The Top Ten and Only Reasons to be a True Believer

[_Alfredo]

If you continue to rely on religious concepts to defend particular interpretations of experience, to what do you appeal which doesn't rely on particular interpretations?

Your argument is as silly as believing the foundation of a building is exclusively supported by its top floor. The top floor is entirely supported by the foundation, so it makes no sense to appeal to the top floor as the only support for the foundation.

[_Franktalk]

In comparison to competing models of religious experience, for what reason is your particular model substantiated which doesn't rely on propositions or descriptions only accepted because they presuppose a model of religious experience in which these ideas are somehow confirmed.

I am sure there are many other paths that get to a spiritual experience. I have not been on any of them so I can not talk about them in any comparison way. The path I took using the Bible as reference made sense to me. Islam, the Jewish faith, and Christianity all share Abraham. I chose the Bible because I knew a little about it before I read it. Some people use drugs to have a vision. Who knows maybe they do get a religious experience. You would have to ask them.

[_Equality]

In comparison to competing models of religious experience, for what reason is your particular model substantiated which doesn't rely on propositions or descriptions only accepted because they presuppose a model of religious experience in which these ideas are somehow confirmed.

I am sure there are many other paths that get to a spiritual experience. I have not been on any of them so I can not talk about them in any comparison way. The path I took using the Bible as reference made sense to me. Islam, the Jewish faith, and Christianity all share Abraham. I chose the Bible because I knew a little about it before I read it. Some people use drugs to have a vision. Who knows maybe they do get a religious experience. You would have to ask them.

You don't have a problem with Abraham, as the Bible describes him, being a psychopath willing to kill his innocent child in cold blood?

[_Franktalk]

Please answer the contention directly.

I know you understand this, but you don't seem to be acknowledging it. To use your own words...

1) If you take away the religious experience, there is no basis for religious concepts.

No, there is no witness to the concepts.

2) When you question whether religious experience actually does substantiate religious concepts, you can't refer to religious concepts, because the question doesn't presuppose their basis. The question "takes away" religious experience.

If the question comes from someone who has not experienced a spiritual event then the question has no meat just bread. In this sense the question is limited by the person asking the question. More below.

3) If you can't refer to religious concepts when questioning religious experience, because they beg the question, then I contend there is nothing left to make any reasonable determination of which religious experiences are "twisted" and which are not.

That is reasonable to those who have not had an experience or have received one with no understanding. Most people fall into this category.

This is why a person who has had a religious experience can't explain why they should interpret their experience as "less twisted" than any contrary interpretation. Religion hasn't provided any way to know which doesn't fallaciously serve itself.

You are trying to know the unknowable. The religious experience is outside of the logic you are using. Worldly experience means nothing. If religion was of man and there were no spiritual experiences then all religions would have gone by the way side long ago. All things of man get replaced in time. But the religious doctrines remain. It is only because of the witness. Even if that witness gets messed up a lot. Faith is required for the experience. You can not use the faith of another. It is that simple.

[_Franktalk]

You don't have a problem with Abraham, as the Bible describes him, being a psychopath willing to kill his innocent child in cold blood?

I have no problem with Abraham who had faith in God to keep His promises even if it required to bring his son back from the dead.

Heb 11:17 By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son,
Heb 11:18 Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called:
Heb 11:19 Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.

[_Alfredo]

In comparison to competing models of religious experience, for what reason is your particular model substantiated which doesn't rely on propositions or descriptions only accepted because they presuppose a model of religious experience in which these ideas are somehow confirmed.

I am sure there are many other paths that get to a spiritual experience. I have not been on any of them so I can not talk about them in any comparison way. The path I took using the Bible as reference made sense to me. Islam, the Jewish faith, and Christianity all share Abraham. I chose the Bible because I knew a little about it before I read it. Some people use drugs to have a vision. Who knows maybe they do get a religious experience. You would have to ask them.

So are you open to the religious experience of a Muslim, which may confirm the Koran as the perfect word of God... and by extension... deny the divinity Christ as one of the cornerstones of Mormonism?

I don't believe you're as open-minded as you wish to suggest. I'm certain that you're opposed to the idea that other religious experiences prove you will burn in hell for eternity.

You haven't escaped the question of whether these alternate interpretations are "twisted" or not, you've only put them on the same level as your own interpretation by remaining so "open". The same level being there is no way to tell and to behave otherwise is an assumption.

If the question comes from someone who has not experienced a spiritual event then the question has no meat just bread. In this sense the question is limited by the person asking the question.

The question is for anyone, whether they've had a religious experience or not. It questions religious experience with no contingency considering whether the person asking has had an experience.

There's nothing a religious experience can add to "un-limit" the question which isn't a religious concept, and therefore begging the question and failing to answer it.

You are trying to know the unknowable. The religious experience is outside of the logic you are using. Worldly experience means nothing. If religion was of man and there were no spiritual experiences then all religions would have gone by the way side long ago. All things of man get replaced in time. But the religious doctrines remain. It is only because of the witness. Even if that witness gets messed up a lot. Faith is required for the experience. You can not use the faith of another. It is that simple.

And it's just as simple to understand that every excuse you've given is a religious concept and clearly begs the question.

[_Franktalk]

There's nothing a religious experience can add to "un-limit" the question which isn't a religious concept, and therefore begging the question and failing to answer it.

If that is the way you feel then go with it. Why waste my time and yours on questions in which you already have the answers to?

[Guest]

There's nothing a religious experience can add to "un-limit" the question which isn't a religious concept, and therefore begging the question and failing to answer it.

If that is the way you feel then go with it. Why waste my time and yours on questions in which you already have the answers to?

So, now it's not a question of what's true or reasonable about feelings... but simply what I feel?

I'm not wasting my time. I'm developing and challenging my reasoning. It seems the only response you have for my REASONING ABOUT FEELINGS is to do what I FEEL...

I'm sorry. I've determined that what a person feels isn't always reliable, and when it applies to feelings about religious experience... reason is the best direction for my actions.

You believe that most of the world will be doomed to the lower kingdoms because of what they feel is true, but actually twisted... So, why should I trust feelings only when the Church says I should, if there's no reason to trust the church other than those same precarious feelings?

You've kinda disappointed me, Franktalk. I'll develop my ideas with someone else if you're done.

[_Franktalk]

So are you open to the religious experience of a Muslim, which may confirm the Koran as the perfect word of God... and by extension... deny the divinity Christ as one of the cornerstones of Mormonism?

Now where have I heard this before?

I know I read it in the book "Anti-Christian for Dummies"

Now go back under a bridge where you belong.

[_Alfredo]

So are you open to the religious experience of a Muslim, which may confirm the Koran as the perfect word of God... and by extension... deny the divinity Christ as one of the cornerstones of Mormonism?

Now where have I heard this before?

I know I read it in the book "Anti-Christian for Dummies"

Now go back under a bridge where you belong.

You're not open to that interpretation. You can't explain why you reject that interpretation without appeal to your own interpretation which you've already admitted is on the same level, in effect, accomplishing nothing.