the point is that you insist on defining key terms in a manner that doesn't exceed your experience.
No term we've discussed
requires a special or unique experience to define. This really does seem like a non-sequitur, and one you're employing out of desperation rather than conviction. You're not supporting it with any evidence, or even an argument, whereas I have explained how and why the "immaterial" is not
really immaterial, and what religions really want from their followers.
If at any point you feel more confident in your position, feel free to take me up on it. I found the outset of this discussion to be very interesting, and I'd love to pursue it further.
IOW its not so much that you are an outsider (since even an outsider can work theoretically with terms beyond their experience) ... but rather that you fail to acknowledge that you are an outsider (and hence don't have a problem laying down your law that all subsequent discussion must not violate your pre-existing favoured paradigm)
I wasn't talking about myself, obviously, since I'm not the one you made the comment to. You and I were having a conversation, then you abandoned it seemingly when my arguments had frustrated your own, opting instead to make a remark to wynn about what's wrong with
my position. It's this choice of reaching out to a third-party for comfort instead of continuing the dialogue that disappointed me. But again, you clearly don't feel confident in your position, so you're running away. I get it, I just wish it weren't the case.
:shrug:
[edit: To your point, however--and I feel that it's important I address this--there isn't anything about your claims that require a new paradigm. Let's review:
Your initial claim in this thread was that a spiritual or religious model puts God at the center of the worldview, which I countered with the observation that all religious and spiritual pursuits hinge on selfish desires, hence keeping oneself firmly in the center of the worldview regardless of what is said of God's position. You seemed to deflect this, asking in response how this can be so when such desires are not extant in the life of someone who adopts a spiritual worldview. Obviously, this statement utterly ignores my previous contention that those desires are not simply extant in those who adopt a spiritual worldview, but that spiritual pursuits require them to be of any effectiveness whatsoever. When I further explained this to you, your response was to call it "hedging bets," and cited a Vedic verse about how those who enjoyed materialistic pleasures would be hindered in their devotion to the Supreme Lord. Not only did this fail to contradict my point, it actually helped to illustrate it: Devotion to the Supreme Lord encompasses all of the "opulences" that one would seek in what you would call a "material" sense--health, life, comfort, happiness, purpose, etc., thereby demonstrating that spiritual "enlightenment" is achieved merely by valuing the opulences offered by a deity over those offered by a department store.
So there doesn't seem to be a need for a new paradigm or any special experience. If you'd like to make a case for why there needs to be, I'm all ears, but as of yet you've offered claims and little else]
