased to exist, so would everything else)

Perfectly Free

Eternally Existing (will go on and on and on...)

A Personal God (a being with whom one can have a personal relationship)


Twain here, Despite this being a tool for discomforting Christians, this is still a good test of rather a "religion" can be reconcialed with science. Has some flaws tho, because it almost assumes an Abrahamic definition, which it does assume is false, and therefore is desribing a concept of diety unregnizable to most theists. I especially dislike the last point as being prejidicial against sun worshippers and worshippers of nature, idolaters, and people who had repersonal lationships with Elron or Vernon Howell, for example.

By the way, my "scientific theology" is between 80% and 100% correct, and the errors are attributable to the fact certain mathamtical equations are "false" when answered in English. I found that somewhat surprising. I didn't know I had a scientific theology, although I suspected I have actually found a subject matter for ontology. (Mensaing out)

[critusodem]

Ah, thanks and that explains the issue I was having with what was being said.
None of the content in the video is appreciably more compatible with rational intellect than the others.