Kishkumen wrote: ↑Tue May 17, 2022 3:58 pm
Sure it seems like that because you have adopted an epistemology that dismisses it at the outset. The existence of the spiritual comes from human experience of the spiritual. If certain forms of human experience are excluded from serious consideration, then of course you can say there is no good reason to think there is a spiritual realm. You just need to start with the right definitions to reach the conclusion you want. You will find lots of support from the materialists and devotees to scientism in our age. If you want to understand why people long believed in the existence of divinities and the like, then examine the many testimonies across the ages of the experiences of such beings. You can allege that everyone made it up because they were not as enlightened as you are in this age, where you can dismiss things according to your definitions of reality and rationality, or you can accept that there may be something behind all of those experiences.
I fall into the latter category. I think there may be something behind those experiences. I may not understand it, but I don't dismiss it because I do not understand it. Every model of the world is only a model. We should not assume that our model is the final say. The likelihood that there is much we do not understand about reality is virtually certain, if anything
is certain. If there is a phenomenon we cannot account for yet but has much evidence of some kind informing the credence it widely receives, then it may not be unwise to say that the jury is out, instead of rushing to pontificate on reality and rationality as arguments for why all of that stuff is make-believe and not true.
I disagree that I've adopted an epistemology that dismisses it from the outset. I dismiss it simply because there is no good reason to assume it is so.
You say, "The existence of the spiritual comes from human experience of the spiritual."
I can't even find meaning in that sentence. WHat is spiritual, how can we know there is a spiritual realm?
Humans experience spiritual therefore there is spritual existence?
As you've noted, we're not going to resolve the conflict here and people will likely disagree forever. But, that also means, I suppose, I'll have as much time to repeat my points as you do yours. So...
Yes, spiritual is possible. I don't deny that. What I deny, again, is that people imagining a spirit realm and therefore conclude it is real, all because they imagine it. Then people turn around and use non-words like scientism or categorize materialism as something other than just naturalism.
If you want to understand why people long believed in the existence of divinities and the like, then examine the many testimonies across the ages of the experiences of such beings.
As you well know its impossible to understand why people believe what they do for all time. So many believed things before recorded history. And most of history is lost to us. And there is nothing wrong with pointing out that belief is belief and does not define or source reality.
I agree that there is so much out there we don't know. We may never know. But, again, pretending that spiritual realms are real simply because people have imagined them, doesn't really give anyone good reason to think there really is a spirit realm. YOu can say, it's still possible. And I agree. But that possibility doesn't mean it's reasonable to think it true. And again, I think it's a big problem when people think their imagined ideas are just true and real because they imagine them. Yes, if anything is make-believe it is people imagining a world we have never been able to observe and then basing all their ideas of truth on that make believe world. I'll maintain there is something fishy in that world of reasoning until the day I die, I suppose. I mean I'm open to correction, so if ever such a world presents itself, I suppose I'm left wondering why people are so unreasonable. Yes, we're all unreasonable and I'm no different on that front. But it seems like a noble thing to pursue reason rather than throw it out because not everyone is reasonable or perfectly so.
“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos