The Atheist Experience

The Atheist Experience Aug 4, 2018 20:26:47 GMT

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Post by Deleted on Aug 4, 2018 20:26:47 GMT

Aug 3, 2018 12:09:56 GMT Arlon10 said:

Aug 2, 2018 10:36:22 GMT @graham said:

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1) No, you're just wrong here. The definitions I use of those words are true, but also they are the most useful because they are the most accurate and because they best contribute towards productive discussion of atheism and religion. You object to them because you want to accomplish the goal of shifting the burden of proof from yourself and onto atheists.

They are not useful because you have no standard to determine who is or is not "gnostic."

You can just ask them.

Also you have people who "lack" belief joining debates against the existence of a god and not just to see what people are wearing.

So what? This weird thing you have that only people expressing a positive belief for or against a proposition have any place debating it is nonsensical.

You can assert that you believe in god for reasons X, Y and Z. I can converse in order to point out that X, Y and Z are wrong, or that they are right but do not validate the existence of god. Or any number of other things. Nothing about my taking part shows that I believe god does not exist.

I really do not care who has the burden of proof for my own purposes, I accept the burden of proof myself, whose ever it is. I merely tell you who would have the burden of proof according to standards (there's that word again).

And demonstrating yet again that you don't know what you are talking about. Yes, there is a standard for the burden of proof. The standard is that a person who makes a positive claim has the burden to support that claim.

I've shown far more lenience than you in considering claims of spiritual experiences.

I have no idea what this is even supposed to mean. You've shown more lenience? Lenience doesn't enter into it.

I do however have standards (there's that word again) that determine who has them or not. That means there are specific criteria they should meet at some point.

You can whine and moan how wrong you think I am all day like faustus5 , but you need to list some standards for the decisions you make or it will be only whining and moaning.

You can have whatever "standards" you like for what you accept or don't accept. But here's the thing : your standards and your opinion and your acceptance or lack of acceptance don't matter to the truth.

Spiritual experiences are by definition subjective feelings. A person who experiences a feeling has actually experienced that feeling, whether you like it or not.

I know you struggle with analogies, but this is like somebody telling you that their birthday party made them happy, and you replying "Well you may think that, but I have standards for what makes a person happy, and birthday parties just don't meet them. So no, you were not actually happy."

You can feel that way if you like, but you're just making a fool of yourself again.

Now none of this is to suggest in any way that a spiritual experience actually maps to reality. Myself, I tend to think that they do not (I can only guess that this is what you meant when you claimed I didn't show "lenience" towards spiritual experiences). Others disagree, and that's fine.

So if somebody tells me that they had a near death experience and saw their dead relatives, and therefore they know there definitely is a heaven... I'm not going to accept that this means that there actually is a real place called heaven. But absolutely that was a real spiritual experience.