Is J. Neil Schulman justified (logically) in believing in God?

[George H. Smith]

Okay, so you don't "demand" that people follow you on faith, but what do you reasonably expect them to do upon learning of your experiences? Given your own reaction to the reported mystical experiences of others, the most you could possibly expect is for them to shrug and say, "Maybe Neil is a lunatic or maybe he is not. I don't know, and it is not my job to find out."

I reasonably expect most people won't take them seriously, because of being married to various dogmas and doctrines, or uninterested in anything other than their immediate interests, or cynical, or not intellectuals, or not readers, etc.

There is another possibility: Most people don't take you seriously because you don't make sense. You claim to have been God for a while, that God promotes movies and books, that he likes to stay invisible because he values his privacy, that he told you he is a libertarian, and on and on. What do you expect people to think?

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Ghs

[J Neil Schulman]

Okay, so you don't "demand" that people follow you on faith, but what do you reasonably expect them to do upon learning of your experiences? Given your own reaction to the reported mystical experiences of others, the most you could possibly expect is for them to shrug and say, "Maybe Neil is a lunatic or maybe he is not. I don't know, and it is not my job to find out."

I reasonably expect most people won't take them seriously, because of being married to various dogmas and doctrines, or uninterested in anything other than their immediate interests, or cynical, or not intellectuals, or not readers, etc.

There is another possibility: Most people don't take you seriously because you don't make sense. You claim to have been God for a while, that God promotes movies and books, that he likes to stay invisible because he values his privacy, that he told you he is a libertarian, and on and on. What do you expect people to think?

Ghs

I don't think your arguments make sense. You don't believe in God but think Joan of Arc slaughtering people in battle makes a better case for divine revelation than God communicating his visions for human liberty through a well-known libertarian author/filmmaker. Apparently there is no way to be credible in reporting on discovering the reality of anything you don't already believe in. You make the conventional and common the test for any perception of the rare and extraordinary.

Frankly, George, I don't think you give a damn about learning the truth about whether God exists or not, and if he exists what he's like. I don't think these are actually questions of interest to you any more than these are questions of interest for Dennis Prager. You both are far more interested in the utility of religion -- he to use it as a moral stick, you to beat it like a piñata. Neither of you strike me as having much genuine intellectual curiosity.

Edited December 21, 2010 by J. Neil Schulman

[J Neil Schulman]

Why not a third interpretation choice, or more?"

Like what? It's a simple either/or with a sharply excluded middle.

I disagree entirely. In the recorded conversations you lay out only two options for yourself: god's visitation is real or you were crazy.

Either someone objectively real who thinks he's God was in extraordinary communication with me and temporarily provided me with supercognition, or the experience was objectively not real -- a medically caused break with reality, a hallucination, a waking dream, a failure of my mind to distinguish between reality and the completely imaginary.

I see that now you depart from the two dramatic options. A "medically caused" break with reality is not psychotic. A hallucination is not necessarily psychotic. A failure to distinguish reality from imagination does not imply craziness . . .

You were in a paranoid state before the mind meld. You were starving yourself. You were dehydrated. You had always had 'psychic' beliefs. You had had a previous 'encounter' with god nine years previous.

And then, in the aftermath, "after this experience, I found myself in the Emergency Room, had to rehydrated again with an intravenous drip."

Aside from your position as a libertarian/Rand admirer, there doesn't seem to be much out of the ordinary in your reported experience, in terms of other reported 'mystical experience.' The hallmarks of a conversion experience are strong in your case.

Except that most everything about what I report on my experience is unreported in the accounts of others' claiming divine contact, and my experience prompted me to convert to nothing.

Not at all true. The hallmarks of a 'conversion experience' are found in your experience. From a state of agnosticism you experience ecstacy, and you became a believer in gods. You even refer to this experience as being 'born again.'

Now you told George that "There was nothing about my contact with God that was ineffable to me," yet in the dialogues you said "Because what I am able to do — and it’s hard to describe this even today because the words don’t really match any other experience that either I have had or you have had — presumably" and in a latter comment you say "Words are inadequate to describe what was going on. That’s something that I cannot emphasize enough. That the verbal forms that we use are entirely inadequate to describe what I was experiencing."

How is that not ineffable, Neil?

What is the problem with seeing your experience as similar (not identical) to that of other folks? I just don't understand why you feel that all the other experiences are unreal . . .

"I believe most such contacts are either entirely unreal, or are unreal by the point at which someone tries to explain them, inasmuch as a multi-dimensional cognitive experience does not translate easily into language presupposing singular body identities, three-dimensional perception, linear time, and other data challenging for the average human brain system software to interpret."

I'm through answering straw-man arguments. Read what I wrote.

[Brant Gaede]

What happened? Where am I? Was it real?

--Brant

shudder, mudder--Momie! Momie!

[George H. Smith]

There is another possibility: Most people don't take you seriously because you don't make sense. You claim to have been God for a while, that God promotes movies and books, that he likes to stay invisible because he values his privacy, that he told you he is a libertarian, and on and on. What do you expect people to think?

Ghs

I don't think your arguments make sense. You don't believe in God but think Joan of Arc slaughtering people in battle makes a better case for divine revelation than God communicating his visions for human liberty through a well-known libertarian author/filmmaker.

Yes, I think it is more likely than a god would reveal himself in order to save a country than to promote a film or book.

Apparently there is no way to be credible in reporting on discovering the reality of anything you don't already believe in. You make the conventional and common the test for any perception of the rare and extraordinary.

I have repeatedly asked you for criteria by which we can test the veracity of your "rare and extraordinary" experiences, but you have repeatedly failed to do so. You haven't even made a serious attempt. So what do you expect me to do? If someone claimed that an invisible elf is tap dancing on his head, and that he knows this to be true because he can feel its tiny feet and can hear the elf singing "Puttin' on the Ritz," should I abandon my cognitive standards and take his word for it? Would it make any difference if that person was a well-known libertarian author/filmmaker?

Frankly, George, I don't think you give a damn about learning the truth about whether God exists or not, and if he exists what he's like. I don't think these are actually questions of interest to you any more than these are questions of interest for Dennis Prager. You both are far more interested in the utility of religion -- he to use it as a moral stick, you to beat it like a piñata. Neither of you strike me as having much genuine intellectual curiosity.

Frankly, Neil, I have devoted a lot more time investigating the existence of God than you have or ever will, but I have refused to leave my critical faculties behind while doing so. Moreover, I think that your own experiences are all you are truly interested in. You are so enamoured with yourself that you are incapable of subjecting your subjective and highly problematic experiences to critical scrutiny. We both have strong egos, but I manage to keep mine in check from time to time, especially when investigating philosophical subjects. You, in contrast, have unleashed your ego, giving it free rein over your reason.

Ghs

[Starbuckle]

J. Neil writes: "I also believe that O.J. directed his attorneys not to 'Plan B' Jason and that O.J. has purposively redirected public and press suspicion away from Jason and toward himself post his criminal acquittal."

1) What is the evidence that O.J. "redirected" suspicion toward himself? (And haven't most people watching the case always believed that O.J. is guilty?)

2) Did Jason have the same history of conflict with Nicole that O.J. did, and the same motive and opportunity?

3) Why is it implausible that the killer would be the one who is the killer?

4) If you could be persuaded that O.J. is the killer, would that cast any doubt on your interpretation of your experience of the mind meld, i.e., that you were in communion with God? Or would you say that God either deliberately misled you or blundered in intimating that he knew more about the case at the time than he really did?

Edited December 21, 2010 by Starbuckle

[Starbuckle]

Neil writes: "If that's the Devil, then where did the idea of the Devil as destructive and evil come from?"

The Bible has a different version of God from Neil's. But wasn't the devil the guy who tried to overthrow a deity who (according to the Bible) is a vicious mass murderer and tyrant? And if the serpent in Eden is the same as the devil, was not the devil a partisan of knowledge as opposed to blind obedience to authority?

It is a very good question, though, because many readers of the Bible regard God as the good guy. Of course, it's not as if the devil has an unmixed track record, if he is the one who incited God to harass and sicken Job, kill off his cattle and kids, etc., as a "test."

Edited December 21, 2010 by Starbuckle

[Starbuckle]

JNS wrote of GHS: "Neither of you [George H. Smith or Dennis Prager] strike me as having much genuine intellectual curiosity."

This strikes me as condescending and even a little priggish to say of an intellectually curious fellow like GHS.

Okay, let me immediately withdraw that characterization; I said it only because Neil, earlier in the thread, had called me condescending and priggish for wondering why he accepted the least reasonable of the explanations of his experiences allegedly encountering God. (I never suggested, as Neil asserted, that he had not given any consideration to alternative explanations.)

Anyway, I still have the same c&p impulses, inasmuch as it still seems to me that Neil's insistence on believing in a deity and in the supernatural (which, however, according to Neil, do not contradict the law of identity that is the hallmark of the natural realm, however much they may be apparently unconstrained by the identities of things) cannot be rationally justified.

I don't mean that Neil's interpretation of his experiences cannot be rationally justified by others, although that also is true; he's said several times that others may well be reasonable in declining to accept his claims. I mean that the answer posed in the title of this thread is No: Neil himself is not logically justified in believing in God, his God or any other. That he suffered a fugue-like state brought on in part by physical deprivation, in part by his previous speculation and theorizing, constitutes no evidence that a semi-all-powerful (but invisible) deity suffused his being. That Neil has a firm conviction that this is what happened is no evidence that it did either.

Neil's affliction-based theology has the virtue, like Marxism or other self-feeding concepts, of being infinitely elastic, such that any objection whatever may be countered in the theory's own terms, however implausible and unverifiable those terms may be. Neil himself has not and cannot verify the assumptions underlying his theory--not even to himself. He is convinced, yes. Rationally convinced? No.

Neil's protestations that he is still a rationalist, just as much a rationalist as ever, fall flat unless rationalism has nothing particular to do with going by facts, nothing particular to do with deriving theoretical conclusions from those facts rather than with simply casting an antecedent theory out like a net to willy-nilly snag and incorporate any of the more inconvenient and obstreperous ones. If Neil's conceptions of "God" and the "supernatural" don't contradict the identity-bound natural world, what are they? How would they be defined?

Men create gods in their own image, with traits that are sympathetic and utilitarian with respect to the human believer's purposes. The king likes a god with the inclination and power to push people around and get them to fall in line; he likes a god who delegates to him the divine right to act as the god's representative on earth (the divine right to do what he wants to do anyway). The Calvinist bully who wants nobody to do anything of his own free will employs a god whose creations are entirely predestined. Flower children have the Jesus version of god with the long hair and beard, more relaxed and forgiving (except with respect to bankers) than his uptight and war-mongering father-god.

What kind of god does the fiction writer have? The god who wants aesthetic satisfaction and who has an sf-spin on the myths of the Bible. The God who points out that Adam and Eve were computer hackers, for instance.

Neil confuses the subconscious and the creative process with revelation and god-power. That his theology is often interesting is a tribute to his creative abilities, not to his openness as a receptacle to his new-and-improved God's words of wisdom.

Do all the veteran writers and beginning writers who come up with either mundane or provocative and engaging twists on the tale of Adam and Eve believe that they have received a clarifying memo, via mind meld or whatever imposing mechanism, from the Almighty Himself? I do not know for sure, but my suspicion is that most do not believe this, not literally; although some writers sometimes vaguely speak as if their creativity entailed delivering messages from the beyond, not having much deep insight into the human mind and its creative workings.

What is the difference, then, with respect to J. Neil Schulman's riffs on religious mythology in Escape from Heaven (outlined and excerpted in Neil's memoir) and the riffs of all other artists who have come up with theological variations in fiction or sermons?

It has something to do with the final revisions of Neil's novel, Escape from Heaven. The revision was a substantial re-envisioning. He implemented massive changes in a very short time. I gather from the memoir that the novel is still a novel, not just a report of information relayed by God; but a novel which in Neil's view has been radically informed by God's input. Thus, in his view, the novel includes both his own fictional web-spinning and something more akin to a transcription of details about heaven ops and God-nature conveyed by God himself during the mind-meld.

However...it is more plausible, especially in light of the fact that the proposed alternative is impossible, that Neil had the mind-meld with himself, with the result that he ended up replacing an unsatisfatory approach to the novel with something much more satisfactory and persuasive.

That may well be the case--if by persuasive we mean literarily persuasive. I, for one, am happy to give Neil full credit for his own work, even if the author is too modest to accept that full credit.

Edited December 21, 2010 by Starbuckle

[J Neil Schulman]

J. Neil writes: "I also believe that O.J. directed his attorneys not to 'Plan B' Jason and that O.J. has purposively redirected public and press suspicion away from Jason and toward himself post his criminal acquittal."

1) What is the evidence that O.J. "redirected" suspicion toward himself? (And haven't most people watching the case always believed that O.J. is guilty?)

2) Did Jason have the same history of conflict with Nicole that O.J. did, and the same motive and opportunity?

3) Why is it implausible that the killer would be the one who is the killer?

4) If you could be persuaded that O.J. is the killer, would that cast any doubt on your interpretation of your experience of the mind meld, i.e., that you were in communion with God? Or would you say that God either deliberately misled you or blundered in intimating that he knew more about the case at the time than he really did?

Trailer for Bill Dear's documentary, The Overlooked Suspect:

You can view the full-length documentary at http://www.overlookedsuspect.com

[J Neil Schulman]

There is another possibility: Most people don't take you seriously because you don't make sense. You claim to have been God for a while, that God promotes movies and books, that he likes to stay invisible because he values his privacy, that he told you he is a libertarian, and on and on. What do you expect people to think?

Ghs

I don't think your arguments make sense. You don't believe in God but think Joan of Arc slaughtering people in battle makes a better case for divine revelation than God communicating his visions for human liberty through a well-known libertarian author/filmmaker.

Yes, I think it is more likely than a god would reveal himself in order to save a country than to promote a film or book.

Apparently there is no way to be credible in reporting on discovering the reality of anything you don't already believe in. You make the conventional and common the test for any perception of the rare and extraordinary.

I have repeatedly asked you for criteria by which we can test the veracity of your "rare and extraordinary" experiences, but you have repeatedly failed to do so. You haven't even made a serious attempt. So what do you expect me to do? If someone claimed that an invisible elf is tap dancing on his head, and that he knows this to be true because he can feel its tiny feet and can hear the elf singing "Puttin' on the Ritz," should I abandon my cognitive standards and take his word for it? Would it make any difference if that person was a well-known libertarian author/filmmaker?

Frankly, George, I don't think you give a damn about learning the truth about whether God exists or not, and if he exists what he's like. I don't think these are actually questions of interest to you any more than these are questions of interest for Dennis Prager. You both are far more interested in the utility of religion -- he to use it as a moral stick, you to beat it like a piñata. Neither of you strike me as having much genuine intellectual curiosity.

Frankly, Neil, I have devoted a lot more time investigating the existence of God than you have or ever will, but I have refused to leave my critical faculties behind while doing so. Moreover, I think that your own experiences are all you are truly interested in. You are so enamoured with yourself that you are incapable of subjecting your subjective and highly problematic experiences to critical scrutiny. We both have strong egos, but I manage to keep mine in check from time to time, especially when investigating philosophical subjects. You, in contrast, have unleashed your ego, giving it free rein over your reason.

Ghs

George, prove to me that you really don't believe in God. I mean, you've written books and given lectures saying you don't, but what real evidence can you offer me? You've made no real effort to offer anyone actual hard evidence for your claim of atheism.

Edited December 21, 2010 by J. Neil Schulman

[J Neil Schulman]

Frankly, Neil, I have devoted a lot more time investigating the existence of God than you have or ever will

Ah. Labor theory of value.

[George H. Smith]

George, prove to me that you really don't believe in God. I mean, you've written books and given lectures saying you don't, but what real evidence can you offer me? You've made no real effort to offer anyone actual hard evidence for your claim of atheism.

If you didn't already believe that I am an atheist, then why have you been arguing with me? If I didn't believe that you are sincere in your profession of theism, I certainly wouldn't be arguing with you.

The tactic you are pressing into service here is obvious: If I cannot prove "my claim of atheism" to you, then how can I demand that you prove your claim of theism to me? But this confuses two distinct issues, namely, the fact of belief or nonbelief and the reasons for belief or nonbelief.

To question the fact of a person's belief or nonbelief is to question the sincerity of that person. To question the reasons for a person's belief or nonbelief is to subject those reasons to critical evaluation. There is a vast difference between attacking a person's motives and attacking his arguments.

I have never questioned the sincerity of your theistic belief; I have never suggested that you are being deceptive or dishonest. Rather, I have questioned and rejected the reasons you have given to justify your belief.

In the final analysis, determining a person's sincerity is pretty much a personal judgment call. We normally take a person at his word in this area, unless we have reasons to suspect duplicity. Various things may cause us to suspect duplicity, such as a person's erratic manner of presenting his ideas, the inconsistency of the belief in question with his other statements (e.g., a person who says one thing in public and another in private), and so forth.

In Internet jargon, a person who defends a position he doesn't really believe is called a troll. The fact that a troll is insincere has no direct bearing on the cognitive value of his arguments, but most people don't like dealing with trolls because they don't like dealing with dishonest people.

You are basically asking me to prove to you that I am not a troll. Do you have any plausible reasons to think that I am a troll? If you do, I strongly advise that you stop responding to my posts.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

Frankly, Neil, I have devoted a lot more time investigating the existence of God than you have or ever will

Ah. Labor theory of value.

Nope. Merely an indication that I am more interested in the question of God's existence than you are. The fact that I have reached a different conclusion than you have is irrelevant.

Ghs

[BaalChatzaf]

Nope. Merely an indication that I am more interested in the question of God's existence than you are. The fact that I have reached a different conclusion than you have is irrelevant.

Ghs

Actually the existence or non-existence of the deity of your choosing is not particularly relevant except when practicioners of a religion force themselves on others.

As a philosophical issue it is rather vapid. I consider theology or its deconstruction as one of the greater wastes of time. I would much rather prove theorems or do physical experiments.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Xray]

But how can you be an atheist while at the same time regarding your God experience as real? This is like saying A is non-A.

Since I don't regard God's existence and actual identity as in any way conditional upon human scripture, stories, dogma, traditions, or religious institutions, I can deny any and all of these as sources of reliable and accurate knowledge about God -- and aside from reporting on my personal experience which convince me of God's reality, I'm still without any "theology."

It looks like you use the label "atheist" to indicate that you don't believe in traditional, organized religion.

On another thread, a Scientology member called herself an atheist too, although the belief Scientologists have in the "Thetan" thing is clearly a transdendent concept.

Other believers call themselves atheists because they don't believe in a personal god.

Since language is in a constant process of evolvement, I ask myself whether the term "atheist" might be undergoing a change of meaning.

If this is the case and all kinds of believers in transcendece now call themselves "atheists" as well, what shall we call here - for differentiation purposes - those who don't believe in any kind of transcendence? Any suggestions?

Maybe George H. Smith has an idea?

Your experience was actually quite typical of mystical experiences reported by others.

But what is untypical is the long duration of N. Schulman's experience (8 (!) hours).

It looks like it was something else than a unio mystica.

Mystics belonging to different religions have experienced a state transcending all the differences between those religions.

To conceive of god as the "Pure Nothing" transcends the Christian tradition in that it resembles other mystic concepts like e. g. "Shunyata".

Whereas whoever spoke to N. Schulman is as far removed from the "Pure Nothing" (Eckhart called God this) as it can get.

As luck would have it, I invited God over to my place 10 minutes ago, and he actually stopped by.

Did you discuss your books with him? ;)

A believer once told me atheists do an important job since they throroughly clean God's face from the overpaintings of the various religions.

Re O. J. Simpson's alleged "innocence":

I almost fell off my chair when it was suggested here by N. Schulman that God believes O.J. Simpson was framed.

Now we are entering the realm of hard evidence and it looks like God has never studied this criminal case.

I suggest Vincent Bugliosi's book Outrage which will give God a dramatic insight into the lousy job the prosecution did, which resulted in Simpson's getting away with murder.

Edited December 21, 2010 by Xray

[Xray]

I have repeatedly asked you for criteria by which we can test the veracity of your "rare and extraordinary" experiences, but you have repeatedly failed to do so. You haven't even made a serious attempt. So what do you expect me to do? If someone claimed that an invisible elf is tap dancing on his head, and that he knows this to be true because he can feel its tiny feet and can hear the elf singing "Puttin' on the Ritz," should I abandon my cognitive standards and take his word for it?

Frankly, George, I don't think you give a damn about learning the truth about whether God exists or not, and if he exists what he's like.

It looks like you are struggling with Ghs's epistemological challenge, Mr. Schulman.

Claiming that God exists while failing to meet the burden of proof "merely communicates to others that one has a particular mental attitude known as belief".

(Ghs, Why Atheism, p. 32)

Edited December 21, 2010 by Xray

[BaalChatzaf]

Beliefs are like rectums. Everybody has at least one.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[J Neil Schulman]

George, prove to me that you really don't believe in God. I mean, you've written books and given lectures saying you don't, but what real evidence can you offer me? You've made no real effort to offer anyone actual hard evidence for your claim of atheism.

If you didn't already believe that I am an atheist, then why have you been arguing with me? If I didn't believe that you are sincere in your profession of theism, I certainly wouldn't be arguing with you.

The tactic you are pressing into service here is obvious: If I cannot prove "my claim of atheism" to you, then how can I demand that you prove your claim of theism to me? But this confuses two distinct issues, namely, the fact of belief or nonbelief and the reasons for belief or nonbelief.

To question the fact of a person's belief or nonbelief is to question the sincerity of that person. To question the reasons for a person's belief or nonbelief is to subject those reasons to critical evaluation. There is a vast difference between attacking a person's motives and attacking his arguments.

I have never questioned the sincerity of your theistic belief; I have never suggested that you are being deceptive or dishonest. Rather, I have questioned and rejected the reasons you have given to justify your belief.

In the final analysis, determining a person's sincerity is pretty much a personal judgment call. We normally take a person at his word in this area, unless we have reasons to suspect duplicity. Various things may cause us to suspect duplicity, such as a person's erratic manner of presenting his ideas, the inconsistency of the belief in question with his other statements (e.g., a person who says one thing in public and another in private), and so forth.

In Internet jargon, a person who defends a position he doesn't really believe is called a troll. The fact that a troll is insincere has no direct bearing on the cognitive value of his arguments, but most people don't like dealing with trolls because they don't like dealing with dishonest people.

You are basically asking me to prove to you that I am not a troll. Do you have any plausible reasons to think that I am a troll? If you do, I strongly advise that you stop responding to my posts.

Ghs

George, sincerity is the first question, and we both pass that test for the other. So I'm not accusing you of being a troll. But in fact, I do have to take your claims not to believe in God on faith. It's a simple fact. I plot fiction. I could easily come up with dozens of reasons someone who believes in God could pretend to be a famous atheist. Just watch the movie The Manchurian Candidate, where the most prominent anti-communist presidential candidate is being run by a communist agent. What better way to diminish atheism than to plant a highly-skilled secret agent to write books and make lectures in favor of atheism, and always manage to make straw-man arguments or arguments too intellectually lofty to gain public acceptance?

But you've said that you have looked longer than I have for some proof that God exists and haven't found any. I've read ATCAG. I don't have it in front of me but off the top of my head I'm pretty certain that a lot of your arguments are against representations made by scripture and theologians of who and what God is -- all of which are secondary, tertiary, or sources so removed from direct examination that you've never been able to cross examine them.

Now here I am. I was an atheist when we first met. I'm a theist now. You acknowledge my sincerity -- I'm not being accused of trying to start a church, or make money as a televangelist, and in fact given that my libertarian fan base is overwhelmingly atheistic I've taken hard hits from my fan base in "coming out" as a theist -- so when I tell you that something happened to me that overcame my skepticism and caused me to change my mind, I deserve more curiosity and respect than you've given me. I assure you, if something ever happened to you to convince you that God exists, and you spoke and published about your revised point of you, the hatred, scorn, skepticism, and dismissal of your rationality and sanity would be far greater than anything I've experienced.

Instead, when I present as detailed a memoir as this professional writer can manage, and present myself as available for further inquiry, do you make a maximum effort to make a study of them -- one that might be worthy of a new book of your own -- or do you make silly demands of me to say whether I believe Joan of Arc had a real revelation of God, and suggest in language reminiscent of Divine Right of Kings that God is more likely to back the leader of a country in some war than try to save a country by promoting a freedom philosophy through books and movies?

You don't have Joan of Fucking Arc to talk to, George. You've never shared a meal with Joan of Arc. Joan of Arc never photographed your girlfriend in the nude while you supervised. You never had a conversation with Joan of Arc before her claim of revelation which could be used as a benchmark for whether she was prone to reporting hallucinations as real.

And you think you've looked for God? Where? In libraries?

That's why I scoff at your claims to have looked for God. You have an Ayn Rand influenced writer -- one who spent years studying her epistemology and metaphysics -- telling you that you're clueless in how to look for God, because when God started looking for me I found myself in communication despite my skepticism and hard disbelief.

Someone like you who's made a career out of studying this question, who then dismisses me because I'm not academic enough to compare my experience point by point to historical claims made by long-dead people, is the guy who should be studying me like a lab rat. And if you don't, your actual intellectual curiosity in making the case against God is indeed in doubt.

Edited December 22, 2010 by J. Neil Schulman

[Starbuckle]

I'm disappointed by Neil's ad hominesh blasting of GHS. I don't think all of Smith's comments have been equally effective, but they have not been willfully diversionary. Neil has not really made any case that his psychological experience, foremost the mindmeld, are both a] real (which no one has disputed) and b] a manifestion of god and the supernatural.

A theistic understanding of the universe can't stand if it is metaphysically contradictory or arbitrary. In his memoir, Neil very thoroughly documents philosophical evolution, creative braintorming, and certain physical and psychological experiences. He does not make any clear argument that his psychological experiences are evidence that he has met a god, and I don't see any fundamental grappling with that issue in this thread. His experiences are per se supposed to be demonstrative of the validity of his conclusions. They're not.

Edited December 22, 2010 by Starbuckle

[9thdoctor]

I present as detailed a memoir as this professional writer can manage, and present myself as available for further inquiry

What have you offered that isn't answered by Richard Dawkins here, particularly when he said: "The human mind is extremely susceptible to hallucination"?

[Brant Gaede]

The only reason for a rational person to swim in the rhetorical pool of irrationality is to reveal the irrationality, not to vanquish its champion--he'll win for he's invulnerable in the infinite variety and quantity of all the arguments available to him insofar as he seeks them out and uses them--all except the ones you use; those get pseudoed.

--Brant

lose the battle, win the war

[George H. Smith]

George, sincerity is the first question, and we both pass that test for the other. So I'm not accusing you of being a troll. But in fact, I do have to take your claims not to believe in God on faith. It's a simple fact. I plot fiction. I could easily come up with dozens of reasons someone who believes in God could pretend to be a famous atheist.Just watch the movie The Manchurian Candidate, where the most prominent anti-communist presidential candidate is being run by a communist agent. What better way to diminish atheism than to plant a highly-skilled secret agent to write books and make lectures in favor of atheism, and always manage to make straw-man arguments or arguments too intellectually lofty to gain public acceptance?

That fact that you can imagine a hypothetical scenario and plot it in a work of fiction has absolutely no bearing on whether it would be reasonable to believe in the reality of that scenario. I could write a fictional account about a science fiction writer who concocts and publishes a false account about talking to God in the hope that this sensationalistic tale will make him better known, increase his book sales, and yield a handsome sum when he sells the movie rights to his autobiography.

So what? There is a reason we call such accounts, including The Manchurian Candidate, works of fiction. A person who cannot distinguish between fiction and nonfiction has serious problems that fall outside the realm of philosophy.

Now here I am. I was an atheist when we first met. I'm a theist now. You acknowledge my sincerity -- I'm not being accused of trying to start a church, or make money as a televangelist, and in fact given that my libertarian fan base is overwhelmingly atheistic I've taken hard hits from my fan base in "coming out" as a theist -- so when I tell you that something happened to me that overcame my skepticism and caused me to change my mind, I deserve more curiosity and respect than you've given me. I assure you, if something ever happened to you to convince you that God exists, and you spoke and published about your revised point of you, the hatred, scorn, skepticism, and dismissal of your rationality and sanity would be far greater than anything I've experienced.

First, I was "talking" to God long before you were. One of my experiences that occurred at age 12 -- extremely intense pain that disappeared immediately after I prayed to God for help -- would easily qualify as a miraculous cure by religious standards.

Second, your story, considered in terms of essentials. is far from unique. Nevertheless, I have given you a lot more "courtesy and respect" than I would to most people with similar accounts. I attempted to expand the boundaries of our exchange by prodding you to consider the broader philosophical implications of your experience, as when I repeatedly requested criteria that enable you to distinguish between true and false religious experiences, but this went nowhere. At a certain point there is nothing more for me to say except that I don't regard your story as credible.

Third, if I had an experience similar to yours, one that again convinced me that God exists, I would handle how I related my experience to others much differently than you have.

Instead, when I present as detailed a memoir as this professional writer can manage, and present myself as available for further inquiry, do you make a maximum effort to make a study of them -- one that might be worthy of a new book of your own -- or do you make silly demands of me to say whether I believe Joan of Arc had a real revelation of God, and suggest in language reminiscent of Divine Right of Kings that God is more likely to back the leader of a country in some war than try to save a country by promoting a freedom philosophy through books and movies?

You still don't seem to understand why I raised the subject of other people who had mystical experiences; Joan of Arc is one example among many. My comment about what God would be likely to do was a sidebar. Nevertheless, I seriously doubt if God would make a science fiction movie one of his chosen projects.

You don't have Joan of Fucking Arc to talk to, George. You've never shared a meal with Joan of Arc. Joan of Arc never photographed your girlfriend in the nude while you supervised. You never had a conversation with Joan of Arc before her claim of revelation which could be used as a benchmark for whether she was prone to reporting hallucinations as real.

I have had personal and lengthy conversations with many people who claim to have talked to God. These included Catholic priests, Protestant ministers, professional philosophers, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Christian Scientists, and theistic freelancers who don't like "organized religion."

As for whether Joan of Arc was "prone to reporting hallucinations as real," skeptics have been asking the same question about you. You were scarcely in a normal frame of mind when you mind-melded with God for eights hours (or whatever the amount of time was). This fact alone should raise reasonable doubts in the mind of a reflective person.

And you think you've looked for God? Where? In libraries?

Martin Luther had his most intense encounter with God -- the so-called "tower experience" -- while he was sitting on the can. In the words of one recent biographer, Richard Marius, "Luther's release from the constricting bondage of fear corresponded to the release of his bowels." This experience, which eventually led Luther to post his 95 Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, proved to be one of the most significant events in the history of western civilization.

If God hangs out in latrines, I see no reason to think that he doesn't visit libraries as well.

That's why I scoff at your claims to have looked for God.

I said that I have spent a lot of time investigating the existence of God. I didn't say that I was looking for God. I don't "look" for things that I don't believe exist. Do you?

You have an Ayn Rand influenced writer -- one who spent years studying her epistemology and metaphysics --telling you that you're clueless in how to look for God, because when God started looking for me I found myself in communication despite my skepticism and hard disbelief.

Rand had nothing to do with my atheism. I deconverted from theism to atheism two years before I knew who she was. Indeed, it was when Rand mentioned her atheism on the Johnny Carson Show that I first became interested in her.

You say that God "started looking" for you and that you found yourself communicating with him despite your atheism. Fine, if God starts looking for me, he knows where to find me, and I will be happy to chat with him, despite my atheism.

Someone like you who's made a career out of studying this question, who then dismisses me because I'm not academic enough to compare my experience point by point to historical claims made by long-dead people, is the guy who should be studying me like a lab rat. And if you don't, your actual intellectual curiosity in making the case against God is indeed in doubt.

I never asked for a point-by-point comparison. I asked for general epistemological criteria.

It took a personal experience with God before you abandoned your atheism. You didn't accept the second-hand accounts of religious experiences reported by others. So why do you expect me to behave any differently? Why do you expect me to do what you were unwilling to do? I simply view your report in the same light that you viewed (and still view) the reports of others.

Ghs

[9thdoctor]

First, I was "talking" to God long before you were. One of my experiences that occurred at age 12 -- extremely intense pain that disappeared immediately after I prayed to God for help -- would easily qualify as a miraculous cure by religious standards.

You’ve written about you’re experiences as a drug user, though as I recall you were into heroin and cocaine. Did you try hallucinogens (LSD, mushrooms)? If so, was the experience analogous to your early religious experiences? I asked JNS earlier, and he said he’d never done any; if he had, I was thinking his religious experience may have been an outgrowth of that.

Now, taking an opposite tack, I wonder if the fact that he hasn’t tried hallucinogens means that he’s less likely to distinguish a hallucination from reality, for lack of experience. Whatever happens when you’re on drugs, when it’s over you know why it happened, what caused it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhxZoTKxRbo&has_verified=1

Just chill, Ted, you'll be back on Arrakis in a few hours...

Edited December 22, 2010 by Ninth Doctor

[George H. Smith]

First, I was "talking" to God long before you were. One of my experiences that occurred at age 12 -- extremely intense pain that disappeared immediately after I prayed to God for help -- would easily qualify as a miraculous cure by religious standards.

You’ve written about you’re experiences as a drug user, though as I recall you were into heroin and cocaine. Did you try hallucinogens (LSD, mushrooms)? If so, was the experience analogous to your early religious experiences? I asked JNS earlier, and he said he’d never done any; if he had, I was thinking his religious experience may have been an outgrowth of that.

Yeah, I've done both mushrooms and acid. The experiences I had on those drugs were nothing like my earlier religious experiences. I never had anything like a transcendental experience on any kind of drug. I never heard voices, saw visions, etc., etc.

Ghs

[PDS]

Ghs wrote: "It took a personal experience with God before you abandoned your atheism. You didn't accept the second-hand accounts of religious experiences reported by others. So why do you expect me to behave any differently? Why do you expect me to do what you were unwilling to do? I simply view your report in the same light that you viewed (and still view) the reports of others."

This is the nub of the matter. Second hand accounts generally will not do for most people, and absent direct revelation or some form of mind meld, that is all there is when it comes to the existence of God. Unfortunately, absent some reasonable criteria for judging such revelations/melds, the person who experienced God is left with, in effect, an argument from authority.

Quite honestly, I was more inclined to credit Neil's interpretation of his subjective experience with God before I learned he thought OJ was innocent. Anybody who has read Vincent Bugliosi's book on this subject, or seen his arguments, is going to have trouble believing that God implied to Neil that OJ is innocent.

Edited December 22, 2010 by PDS