Saul Luizaga wrote:
> OK Darren, I see how you see me now, and I'm not a pretentious 
> religious/spiritual prick

You are again conflating religion and spirituality in an inappropriate way.

You're being as annoying in this post as you would be if you were a 
Christian walking up to a Jew and telling him he's neither spiritual nor 
religious just because he hasn't accepted Jesus in his life. Do you see 
where I'm coming from?

I believe in spirituality. I have thought about these things long and hard 
for many years. I've studied what others have said.

I believe in souls, immaterial things that define who you are and help 
control your behavior and provide the spiritual part of your life, that 
reside in your body and flee when you die, and that guides your morality. I 
believe in a limited form of life after death. I just don't believe any of 
this needs a supernatural explanation or an invisible sky daddy. I believe 
in a completely rational and materialistic explanation for these things 
that's fairly easy to express at a surface level and which can be (and to 
some extent has been) measured scientifically.

I simply take offense at religious people who do *not* understand their 
soul, their god, and their religion telling me that being rational and 
scientific prevents me from being spiritual.

> assuming too much and for that I apologize.

No problem. I also apologize for sounding like I didn't recognize your good 
intentions. It's that whole "road to hell" part that is the problem, tho.

> was never to offend or humiliate anyone or anyone's beliefs if I did, 
> again, I sincerely beg your pardon.

Understand that you haven't offended me. I recognize your good intentions, 
and I'm simply trying to explain why you might offend someone you said these 
things to who hasn't already forgiven you for them. :)

> just I believe that there is a spiritual world and yes I'd like you to 
> see it and believe it too,

But I've already told you I see it and believe it. You're just not believing 
that's true because I don't believe in your diety.

> And this is the breaking point I think because nobody can actually show 
> it to you or anybody else and is only rational to not believe is such a 
> world,

Depending on what "such a world" you speak of, it may or may not be irrational.

> All I'm writing about it is that is not something you think and you 
> find, see? 

How do you know?

And even if it isn't, what makes you think a spiritual world isn't one you 
can investigate rationally?

> Those are only other's experiences until something happens to you and 
> you know that you were blind to some stuff that were there the whole 
> time, 

Yes. Oddly enough, the same is true of a bad drug trip. :)

> YES, YOU CAN ALWAYS QUESTION IT, and ultimately discard it for a 
> rational explanation or not enough evidence 

And I have.

 > but if you actually go for
> the facts and don't get stuck so much of the how it happened, you can 
> see yourself changed by that experience and became a believer, 

Right. So it's OK to think about it and question it and ultimately discard 
it. But I'm wrong, because I haven't become a believer.

> you experienced something that no rational thinking can explain not even 
> your own.

Here's the difference. I don't feel the need to explain everything that 
happened to me or the rest of the universe. I would rather have no answer 
and say "I don't know" than make up a useless and incorrect answer.

If someone asks me how many white cars are on the continent of Africa right 
now, I'd far rather say "I don't know" than to say "I'll ask God and get 
back to you."  Wouldn't you?

> Darren, I'm just describing here what mostly happened to me and other 
> spiritual/religious people, I'm not saying: "this is an irrefutable 
> deduction and if you don't agree with it then you are some kind of 
> retarded moron".
> 
> For rational thinking is endless nebula that never clears,

Because it's impossible to come to the right conclusion simply by thinking 
rationally about it?  In the first paragraph, you say you don't want to 
imply those who aren't religious are insufficiently intelligent. In the next 
sentence, you say "it's impossible for a rational person, no matter how 
smart, to have better answers than a believer."

> If you experienced other religious and/or spiritual situations which I 
> don't know of and still you find yourself an Atheist it may well such a 
> world be inexistent. That and other stuff will be known when we die, so 
> is not something

I already believe in life after death, and I'm an atheist. So?

> I think nobody but yourself can get you to a spiritual world, once you 
> experience it you know is there.

Yet, because I don't believe in your God, you disregard my repeated 
statements that I am already in a spiritual world, and even posted links, 
continuing to speak as if I'm missing something. Simply because I *know* how 
spirituality works, rather than making up stories that make no sense.

> One "proof" of spirituality could be this experiment made to prove the 
> healing power of prayers(was an International news on TV you probaly 
> have saw it): 

No. I'd enjoy seeing a link to any actual scientific proofs of the efficacy 
of prayer on healing. So far, I've not seen any such thing.

> Some others short example could be Mother lifting 1+ Ton. car in flames 
> to save her son, and stuff that has no rational explanation but 
> intervention of a Creator,

Are you saying that the intervention of a Creator is the only rational 
explanation? Or are you saying there's no rational explanation, so it must 
have been a Creator?

> I only recommend religion/spirituality because sometimes the world is 
> cruelly unmerciful, and people loose hope, faith, even the will to do 
> things or even live, because this reality can't be it, I resist that 
> idea, for many reasons, so much suffering and struggle in life has to 
> pay a better faith than just cease to exist, my life has to worth 
> something else, has to be a testimony and a justification of my 
> existence on this planet and the goodness and wrongness of my deeds and 
> misdeeds, IT HAS BE/MEAN MORE!

It sounds to me like you're the one afraid to face rationality, actually, 
rather than me being the one afraid to face the possibility of spirituality. 
I used to be afraid of the world, thinking there must be more than there is. 
Then I figured out how the world works, and now I don't fear that stuff any 
more.

> Maybe is a necessary voluntary mass brain wash for some of us, to relief 
> pain and daily burden of our normal troublesome existence,

I believe that's the source of much belief in personal deities.

> I believe He is out there, watching us, with love, with caring, with 
> goodness, like a father to his 3 year old child :-)

I'm glad it's comforting. I feel that you should understand that such a 
situation is not necessarily comforting to someone who has come to different 
conclusions about life, just like the idea that Jesus died for your sins 
isn't particularly comforting to a Buddhist monk.

> Peace brothers.

And I thank you for your reasonable discussions. :-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Why is there a chainsaw in DOOM?
   There aren't any trees on Mars.

Post a reply to this message