Yeah that explains why near-death experiencers often return with important life lessons. Except it doesn’t. Random brain stuff doesn’t produce wise outcomes.
Who says it’s random? It’s a stress response, so it’s not going to be random.
2 Likes
You mean with clichés everyone already knew about, like tell the people you love that you love them while you still can, do what makes you happy, time heals all wounds etc.?
And how does the putative existence of an immaterial soul explain this any better? Their body is close to dying, the soul supposedly starts leaving the body, and then… they magically and mysteriously get wiser because that’s totally what we expect when souls start to leave material bodies?
Gimme a break.
5 Likes
Example?
Sure. But it would be clear evidence of some additional form of sense that the sighted person has that the blind person does not. Its exact nature would not be demonstrated, but its existence would be.
That is not the case with your example of the waterfall. We are both perceiving the same thing, but you are somehow interpreting it to entail the existence of a god.
I do not see how those two situations are at all analogous. It’s no different than two people eating the same dish, one finding it delicious and the other finding it unpalatable. It is not that one has a sense that the other lacks. It is just that they are having different subjective responses to the perception they are sharing.
1 Like
Its a world view thing… Explaining these experiences based on purely material causes is also begging the question.
Wrong. @Rumraket’s position is neutral on the existence of “immaterial causes”. He neither presumes it nor assumes it does not exist. Your position presumes it.
2 Likes
That’s not possible. It’s starts with what he thinks about himself…
Is he a result of only material interactions with an illusion of consciousness?
Or does he exist apart/transcending purely material causes.
It’s impossible to be neutral about ones estimation of what one is… it’s the first thing human beings need to address before we can even try to understand the world around us.
I’m not “explaining them based on purely material causes”. I’m simply saying that giving those experience a label like “sensus divinatus” is a form of question begging. We have to look at the contents of those experiences. Do we sense the divine? Actually what we experience is some collection of positive emotions, such as love, awe, wonder and so on.
Saying those are experiences “of the divine” is an interpretation that has not met it’s burden of proof. Until someone shows with good evidence and arguments what the source of those experiences are we should not run around and label them “sensus divinatus”.
You can call them a positive emotional experience, as that is what they are: positive emotions that you experience. That would be an honest label that doesn’t assume what the nature of the cause(s) of those experiences are.
I don’t have to assume or even argue that they have a material cause to call out a question begging fallacy. And me calling out a question begging fallacy is not me claiming that the opposite is the fact.
3 Likes
And i am saying none of these questions make any sense until we come to a conclusion about who/what “we” are.
How do you explain your “religious” experiences? Are you agnostic on the subject?
Of course it is.
It’s starts with what he thinks about himself…
No, it starts with me analyzing a label.
Is he a result of only material interactions with an illusion of consciousness? Or does he exist apart/transcending purely material causes.
Even if I was a “transcending soul” or whatever you might want to call it, that would not mean positive emotional experiences I have (which a theist would label “sensus divinatus”) are actually an experience of the divine. For all we know, immaterial minds could have positive emotional experiences too without them being caused by God(s).
It’s impossible to be neutral about ones estimation of what one is… it’s the first thing human beings need to address before we can even try to understand the world around us.
Completely and utterly wrong. One needs take no position on your own nature, except to say that whatever your nature is, since you are thinking about it you must exist.
1 Like
I agree with you here. However, if we think we are just a chunk of flesh with an illusion of consciousness, then the question doesn’t arise.
You cant analyse anything wothout a “me”. So it starts with what you mean by the term.
Exist as what? and is it “you” thinking or just your neurons firing based on pre-determined rules?
How one approaches the question of religious experiences depends a lot on what we think our nature is.
Its possible to believe we have an immaterial “Soul” and still reject some experiences as not from God. However, it would be impossible to accept an experience as from God without rejecting materialism.
There are fundamental assumptions connected to world views involved.
Clearly it does. Let’s say I say that I am a chunk of flesh with the illusion of consciousness. Now the question is, why do I have these emotional experiences? Seems to me we can still ask the question.
No, we don’t have to take a position on what the nature of me is. All we have to grant is that whatever I am, it is pondering the question. Am I a brain in a vat, or an immaterial soul, or a computer simulation, or a chunk of conscious flesh? I don’t know and I don’t have to know to ask the question.
It might be relevant to answering the question, but it is not necessary to take a position on it to ask it. And even then, it might not be relevant in answering it either. After all, it could be the case that certain lumps of flesh are conscious, and God communicates with them. It could also be the case that immaterial souls exist that never experience God even though they have positive emotional experiences they mistakenly believe come from God.
There are a great many imaginable possibilities here.
If that which is pondering the question is “just neurons firing”, and that which is pondering the question is me, then I am “just neurons firing”. Then I am those neurons firing. That is me. When those neurons fire in that pattern, that is me posing the question, thinking my thoughts.
How one approaches the question of religious experiences depends a lot on what we think our nature is.
That might be so, but it’s still a fallacy to call them sensus divinatus when what you are experiencing are “merely” a collection of positive emotions.
It’s possible to believe we have an immaterial “Soul” and still reject some experiences as not from God. However, it would be impossible to accept an experience as from God without rejecting materialism.
Depends on whether you mean to say that materialism is the claim that everything that exists is material in nature. Obviously if God exists and is not material, then materialism is false. That has no bearing on your own nature however. You could still be material, and God be immaterial, and that would tell you nothing about whether your positive emotional experiences are of a material or immaterial origin, and if they are of an immaterial origin, that’s still no guarantee they come from God. It just doens’t follow. In either case, your own nature does nothing to show what the source of those experiences are.
1 Like
I dont know about “Sensus Divinitatis”, but the main difference i see between thiests and athiests is a strong belief in one’s existence as more than a body. A conviction that there is something immaterial and eternal in our nature.
As far as i can see, all people are born with such a POV. Athiests are just people who convince themselves its not true.
It’s a nihilistic view imo.
Your question itself shows this by adding the word “emotional”… You are question begging that the experiences are primarily “emotional” and not “Spiritual”.
You would have to assume an immaterial God communicating to something called a consciousness which is not intirinsic other lumps of flesh.
A commitment to materialism ensures the question can only be honestly asked in a way that assumes only matter exists.
The real question to ask is whether anyone who approaches this question of religious experiences can ever be truly neutral. I doubt it, most people already believe strongly on what their nature is.
There is always some question begging involved, either in support of materialism or against.
No. I am describing what people really claim they experience: Feeling certain emotions. That’s not question begging
I have not claimed what the source of those emotions are. Calling them spiritual would be an interpretation about their significance or origin. They’re still emotions, regardless of what is causing them or whether you assign “spiritual” significance to them. Emotions are experienced.
Yes, sure. God would be communicating with conscious lumps of flesh, not all lumps of flesh.
Okay, well then it’s good that I have no “commitment to materialism”. Even then I’m not even sure your statement is true. After all it is possible to be “committed” to something and yet find evidence so persuasive or so strongly against your “commitment” that you are eventually compelled to change your mind.
The real question to ask is whether anyone who approaches this question of religious experiences can ever be truly neutral. I doubt it, most people already believe strongly on what their nature is.
There is always some question begging involved, either in support of materialism or against.
If what you’re saying here is merely that we all have our biases, then sure I agree with that. But despite that people do occasionally change their minds. It is possible to have this conversation, for example, and see that the other person makes a good point or good argument, and eventually this could cause someone to change their minds. I get that in internet discussions like this one is not likely to see a radical shift in opinion and views, it takes time for everyone. Lots of debate, lots of arguments, lots of introspection and consideration.
Presumably we are both here because we somehow believe that this conversation is worth having? Otherwise why even come here to argue and discuss these matters if we really believe no one will change their minds and everyone just sticks to their own biases no matter what?
1 Like
4 posts were split to a new topic: Comments on Sensus Divinitatis
The point is not that people will not change their mind, but rather that they will have to change their mind about larger questions (involving materialism, the human soul etc) before coming to any conclusion about religious experiences.
The discussion on religious experiences happens with each party standing on a foundation of priors which are intrinsic to their approach/argumentation.
Hence the way i see it, there will be some amount of question begging in any argument for or against religious experiences…
Take the example of categorizing religious experiences as “emotions”. If a person believes that emotions are a product of physiological processes and cannot be caused by Spirits (God is a Spirit); then emotions cannot have spiritual causes by definition. I doubt you will be amenable to attributing emotions to the work of spirits.
Please don’t presume to speak for others.
I hold no such preconceptions, and take no a priori position on the existence of the “immaterial”, the "soul, the “supernatural” or other such issues. There is just insufficient evidence to conclude on these issues one way or the others, and I suspect this may be an irreconcilable situation as a consequence of the nature of these questions and the limits of our epistemology.
However, since you admit that your position is based on ideological preconceptions, then we should treat your conclusions with the appropriate skepticism and suspicion.
2 Likes
Its amazing how fast atheists become agnostics when questioned about “a priori” positions or assumptions.
Atleast you are aware that materialism is not an evidence based belief.
Thats a good beginning.