Themis wrote:I am not suggesting the experience is not real. Even a hallucination is real, and at least happened within the person/person's head. Since you provided the church's main method involving a burning of the bosom. I am not suggesting the burning in the bosom is not happening, but questioning how we know it is coming from some divine being and not just being created by the body. The church's reasoning is circular here and of no help, so I ask how do we know?
Because I can't create that feeling on my own no matter how much I want it.
When we are talking about interpretation, we are talking about the one the church gave us. Other groups or individual may give you other interpretations they think you should have. How again is this a sure knowledge. You seem to using sure not as a state of information accuracy, but as a feeling towards your interpretation.
I had my first such experience before I even knew what the Church's interpretation of it was, and I had already known, for myself, from where the source came.
Oh I thought it was about proving love, which really would be the only thing relevant to the issue here. Proving someones love you don't know would first involve finding out they do exist, and looking to see if any evidence of love exists like say letter or journals and such expressing love for something or someone. Not sure how that would be relevant here.
I
am talking about proving love. You use letters and journals for evidence of love, but seem to reject the same regarding a witness coming from a divine source. You use actions as proof for love, but seem to dismiss actions regarding spiritual experiences as claimed. What if what one thinks they are in love, but really isn't? People mistake lust for love quite often. Can you really prove it?
You are wrong again. I have never doubted spiritual experiences happen. They do for me. What I am questioning is how we know with any reliability or accuracy the meanings we may interpret from them, especially objective truth claims like we see from many of the worlds religions.
You don't doubt
something happened, you just question it's source, and suggest there's no way of really knowing. Your objective truth claims relies on the premise that all are being honest. Some things, though, just require faith...and good ole common sense.
Who said we could prove anything absolutely? Even science, which has proved proof of many things, never suggests it is absolute.
I rely on more than science (this coming from on who studied Biology).
