Experiencing God

When a Hindu has a subjective experience of God through some religious practice or the other, is it the same experience that the Christian has of experiencing God . In other words are all religions gateways to the same God ?If you believe in one God then this must be the case .All the technicalities of a religion go right out the window when one experiences God for themself .

Originally posted by buckky
When a Hindu has a subjective experience of God through some religious practice or the other, is it the same experience that the Christian has of experiencing God . In other words are all religions gateways to the same God ?If you believe in one God then this must be the case .All the technicalities of a religion go right out the window when one experiences God for themself .

Initially your experience is going to be "colored" (damn american spelling 🙁 )
by your thoughts about "God" but further down the track and in the end we find we are al climbing the same mountain. The view from the christian side might be decidedly different from the view from the another side, but it is the the same mountain nevertheless. There is only one mountain. There is only one mind.

Originally posted by karoly aczel
Initially your experience is going to be "colored" (damn american spelling 🙁 )
by your thoughts about "God" but further down the track and in the end we find we are al climbing the same mountain. The view from the christian side might be decidedly different from the view from the another side, but it is the the same mountain nevertheless. There is only one mountain. There is only one mind.

It's all one thing. The division come in at the hand of the ego. It seems that humans love to be a part of a group or team and feel that their group of religion is the only way and all others are just wasting time with the non correct religion.

Originally posted by buckky
When a Hindu has a subjective experience of God through some religious practice or the other, is it the same experience that the Christian has of experiencing God . In other words are all religions gateways to the same God ?If you believe in one God then this must be the case .All the technicalities of a religion go right out the window when one experiences God for themself .

Contrary view: Subjective experience (is there another kind?) is unique, even between Hindu A and Hindu B or Christian C and Christian D. This is because "God" to the extent it is used to symbolize something, is an absent referent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absent_referent

"In Logical Positivism, Atheism, Rationalism, Empiricism, Epistemology, General Semantics, Metalinguistics and related disciplines, there is a suggestion that communicated symbols should represent observable truths. Any symbols which are not pointers to observable truth represent either arbitrary preferences, or meaningless fictions (which the Logical Positivists called metaphysics).

"The written word "God", or the voiced sound of that word, is thus a meaningless symbol, since this allegedly transcendental object cannot be directly observed. Any object which cannot be directly observed is, in fact, hypothetical, conjecture, or perhaps fiction, dream, desire. The symbol "God" is an example of the Absent Referent."

Originally posted by karoly aczel
Initially your experience is going to be "colored" (damn american spelling 🙁 )
by your thoughts about "God" but further down the track and in the end we find we are al climbing the same mountain. The view from the christian side might be decidedly different from the view from the another side, but it is the the same mountain nevertheless. There is only one mountain. There is only one mind.

There is only one mountain , but the best view is through Jesus. In fact he said he WAS the mountain. No-one else made such a claim.

Originally posted by buckky
When a Hindu has a subjective experience of God through some religious practice or the other, is it the same experience that the Christian has of experiencing God . In other words are all religions gateways to the same God ?If you believe in one God then this must be the case .All the technicalities of a religion go right out the window when one experiences God for themself .

I kind of agree. Once you have experienced Him you realize that it's nonsense to think that many different traditions do not also experience God - because they do - there's only one God.

But the question then becomes - which religion best describes Him. If you have got to the point of realizing that God exists then you need look around at religions and ask yourself in which one does God clearly put Himself on the line , defeat death , suffer , bring hope and unambiguously demonstrate His love and forgiveness. One of the reasons why Jesus is so compelling is because he did and said exactly the sorts of things you would expect God to do and say.

In no other religion does God lay down his very life for us and proclaim freedom for our souls from death and sin. All other religions are man's attempts to try and reach to God. Christianity is all about God's attempt to reach out to man. It's starting point is completely different because it's emphasis is that man cannot save himself - whatever he does - other religions do not stress this.

Experiencing God is not enough - it's about how we are changed from unenlightened , lost , sinful people into saved people who are holy , at peace and loving others. How our lost humanity is transformed is no "technicality".

" exactly the sorts of things you would expect God to do and say."

does this part of the sentence concern you at all.

Originally posted by knightmeister
There is only one mountain , but the best view is through Jesus. In fact he said he WAS the mountain. No-one else made such a claim.

So what if no one else made such a claim. you christians really get hung up on these claims.
THEy are just claims.

Jesus knocking on my door right now and telling me to knock it off because he is indeed the mountain and then doing some cool spiritual party trick, now that would be different. That would be something to take note of.

Originally posted by buckky
When a Hindu has a subjective experience of God through some religious practice or the other, is it the same experience that the Christian has of experiencing God . In other words are all religions gateways to the same God ?If you believe in one God then this must be the case .All the technicalities of a religion go right out the window when one experiences God for themself .

Well worth having a look at William James, The Variety of Religious Experience, which identifies a number of quite distinct aspects to religious experience. Despite its age, it is not only a classic but also highly readable and not a day out of date. Among other things it demonstrates the futility of much of the type of debate encountered on this Forum and would be a useful corrective to many posters. More importantly, he demonstrates that it is perfectly possible to have a rational discussion and investigate this topic reasonably.

Separately to that, I would comment that, whatever it is we or others experience, it becomes necessary (unless it remains entirely private) to try and communicate this to others and immediately, the language we use, the way we frame our account, will be shaped by culture. It seems unlikely that a Hindu or even an Ulster Protestant will report an encounter with the Virgin Mary for example.

So if there is no common terminology by which to describe and compare religious experiences, then your question cannot be addressed and if we do employ agreed and standardized terms then we might ask if the similarities are a product of the terms used?

Indeed, this applies even to the way we each interpret for ourselves, even privately, what it is that we are experiencing. How often do we find that we have an experience that we need to make sense of and lack the terms to do this? Much of the time of a medical doctor is taken up with people who have a very confused understanding of what is happening in their own frames; psychotherapists work away for months with people who have totally confused understanding of their own thoughts and behaviour. And mystics argue often that people require training and supervision if they are about to embark on spiritual explorations, or they risk becoming enmeshed in nonsense. It is just not that simple by any account and a lot of people clearly get it wrong. But then how do we choose the right guide and not become a victim of persuasion by a false guide? That obviously happens.

Finally, when people claim to have experienced God then are we obliged to take them at their word? Again, an example we have encountered in this forum is the claim that the Holy Qu'ran was dictated to Muhammad not by God (to be accurate I suppose mostly by Gabriel) but by Satan in order to deceive him and future Muslims. While I reject the insulting claim here (apart from anything else an atheist is not going to agree that Satan was responsible for the Holy Qu'ran; but what I reject is the insult and the offensive nature of the argument) I do think it is a very clear instance in which a serious and widely supported claim to have encountered God is openly disputed and in what way is an impartial observor to adjudicate the claims for and against without some agreed common terms and criteria?

Originally posted by finnegan
Well worth having a look at William James, The Variety of Religious Experience, which identifies a number of quite distinct aspects to religious experience. Despite its age, it is not only a classic but also highly readable and not a day out of date. Among other things it demonstrates the futility of much of the type of debate encountered on this Forum and ...[text shortened]... servor to adjudicate the claims for and against without some agreed common terms and criteria?

Good points.
In the christian tradition of the past there has been no clear cut way to determine whether someone is divinely inspired or satanically inspired. It has been left to the whim of the clergy to decide. And in the past that decision could have very seriously bad reprecussions if one is found to be satanically inspired.
This has always struck me as a very vague point in christianity as there is absolutely no clear cut criteria for determining one way or another as to how the person ( sometimes called speaking in tounges) is inspired.
And to this day there is still no way of determining. Mostly these days people are dismissed as hallucinating and not being divinely inspired.

Why does someone from ages ago carry more weight than someone today when they claim to have spoken to god, or whatever other claim?

Originally posted by buckky
When a Hindu has a subjective experience of God through some religious practice or the other, is it the same experience that the Christian has of experiencing God . In other words are all religions gateways to the same God ?If you believe in one God then this must be the case .All the technicalities of a religion go right out the window when one experiences God for themself .

How do you know they are experiencing the same god?
What if it isn't?
Serious question!
Kelly

Originally posted by buckky
When a Hindu has a subjective experience of God through some religious practice or the other, is it the same experience that the Christian has of experiencing God . In other words are all religions gateways to the same God ?If you believe in one God then this must be the case .All the technicalities of a religion go right out the window when one experiences God for themself .

I have a question...

How do you tell the difference between a subjective experience of god, and a hallucination, or a dream?

Given the brains almost unlimited power to create illusions and deceive us.

A fact readily utilised by magicians, illusionists and con-artists alike.

How can you possible distinguish between a feeling generated by your brain and a feeling generated by god?

Particularly given that hallucinations, dreams, and delusions are commonplace and that there is no evidence
whatsoever for the existence of a god or gods to experience. It seems foolish to attribute an experience to god
rather than the workings of our own brains.

And if experiences of 'god' really were generated by one singular supernatural entity with the power and intellect
ascribed to god, wouldn't they be far more consistent and revelatory rather than always reinforce the already pre-held
beliefs and knowledge of the people experiencing them?

Where is the 14th century monk who has a divine inspiration to cure smallpox or the plague?
Or the Roman inspired to discover electricity, and quantum mechanics and goes on to build the first superconducting
fusion reactor?

An 'experience' of god only has meaning or relevance if it really is from god and not a hallucination or a dream generated
by our own brains.
In short it matters whether the 'god' giving the experience is real and that this experience is from that god and not just
imagined to be from that god.

It matters if it is true.

Given that there is no way of telling if a 'vision' is from god, the huge lack of evidence for gods existence, and the overwhelming
likelihood that any given experience is a delusion or dream even in the case where god does exist...
All such 'experiences' must be treated as dreams or delusions, and decisions and values based on reason, logic and evidence.

Originally posted by KellyJay
How do you know they are experiencing the same god?
What if it isn't?
Serious question!
Kelly

More important, as I just stated, how do you know the experience was from a god at all?

Even if a god exists the propensity of people to have hallucinations and dreams is all too real.

The vast majority of such experiences must be suspected of being illusions even if god did exist.

So unless you can tell the difference, all such 'visions' must be considered likely to be delusions,
even by the person who experienced it.

Originally posted by KellyJay
How do you know they are experiencing the same god?
What if it isn't?
Serious question!
Kelly

I think there is only one God .Many ways lead to the one God. Finding God is not an exclusive experience. Christians don't have the only path that leads to the Source .

Originally posted by buckky
I think there is only one God .Many ways lead to the one God. Finding God is not an exclusive experience. Christians don't have the only path that leads to the Source .

Ok... you think that... but why?

What is you justification for believing that?

What is your evidence or justification for this belief?

Why do you think anyone else should believe this?