When did I ever say that?
OK I found God, what next?
- Thread starter rocala
- Start date
So am I, hence my question.
True. But all this is about the human mind, not what we experience. Strip away the culteral factors, what do such people experience?
I don't and I never said otherwise.
what.is.truth
Member
- Messages
- 24
- Reaction score
- 18
- Points
- 3
JustGeorge
Well-Known Member
- Messages
- 410
- Reaction score
- 581
- Points
- 88
That was my attempt at being silly.
Like I mentioned, I just woke up, so may fail...
I'm not sure if it's so much about the mind as the words the mind wants to use to communicate or understand the experience.
I guess you'd have to ask everyone indivdually. I think it probably varies.
And maybe the experiences, while similar, aren't the same thing?
The idea of waking up and turning to social media is so bizarre to me. I would prefer not to discuss this further.
I agree, but I think that is a vast idea, too much for a single thread.
JustGeorge
Well-Known Member
- Messages
- 410
- Reaction score
- 581
- Points
- 88
Do you mind if I expand on it in another thread?
All of the examples which I considered to be important were from the modern western world. I don't think Christianity was ever the only option.
May I ask why you found post 44 so likeable?
Fair enough, I'm pretty eclectic in my wisdom seeking too. I've always struggled with Christianity and its apparent contradictions myself.
Re 44, I liked how economically the point was made. How about you?
I see the post as meaning less and am unaware of any point. I also had a feeling of hostility from both it and your response.
I wonder if one resonates more, than another? Not asking which ... just suggesting.
There's a monotheistic reading there, 'the One' is more in line with Neoplatonism, 'the Absolute' more in line with a universal metaphysics.
I also favour Anaximander's (c.610-546BCE) Arche (ἀρχή), the 'first principle' as origin and source from which all things derive and by which they are governed. The Pre-Socratic schools saw fire, water or air as the first principle, but Anaximander proposed Apeiron (ἄπειρον), 'the boundless', as the infinite, indefinite arche.
In Christian terms, the Fathers saw the Son, as Logos and Arche (as per the opening of John 1:1), and the Father as Arche Anarchos, 'Principle without (governing) Principle'.
I'm not sure it necessarily does?
I can cite instances of a 'conversion moment' – contemplating a stained glass Rose Window of Chatres Cathedral, the buds on a tree in early spring, the sound of a choir singing in a church hall, an apprehension while visiting the monasteries on Mount Athos – 'triggers' can be anything from the sublime to the mundane.
But they are rare instances.
Up to and through the Middle Ages, probably until the age of modernity, the Christian mystical writings are notably non-experiential – more of a knowing, a sense, than an experience. The Cloud of Unknowing (14th century), for example. The pursuit of experience is very much a modern thing, and something generally frowned upon by the traditions.
And, as others have said, such is not peculiar to Christianity.
It never ceases to amaze me how different people can come away with completely different interpretations after reading the same thing. Always a learning curve...
No hostility intended from me, can't speak for the other poster.
Thank you Thomas, that is a lovely post. It has also been a rather unsettling post. For some years Christianity has been digging in to me as if I have sat on something sharp. I have read lots, have been to services and have had no answers, often quite the reverse. I cannot explain it, but it is strong.
I was not raise by churchgoers I was not even Christened but it is there? So why this constant niggling?
Tony Bristow-Stagg
Well-Known Member
I am thinking the mystical experience finds maturation in practice of the virtues found, in a meaningful community connection.
Then one can then choose to adopt the historical doctrine of the community one has connected with. This same experience is shared across many give faiths.
Regards Tony
Longfellow
Well-Known Member
If there's something in Christianity that you're missing, it might be something in the New Testament that has been overlooked by Christians. One thought that comes to mind is diaspora cosmology. Some other possibilities are Capernaum, and apprenticeship or mentoring.
RJM
God Feeds the Ravens
- Messages
- 12,715
- Reaction score
- 4,506
- Points
- 108
The point is that some folks seem to think that belief in a higher power is just parroted by religious people from reading scripture. But the actual experience of the ‘divine touch’ goes beyond scripture and religion to personal experience.
Hard scientific atheists will always insist the experience was a personal delusion but the person who has experienced it just knows, and for the rest of their life, that there is more out there.
After that the scriptures are read in a different way, of glimpsing the actual 'spiritual' reality of what they are trying by words to describe. IMO
Hard scientific atheists will always insist the experience was a personal delusion but the person who has experienced it just knows, and for the rest of their life, that there is more out there.
After that the scriptures are read in a different way, of glimpsing the actual 'spiritual' reality of what they are trying by words to describe. IMO
Last edited:
Longfellow
Well-Known Member
The experience is real. Anything that a person thinks about it is interpretation.
People don’t experience gravity. They experience pressure. Gravity is one interpretation of that.
People don’t experience gravity. They experience pressure. Gravity is one interpretation of that.
I've always had a sense of there being something else that humans can't currently explain - later on, had personal experiences that opened my eyes to it directly.
One of the problems I think is the human need for certainty - an explanation to give understanding to such experiences. We are not good at accepting uncertainty and being able to live constructively with it. Even though it's repeatedly underlined that Ultimate Reality is Unknowable and beyond all human understanding.
So it makes sense that if anyone goes through a strong personal experience they will try and use whatever spiritual system is most available to them to try and give it meaning in more concrete terms - and end up taking on doctrine that goes well beyond their experience. IMO this is a mistake in terms of trying to understand the bigger picture, but is an easy one to make because of the emotional impact of such experiences. At the end of the day, though, I've found that what a person believes is less important than their behaviour.
Longfellow
Well-Known Member
The experience might be something like this: Something like intentionality or will or consciousness, that you always thought was only in humans, is actually in everything, and is one. Not in the sense of number, but in the sense of identity. In the sense of number, it is many and one, at the same time.
Longfellow
Well-Known Member
Another way to think about it is something that we experience directly as choosing and initiating our own actions, and which we think of us being in or behind other people, is suddenly experienced as being in or behind everything, taken all together.