Laera

This might be better in Secular Lifestyles, but I wanted theists to feel free to respond and to see this topic.

How do liberal theists NOT think they might be making up their own god? So many of them pick and choose from the Bible and just say the book 'spoke to them' in that way and they 'experience god' through particular parts, but not others - and draw the conclusion that THAT'S PROOF!

I don't understand how personal experience (as powerful as it can be) can actually be expected to convince anyone ELSE. I understand that if I was the only person who saw something, but I saw it clear as day right in front of me and I was certain I saw it, that I would believe that thing existed. But as much as I tried to convince others, I'd have to admit that I have no actual proof of it beyond my own account and give in to defeat. It would be annoying as all get out to resign myself to the fact that I knew something for certain, but no one else could ever belive me except on sheer trust (faith?).

But does that mean that if someone we trust has a god-experience, we should have faith in god?

Thoughts?

post-it

First, I am not in the business of trying to convince anyone to do anything that they don't "see" or desire. So I don't expect to convert you.

I will never say that I have proof of anything. That which you claim is a pick and choose is a generalization of what you think we do. I for one weigh each data before deciding what should be included and what should be left out. When one understands that the Bible contains errors and that it also contains truth. The game becomes getting as close as possible to the truth given the errors. Besides errors, we also have verbiage and meanings/understandings that were written for the ignorant and poor of certain Biblical times. It can be quite a chore to work out doctrine, but it is possible.


Personal experience may not even convince the person having it. What makes it viable is a repetitive or consistent result.

Laera

First of all, welcome to II! (You can see I'm fairly new here myself, it's been educational!) I appreciate that you have benign intentions. Many of us are just here to ask questions and offer our answers to others, for whatever they're worth.

How can you be sure there's truth in it? Does that go back to the repeated experiences?

[edited for grammar - doh!]

[ May 29, 2002: Message edited by: Laera ]</p>

CX

Personally I was a Liberal Theist of the Deist/Pantheist/New Age/Liberal Non-exclusive Xian variety when I was a)knowledgable enough to recognize the problems inherent with exclusive religious systems and theology, b)not developed enough in the area of critical thinking to reject supernaturalism, c)not knowledgeable enough to rationally reject world religions and d)not knowledgable enough about science and rationalism. In the end my liberal universalist theology crumbled when I discovered I was inventing my own god and my own theology because I could not accept the other theologies/gods I had studied up to that point. And I owe it all to an evil, godless, secularized university education. At a Jesuit university no less. (Incidentally I've conlcuded that most Jesuits are agnostic rationalists in funny robes).

Laera

How long did you hold on to your liberal beliefs before you realized it was all made-up?

seebs

First off, it's entirely possible that I'm wrong; I've believed lots of wrong things in the past.

I do not expect my personal experience to convince anyone else. Maybe later I will have different experiences that I would consider plausible tools for convincing, but I haven't seen any yet.

I think that, if someone you trust has a god-experience of some sort, it behooves you to leave open the possibility that they're correct. I don't know if it's enough to justify faith. It would depend on the person and the experience.

seebs

It occurs to me, I forgot to answer this part:

I'm quite sure that I project some of my own beliefs onto God, just as I project them onto everyone else. I am assured that He forgives honest mistakes.

Pitshade

This would be better off in MRD.

Tercel

I have a tendency to get amused at the accusations that we liberals pick and choose our beliefs or, in this case, make up our own god - by which I assume you mean the same thing.

Just what exactly are we being accused of here: Freethinking? Thinking carefully about exactly what we believe and why we believe it? Not swallowing doctrine unquestioningly? Doing critical thinking about our beliefs?

Excuse me, but aren't these good things? The posters here attack fundamentalists for accepting anything they're told, for not reasoning critically... in short for accepting completely the idea of God as dictated to them by someone else. Yet we liberals are accused of making our idea of God up ourselves. How can both accusations be coherently maintained at once?

To answer your question: yes, I form my own opinion of God, and I'm proud of it. I certainly hope it corresponds at least tolerably well to the actual God. Just as I would hope my mental understanding of "New York" would correspond tolerably well to that which actually exists.
In the case of God (as with other things such as New York) I do my best to get my mental understanding to correspond to reality as much as possible. That involves being critical about things before I accept them, and only accepting them to the degree which I am sure of them. With an errant Bible, that means a great deal of study and "picking and choosing" and logical reasoning and common sense etc. Sometimes I can fully understand why many people prefer to accept that which is dictated to them!

What "picking and choosing" I do in the Bible is just as with everything else: I am trying to filter out the less accurate parts and trying to find the more accurate parts in order to try and get a more accurate picture of God.

So perhaps you can appreciate why being accused of picking and choosing has a tendency to make me roll my eyes in disguist. Yes: That's exactly what I'm doing and I hope you are too. (Sadly, the accuser has all too often adopted for themselves the naive and simplistic position Metaphysical Naturalism... more's the pity)
I'm getting sidetracked, so back to it:

I believe it's certainly proof for them. If a person says to me "I felt X", who am I to say that they didn't?
It's not objective proof, of course. (However, if many people are consistently having these experiences, then the objective observer may be inclined to think there might be something in them.)
I would never suggest you believe in God soley because of religious experiences I have had. You need objective proof. And so, on these boards, I do my best to discuss the objective proofs which exists for God.

That's up to you. It would depend how much trust you have in this person and their experiences, and how high you're prepared to push to required bar of evidence for God.

Tercel

[ May 30, 2002: Message edited by: Tercel ]</p>

schu

"ALL THINGS WHATSOEVER YOU SHALL ASK IN PRAYER, BELIEVING, YOU SHALL RECEIVE." (MATTHEW 21:22)

In another thread it was asked, "if you don't get what you pray for it is your fault?". In view of this passage in Matthew it seems pretty clear that it is your fault because you don't believe enough. There are a few other passages that can be taken to mean the opposite. (Why can't the big daddy in the sky make his message clear?) The opposing views are I think in Paul and James and are not attributed to JC. The Matthew quote is clearly attributed to JC himself. He is quoted verbatim (if the story is true). My question was and is why anyone would take the word of some Tom, Dick or Harry over the word of Jesus Christ? It is inconceivable to me that anyone who claims to believe the story would do such a thing, yet I find that this is frequently the case. Either they don't really believe the story, or they are fooling themselves into believing what they want to believe. Either way it says something about their intellectual honesty.