A New Smear Article: Interpreter Targets Givens and Hauglid

[Moksha]

By the hoary hosts of Haggoth, you are breathing new life into Asgard. Remember citizens of Midgard, Asgard neither asks for your obedience nor expects your tithe dollars for helping keep the nine realms safe!

The one more god you don’t believe in line, huh? Isn’t that about 15 years or so old by now? You need to find some new material.

It was a good answer for the imagination being a valid location for a helpful and reasonable belief-escape system. Mythology can be helpful in clarifying values and establishing community among followers. Hopes for Valhalla can give us solace in moments of doubt.

[Kishkumen]

It was a good answer for the imagination being a valid location for a helpful and reasonable belief-escape system. Mythology can be helpful in clarifying values and establishing community among followers. Hopes for Valhalla can give us solace in moments of doubt.

Some people do take solace in Norse beliefs. Doubtless you are not one of them.

[dastardly stem]

They are real. It is not so much that they point to something real. They are real experiences.

YOu're forcing me to bring up keys again. Say a someone, Omar, lost their keys. He looks and in frustration can't find them. "I"ll pray to god to find them" he thinks. He prays and feels good, has a spiritual experience. He's at peace and feels confident he'll find them. "Praise God" he thinks. Then he sets back out to find them. After time, he finds them. Under the table on which he initially thought he put them. "I swear I looked there four times. Praise God," Omar then thinks he was blessed by God as God found the keys and uncovered them placing them, magically, under the table--in a place Omar would surely look and find them. In actuality they were there the whole time. Omar just failed to bend over far enough to find them when he initially looked.

We can certainly say Omar experienced something. You say the point is he experienced something. To what point? I say the question is not whether he experienced something. It's a question of what that may or may not mean. Omar takes it to mean God helped him in his temporary plight. SUrely we can all agree Omar would have found the keys eventually whether he experienced this spiritual experience or not. I would suggest, at this point, its more reasonable, and probably far moreso, to think Omar's experience was solely self-induced without any outside intercession. We know people imagine things. We also know religious people think they have special connection, or special service with God. If any spiritual experience is qualitatively different then this hypothetical suggests, I'd like to see how.

We can certainly say "who cares? Whether these experiences really happen as a result of God favoring people or not doesn't matter. What matters is people really have these experiences." Well yes...but that's beside the point. The question is do these experiences reveal in any way a spirit realm or a god? I don't see how.

[Moksha]

It was a good answer for the imagination being a valid location for a helpful and reasonable belief-escape system. Mythology can be helpful in clarifying values and establishing community among followers. Hopes for Valhalla can give us solace in moments of doubt.

Some people do take solace in Norse beliefs. Doubtless you are not one of them.

That is true, when I am really hurting I find the most comfort in the philosophy of Jesus. However, Norse stories are fun. Doubting other's types and degrees of belief is best left to Pahoran.

[Kishkumen]

YOu're forcing me to bring up keys again. Say a someone, Omar, lost their keys. He looks and in frustration can't find them. "I"ll pray to god to find them" he thinks. He prays and feels good, has a spiritual experience. He's at peace and feels confident he'll find them. "Praise God" he thinks. Then he sets back out to find them. After time, he finds them. Under the table on which he initially thought he put them. "I swear I looked there four times. Praise God," Omar then thinks he was blessed by God as God found the keys and uncovered them placing them, magically, under the table--in a place Omar would surely look and find them. In actuality they were there the whole time. Omar just failed to bend over far enough to find them when he initially looked.

We can certainly say Omar experienced something. You say the point is he experienced something. To what point? I say the question is not whether he experienced something. It's a question of what that may or may not mean. Omar takes it to mean God helped him in his temporary plight. SUrely we can all agree Omar would have found the keys eventually whether he experienced this spiritual experience or not. I would suggest, at this point, its more reasonable, and probably far moreso, to think Omar's experience was solely self-induced without any outside intercession. We know people imagine things. We also know religious people think they have special connection, or special service with God. If any spiritual experience is qualitatively different then this hypothetical suggests, I'd like to see how.

We can certainly say "who cares? Whether these experiences really happen as a result of God favoring people or not doesn't matter. What matters is people really have these experiences." Well yes...but that's beside the point. The question is do these experiences reveal in any way a spirit realm or a god? I don't see how.

I don't see how I am forcing you to do anything. And, yes, I do think that the point is the experience. The experience of mystery in life can be transformative. One can find keys any number of ways. Some are guided by blind chance. Others may have the sense of cosmic mystery about them. Why not have a few of the latter variety thrown in with the mundane ones? What is the fun of saying there is only one right way to find the keys? I don't believe there is. Things can happen in very unexpected ways, and that is among the things that make life beautiful.

One of the things I always hated about the culture of Mormonism in the aughts was the way everyone was into producing spiritual experiences in predictable ways. Like this was a mechanistic process, and you should be able to turn on the tap whenever you like. I can kind of see how people get to that conclusion, but I honestly do not see that things work that way at all. There are mysteries beyond our capacity to understand things, and those are things I associate with the divine world. My choice of terminology, but it works for me. When we are gifted with the experience of those things by the tiny intimations we can deal with, I think it is great. I accept the gift.

We do the best we can with what we have, and what we have is an abundance beyond our capacity to grasp it. We are such tiny creatures with little mammalian minds, but we have some small ability to imagine what is beyond ourselves, and I say we use it with serious play. I think the religious imagination is fabulous, the drama, the costumes, the architecture, the mythology, the whole Megillah. Is it flawed? Is it tragic? Does it cause pain? Is there beauty, solace, peace and other good stuff there too? I say yes to all of the above. Mormonism is one place where that human drama has played out, and I think it has its great points. I am not here to rain on anyone's parade. I want people to enjoy what they have as well as they can in the little time they have.

[Kishkumen]

That is true, when I am really hurting I find the most comfort in the philosophy of Jesus. However, Norse stories are fun. Doubting other's types and degrees of belief is best left to Pahoran.

Agreed.

[dastardly stem]

I don't see how I am forcing you to do anything. And, yes, I do think that the point is the experience. The experience of mystery in life can be transformative.

For good or bad.

One can find keys any number of ways. Some are guided by blind chance. Others may have the sense of cosmic mystery about them. Why not have a few of the latter variety thrown in with the mundane ones? What is the fun of saying there is only one right way to find the keys? I don't believe there is. Things can happen in very unexpected ways, and that is among the things that make life beautiful.

There is no one right way. That's really not the point of the question of whether claimed spiritual experiences are evidence for God or a spirit realm. Life is beautiful but pretending we're living for some other world isn't.

One of the things I always hated about the culture of Mormonism in the aughts was the way everyone was into producing spiritual experiences in predictable ways. Like this was a mechanistic process, and you should be able to turn on the tap whenever you like. I can kind of see how people get to that conclusion, but I honestly do not see that things work that way at all. There are mysteries beyond our capacity to understand things, and those are things I associate with the divine world. My choice of terminology, but it works for me. When we are gifted with the experience of those things by the tiny intimations we can deal with, I think it is great. I accept the gift.

And so have many others with disastrous results. What if its not a gift? What if our imagination is not an appropriate guide directed by a divine? What if we are so much better off being guided by reason and to reject this spirit?

We do the best we can with what we have, and what we have is an abundance beyond our capacity to grasp it. We are such tiny creatures with little mammalian minds, but we have some small ability to imagine what is beyond ourselves, and I say we use it with serious play. I think the religious imagination is fabulous, the drama, the costumes, the architecture, the mythology, the whole Megillah. Is it flawed? Is it tragic? Does it cause pain? Is there beauty, solace, peace and other good stuff there too? I say yes to all of the above. Mormonism is one place where that human drama has played out, and I think it has its great points. I am not here to rain on anyone's parade. I want people to enjoy what they have as well as they can in the little time they have.

But all of that can be had and more without the notion of thinking there's another world to live for, there's a spirit realm or a god. None of the presuppositions for god or spirit are needed to achieve all or any of that good which you mention. And if we learn to be more reasonable, we all win.

[Kishkumen]

Many people are not going to live by your definition of reasonable. No one need follow your ideology. The religious stuff will stay, and it is better to accept that and find another way to improve things.

[Marcus]

Many people are not going to live by your definition of reasonable.

I know you are responding to DStem, but this is an incredible post, so I hope you don’t mind if I respond also. As to the above, Clearly.

No one need follow your ideology.

of course not!

The religious stuff will stay, and it is better to accept that….

Hmmm. Why is it better to accept that?

and find another way to improve things.

Wow. I would say this sounds like a threat, but obviously you don’t mean it that way, but still, wow. This is quite a post for a professional historian to write. Why, exactly, is it “better to accept that” the “religious stuff will stay”?

[doubtingthomas]

Many people are not going to live by your definition of reasonable.

Wow. I would say this sounds like a threat, but obviously you don’t mean it that way, but still, wow. This is quite a post for a professional historian to write.