thedoc wrote:
What is unsound in the reasoning that from the existence of the Holy Spirit, you can deduce the existence of God, if you accept that the Holy Spirit is an aspect of God?
Perhaps it depends on your point of view, I know what my point of view is, what's yours?
The lifetime of experience on which I base my point of view does not allow for the inclusion of "Holy Spirit" in the world I inhabit. I've been around for quite a long time and feel sure I would have come across it at some time, had it been there. I think you've had a hallucination.
That is quite possible, but I think it is just your opinion, and that's OK too. I believe that everyone will have one, or several experiences that could be interpreted as the work of the Holy Spirit, but some will reject that possibility, and continue to believe that God does not exist. I do credit God with one particular quality, and that is patience. God will keep trying, in spite of your resistance.
Harbal wrote:I've been around for quite a long time and feel sure I would have come across it at some time, had it been there. I think you've had a hallucination.
Alfie, I don't think it was a hallucination, just a matter of interpretation.
Peak experiences like those the doc and I have enjoyed really are something else so I find doc's interpretation as understandable, although IMO he has jumped to conclusions.
In that light, I'm going to have to fall back on the old argument, You weren't there, and don't know what the experience actually was. I do agree that our "peak experience" may have had the same source, but I don't know, I wasn't there. In the end each of us has to go on what the experience was to us, and weigh carefully what others may think of it. Usually, Others weren't there, and don't really know what happened. Hallucination is an easy out for the doubter.
Harbal wrote:
The lifetime of experience on which I base my point of view does not allow for the inclusion of "Holy Spirit" in the world I inhabit. I've been around for quite a long time and feel sure I would have come across it at some time, had it been there. I think you've had a hallucination.
It is also possible that you have encountered the Holy Spirit at some time in your life, but have rejected the true identity of the source of your experience. Whether you have had one or many encounters, I don't know, only you can determine the source of each encounter, or reject it.
thedoc wrote:In that light, I'm going to have to fall back on the old argument, You weren't there, and don't know what the experience actually was. I do agree that our "peak experience" may have had the same source, but I don't know, I wasn't there. In the end each of us has to go on what the experience was to us, and weigh carefully what others may think of it. Usually, Others weren't there, and don't really know what happened. Hallucination is an easy out for the doubter.
They are peak experiences. Well documented and tons of people have enjoyed them. There's tons of different interpretations too. I suppose each of our interpretations contains a germ of truth without being "The Truth". After all, if you ask twenty people to describe any given thing and you'll get all sorts of descriptions. So it would be strange if we all thought of our peak experiences in the same way.
