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I know Sai Emrys of the Language Creation Society. Sai recently read my website. Upon being particularly thought-provoked by How To Recognize The Signs of an Imaginary Friend and Thoughts on Our Interactions With the Supernatural, he posted a thread to the forums of the Randi Institute. In that thread he asked for stories of how believers interacted with God, and how ex-believers who used to think they interacted with God now explain those experiences. Some parts of the resulting conversation were pretty interesting.
Comments
druidsfire on Feb. 13, 2009 4:31 AM
Matt, the first link is really odd... it references to whatever URL my browser is on rather than linking to the site the address tag says it should go to. I tried it in both Firefox and IE, and it's doing the same thing.
matt-arnold on Feb. 13, 2009 4:34 AM
Oops! I made a mistake. Try it again!
druidsfire on Feb. 13, 2009 5:23 AM
Works now, thanks. :)
lorddraqo on Feb. 13, 2009 5:16 AM
Interesting. Of course since I'm a supporter of Amit Goswami's Monist Idealism, and have found it supported by the precepts of gnostic pagan mysticism as espoused in Tim Freke's and Peter Gandy's "Jesus and the Lost Goddess," I don't know if I qualify as a Theist, or a non-Theist. Of course Faith is accepting without proof, which leads to "the Faithful" discounting anyone who operates from and Experiential Knowing perspective. Still interesting.
atropis on Feb. 13, 2009 5:50 AM
it is interesting to me that all storytellers - theist and otherwise - very consistently discuss their experiences or lack thereof from an internal perspective.
some of the ones about how 'i got no sign therefore there is no god' strike me as all too similar to saying 'when i called the guy whose number i got from a friend, he didn't answer the phone, therefore that guy must not exist'. and all with the same touch of bitterness in tone.
lorddraqo on Feb. 13, 2009 3:18 PM
This is most likely because of the subjective nature of the experience. The issue of course is the perception that their subjective experience can be generalized to include everyone else's experience, while the reality is closer to "your milage may vary." Everyone's experience of the color red is unique, even when they are processing the same wavelength of light. Such is the nature of the universe.
atropis on Feb. 13, 2009 9:04 PM
my point exactly. there's also, you may have noticed, a conflicting attitude towards the 'objective facts' of whether a vision was a vision or a hallucination, and so forth, when it totally doesn't matter to the experience of the experiencer.
matt-arnold on Feb. 13, 2009 3:22 PM
For me, I needed to find out whether the particular God I was raised to believe in existed or not-- the specific God of the Christian Bible. Never mind whether there exists some different definition of God or Goddess out there. He or she is of no concern to that question. If there is a true God or Goddess, the only way to get past all the bollocks that is taught to us about them is to test it.
The Bible's descriptions made specific promises and claims about a specific type of God. Both external promises, and internal promises. The Bible's descriptions make God similar to ... well ... similar to defining my buddy as "someone who always picked up the phone". In that case, that version of my buddy would definitely not exist. The more grandiose the claims about something, the easier it is to disprove. The gods and goddesses tend to carry along the most grandiose claims of all.
If everyone around me had insisted all my life that I am a bad person unless I stake everything on whether my buddy picks up the phone every time, I would be right to be angry.
sarahmichigan on Feb. 13, 2009 4:12 PM
I remember having a moment in high school chemistry where I was just impressed as hell with the order of the universe and *knew* god was behind it all. Now, I'd be equally inclined to just think how awesome the universe is and how cool it is that we can have sort of reverent and awe-inspiring moments about the natural world, no god needed.
saizai on Feb. 14, 2009 3:37 AM
I'm on here too, y'know. ;)
BTW, you may be interested in my interview with one of the Phelps.
People mostly don't grok that they really do believe in predestination and all the rest of the Calvinism.
matt-arnold on Feb. 14, 2009 4:09 AM
I won't read the interview with one of the Phelps, because I don't need to feel rage right now. Thanks for commenting though!
saizai on Feb. 14, 2009 11:25 AM
I find it hard to feel anything like rage for someone who doesn't even believe in causation. ;-)
nionecalima on Feb. 14, 2009 3:37 AM
Fantastic links; thanks! (Incl. your site.) I have some friends who will be particularly entertained by your parable.
matt-arnold on Feb. 14, 2009 3:59 AM
I'm glad you like it.
By the way, from one LojbanFest attendee to another, what are the odds you can make it out to Penguicon this year?
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