Christians. Or any other religionists.I am unaware of any group of spiritualists
Those that strictly appeal to science.or empiricists.
Far better for what?Empirical knowledge is on better standing
because it works better and more reliably then claimed spiritual knowledge.
If you're making a delineation between claimed spirtitual knowledge and actual spiritual knowledge, than I agree. But I doulbt you're making that distinction so we'll just operate under the assumption that they are the same.
So your criteria for accessing external reality is that it impacts your internal reality and it "works"? That doesn't stand the logical test. On what basis do you claim that the fact that the trains run on time is indicative any external existence at all. All of this is still filtered through your own internal mechanisms.
Which is not proof of anything external. It certainly is applicable within your reality, and the reality we share as human beings, but it nothing to do with that which lies outside that reality.This is not hard to see when you see all the conflicting claims being made from people claiming to have gained knowledge through spiritual means. Empirical knowledge has much less disagreement and works far better.
I have not appealed to love or compassion in this discussion. Nor have I used any religious terminology.As to love and compassion they work universally for religious and non-religious, so making claims that God exists or my God exists is not a reasonable conclusion based on love and compassion working.
Nor have i appealed to feelings of any sort about any subject.Same for getting a special feeling or life working for you so you conclude that the Book of Mormon is true. As for prayer, it works for many including many non-religious or of very different religions like Buddhists or Wicca. They may call it different names like meditation, etc.
wrong. A hundred people could call a duck a cow but a duck is still a duck. it is a duck in spite of how you define - or whether you've defined it at all.It is real becuase it is a human definition that humans agree on.
It is real in the context of your experience, yes. But is it still blue in spite of your experience? If so, how do you know?Blue is a definition of what we are experiencing, and is real in that context.
Buffalo has shown that certain wavelengths create your experience of blue, he has not shown that your experience of blue means that blue actuall exists. The wavelengths create the experience of blue-ness, it does not creat blue.Buffalo has shown that certain wavelengths create that experience so we know what has to happpen in order to produce the expereince.
A universal definition of any "thing" does not create that thing.The evidence is the definition that is also agreed upon universally.
yep, they sure do. That's because we all experience blue-ness with the same mechanism. You still have shown that blue does or does not exist outside that experience.Blue is the expereince we have of seeing it. We can easily expereince it together in many ways and almost everyone agrees on the expereince.
This is not true with most spiritual experiences and what they mean. If you want to show God exists you will need to define it first. Since you seem to like avoid presenting your own positions I won't hold my breath.
Who said anything about showing God exists? You are still at the point of showing me evidence that your 5 experiential points are all that is necessary to access reality in total. Please do so.
Then why are you appealing to things working as evidence that they exist apart from our experiencing them working?Truth is in many ways irrelevant to what works. Also truth is not something, but a proposition that is correct.
I'll try. looking at the same object through someone else's eyes only allows you to use the same mechanism by which to make evaluations. You are still limited by that one access point. You are still evaluating based on an internal experience. Where is your evidence that this is the only way to access reality? Where is your evidence that this is even the best way? The fact that things work? How could you possibly know that? Let's assume for a moment that there was a sixth way to access reality, a way that is completely external to your experience. Might the trains run exactly on time, instead of kinda on time?What it means is that if you were able to see through someone elses eyes and you say that is not what I see when looking at cloudless sky at midday doesn't matter. Both of you still learn that the sky is blue, and even if you see it differently you will be able to pick out other objects that you both expereince as blue with extremely great reliability. Not sure what demanding you are really referring to. Perhaps you could be more specific.
But it no way provides evidence for reality external to your experience.Not at all. One works much better and far more reliably,
Exactly. They are assumptions. Assumptions are not evidence.such that everyone depends on those assumptions of what is real in everyday aspects of life.
I'm not drawing a distinction between the two behaviours. I'm asking you to provide evidence that what you experience comports with what is real. You can not. So your left with a faith based world view just like a spiritualist. You cite that fact that your experiences are repeatable or falsifiable. But that doesn't really prove anything other than these experiences are repeatable by using the same mechanism (your 5 senses) over and over again. Of course the results will be the same (or mostly the same). All that is evidence for is that we share the components of the same internal reality.It's not like most people who don't know how to get to a certain destination pray about it and then start driving. Most if not all will either get a map or ask directions from some person they think may know the way.