Well, since you're not posting in good faith I'll just default that God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and omnipresent. Time, space, and energy are irrelevant to this deity so if a created being wants a face-to-face then it's just a matter of Him suspending the laws he designed, because He can, and then having a conversation.
Or, since He's God He can just whisk the petitioner to a dimension where space and time are infinitesimally small so they can talk at length to the petitioner's satisfaction and then reappear in this 3rd dimension with virtually no time lost.
Or, if this is an electric universe, which some believe it is, then God can just pause the program while the two talk at length. Kind of like players pausing Call of Duty to discuss OP's mom.
Or. I dunno. Since we're balls deep in the world of fantasy right now, God can just replicate Himself a billion times over, or a trillion times, whatever, He's all-everything anyway, and just have all sorts of fascinating conversations with His kiddos.
If none of my Tolkienian examples work for you you're more than free to worldbuild a scenario in which I can figure out how to make it work for you. You know. Since you loooooove to have your mind blown and expanded and whatnot.
- Doc
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.
Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:Well, since you're not posting in good faith I'll just default that God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and omnipresent. Time, space, and energy are irrelevant to this deity so if a created being wants a face-to-face then it's just a matter of Him suspending the laws he designed, because He can, and then having a conversation.
Or, since He's God He can just whisk the petitioner to a dimension where space and time are infinitesimally small so they can talk at length to the petitioner's satisfaction and then reappear in this 3rd dimension with virtually no time lost.
Or, if this is an electric universe, which some believe it is, then God can just pause the program while the two talk at length. Kind of like players pausing Call of Duty to discuss OP's mom.
Or. I dunno. Since we're balls deep in the world of fantasy right now, God can just replicate Himself a billion times over, or a trillion times, whatever, He's all-everything anyway, and just have all sorts of fascinating conversations with His kiddos.
If none of my Tolkienian examples work for you you're more than free to worldbuild a scenario in which I can figure out how to make it work for you. You know. Since you loooooove to have your mind blown and expanded and whatnot.
- Doc
Prophets are sounding like a better alternative at this point.
I suppose, Water Dog, that is the point I'm arriving at.
But then we're back to square one again, determining whether or not a person is a true prophet rather than a man masquerading as one.
I have a question wrote:...you claimed one can differentiate between spiritual phenomena and simple constructs/fabrications of the mind through ‘practice’. I’m simply enquiring as to what, specifically, is involved in that practicing and how that practice leads to being able to differentiate. What are the key discernible differences between spiritual phenomena and simple constructs/fabrications of the mind that you have uncovered through practice?
mentalgymnast wrote:Ruminating after the fact. HIndsight is always better than foresight. There are experiences that I've had during my life in which as I look at them in hindsight it appears to me that there were other factors that may have entered into the equation other than pure chance and/or self induced/originating thought. And it is because of the nature and composition of folks on this board that I am unwilling to share these experiences/occurrences. I'll just have to take the hit on that one. I don't feel comfortable, at all, sharing here in this place.
Asking MG to back up his assertions is like trying to grow rocks.
MG, without divulging those experiences, you should be able to articulate the hallmarks that identify that spiritual phenomena was involved rather than simple constructs/fabrications of the mind. You’ve asserted their are differentiating hallmarks, you’ve asserted you can identify them. I simply want to know what they are.
Let me give you a template that will enable you to answer the question without divulging the personal experience:
Experience A involved spiritual phenomena because <the tips of my fingers turned blue> whereas Experience B was a simple construct/fabrication of the mind because <the tips of my fingers didn’t turn blue>.
All you have to do (and you’ve already asserted you can), is replace the words in between < & > with the specific hallmarks that enabled you to differentiate between spiritual phenomena and simple constructs/fabrications of the mind.
If your original assertion is honest (that you personally have learnt to differentiate between spiritual phenomena and simple constructs/fabrications of the mind), this is a simple question which should be easy to respond to with an unambiguous, non-evasive answer.
A good faith bump...
“When we are confronted with evidence that challenges our deeply held beliefs we are more likely to reframe the evidence than we are to alter our beliefs. We simply invent new reasons, new justifications, new explanations. Sometimes we ignore the evidence altogether.” (Mathew Syed 'Black Box Thinking')
mentalgymnast wrote:Prophets are sounding like a better alternative at this point.
Prophets are a better alternative to an all-powerful god talking face-to-face to one of His creations.
There you have it. Mental Gymnast given an opportunity to expand and blow his mind away with super exploratory conversation and instead he defaults to his testimony.
Yep. Totally here to 'learn' and stuff.
- Doc
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.
Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
I have a question wrote: Asking MG to back up his assertions is like trying to grow rocks.
MG, without divulging those experiences, you should be able to articulate the hallmarks that identify that spiritual phenomena was involved rather than simple constructs/fabrications of the mind. You’ve asserted their are differentiating hallmarks, you’ve asserted you can identify them. I simply want to know what they are.
Let me give you a template that will enable you to answer the question without divulging the personal experience:
Experience A involved spiritual phenomena because <the tips of my fingers turned blue> whereas Experience B was a simple construct/fabrication of the mind because <the tips of my fingers didn’t turn blue>.
All you have to do (and you’ve already asserted you can), is replace the words in between < & > with the specific hallmarks that enabled you to differentiate between spiritual phenomena and simple constructs/fabrications of the mind.
If your original assertion is honest (that you personally have learnt to differentiate between spiritual phenomena and simple constructs/fabrications of the mind), this is a simple question which should be easy to respond to with an unambiguous, non-evasive answer.
I have a question wrote: A good faith bump...
Earlier in the thread I said this:
The closest I can come to describing some of the experiences I'm referring to is a 'burning in the bosom'. Other times have been thoughts streaming...complete sentences and coherent thought... without preexisting encouragement or causal factors. And they've been directly applicable to a situation in which I later could see I was in need of that inspiration.
The "burning in the bosom" is something qualitatively different from anything else I have ever experienced in my life through my natural senses. Granted, the 'streaming thoughts' I'm referring to above could simply be interpreted as being simply 'thoughts'. But I see them differently.
When it comes to the burning feeling in the very core of the body going from head to toe...knowing that it isn't a lightning strike ...that's another thing altogether.
...that's another thing altogether.