God and Religious Experience
There are theists who say they do not need to offer arguments for God's existence because they
experience Him directly. What precisely is meant by this "experience"? It is either similar to ordinary
sense experience (i.e., seeing, hearing, and the like) or it is not. Let us consider first the possibility that it
resembles ordinary sense experience. This would be the strongest position for the theist to take because
we generally trust our senses. Let us suppose there is an isolated group of people who occasionally
experience a feeling which they describe as "a devil hitting the inside of my head." Would this experience
tend to prove that there were in fact devils inside their heads? Or does the phrase 'a devil hitting the inside
of my head' simply describe a feeling that could just as easily have been described by the word
'headache'? This example demonstrates the problems we encounter in ascribing otherwise unverifiable
causes to experiences which are private to each individual.
In response to the above example, a theist might point out that we would normally believe a
friend's claim that he had seen a wolf in the woods. Therefore, we should believe him if he claims to have
encountered God. Of course, his claim to have seen a wolf would be based on his eyesight - and we
would first have to know if his eyesight is reliable. We would not want to believe an eyewitness's visual
report if we knew him to be nearly blind. Furthermore, our person who says he saw the wolf should be able
to tell the difference between photographs of dogs and those of wolves. We would not trust someone's
report if he could not tell a wolf from a dog. If the theist's experience of God is like sense experience, then
how do we know that the theist is not like a nearly blind man who is unable to distinguish wolves from
dogs? To know that the religious sense is reliable, we would have to test it to see if it could be used to tell
the difference between gods and other types of things a theist might be sensing instead. The reliability of
our eyesight is tested every day. If we do not walk into walls or over furniture, and if we are capable of
distinguishing one person from another, then our eyesight is considered reliable. But how do we test this
supposed religious sense? We would have to already know that God exists before we could find that the
religious sense was reliable in detecting him. This is because a test would consist of discovering whether
God was in fact near when a theist sensed His presence. And to know this we would have to have some
independent means of knowing that God exists.
Now let us consider the possibility that religious experience is not like ordinary sense experience.
We know the conditions under which ordinary sense experience is considered reliable. But how do we
know that God-experiences are at least as reliable as these sense experiences? We have no way of
knowing that an "intuition" of God accurately confirms His existence. To test such an intuitive "sense" we
would have to demonstrate that whenever we have an intuition of God's existence, God in fact does exist.
But in order to show this, we would have to have an additional intuition. A further, independent intuition of
His existence could not serve to confirm the accuracy of the first kind of intuition because it too would
have to be confirmed for exactly the same reasons.
In summary, either religious experience is like ordinary sense experience or else it is not. If it is
not, we have no way to test whether it is as reliable as sense experience. If it is like ordinary sense
experience, then we have no way of testing its accuracy without assuming God's existence independently
of the evidence.
____Atheist Debaters Handbook
scotoma
JoinedPosts by scotoma
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153
If there is a God why didn't he sign our DNA
by scotoma intodays scientists can and do insert their trademark into dna.. why couldn't jehovah anticipate scientists learning this technique and stumbling across a strand that says "human by yhwh"?.
that would have answered a lot of questions.. he could have even included a model number human2.0.
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scotoma
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153
If there is a God why didn't he sign our DNA
by scotoma intodays scientists can and do insert their trademark into dna.. why couldn't jehovah anticipate scientists learning this technique and stumbling across a strand that says "human by yhwh"?.
that would have answered a lot of questions.. he could have even included a model number human2.0.
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scotoma
Faith is a place holder for knowledge.
If you have the knowledge then you can use faith for obtaining more knowledge.
Do you want a Doctor that you can have faith in or do you want to get cured of your disease.
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153
If there is a God why didn't he sign our DNA
by scotoma intodays scientists can and do insert their trademark into dna.. why couldn't jehovah anticipate scientists learning this technique and stumbling across a strand that says "human by yhwh"?.
that would have answered a lot of questions.. he could have even included a model number human2.0.
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scotoma
Jehovah is occult - hidden.
The Bible is full of possibilities where Jehovah could have done things more intelligently.
Why have the Israelites die while fighting their enemies when a single angel could kill 185,000 in one night?
Why have the trauma of killing men women and children with the sword as was done to the Amorites?
Why weren't the Israelites given a command to boil the water?
Why not cure a stadium full of down syndrome children and couple that with a pronouncement of some sort?
Since his prime objective is to make his name known throughout the earth couldn't he have found amazing ways to accomplish this?
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153
If there is a God why didn't he sign our DNA
by scotoma intodays scientists can and do insert their trademark into dna.. why couldn't jehovah anticipate scientists learning this technique and stumbling across a strand that says "human by yhwh"?.
that would have answered a lot of questions.. he could have even included a model number human2.0.
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scotoma
Todays scientists can and do insert their trademark into DNA.
Why couldn't Jehovah anticipate scientists learning this technique and stumbling across a strand that says "Human by YHWH"?
That would have answered a lot of questions.
He could have even included a model number Human2.0
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27
Should you pay the Obamacare penalty or buy health insurance in 2014?
by moshe ini am already reading that some plan to drop their medical insurance coverage on january 1st and just pay the penalty-.
an individual with $30,000 annual income would pay a $300 penalty in 2014, $600 in 2015 and $750 in 2016.. an individual with $50,000 annual income would pay a $500 penalty in 2014, $1,000 in 2015 and $1,250 in 2016.. an individual earning $100,000 a year would pay a $1,000 penalty in 2014, $2,000 in 2015 and $2,500 in 2016.. here is your insurance subsidy calculator-.
http://healthreform.kff.org/subsidycalculator.aspx#incomeagetables.
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scotoma
Wha Happened..
You have to be a licensed physician to handle primary care. That means obscene amount of education by AMA certified institutions. 12 years schooling and residency requirements means you think you deserve at least 200,000 income.
Currently all the idiots are certified physicians and they cost a lot of money. And I mean IDIOTS. An auto repair technician is better qualified. At least he jumps in with diagnostic equipment and does some tests.
The AMA seems to be a union people are willing to put up with.
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27
Should you pay the Obamacare penalty or buy health insurance in 2014?
by moshe ini am already reading that some plan to drop their medical insurance coverage on january 1st and just pay the penalty-.
an individual with $30,000 annual income would pay a $300 penalty in 2014, $600 in 2015 and $750 in 2016.. an individual with $50,000 annual income would pay a $500 penalty in 2014, $1,000 in 2015 and $1,250 in 2016.. an individual earning $100,000 a year would pay a $1,000 penalty in 2014, $2,000 in 2015 and $2,500 in 2016.. here is your insurance subsidy calculator-.
http://healthreform.kff.org/subsidycalculator.aspx#incomeagetables.
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scotoma
I was for single payer national health care. I am now on medicare.
My wife can't get medicare for several more years. I won't get the insurance and can't afford the penalty.
I will just let the money I owe pile up and increase with penalties and interest. There will be enough people in that category that they will probably negotiate an offer in compromise of 10 or 15 cents on a dollar.
Basically, obama-romney-herritage foundation style health care will fail.
It will be such a mess that they will have to go to single payer national health insurance like most of the advanced economies in the world.
The rich will still be able to suplement their health care out of pocket.
I also see a brisk travel business invovling out of country surgeries.
I think Obama care was designed to fail. Poor and low income people still won't get decent care. Once it fails we'll have to start from scratch and get it right.
Any idiot with an expert program and two years technical training could handle all the primary care for 1/4 the cost.
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What are the things you dislike most about JW's?
by Chariklo intop of my list has to be hypocrisy.
it runs right through, from elders downwards.
the literature and the gb are bad enough, but the bit that touches ordinary people, householders, students and ordinary rank and file is the false goodness that they put on like a raincoat.
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scotoma
I feel about JW's the way I do about all devoutly religious people.
They are closed minded. Their main contribution to society is their offspring.
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70
Women: Are they Equal to Men ?
by villagegirl inone of the hard core doctrines of the wt society, and many other religions, is that women are to be in "subjection" to men.. in the bible, in genisis , it says the domination of women by men came after adam and eve disobeyed god.
eve was cursed by pain in childbirth and that from then on as a curse: "he shall rule over you " from then on the male was to dominate the female.. but that was not in the original plan.
this was a reversal of the plan and a curse.
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scotoma
My daughter always used to ask why only "brothers" take attendance at the meetings.
She finally figured it out.
Sisters don't "count".
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27
Stay Alive Til 2020
by FrankWTower ini've been playing around with wt statistics recently, helped by the great data available on jwfacts.com.
i wanted to share somehting with the community, maybe you've seen something like this before.. continuing the trend of decline seen during the last 30 years, i was able to extrapolate the year when wt growth might finally end.
if trends continue, we may only have to wait about 8 more years, 9 years to see it reported if the wt decides to report it at all, to see publisher growth end and possibly reverse.. the graph shows the annual growth rate of average publishers during the last 31 years.
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scotoma
The trendline shows that by 2014 we will be at the lowest level of growth since the begining of the chart.
That has to be significant. Centennial of "Christ 2nd Coming" combined with natural decay is a double hit.
If nothing else the chart refutes the myth of god speeding the growth. Deceleration = trendline going down. Acceleration = trendline going up.
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Urgent: Pope Benedictus resigns: a good example for GB
by Gorbatchov injust in the news: pope benedictus is resigning.
this should be a good example for the gb of our church organization.
there are reasons enough: child abuse (conti case etc), failed prophecies (slave classe, un/osce), killing doctrines (blood doctrine etc, shunning / suicide) and fraude (investment corporation instead of church).. so it would be nice to read on bbc news: governing body of jehovah's witnesses resigns and make way for a new generation that embraces christian freedom.. gorby.
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scotoma
Will there now finally be an American Pope. Pope Dolan.?