Religions have succeeded

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

By the way - rather than keep VG twisting in the wind, why not just tell us whether, in your view, if you weren't around to conceptualise your "god" would that god exist anyway? 

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Not sure whether you'll be able to get full access - I can because of my academic affiliation but not sure whether this is open access to the public in general. You should be able to see the summary at least.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0038038511419189

Thanks. Unfortunately it doesn't give me access.

Oh, moving goal-posts I see. Just a few posts ago you said rare was less than 1%. Your words:

So not my idea of rare, which would be somewhere less than 1%.

And I don't think that religious conversion is a disease, so using categorisation of diseases isn't really relevant is it VG.
But we are talking about the UK so the US, which is an entirely different society, particularly with respect to religiosity is irrelevant. Are you really arguing that 25% of british muslims are converts VG - if so you'll need to back that up with some pretty compelling evidence as the available research suggests that somewhat less than 5% are converts, and that includes both converts from another religion and from no religion.

I said I thought rare was somewhere less than 1%, then I looked up what other people view as rare and found it was a lot less than 1% in relation to diseases. Then I looked up what rare is in terms of side-effects for medication where rare affects between 1 in 10,000 and 1 in 1,000 people – ie risk is 0.01% to 0.1%. Then I realised that even though the number 1 was in my memory, I had got the decimal place wrong and it's more like 0.1% or 0.01%.

Using your seemingly arbitrary classification of rare isn't relevant either. What are you basing your classification on?

Who said we were just looking at the UK?

[ProfessorDavey]

Thanks. Unfortunately it doesn't give me access.

Sorry - frustrating when that happens. One of the advantages of my job is that I can readily access academic studies that aren't easily available to all.

I said I thought rare was somewhere less than 1%, then I looked up what other people view as rare and found it was a lot less than 1% in relation to diseases. Then I looked up what rare is in terms of side-effects for medication where rare affects between 1 in 10,000 and 1 in 1,000 people – ie risk is 0.01% to 0.1%. Then I realised that even though the number 1 was in my memory, I had got the decimal place wrong and it's more like 0.1% or 0.01%.

Which would still meet the criteria of 'rare' based on the 0.07% for a sensible estimate of the percentage of the population in the UK who are currently muslim but were brought up within a different religion.

But regardless of whether we call it 'rare', 'infrequent', 'uncommon', a 'small proportion' - surely you can accept that converts from one religion as a child to a different one as an adult are not common at all. I must admit I don't really understand why you are quibbling so much over this when the data are pretty clear. And I'm not in any way implying that someone who has gone through your journey is in any way odd or weird, just unusual in terms of not being common. Perhaps you should see it as a badge of honour - not being like the vast majority of the population. 

Using your seemingly arbitrary classification of rare isn't relevant either. What are you basing your classification on?

But there isn't some general scientific definition for 'rare' applied to research on religiosity, so I'm using the word as I see fit. Indeed if you want to work in the world of science and stats, the standard threshold for statistical significance is actually 5%.

Who said we were just looking at the UK?

The whole discussion has been about the UK as you, I and Vlad are UK based so the discussions around our respective childhood and adult religion needs to be framed around the context of UK society. Other country's societies aren't the same so you cannot 'lift and shift' proportions of converts etc from one society to another. If you want a discussion about islam in the context of society and culture of the US, then fine. But that won't tell you much about islam in the UK, which is very different.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

VG,

Tangible: "real and not imaginary; able to be shown, touched, or experienced:"

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/tangible

Vlad thinks he’s “experienced” a real, non-imaginary god, not just conceptualised it. QED 

Are you classifying the supernatural as tangible? Is that like classifying space-time as tangible? https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22429990-500-how-to-think-about-space-time/ 

Because one concept of the supernatural entity is that it is something that transcends time and space and human limitations. Obviously due to the limitations of the brain/mind humans try to make sense of that by giving it properties to make it more relatable for them. These properties are based on information their brain has previously had access to.   

Which doesn’t stop him from making that claim nonetheless but ok…

But he still thinks it exists whether or not he conceptualised it remember? He thinks that, even if he fell under a bus tomorrow (heaven forfend), this “god” would still exist even with no Vlad around to conceptualise it.   

No it isn’t. The “physical” is a red herring – it’s enough to think “god” exists (whether as a physical or a non-physical version) independent of his ability to conceptualise it.

No shit Sherlock. Theists believing God exists independent of them - who would have thought it. We keep agreeing on this and you keep bringing it up again as if it matters. As a theist I believe God exists independent  of me, but I don't think it is a fact because I have no objective evidence. All I have been saying is that I think this is Vlad's position too.

It's “peddled” and this doesn’t change anything. Tastes, preferences, responses to objectively real phenomena are all subjective; the phenomena themselves though are objective, and Vlad’s claim is of an objectively real god (that he’s also supposedly “encountered”) that exists whether or not he happens to be around to conceptualise it.

Incorrect. Honour is not objective, is defined differently by different people and is a matter of dispute - the word is used in language as though it exists after a person dies. Not even sure if the word "exists" should apply to a supernatural entity or to honour - but if we are saying that anything you can experience 'exists', then it is possible to claim you can experience honour and the supernatural entity.

FFS. Yes, but that doesn’t stop him from making it as a claim of fact nonetheless. I’ve explained this to you many time now, yet you keep returning to the same mistake. It’s not that I think he can make it a claim of fact, it’s that HE thinks he thinks he can make it a claim of fact. He may say that he has no “empirical evidence”, but he does think his “experience” is nonetheless “evidence” of some different type that means he really did encounter a god who exists independent of his conceptualising of it. WHY he thinks that’s evidence for this supposed god is anyone’s guess (he won’t or can’t tell us), but nonetheless evidence is what he claims his experience to be, albeit not the material kind. 

Subjective experience, perceptions etc can be evidence and so can testimony - but it's not objective evidence. I am not expecting you take my subjective evidence as fact. Nor does it make God fact. Hence God is a  belief.  And it's really not a new idea that theists think gods exist independently of them, albeit in some religions they are considered to transcend time and space. I don't know enough about beliefs about Amazon tree spirits or leprechauns to include them in this concept of a higher power that transcends time and space and human limitations and exists independently of humans.

Suggest you try reading his post again: he still thinks there’s a “god” whether or not he, Vlad, happens to have conceptualised it. He thinks “god” and he met too – not just that he conceptualised a meeting. Not sure why you keep indulging in increasingly convoluted post rationalisations to get him off the hook about this, but it isn’t working.

See above re. most theists thinking there is a god. Sensing a presence is something not all theists share - I might have experienced something but the experiences and information stored in my brain does not cause my brain to interpret it in a way whereby I would use the word "presence". I might think God was in my consciousness as I think of God, all the while still believing God exists independently of me - as a theist I would think that such a belief kind of goes with the territory.     

No, it’s just the deduction that when people who think they’ve met a “god” almost invariably tell us the god they met was the exact one they happened to be most enculturated to it raises a pretty big red flag don’t you think?   

Because, obviously, when people “use prior information stored in them to make interpretations of our (ie, their) experiences” then the gods they come up with will always be the ones they happen to have been taught about a priori. Should we therefore take all such claims as reliable evidence of a countless panoply of gods with all their various (and often mutually contradictory) characteristics, or as evidence of confirmation basis at work?

As for the natural/supernatural claims difference, it should be (and is) different because claims of encountering a physical entity of some sort (“I saw a lion in Tesco today” etc) can be validated by reference to intersubjective experience: there’s a commonly accepted understanding of what a lion is. For claims of the supernatural thought, there’s no intersubjective point of reference – any claim of such is as equally (in)valid as any other.

And epistemically that's a category difference – objective v subjective again.       

I am not referring to items for which there is objective evidence in my argument e.g. lions, tea, coffee so I don't know why you keep referring to them to contrast with the supernatural. I have referred to morals, honour and similar concepts that get peddled to us when we are young.

[bluehillside Retd.]

VG,

Are you classifying the supernatural as tangible? Is that like classifying space-time as tangible? https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22429990-500-how-to-think-about-space-time/

The other night I watched a film called “Denial” (you may have seen it too). It’s about the Deborah Lipstadt libel trial (“David Irving v Penguin Books and Deborah Lipstadt”) when DI sued for libel and lost. The defence team considered having holocaust survivors as witnesses, but decided against. The reason was that they knew that DI was smart enough to look for a detail (“You said the transport arrived at Auschwitz on a Tuesday, but it actually arrived on a Wednesday so why should we trust anything you have to day about Auschwitz?” etc) and they wanted instead to focus on the facts and evidence that the holocaust happened.

This tactic is essentially what you do – we could disappear down a rabbit hole about whether the god Vlad thinks he experienced was a “tangible” one or not, even though the definition of tangible isn’t concerned with the natural/supernatural issue – just with being "experienced" (which is what he claims to have done). The point though remains that Vlad thinks that, even if he fell under a bus tomorrow and wasn’t around to conceptualise it, this supposed god would continue to exist. On the other hand, his subjective preference for coffee or for 80s music would die with him.

Can you see the difference?       

Because one concept of the supernatural entity is that it is something that transcends time and space and human limitations. Obviously due to the limitations of the brain/mind humans try to make sense of that by giving it properties to make it more relatable for them. These properties are based on information their brain has previously had access to.

Irrelevant – see above.   

No shit Sherlock. Theists believing God exists independent of them - who would have thought it. We keep agreeing on this and you keep bringing it up again as if it matters. As a theist I believe God exists independent  of me, but I don't think it is a fact because I have no objective evidence. All I have been saying is that I think this is Vlad's position too.

It does matter though doesn’t it, because a phenomenon that exists whether or not there’s someone to conceptualise it is in a different epistemic category to an idea that exists only as a concept.

Try to understand this - it’s fundamental.   

Incorrect. Honour is not objective, is defined differently by different people and is a matter of dispute - the word is used in language as though it exists after a person dies. Not even sure if the word "exists" should apply to a supernatural entity or to honour - but if we are saying that anything you can experience 'exists', then it is possible to claim you can experience honour and the supernatural entity.

Oh dear. When “honour” is defined and measured by behaviours (helping old ladies across the road for example) then the extent to which someone does these things can be counted. Thus they can be said empirically to have behaved honourably (or not) according to the lights of the societies in which they happen to live. Note that this doesn’t imply an absolute definition of "honour" – just the working one the claimant is referring to when he says he’s honourable.   

Subjective experience, perceptions etc can be evidence and so can testimony - but it's not objective evidence. I am not expecting you take my subjective evidence as fact.

But Vlad does – that’s the point.

Nor does it make God fact. Hence God is a  belief.

And I hear the Pope’s a catholic too…

And it's really not a new idea that theists think gods exist independently of them, albeit in some religions they are considered to transcend time and space. I don't know enough about beliefs about Amazon tree spirits or leprechauns to include them in this concept of a higher power that transcends time and space and human limitations and exists independently of humans.

Relevance? New idea or not, Vlad does think his experience is evidence (albeit not the material type apparently) for a god (who just happens to be the god he knew most about anyway). That’s the point.   
   

See above re. most theists thinking there is a god. Sensing a presence is something not all theists share - I might have experienced something but the experiences and information stored in my brain does not cause my brain to interpret it in a way whereby I would use the word "presence". I might think God was in my consciousness as I think of God, all the while still believing God exists independently of me - as a theist I would think that such a belief kind of goes with the territory.

All very nice no doubt if that works for you as therapy but still not relevant. The POINT is that pointing to narratives of objectively real gods to explain subjective experiences of “presences” and such like is untenable.
       

I am not referring to items for which there is objective evidence in my argument e.g. lions, tea, coffee…

You’re still mixing up your categories here. The claim about the lion is that it exists as an objective fact, whereas the claim about coffee is just that you prefer it to tea. The former concerns whether or not something exists; the latter concerns how you feel about something that’s axiomatically already accepted as existing.

Epistemically, these are different categories of knowledge.     

… so I don't know why you keep referring to them to contrast with the supernatural.

Then you should do give how many times I’ve explained it to you. It’s not a “contrast with the supernatural” at all – it’s a contract with a belief about the existence of something (whether supernatural or not) compared with the belief about how you feel about that something (that’s already assumed to exist). Subjective vs objective. Again.     

I have referred to morals, honour and similar concepts that get peddled to us when we are young.

And I’ve corrected you for doing so – repeatedly.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

You think you “encountered” a god. You also think that this god just happens to be the exact one you were taught about as a youngster.

The God I was taught when young was probably the God we were all taught in the UK, However the God of a child dragged from play, made to wash and go and hear morality stories  from the OT while one's mother was enjoying a fag and a feet up and one's Dad was on shift and couldn't do with it anyway and how gentle Jesus was is certainly not the version I encountered in my twenties.

The Amazonian tribesman does the same thing about the animal spirits he was taught about.

As a child that would have been
far more exciting We were lucky enough to have a wood at the end of the garden. Does that count

Pretty much everyone (so far as I’m aware) who’s had a transcendent episode that they then ascribe to a god thinks the god involved just happens to be the one to which they’re most enculturated.

But we are talking of stuff like theoretical religion, Churchgoing, something in itism and the like. So where as I think you are absolutely wrong to think adults go back to a childhood faith, I think it's perfectly likely some go back for churchgoing, social reasons, believe there is something there etc as well as people who develop a conviction and commitment to a risen christ and a living God. What I'm not sure of is whether these divisions are well understood by encultured non religious researchers. We know, particularly in sociological and psychological studies that the culture of the researchers has warped the studies themselves

These supposed gods have as many characteristics and feature as there people who think they’ve encountered them, and often the features and characteristics of any one such god will contradict the features and characteristics of any other one such.

Feels like a strange kind of argumentum ad populum, Hillside. I've said the presence is God's the response is ours

What then should someone presented with these various claims deduce about whether those claims map reliably to actual gods, or just confirm the claimant's bias toward the most proximate cultural artefact gods?   

But world religions tend to owe very little to the majority of the localities and cultures they find themselves in and I certainly marvel at how I came to follow some first century Jewish bloke and argue christianity using greek philosophers of the axial age. You seem to be saying that God is an Englishman. What you are ignoring is there are things ideas, aesthetics etc that can be picked up, understood, valued, overwhelm and enjoyed by people of any culture.

[Dicky Underpants]

I certainly marvel at how I came to follow some first century Jewish bloke and argue christianity using greek philosophers of the axial age. You seem to be saying that God is an Englishman. What you are ignoring is there are things ideas, aesthetics etc that can be picked up, understood, valued, overwhelm and enjoyed by people of any culture.

I certainly marvel that you appear to have aligned yourself with a division of Christianity whose origins were dependent on the sex life of Henry VIII.
Or do you now attend some other denomination?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

The God I was taught when young was probably the God we were all taught in the UK, However the God of a child dragged from play, made to wash and go and hear morality stories  from the OT while one's mother was enjoying a fag and a feet up and one's Dad was on shift and couldn't do with it anyway and how gentle Jesus was is certainly not the version I encountered in my twenties.

So? The point here was that you didn’t go to Neptune school, or to Ra college, or find yourself surrounded by the cultural artefacts of the Inca beliefs.   

As a child that would have been far more exciting We were lucky enough to have a wood at the end of the garden. Does that count

See above.

But we are talking of stuff like theoretical religion, Churchgoing, something in itism and the like. So where as I think you are absolutely wrong to think adults go back to a childhood faith, I think it's perfectly likely some go back for churchgoing, social reasons, believe there is something there etc as well as people who develop a conviction and commitment to a risen christ and a living God. What I'm not sure of is whether these divisions are well understood by encultured non religious researchers. We know, particularly in sociological and psychological studies that the culture of the researchers has warped the studies themselves

A “risen christ and a living God” are both articles of faith you were enculturated to before you decided that you’d had an “encounter”. These then became main characteristics of the “encounter” you thought you’d had. Had you been enculturated to the Inca gods, no doubt you’d have decided you encountered Viracocha, Inti or Mama Quilla instead.   

Feels like a strange kind of argumentum ad populum, Hillside. I've said the presence is God's the response is ours…

There’s no argumentum ad populum, and “I've said the presence is God's the response is ours…” is just unqualified assertion. The point here is that you ascribe this supposed “presence” to something other than your imagination (ie, “god”), and what’s more to a god that just happens to be the one with which you were most familiar.

Funny that.   

But world religions tend to owe very little to the majority of the localities and cultures they find themselves in…

No, it’s the opposite of that.

…and I certainly marvel at how I came to follow some first century Jewish bloke…

As you were immersed in the supposed divinity of “some first century Jewish bloke” long before your suppose encounter, why on earth would you marvel at that being the “explanation” you subsequently reached for? 

…and argue christianity using greek philosophers of the axial age.

Not that I’d noticed, but ok…

You seem to be saying that God is an Englishman.

Very funny.

What you are ignoring is there are things ideas, aesthetics etc that can be picked up, understood, valued, overwhelm and enjoyed by people of any culture.

No doubt they can, but what you’re ignoring is that nonetheless people who think they’ve had a transcendent experience and reach for a religious explanation for it almost invariably pick the religious   faith that happens to be most familiar to them.

This should give you pause, even though it doesn’t.   

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

So? The point here was that you didn’t go to Neptune school, or to Ra college, or find yourself surrounded by the cultural artefacts of the Inca beliefs.   

See above.

A “risen christ and a living God” are both articles of faith you were enculturated to before you decided that you’d had an “encounter”. These then became main characteristics of the “encounter” you thought you’d had. Had you been enculturated to the Inca gods, no doubt you’d have decided you encountered Viracocha, Inti or Mama Quilla instead.   

There’s no argumentum ad populum, and “I've said the presence is God's the response is ours…” is just unqualified assertion. The point here is that you ascribe this supposed “presence” to something other than your imagination (ie, “god”), and what’s more to a god that just happen to be the one with which you were most familiar.

Funny that.   

No, it’s the opposite of that.

As you were immersed in the supposed divinity of “some first century Jewish bloke” long before your suppose encounter, why on earth would you marvel at that being the “explanation” you subsequently reached for? 

Not that I’d noticed, but ok…

Very funny.

No doubt they can, but what you’re ignoring is that nonetheless people who think they’ve had a transcendent experience and reach for a religious explanation for it almost invariably pick the religious   faith that happens to be most familiar to them.

This should give you pause, even though it doesn’t.   

See, this is what I mean, I mention world religions and Hillside counters it with a local religion in a thinly disguised attempt to eliminate the notion of a world religion. He's done this before. Religious adherence? Hillside categorises it with football adherence.
You can't help yourself can you.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

See, this is what I mean, I mention world religions and Hillside counters it with a local religion in a thinly disguised attempt to eliminate the notion of a world religion. He's done this before. Religious adherence? Hillside categorises it with football adherence.
You can't help yourself can you.

What are you trying to say here?

[ProfessorDavey]

The God I was taught when young was probably the God we were all taught in the UK, However the God of a child dragged from play, made to wash and go and hear morality stories  from the OT while one's mother was enjoying a fag and a feet up and one's Dad was on shift and couldn't do with it anyway and how gentle Jesus was is certainly not the version I encountered in my twenties.

But there are all sorts of things that we might view through a child's perspective when we encounter them as a child, but view in an altogether more sophisticated and complex manner when viewed as an adult.

But the point is that those childhood experiences appear to be critical for the adult experiences. Why? Because being brought up within a particular religious tradition is pretty well a prerequisite for having those adult experiences. Without those childhood experiences the likelihood of coming to religion as an adult is very small as I have demonstrated via the evidence from research.

Interesting, too, in he UK those rare individuals - children brought up non religious but who become religious as adults are far more likely to become christian than any other religion. If you'd not been brought up in a religious household you might expect that any/all religions hold equal attraction, but they don't. Again even for the non religious upbringing kids the predominant religion within UK society (and therefore the one much more likely to be encountered to some degree during childhood/schooling etc) becomes the preferred religion for those very few who do 'convert' from no religion as a child to religion as an adult.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

But there are all sorts of things that we might view through a child's perspective when we encounter them as a child, but view in an altogether more sophisticated and complex manner when viewed as an adult.

But the point is that those childhood experiences appear to be critical for the adult experiences. Why? Because being brought up within a particular religious tradition is pretty well a prerequisite for having those adult experiences. Without those childhood experiences the likelihood of coming to religion as an adult is very small as I have demonstrated via the evidence from research.

Interesting, too, in he UK those rare individuals - children brought up non religious but who become religious as adults are far more likely to become christian than any other religion. If you'd not been brought up in a religious household you might expect that any/all religions hold equal attraction, but they don't. Again even for the non religious upbringing kids the predominant religion within UK society (and therefore the one much more likely to be encountered to some degree during childhood/schooling etc) becomes the preferred religion for those very few who do 'convert' from no religion as a child to religion as an adult.

The importance of childhood exposure would not have been the case in early Christianity or any other religion. And is apparently therefore not necessary for religion contrary to findings that it is. You will have read what I have said about the problems facing encultured atheist or agnostic sociological and psychological researchers are with regards to investigating religious issues.

If you are suggesting that childhood experience of religion somehow negates the reality of adult experience and indeed God then childhood experience of a physicalist view of the world would negate physicalism and this would be true of any ism you could mention, unless of course you were special pleading.

As Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and Judaism teach us. It only needs a handful of people or one to start something. 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,


As you were immersed in the supposed divinity of “some first century Jewish bloke” long before your suppose encounter,

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ho ho ho ho ho ho he he he he he he he.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

We, of course, cannot climb inside Vlad's mind (there is a terrifying thought)

Whereas climbing into yours only holds terrors for the Agoraphobic.

[Sriram]

This argument about the existence or otherwise of God has been going on for thousands of years. No one has been able to prove it one way or the other. Belief is not new, nor is atheism.

This shows clearly that it has something to do with our minds and their natural ability or otherwise, of believing in a God. This belief is not due to religions...rather religions has arisen due to this natural tendency. 

God can be believed in due to various factors...natural forces that affect our lives, the orderliness of the universe, the complexity of the ecological system, the complexity of our mind and consciousness, our own experience of the different levels of consciousness within ourselves. There could be many other reasons too.

I have highlighted many times the effect of implicit pattern learning.

If some people do not inherently feel the need to believe in a God...nothing can be done about it. As far as those who do have reasons to believe in a God....that cannot change either.  If these beliefs could change so easily through discussions, it wouldn't have come this far at all given the rise of science, technology and staunch atheism in recent centuries.

[ProfessorDavey]

The importance of childhood exposure would not have been the case in early Christianity ...

Really - I don't think you are correct there.

Looking at christianity - this clearly developed from established jewish theology, specifically the expectation that a messiah would one day arrive to fulfil jewish prophecy. Jesus' followers would have been brought up to believe that jewish orthodoxy and without that upbringing I think it would be very unlikely that they would have followed Jesus, whose teaching was inextricably linked to that jewish orthodoxy, nor would they likely have considered that Jesus was the messiah of the prophecy they'd been brought up to believe. Indeed Jesus himself was brought up in that manner too and he would not have been able to have taught in the manner he did without that upbringing in jewish orthodoxy.

Religions tend not to appear from no-where by arise as evolution from existing embedded religions within the society from which they arise. The notion that the people within that society would have been familiar with the pre-evolved form of the religion through their upbringing is likely to have been very important in allowing a new religion ultimately to arise.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ho ho ho ho ho ho he he he he he he he.

Ah, then I owe you an apology. I’d always assumed that you were brought up in the UK – where there are churches on every other street corner, the CofE is the established church and the monarch is the head of it, bishops sit by right in the legislature, schools are required by law to have a daily act of collective worship, children go to Sunday schools, and the Archbishop of Canterbury gets privileged access to the media on any vaguely moral question. You know, immersed.

Anyway, as that’s apparently not the case why not tell us where you were brought up – on a remote Navajo reserve in the US perhaps where you learned that the Yei are a group of deities who act as mediators between humans and the Great Spirit? How about in the Australian badlands where the aborigines who took you in taught you all about the Adnoartina, the lizard guard of Uluru? Or I guess it may have been somewhere deep in the Guianas where you were told that that shaman’s soul becomes an auxiliary spirit of his living colleagues, helping them in their curing practices and in the control of harmful spirits?

Once we’ve established which faith tradition you were immersed in, perhaps you can share then how it was that once you’d had your episode that you decided was an “encounter”, you then concluded that what you’d encountered was a god from a religious faith entirely different from your own?   

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Really - I don't think you are correct there.

Looking at christianity - this clearly developed from established jewish theology, specifically the expectation that a messiah would one day arrive to fulfil jewish prophecy. Jesus' followers would have been brought up to believe that jewish orthodoxy and without that upbringing I think it would be very unlikely that they would have followed Jesus, whose teaching was inextricably linked to that jewish orthodoxy, nor would they likely have considered that Jesus was the messiah of the prophecy they'd been brought up to believe. Indeed Jesus himself was brought up in that manner too and he would not have been able to have taught in the manner he did without that upbringing in jewish orthodoxy.

Religions tend not to appear from no-where by arise as evolution from existing embedded religions within the society from which they arise. The notion that the people within that society would have been familiar with the pre-evolved form of the religion through their upbringing is likely to have been very important in allowing a new religion ultimately to arise.

But Jesus’ messiahhood was not the orthodox messiahhood.
Nor would Jesus’ claims have been considered Orthodox in claiming divine powers leading to his crucifixion and his death at the hands of Roman occupiers certainly wasn’t the expectation of the messiah who was expected to be a temporarily conqueror. And then of course there was the international following drawn from those of many religions including many pantheons and those of a more philosophical leaning. You cannot have it both ways that Christianity was derived from a Jewish religious background and a pagan religious childhood or a Grecian philosophical childhood.
In other words your argument has become so broad as to be meaningless.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

This argument about the existence or otherwise of God has been going on for thousands of years. No one has been able to prove it one way or the other. Belief is not new, nor is atheism.

This shows clearly that it has something to do with our minds and their natural ability or otherwise, of believing in a God. This belief is not due to religions...rather religions has arisen due to this natural tendency. 

God can be believed in due to various factors...natural forces that affect our lives, the orderliness of the universe, the complexity of the ecological system, the complexity of our mind and consciousness, our own experience of the different levels of consciousness within ourselves. There could be many other reasons too.

I have highlighted many times the effect of implicit pattern learning.

If some people do not inherently feel the need to believe in a God...nothing can be done about it. As far as those who do have reasons to believe in a God....that cannot change either.  If these beliefs could change so easily through discussions, it wouldn't have come this far at all given the rise of science, technology and staunch atheism in recent centuries.

Yes and of course that presents the idea that religion exists because of indoctrination a chicken and egg dilemma.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

VG,

The other night I watched a film called “Denial” (you may have seen it too). It’s about the Deborah Lipstadt libel trial (“David Irving v Penguin Books and Deborah Lipstadt”) when DI sued for libel and lost. The defence team considered having holocaust survivors as witnesses, but decided against. The reason was that they knew that DI was smart enough to look for a detail (“You said the transport arrived at Auschwitz on a Tuesday, but it actually arrived on a Wednesday so why should we trust anything you have to day about Auschwitz?” etc) and they wanted instead to focus on the facts and evidence that the holocaust happened.

This tactic is essentially what you do – we could disappear down a rabbit hole about whether the god Vlad thinks he experienced was a “tangible” one or not, even though the definition of tangible isn’t concerned with the natural/supernatural issue – just with being "experienced" (which is what he claims to have done). The point though remains that Vlad thinks that, even if he fell under a bus tomorrow and wasn’t around to conceptualise it, this supposed god would continue to exist. On the other hand, his subjective preference for coffee or for 80s music would die with him.

You were the one focused on words like "tangible" and experience" as though there was some kind of point to be made that hadn't already been agreed on (see my reply #1056 that Vlad's belief is that god is a separate party from him).

Yes we are in agreement that theists believe their god exists even if the theist no longer exists. And I am not comparing god to preferences for coffee, as coffee clearly does exist as fact, because there is objective evidence for it.

Can you see the difference?       

Irrelevant – see above.   

It does matter though doesn’t it, because a phenomenon that exists whether or not there’s someone to conceptualise it is in a different epistemic category to an idea that exists only as a concept.

Try to understand this - it’s fundamental.

I agree a theist believes that the phenomenon (that people refer to when they say 'god') exists whether or not there's someone to conceptualise it.

But the god we're dealing with in our discussion of Vlad's god is the human conceptualised version and this human concept of god ceases to exist when the human who conceptualises that god is no longer there. The Christian version of god that Vlad's brain has constructed to make sense of his belief and his experience where he felt a non-physical god was present in his consciousness is based on the information about the Christian religion that was already stored in his brain - this Vlad's brain conceptualised god he believes in dies with him.

Some other out there phenomenon, necessary entity, first cause of the universe, higher power that transcends human understanding and limits etc etc may exist but I am not seeing where Vlad is claiming this as fact rather than arguing for it philosophically, nor do I see where he is claiming that Vlad's brain conceptualised god he believes in is fact. 

Oh dear. When “honour” is defined and measured by behaviours (helping old ladies across the road for example) then the extent to which someone does these things can be counted. Thus they can be said empirically to have behaved honourably (or not) according to the lights of the societies in which they happen to live. Note that this doesn’t imply an absolute definition of "honour" – just the working one the claimant is referring to when he says he’s honourable.   

But Vlad does – that’s the point.

And I hear the Pope’s a catholic too…

Relevance? New idea or not, Vlad does think his experience is evidence (albeit not the material type apparently) for a god (who just happens to be the god he knew most about anyway). That’s the point.   
   
All very nice no doubt if that works for you as therapy but still not relevant. The POINT is that pointing to narratives of objectively real gods to explain subjective experiences of “presences” and such like is untenable.
       
You’re still mixing up your categories here. The claim about the lion is that it exists as an objective fact, whereas the claim about coffee is just that you prefer it to tea. The former concerns whether or not something exists; the latter concerns how you feel about something that’s axiomatically already accepted as existing.

Epistemically, these are different categories of knowledge.     

Then you should do give how many times I’ve explained it to you. It’s not a “contrast with the supernatural” at all – it’s a contract with a belief about the existence of something (whether supernatural or not) compared with the belief about how you feel about that something (that’s already assumed to exist). Subjective vs objective. Again.     

And I’ve corrected you for doing so – repeatedly.

Again, I'm not going to waste my time responding point by point to your assertions about what you think Vlad or I are saying. The point I am making repeatedly  is that from what I have seen on this thread, Vlad expresses a belief in the existence of a god that he believes exists separate from him, and will exist after he is dead, which is to be expected, given he is a theist. He said pretty early on in this thread that his posts regarding the Christian version in response to points made to him was from a position of belief. I have not seen him expect you to become convinced of  god's existence, based on his belief.

I've seen him try to use philosophy to argue for the existence of a necessary entity on other threads, and I've seen him mischaracterise other people's challenges to his necessary entity claim - he seemed to think they were making claims themselves rather than just pointing out that he had not proved his claim.

I have seen him use his personal experience and the philosophy to explain why he believes in god (his version of god based on his claim of a necessary entity e.g. that god is immortal, invisible, creative and sovereign). I haven't seen him characterise his personal experience or his arguments for a necessary entity as some kind of incontrovertible reason for god to be fact or for the Christian god to be fact. He seems clear that he is stating his belief.

My interpretation of what I have read is that his subjective experience is offered as evidence of what he thinks was present - he thinks a god that is a separate entity from him was present in his consciousness .

By the way, BHS, just to clarify, are you saying consciousness is "tangible" because we can experience it?

Vlad has said "I am aware that things which cannot be falsified are generally termed beliefs" and has offered his experience as a foundation of his belief.

Vlad said in the post I quoted earlier "if you will not accept my experience" as opposed to saying that his experience must be accepted and makes god a fact. Even if you did accept his experience, which he offers as subjective evidence for his concept of god, nowhere on this thread am I getting the impression that Vlad is expecting your acceptance of his evidence will make his concept of god a fact.

I have also repeatedly corrected you on referring to lions or tea or coffee. We are discussing abstract concepts that our brains have created that we treat as if they exist separate from us and will exist after we die e.g. terms such as 'honour' or 'goodness' or 'morally right' i.e. undefined or individually defined labels i.e. not collectively agreed upon labels, which we attach to some sensations or feelings we experience, which are based on input peddled to us when we were young, We are not discussing objects for which we have objective evidence of their existence such as lions or tea or coffee. 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

Ah, then I owe you an apology. I’d always assumed that you were brought up in the UK – where there are churches on every other street corner, the CofE is the established church and the monarch is the head of it, bishops sit by right in the legislature, schools are required by law to have a daily act of collective worship, children go to Sunday schools, and the Archbishop of Canterbury gets privileged access to the media on any vaguely moral question. You know, immersed.

Anyway, as that’s apparently not the case why not tell us where you were brought up – on a remote Navajo reserve in the US perhaps where you learned that the Yei are a group of deities who act as mediators between humans and the Great Spirit? How about in the Australian badlands where the aborigines who took you in taught you all about the Adnoartina, the lizard guard of Uluru? Or I guess it may have been somewhere deep in the Guianas where you were told that that shaman’s soul becomes an auxiliary spirit of his living colleagues, helping them in their curing practices and in the control of harmful spirits?

Once we’ve established which faith tradition you were immersed in, perhaps you can share then how it was that once you’d had your episode that you decided was an “encounter”, you then concluded that what you’d encountered was a god from a religious faith entirely different from your own?   

Nay lad, Gerry Anderson was my deity in the sixties.

[Nearly Sane]

Nay lad, Gerry Anderson was my deity in the sixties.

And you have remained a Mysteronist ever since

[ProfessorDavey]

But Jesus’ messiahhood was not the orthodox messiahhood.
Nor would Jesus’ claims have been considered Orthodox in claiming divine powers leading to his crucifixion and his death at the hands of Roman occupiers certainly wasn’t the expectation of the messiah who was expected to be a temporarily conqueror. And then of course there was the international following drawn from those of many religions including many pantheons and those of a more philosophical leaning. You cannot have it both ways that Christianity was derived from a Jewish religious background and a pagan religious childhood or a Grecian philosophical childhood.
In other words your argument has become so broad as to be meaningless.

Not at all.

Sure, of course there was a debate over interpretation of jewish scripture with regard to Jesus, but that doesn't mean that those that followed Jesus were not basing their view on their particular interpretation of that scripture - and of course interpretation requires knowledge, which in turn comes from the society and culture in which those individuals were brought up.

Jesus' teaching is fundamentally based on established jewish tradition, because that is, of course, the tradition he was brought up in himself. That meant something to others with that knowledge (i.e. brought up within that tradition) and that upbringing would have been critical to those around him who were interpreting their knowledge of scripture and prophecy to determine whether they felt Jesus was the messiah of prophecy or simply another prophet.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

And you have remained a Mysteronist ever since

My cultural influences cover a broad Spectrum.

[Nearly Sane]

My cultural influences cover a broad Spectrum.

FAB!