AJ113

Automaton:
In other words, you do not trust your own judgment. This being the case, how can you be sure that your current beliefs are sound?

Theli

I think auto reffered to one time experiences rather than learning.
Generally, an atheist's belief is not based on a single experience.
Even if a person's belief was triggered by an experience/miracle he must rely on information for identification.

[ July 20, 2002: Message edited by: Theli ]</p>

Philosoft

There are a couple of different forms, but I suppose the most common is that of a rational belief in a creator-being who exerts no supernatural influence over the natural world and who engages in no revelation-type actions with regard to his creations.

<strong> Pantheism is the doctrine that the totality of universal forces and laws can be called "God." It makes nearly no sense to me, unless, perhaps one wants to endow a minimal degree of anthropomorphism in order to have something to worship or give thanks to.

AJ113

Theli:
I'm sorry, I have no idea what you mean. Some clarification needed, please.

Theli

Philosoft...

Thanks for the info.

In what way is the deist's god a "being"?

Yeah... seems pretty silly to me to.
I don't think the patheistic "god" can be much of a hit. Most people will probably not want to believe in it, since it apperantly has no emotional appeal.

Theli

Aj113...

I don't know if I can put it more clearly.
If you base your belief on a onetime experience that was "out of this world" so to speak, the chance that your belief was based on hallucination or a false assumption is greater than if your belief was based on knowledge/logic.

This is one reason why people tend to tie every freak accident or overwhelming experience with the godbelief they know most about/is most common where they live.

I don't think good judgement is of any use if the knowledge you have prior to the experience is false.

[ July 20, 2002: Message edited by: Theli ]</p>

Philosoft

In the sense that it is said to be a singular thing that exists, rather than a label for a collection of things, as pantheism.

<strong> In addition, it doesn't really describe a 'thing.' It's like a "whole is greater than the sum of its parts" or an 'emergent quality,' as per theories of the mind. I don't regard the 'mind' as a separate thing, so I don't feel the need to refer to emergent qualities of the brain as 'mind.' Similarly, I think the pantheistic "God" doesn't describe a thing.

Automaton

I do trust my judgement, my judgement whether or not something is merely a hallucination. Or are you saying that in a circumstances where what you are seeing is very likely a hallucination (Jesus and John Lennon riding around town on a walrus), would you simply say, "Well I am seeing this, so it must be actually happening?" Presuming you are a theist, why don't you apply the same standard to God's -lack- of manifestation, as evidence that the phenomena of God's love, or whatever, is not actually happening?

Most people's "direct, mystical experiences" with their personal diety of choice reflect very closesly a fluctuation in neurotransmitter balances in their brain, to give them a similar to LSD experience. Theists may claim that the drugs, or 5-HT receptors, or whatever, have some kind of magical curse on them, so when you take a certain drug which binds to neurotransmitter sites, God somehow springs into action and reveals himself to them. Now this is a very arbitrary way to behave for a deity. Instead of condoning the use of potentially dangerous hallucinogens, why doesn't God simply reveal himself to those who seek him (this way he could prevent a lot of hellfire, but for some strange -- or not so strange, according to atheists -- reason, this does not occur.)

joedad

Within human experience, I think the best argument for the existence of a god always boils down to "I/We don't know."

AJ113

Thank you for the clarification. So it is reasonable to regard sensory experiences as hallucinogenic if they do not corellate with our personal beliefs?