Dr Hood
My book The Trace of God: Rational Warrant for Belief, [1] is a look a body of work in psychology of religion. from that data I have structured three God arguments, The centerpiece of that body of data is a research instrument called the M scale.(M = "mysticism scale"). It's a set of questions scored in a certain manner that is able to determine if a given experience is a valid mystical experience in W.T. Stace's sense of the term. Stace [2]was an English Philosopher who retired in the 1950s then set himself the task of fleshing out his theory about the nature of mystical experience. Over the course of the next four decades Stace's theory was confirmed by empirical research conducted mainly by Ralph Hood Jr Professor of psychology at The university of Tennessee Chattanooga, who invented the M scale.[3]
In this blog essay I will examine two major issues our resident opponent (I am Skeptical,aka "Skepie") likes to wail against Hood with: (1) His allegation that Hood is some kind of religious person (he claims he's a Christian) and thus nothing he says counts for anything.(2) Atheists have mystical experiences too. Buthe wants to call them by a different name.[4]
(1) Hood's alleged religious commitment and sneaky motivations, lack of objectivity ect,
Skepie makes many such comments:
"They [Hood's opponents] are more interested in scientific understanding of the phenomenon. You have claimed that Hood is not religious, but I know that he is. He was the head of a Christian organization."[5] Hood is not a Christian. I know this become Hood and I are friends when I consulted him years ago in writing The Trace of God. Notice Skepie never names the organization just as he never names any opponents.
Hood has some religious ideas but he is not a Christian. He has been a member of unity, not a christian denomination,[6] Skepie never names the organisation and I don't find one I don't see why he would be since he's not a christian. Hood is an immanent scholar, he's top researcher in the field of psychology of religion. He is a former editor of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion(1995–1999), and has been coeditor of The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion (1992–1995) and Archiv für Religionpsychologie(2005–). This is clear;y an academic journal Self Decrotiono: "Psychology of Religion and Spirituality ® publishes peer-reviewed, original articles related to the psychological aspects of religion and spirituality.The journal publishes articles employing experimental and correlational methods, qualitative analyses, and critical reviews of the literature. Papers evaluating clinically relevant issues surrounding training, professional development, and practice are also considered."[7]
According to the Journal Citation Reports, "the journal has a 2011 impact factor of 1.348, ranking it 30th out of 138 journals in the category 'Sociology'."[8] Of course Skepie has to denigrate the field itself since Hood is big in that field, he thinks psychology of religion is like the guys that train Christian counselors for Bible college. It's not it is a valid academic discipline.
The psychology of religion is a rapidly developing field, and no single unifying theory explains individual and group religious experience. Psychoanalysts and research psychologists approach the psychology of religion in very different ways. Moreover, the field draws on a number of academic disciplines, including philosophy, sociology, anthropology, religious studies, economics, political science, and (rarely) theology. Paloutzian and Park 2005, Spilka and McIntosh 1997, and Fuller 2008 provide topical and/or theoretical overviews of the field. Putnam, et al. 2010 is written by political scientists who provide a historical overview of religion in America to the present...[9]The field of psychology of religion has ebbed and flowed along with humanistic concerns in psychology. The empirical approach of researchers like Hood has tended to enhance the validity of the field.[10] It's a diverse field, it has it's detractors but it's valid.
Skepie read the hearts and minds of religious people. He knows Hood's motive to deceive everyone when faced with the fact that he has no statements by Hood to justify his assertions he says "Of course he doesn't come out and admit what he's doing. What do you think the M-scale does? It is a tool invented by a religious person to filter any non-religious interpretation out from peak experiences. It is designed to look only at the religious aspect of this phenomenon, and pretend that this gives you a full understanding of it." [11]What Hood actually does say:
For Some Mystical experience cannot support a belief that one has united with God or experienced ultimate reality, for others mysticism is an experience that provides sufficient warrant for belie in God or ultimate reality....our concern as social scientists ls restricted to the aspect of these literatures that have direct relevance for empirical research. Of immediate concern is the clarification of the nature of mystical experience as well as it's relationship to other forms of mystical experience[12]
Here Hood is actually saying that he's not concerned with proving God's existence because that's not his role as a scientist. That is the only statement of Hood's motive that we have Skepie ever bothers to produce. Of course, he's never read a single thing Hood has written,
Skepie needs to give atheists their own Godless sense of the numinous and their own Godless undifferentiated unity,So he wants to call Mystical experience:"peak" and pretend it's a different experience even though it is just the same experience but without reference to a religious dimension,
Skepie wants to imagine that there;s a whole realm of "real psychologists" (he said that psychology of religion people are not real psychologists) "Yes. That's what I've been telling you. Maslow was an atheist..." I've refereed to Maslow as an atheist time and time again. He says:
and he used the term "peak experience", which is how it is called OUTSIDE the field of psychology of religion, precisely because general psychology recognizes that this is not confined to religious experience. Maslow's field was NOT psychology of religion, and that contradicts your claim that this whole field of study is within psychology of religion. IT ISN'T. There are many other psychologists outside the narrow field of psychology of religion who examine this phenomenon. That's what I've been telling you.[13]There is a certain truth to the dichotomy, even though it's unnecessary,I don't think "mystical" necessarily connotes religious outlook although "Peak experience" may have been employed as a term to include atheist's experiences. But Maslow never had the M scale to work with and he never did the kind of studies on atheist's experiences that Hood has done. He never had the broad empirical basis that Hood has gotten.
Moreoever, Skepie misses a lot of dimensions in Madlow;s thinking that would others wise cause him to claim Maslow was a Christian. Maslow said "atheists and religious people can go a very long way down the road together." He did not want to see a war-like struggle between religious thinkers and atheists. Maslow wanted to observe the condition of wellness in in human psyche rather than pathology as Freud had done, Toward that end he forecaster Transactional analyses. One of the things that Maslow saw as normative and healthy was religious belief,
https://www.psywww.com/psyrelig/psyrelpr.htmOne outgrowth of Maslow's work is what has become known as Transpersonal Psychology, in which the focus is on the spiritual well-being of individuals, and values are advocated steadfastly. Transpersonal psychologists seek to blend Eastern religion (Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.) or Western (Christian, Jewish or Moslem) mysticism with a form of modern psychology. Frequently, the transpersonal psychologist rejects psychology's adoption of various scientific methods used in the natural sciences.[14]
Maslow
Notice in fn 14 Nielsen is including Maslow as psychology of religion.That's enough to make him the leader of a Christian organization in Skep's mind if he didn't need him so badly to validate "Peak experience"as the atheist answer to mystical experience. Maslow points out that the same universal symbols emerge in all people across culture. He confirms this connection emerges with with the use of all psychoanalytical techniques.
Now that may be taken as a frank admission of a naturalistic psychological origin, except that it invovles a universal symbology which is not explicable through merely naturalistic means. How is it that all humans come to hold these same archetypical symbols? (For more on archetypes see Jesus Chrsit and Mythology page II) The "prematives" viewed and understood a sense of transformation which gave them an integration into the universe. This is crucial for human development. They sensed a power in the numenous, that is the origin of religion.
In Appendix I and elsewhere in this essay, I have spoken of unitive perception, i.e., fusion of the B-realm with the D-realm, fusion of the eternal with the temporal, the sacred with the profane, etc. Someone has called this "the measureless gap between the poetic perception of reality and prosaic, unreal commonsense." Anyone who cannot perceive the sacred, the eternal, the symbolic, is simply blind to an aspect of reality, as I think I have amply demonstrated elsewhere (54), and in Appendix I.[15]
Granted he is reducing the Spiritual rom SN to psychological. He;s still keeping the category open. The major point I am making is that Maslow was a contribtor if only defacto to the success of psych of Religion as a field.
Skep wants us to think there are a few little religious minded clerics with counselling degrees calling what they do "psych of Religion" and then there is a vast body of:real psychologists: beyond that who have disproved the former. The truth is more like there are few hold overs from the Freudian persecution ofreligion and most pscyholkogistssnow see reliion as a naturak endeavoerm a holdoverfron evoluktionary heruitagem whichnayiray notinole God but is beining,
Nowadays there are many who do not agree with the notion that religious behavior a priori implies a neurotic state to be decoded and eliminated by analysis (exorcism). That reductionism based on the first works by Freud is currently under review. The psychotherapist should be limited to observing the uses their clients make of the representations of the image of God in their subjective world, that is, the uses of the function of omnipotence. Among the several authors that subscribe to this position are Odilon de Mello Franco (12), .... W. R. Bion (2), one of the most notable contemporary psychoanalysts, ..."[16]
(2) Atheists have mystical experiences too. But he wants to call them by a different name
As I pointed out in the comet section I do write about atheists having mystical experience, e can call it "peak experience" if we want to. I have not denied that atheists have such experience in my book That Skep refuses to read but claims to know all about I actually quote atheists who talk about such experiences. Skep wants to say the atheists have have their look behind the curtain so they don't have to acknowledge the possibility of God. That doesn't erase the mystical experiences that have the God dimension, So there are different levels of experience who is to say their look behind the curtain is really long enough or deep enough?
There is another view that is less denigrating to the atheists, the idea tat both have the same view they just interpret it differently. That is what all mystics do. They experience "it" beyond their understanding they only really understand in the experience but they can't talk about it. To talk about it they must load it into cultural constructs which changes it. Typically mystics try to explain their experiences through their doctrine. Atheists no less so, which means the Catholic says it's the Holy presence and the atheist says i;ts the void, In fact the descriptions of Vedanta sound a lot like atheists but they are not atheists,
The M scale shows us that all the experiences are the same it's the interpretation that changes. The atheist experience fits right into the same paradigm. Skepie's charge that the M scale is trying to factor out the Atheist experience could not be more un fair. Hood made several versions of the M scale with Christian language non Christian langue, Hindu, Muslim, and so on including non belief in God. So an artiest experience is factored into the equation. The M scale shows the experiences are the same,some external objective reality is encountered then it';s up to the mystic to understand what that is,
You have to read my God arguments to understand how I connect them,
Buy My Book On Amazon:
The Trace Of God
Sources
https://www.amazon.com/Trace-God-Rational-Warrant-Belief/dp/0982408714
[2] W.T. Stace, Mysticism and Philosophy. London: Macmillan and Co 1961 no page imndicated
on line copy: https://www.scribd.com/doc/70165808/W-T-Stace-Mysticism-and-Philosophy-Whole-Book#scribd
[3] Ralph Hood, Psychology, UTC edu.
https://www.utc.edu/psychology/profiles/faculty/hood.php
[4] 'Skepie, Comments, "Unicorns Don't Exist, Theretofore, God Doesn't Exist?" Metacrock's Blog (Oct 22, 2018) http://metacrock.blogspot.com/2018/10/unicorns-dont-exist-therefore-god.html?showComment=1540708451745#c5146743849962406292
[5] Ibid
[6] Unity Church
https://www.unitychurchofpeace.org/what-is-unity
This is a self promotion by the unity organization, It nay sound obliquely Christian but any attempt toinikthiswith evaangeicakfundamentalisn wouldbe vain becausethisorgniaaationisnot accpetalein Orthodox Christiancircles, I don't think I;m uttingworkdsinDr. Hood;s moiuth whenI say ithinkhis view ofGod is impersonal
"Unity Church followers believe in the divinity of Jesus, but only in the sense that all humans are the children of God and share that divine potential. They believe that Jesus was a master teacher who expressed this divine potential and sought to show others how to do the same."
Unity Church - Wikipedia
[7] Journal of Psychology of religion and Spirituality, "Descriptions," American Psychological Association (2018)
https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/rel/
[8]"Journals Ranked by Impact: Sociology". 2011 Journal Citation Reports. Web of Science (Social Sciences ed.). Thomson Reuters. 2012; see also
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_for_the_Scientific_Study_of_Religion
[9] Catherine A. Johnson et al, "Psychology and Religion" Oxford Bibliophiles (LAST MODIFIED: 27 OCTOBER 2016)
http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199828340/obo-9780199828340-0066.xml
spilka
[10] Kim Wobles, "A Brief History of Psychology of Religion," Science 20 ( May 28th 2010 03:14)
https://www.science20.com/science_autism_spectrum_disorders/brief_history_psychology_religion
science 20 self identification: "Science 2.0 was created in 2006 to modernize science communication, publishing, collaboration and public participation. It is a pro-science educational outreach nonprofit operating under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. We are the world's largest science writing community, with over 300,000,000 readers on our sites."
[11]Skeptical, op cit
[12] Ralph Hood Jr. and Bernard Spilka,et al "Mysticism, Chapter 11, " The Psychology of Religion: A Empirical Approach. 4th Ed.New Yor, Lomdo: Guildord Press. 2009, 332.
[13] Skepie op cit
[14]Michael E Nielsen, "Notable People in Psychology of Religion" Psychology of Religion, selective archive 1999-2004
https://www.psywww.com/psyrelig/psyrelpr.htm
[15] Araham Maslow, "Appendix I. "An Example of B-Analysis." vReligions, Values, and Peak-Experiences,
[16] Jorge W.F. Amaro, ""Psychology, Psychoanalysis,and religious Faith" Psychology of Religion Pages Michael E Nielsen, 1998.
Dr. Jorge W.F. Amaro, Ph.D., Head psychology dept. Sao Paulo. the sources he sights:
sources sited by Amaro BION, W. R. Atenção e interpretação (Attention and interpretation). Rio de Janeiro: Imago, 1973.
MELLO FRANCO, O. de. Religious experience and psychoanalysis: from man-as-god to man-with-god. Int. J. of Psychoanalysis (1998) 79.
Buy My Book On Amazon:
The Trace Of God
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35 comments:
(1) His allegation that Hood is some kind of religious person (he claims he's a Christian) and thus nothing he says counts for anything.
- I said that Hood is a religious person, and his work is motivated by religious ideology. I never said what you claim. However, we should all recognize that ideological bias can play a significant role in the outcome of anyone's work. Even Supreme court decisions are affected by ideological bias. Don't deny reality, Joe.
(2) Atheists have mystical experiences too. Buthe wants to call them by a different name.[4]
- The majority of the mainstream scientific community of psychology calls these things "peak experiences", after Maslow, the one who coined the term. The smaller community of psychology of religion may prefer to call them "mystical experiences".
"They [Hood's opponents] are more interested in scientific understanding of the phenomenon.
- It's not Hood's opponents. It's the mainstream scientific community.
Hood is not a Christian. I know this become Hood and I are friends when I consulted him years ago in writing The Trace of God. Notice Skepie never names the organization just as he never names any opponents.
- He was the head of a Christian organization, and I'm sorry I don't recall the name. But you've never actually spoken to him in person.
Hood is an immanent scholar, he's top researcher in the field of psychology of religion.
- It's a small sub-group in psychology, which is dominated by religious people. In the broader field of psychology, Hood is not particularly well-known and not very influential.
Skepie read the hearts and minds of religious people. He knows Hood's motive to deceive everyone
- Joe pretends to know the hearts and minds of atheists. I NEVER said Hood is trying to deceive anyone. I said he has a religious ideology that influences his work.
Skepie needs to give atheists their own Godless sense of the numinous and their own Godless undifferentiated unity,So he wants to call Mystical experience:"peak" and pretend it's a different experience even though it is just the same experience but without reference to a religious dimension,
- As I have said, the psychology od peak experiences is the subject of study by the broader scientific community. It is not confined to psychology of religion. There's more to it than what people like Hood (and YOU) try to distill down to only the religious aspect. Both you and Hood ignore the full scope of phenomenon to focus exclusively on the limited portion that happens to be consistent with your ideological motivation.
I don't think "mystical" necessarily connotes religious outlook although "Peak experience" may have been employed as a term to include atheist's experiences.
- Maslow's terminology is more inclusive than Hoods - precisely because Maslow (and others in the field of psychology) didn't try to narrow it down to only the religious aspect.
But Maslow never had the M scale to work with and he never did the kind of studies on atheist's experiences that Hood has done. He never had the broad empirical basis that Hood has gotten.
- Now we get down to the problem with Hood's M-scale. What it does is to filter out peak experiences that interpreted by the individuals who have them as being religious in nature, by declaring that those experiences are not "true" mystical experiences. Thus, Hood focuses on the religious, and ignores the rest. The broader community of psychology uses other methods to determine the content of the experience, such as the "Peak Experience Scale", which is much more widely accepted in the community than the M-scale.
Moreoever, Skepie misses a lot of dimensions in Madlow;s thinking ... He did not want to see a war-like struggle between religious thinkers and atheists.
- Joe, I'm not at war, but YOU are. I'm simply trying to get you to open your eyes.
Maslow points out that the same universal symbols emerge in all people across culture. He confirms this connection emerges with with the use of all psychoanalytical techniques.
- That's right. And it's more than just the religious. And that's what you and Hood are missing.
[quoting Maslow] Anyone who cannot perceive the sacred, the eternal, the symbolic, is simply blind to an aspect of reality, as I think I have amply demonstrated elsewhere
- Now we see Joe's effort to deceive. Joe would have us believe that Maslow can't deny the religious nature of the experience. But that's a lie. Maslow is explaining WHY these things are often seen as religious. I'll give you another quote from the very same paper that Joe has quote-mined to serve his own ideological agenda. Referring to the use of words like "sacred" or "numinous", Maslow says this: "I shall, therefore, use these words, since I have no others to use, to refer to subjective happenings in human beings without necessarily implying any supernatural reference. I claim that it is not necessary to appeal to principles outside of nature and human nature in order to explain these experiences."
There is another view that is less denigrating to the atheists, the idea tat both have the same view they just interpret it differently.
- That's exactly what I've been telling you all along, Joe. The difference is that YOU claim they really DO have supernatural content.
Atheists no less so, which means the Catholic says it's the Holy presence and the atheist says i;ts the void
- That's not true. I've never heard any atheist call it "the void". Maslow certainly doesn't. What they actually say is that these are emotional and completely natural experiences. Instead of quote-mining Maslow's papers, you should try actually reading them.
im-skeptical said...
(1) His allegation that Hood is some kind of religious person (he claims he's a Christian) and thus nothing he says counts for anything.
- I said that Hood is a religious person, and his work is motivated by religious ideology. I never said what you claim. However, we should all recognize that ideological bias can play a significant role in the outcome of anyone's work. Even Supreme court decisions are affected by ideological bias. Don't deny reality, Joe.
you said Hood is the head of a Christian organization he's not. you made that up,(I think you got it from some atheist grape vine it's a lot like things the carm atheists used to say). you are always using the fact of one's religiosity to dismiss that person;s opinion no matter how accepted or lauded his/her scholarship
(2) Atheists have mystical experiences too. Buthe wants to call them by a different name.[4]
- The majority of the mainstream scientific community of psychology calls these things "peak experiences", after Maslow, the one who coined the term. The smaller community of psychology of religion may prefer to call them "mystical experiences".
your conjecture prove it. document it.
"They [Hood's opponents] are more interested in scientific understanding of the phenomenon.
- It's not Hood's opponents. It's the mainstream scientific community.
you have no reason to think Hood is not equally so interested. your only argument against Hood comes down to I use his work in my argument making so he must be dismissed. You know nothing about his work you have never read him and you have no quotes from him,
Hood is not a Christian. I know this become Hood and I are friends when I consulted him years ago in writing The Trace of God. Notice Skepie never names the organization just as he never names any opponents.
- He was the head of a Christian organization, and I'm sorry I don't recall the name. But you've never actually spoken to him in person.
sorry you area a liar, he is not the head a Christian organization that is ludicrous, he not a Christian!
Hood is an immanent scholar, he's top researcher in the field of psychology of religion.
- It's a small sub-group in psychology, which is dominated by religious people. In the broader field of psychology, Hood is not particularly well-known and not very influential.
if it's such a small sub group how is it that I have those 200 studies and there;s not one study countering them? there is not one study showing religious experience is bad for you, all work all the research is done in the field none outside of it,
Skepie read the hearts and minds of religious people. He knows Hood's motive to deceive everyone
- Joe pretends to know the hearts and minds of atheists. I NEVER said Hood is trying to deceive anyone. I said he has a religious ideology that influences his work.
2 and 2 still make four
Skepie needs to give atheists their own Godless sense of the numinous and their own Godless undifferentiated unity,So he wants to call Mystical experience:"peak" and pretend it's a different experience even though it is just the same experience but without reference to a religious dimension,
- As I have said, the psychology od peak experiences is the subject of study by the broader scientific community.
No it's not,i couldn't find a single study on just atheist expediences, Atheism only exists in contradistinction to believers,If there was no religion there would be no atheists,So even an all atheist study would be a psychology of religion study. show me a study on peak experience that makes no reference to religious experience?
It is not confined to psychology of religion. There's more to it than what people like Hood (and YOU) try to distill down to only the religious aspect. Both you and Hood ignore the full scope of phenomenon to focus exclusively on the limited portion that happens to be consistent with your ideological motivation.
If Hood is trying to do that how do you explain the fact that he writes about atheists having the experience and he made versions of the M scale with religious references?
I don't think "mystical" necessarily connotes religious outlook although "Peak experience" may have been employed as a term to include atheist's experiences.
- Maslow's terminology is more inclusive than Hoods - precisely because Maslow (and others in the field of psychology) didn't try to narrow it down to only the religious aspect.
you have never read Hood You don't know how he talks, stop slandering people.
But Maslow never had the M scale to work with and he never did the kind of studies on atheist's experiences that Hood has done. He never had the broad empirical basis that Hood has gotten.
- Now we get down to the problem with Hood's M-scale. What it does is to filter out peak experiences that interpreted by the individuals who have them as being religious in nature,
How does it do that exactly? why would he? 90% o people believe in God why would he feel the need to filter out atheist experiences? How do you explain the fact that he made versions of the scale with non Christian langue and with no religious linage? How would that filter out atheist experience?
by declaring that those experiences are not "true" mystical experiences. Thus, Hood focuses on the religious, and ignores the rest.
where does he do that? give an example of him actually doing it.
The broader community of psychology uses other methods to determine the content of the experience, such as the "Peak Experience Scale", which is much more widely accepted in the community than the M-scale.
show me those studies
Nowhere does Hood ever refer to an atheist's experiences as not mystical: just being an atheist,he never says any particular idealize doesn't have mystical experiences.The scale is never used to exclude any group. that's so paranoid I think you know you are just slandering a great scholar.
Moreoever, Skepie misses a lot of dimensions in Maslow;s thinking ... He did not want to see a war-like struggle between religious thinkers and atheists.
- Joe, I'm not at war, but YOU are. I'm simply trying to get you to open your eyes.
bull shit. you have obviously worked out a campaign of lies about Hood, rather than going the trouble of reading his work
Maslow points out that the same universal symbols emerge in all people across culture. He confirms this connection emerges with with the use of all psychoanalytical techniques.
- That's right. And it's more than just the religious. And that's what you and Hood are missing.
You have no proof of that,show me a study that says so. in this context show me one statement by Hood that excludes atheists from mystical experience,.
[quoting Maslow] Anyone who cannot perceive the sacred, the eternal, the symbolic, is simply blind to an aspect of reality, as I think I have amply demonstrated elsewhere
- Now we see Joe's effort to deceive. Joe would have us believe that Maslow can't deny the religious nature of the experience. But that's a lie. Maslow is explaining WHY these things are often seen as religious.
where did I say that? I said Maslow observed the spiritual I didn't say anything about religious. sacred, internal,symbolic, not religious. you could read sacred as religious but we don't necessarily have to,
I'll give you another quote from the very same paper that Joe has quote-mined to serve his own ideological agenda. Referring to the use of words like "sacred" or "numinous", Maslow says this: "I shall, therefore, use these words, since I have no others to use, to refer to subjective happenings in human beings without necessarily implying any supernatural reference. I claim that it is not necessary to appeal to principles outside of nature and human nature in order to explain these experiences."
How does that contradict anything I said? I said he reduces the spiritual to psychology that means he's not into SN I said he's not. You are paranoid,
There is another view that is less denigrating to the atheists, the idea tat both have the same view they just interpret it differently.
- That's exactly what I've been telling you all along, Joe. The difference is that YOU claim they really DO have supernatural content.
Atheists no less so, which means the Catholic says it's the Holy presence and the atheist says i;ts the void
- That's not true. I've never heard any atheist call it "the void".
Bit is because you don't read and you don't research,one of the major atheist examples I used in the Trace quotes that atheist calling it the void,
Maslow certainly doesn't. What they actually say is that these are emotional and completely natural experiences. Instead of quote-mining Maslow's papers, you should try actually reading them.
U am quoting atheists who have the experience not those who spout propaganda about them. Those who have such experiences don/'t say i had a natural experience, they say I felt the void, you are assuming the void is a bad thing,The Vedantists worship the void they Make it sound appealing.
get it? they worship the void,nothing is sacred! ahahaqhahahb but it;s really true
you said Hood is the head of a Christian organization he's not. you made that up
- When you claimed that Hood was an atheist (some time ago), I researched his history and found that he used to be the head of a Christian group. I told you about it at the time, and since then, you have stopped calling him an atheist, but now you claim that he's not a Christian.
your conjecture prove it. document it. [the notion that the mainstream community of psychology refers to these experiences as "peak experiences"]
- You don't have to believe it. But you really should read something outside your little bubble.
you have no reason to think Hood is not equally so interested. your only argument against Hood comes down to I use his work in my argument making so he must be dismissed. You know nothing about his work you have never read him and you have no quotes from him
- I'm not trying to denigrate Hood as a scientist in general. The main problem I have with his work is that he separates religiously interpreted peak experiences from the rest, as if they are different things. You, on the other hand, refuse to take a broader view of the science relating to this, and you pretend that this artificial distinction is a valid basis for your ideological conclusions.
Hood is an immanent scholar, he's top researcher in the field of psychology of religion.
- Big fish in a little pond.
if it's such a small sub group how is it that I have those 200 studies and there;s not one study countering them? there is not one study showing religious experience is bad for you, all work all the research is done in the field none outside of it
- NOBODY is claiming that religious experiences are bad for you. I've told you over and over again that I don't take issue with those studies. What I take issue with it YOUR INTERPRETATION of them. It doesn't follow from the data, and NONE of those studies make the same conclusion that you do.
Skepie needs to give atheists their own Godless sense of the numinous and their own Godless undifferentiated unity,So he wants to call Mystical experience:"peak" and pretend it's a different experience even though it is just the same experience but without reference to a religious dimension
I have urged you to read Maslow, instead of just quote-mining. He addresses this. He notes (as other psychologists do) that we all share the same kind of experiences and feelings. What YOU do (following Hood, with his M-scale) is to separate them into religious vs. non-religious. It's a false distinction.
No it's not,i couldn't find a single study on just atheist expediences, Atheism only exists in contradistinction to believers,If there was no religion there would be no atheists,So even an all atheist study would be a psychology of religion study. show me a study on peak experience that makes no reference to religious experience?
- You just don't listen. This isn't about atheism vs. religion. It isn't about "atheist experiences" vs. "mystical experiences". It's about the psychology of peak experiences. The term "peak experience:" is more appropriate, because it doesn't try to make that distinction.
If Hood is trying to do that how do you explain the fact that he writes about atheists having the experience and he made versions of the M scale with religious references?
- That's the point. He is making a false distinction. And so are you. The broader scientific community doesn't make that mistake;
I don't think "mystical" necessarily connotes religious outlook although "Peak experience" may have been employed as a term to include atheist's experiences.
- Yes, it includes the experience of atheists, and Christians, and non-Christians, and all nationalities, and all walks of life. In short, it includes all of humanity. The term "mystical experience" definitely has a connotation of religious or supernatural content.
you have never read Hood You don't know how he talks, stop slandering people.
- You refuse to read outside your little bubble. So one-dimensional.
How does it do that exactly? why would he? 90% o people believe in God why would he feel the need to filter out atheist experiences? How do you explain the fact that he made versions of the scale with non Christian langue and with no religious linage? How would that filter out atheist experience?
- Hood attempts to distinguish "true mystical experience" from others. That's a false distinction.
where does he do that? give an example of him actually doing it.
- That's what YOU have said about Hood's M-scale.
Nowhere does Hood ever refer to an atheist's experiences as not mystical: just being an atheist,he never says any particular idealize doesn't have mystical experiences.The scale is never used to exclude any group. that's so paranoid I think you know you are just slandering a great scholar.
- Joe, YOU do this yourself, using Hoods work as a basis. YOU claim outright that mystical experiences have religious content and are caused by "the divine". This is your so-called "Argument From God Corrolate [sic]". And it's based on Hood's M-scale. That's what YOU say. If Hood's work doesn't support that, then where does your argument come from? Or are you just blowing a lot of smoke? Are you denying all your own earlier claims just to score a point in an argument?
bull shit. you have obviously worked out a campaign of lies about Hood, rather than going the trouble of reading his work
- Says the guy who refuses to venture outside of his little religious bubble and read some mainstream science.
where did I say that? I said Maslow observed the spiritual I didn't say anything about religious. sacred, internal,symbolic, not religious. you could read sacred as religious but we don't necessarily have to
- No, we don't have to interpret natural things as religious. And Maslow doesn't. But you certainly do. That's the problem.
How does that contradict anything I said? I said he reduces the spiritual to psychology that means he's not into SN I said he's not. You are paranoid
- No the doesn't "reduce the spiritual to psychology". He investigates human experience. You reduce psychology to "the spiritual", and argue that it must be divine in nature.
Bit is because you don't read and you don't research,one of the major atheist examples I used in the Trace quotes that atheist calling it the void
- Give us these quotes, Joe.
U am quoting atheists who have the experience not those who spout propaganda about them. Those who have such experiences don/'t say i had a natural experience, they say I felt the void, you are assuming the void is a bad thing,The Vedantists worship the void they Make it sound appealing.
- Vedantists? Those are religious people who believe in supernatural bullshit, just like you.
get it? they worship the void,nothing is sacred! ahahaqhahahb but it;s really true
- How dishonest you are.
before we go any further link me to a place where i call Hood an atheist
I told Hood the hogwash you are saying about him he just hauled his head off and said "why the hell would I care if atheists have mystical experiences?"
Joe
you said Hood is the head of a Christian organization he's not. you made that up
Skep
- When you claimed that Hood was an atheist (some time ago), I researched his history and found that he used to be the head of a Christian group. I told you about it at the time, and since then, you have stopped calling him an atheist, but now you claim that he's not a Christian.
Right that was the day you told me you are the only survivor of the Planet Krypton right?
Reader notice by upping then ante on a bigger lie he removes the focus from the fact that he still has not named the Christian organization,I never said Hood was an atheist I've all along he's unity or Unitarian.
Joeyour conjecture prove it. document it. [the notion that the mainstream community of psychology refers to these experiences as "peak experiences"]
- You don't have to believe it. But you really should read something outside your little bubble.
In other words you made it up
Joeyou have no reason to think Hood is not equally so interested in scientific answers]. your only argument against Hood comes down to I use his work in my argument making so he must be dismissed. You know nothing about his work you have never read him and you have no quotes from him
- I'm not trying to denigrate Hood as a scientist in general.
if course not but you did
Skep The main problem I have with his work is that he separates religiously interpreted peak experiences from the rest, as if they are different things.
(1) No reason why he shouldn't if the goal is to study religions experience then you have to.
(2) He makes the obvious distinction but I;m not sure what you mean by separates? Before you were complaining because seperates whatevertahtmeans ?soundslike a contradiction
You, on the other hand, refuse to take a broader view of the science relating to this, and you pretend that this artificial distinction is a valid basis for your ideological conclusions.
what do you mean by taking a broader view;I've said many times and written in my book atheists have mystical experiences, if that;'s what you mean by hot being broad. After all I;ve said the experiences are in every culture and every faith how is that not broad?
Hood is an immanent scholar, he's top researcher in the field of psychology of religion.
- Big fish in a little pond.
It's the only field studying religious experience, It has 200 empirical studies not being studied in all the rest of psychology.
you still have not documented your little delusion. On the other post I documented that Hood;s journal is number 30 under the heading of sociology with 136 overall that;makes it very important. so your assertion is unsubstantiated as always, still have not done one damn thing to back it up.
if it's such a small sub group how is it that I have those 200 studies and there;s not one study countering them? there is not one study showing religious experience is bad for you, all work all the research is done in the field none outside of it
- NOBODY is claiming that religious experiences are bad for you. I've told you over and over again that I don't take issue with those studies. What I take issue with it YOUR INTERPRETATION of them. It doesn't follow from the data, and NONE of those studies make the same conclusion that you do.
you miss the point as usual The only studies in psychology not in pscy of religion that deal with mystical experience are bad studies by people like
borg who try to show that it;s bad for you or part of mentalists, no one takes them seriously. I documented Qmq4o qsqyin pscyhologyaess ,
JoeSkepie needs to give atheists their own Godless sense of the numinous and their own Godless undifferentiated unity,So he wants to call Mystical experience:"peak" and pretend it's a different experience even though it is just the same experience but without reference to a religious dimension
SkepI have urged you to read Maslow,
I've read Maslow several times Einstein, I quoted him at length in that last post's comment section, I; e quoted him often I read the Peak experience book about five times
instead of just quote-mining. He addresses this. He notes (as other psychologists do) that we all share the same kind of experiences and feelings. What YOU do (following Hood, with his M-scale) is to separate them into religious vs. non-religious. It's a false distinction.
________________
IfI am trying to make two separate experiences how do you explain what I said in the major blog post of Monday "psychology, Atheists,and Mysical Experiece? "There is another view that is less denigrating to the atheists, the idea tat both have the same view they just interpret it differently. That is what all mystics do. They experience "it" beyond their understanding they only really understand in the experience but they can't talk about it. To talk about it they must load it into cultural constructs which changes it. Typically mystics try to explain their experiences through their doctrine. Atheists no less so, which means the Catholic says it's the Holy presence and the atheist says i;ts the void, In fact the descriptions of Vedanta sound a lot like atheists but they are not atheists,
__________________
No it's not,i couldn't find a single study on just atheist expediences, Atheism only exists in contradistinction to believers,If there was no religion there would be no atheists,So even an all atheist study would be a psychology of religion study. show me a study on peak experience that makes no reference to religious experience?
- You just don't listen. This isn't about atheism vs. religion. It isn't about "atheist experiences" vs. "mystical experiences". It's about the psychology of peak experiences. The term "peak experience:" is more appropriate, because it doesn't try to make that distinction.
there I was talking about how the experience is archived not the nature of it, another refutation of your bull shit about two experiences, one of the most important points coming out of Hood's work is the realization that the experiences are the same that's the Stace theory that he set out to validate,teh common Core, All mystical excrescence all religion has a common core its the same experience, they all interroitiot differently
If Hood is trying to do that how do you explain the fact that he writes about atheists having the experience and he made versions of the M scale with religious references?
skep- That's the point. He is making a false distinction. And so are you. The broader scientific community doesn't make that mistake;
NOOOOOO! I knew you thought that, when are you going start paying attention? I've explained this many times. he makes different versions test to get around language problems. If I give an atheist a test asking if they felt the pence of God would that make sense? He's going to say no he wold get a low score. asking if he felt the great void or something some general way they get a high score then are counted as mystical they are not kiddie out for screwing high on the atheist test.the multiple versions are inclusive
Reader notice by upping then ante on a bigger lie he removes the focus from the fact that he still has not named the Christian organization,I never said Hood was an atheist I've all along he's unity or Unitarian.
- First you said he was an atheist. This was a lame attempt to prove me wrong by claiming he was not religious. When I showed that You were wrong (if you want to see where this took place, YOU take the time to find it - I have a life), you changed your claim to Hood not being a Christian, which is still wrong. I don't know what his denomination is, But if he's a unitarian, he's still a Christian.
In other words you made it up
- Anything outside your little bubble is made up. Fake news! Fake news!
(1) No reason why he shouldn't if the goal is to study religions experience then you have to.
(2) He makes the obvious distinction but I;m not sure what you mean by separates? Before you were complaining because seperates whatevertahtmeans ?soundslike a contradiction
- Joe, your whole argument is based on the claim that mystical experience IS religious in nature. If it doesn't have the religious content that you claim, then your M-scale tells us that it isn't a "genuine" mystical experience. Your book is all about making the case for this argument. You stated it on your blog. I will repeat it here:
(1) Real effects come from real causes
(2) If effects are real chances are the cause is real
(3) the effects of mystical experience are real
(4) Therefore, the cause of mystical experience is real.
(5) the content of mystical experience is about the divine
(6) Since the content of ME is divine the cause must be the divine
(7) Since the cause is real and it is divine then the divine must be real.
(8) Therefore belief in the divine is warranted by ME
Joe, you go on and on about the M-scale, and how it tells you which experiences are real mystical experiences. And you clearly state in this argument that "the content of mystical experience is about the divine". That obviously excludes any other peak experience that isn't interpreted as religious. All of this comes directly from what YOU have written.
what do you mean by taking a broader view
- Your view is restricted to the religious aspect. You refuse to open your eyes and see the bigger picture.
It's the only field studying religious experience, It has 200 empirical studies not being studied in all the rest of psychology.
- Yes, if you want to take a restrictive view of religious content in these experiences. But the broader community of psychology ALSO studies these same experiences without taking that restrictive view.
you miss the point as usual The only studies in psychology not in pscy of religion that deal with mystical experience are bad studies by people like borg who try to show that it;s bad for you or part of mentalists, no one takes them seriously. I documented Qmq4o qsqyin pscyhologyaess
- So now you admit that there IS more out there. I don't know Borg, or what his work shows. But I DO know that you automatically dismiss anything outside your little bubble, because it doesn't serve your ideological purpose.
I've read Maslow several times Einstein, I quoted him at length in that last post's comment section, I; e quoted him often I read the Peak experience book about five times
- You cherry-picked a quote to make it sound as if he sees some kind of supernatural content in those experiences. You ignore everything else he says.
IfI am trying to make two separate experiences how do you explain what I said in the major blog post of Monday "psychology, Atheists,and Mysical Experiece? "
- It's the same as what you did with Maslow. You say "the atheist" describes the content of these experiences as "the void", and you equate that with the divine content that you say is experienced by religionists. But that is NOT the way non-religious people interpret it. You are being dishonest. The FACT is that atheists have the same kind of experience without attributing it to some kind of divine or transcendental phenomenon.
one of the most important points coming out of Hood's work is the realization that the experiences are the same that's the Stace theory that he set out to validate,teh common Core
- Stace's common core is about the "unity of all things". It is a RELIGIOUS view. What Hood does is to use his M-scale to filter out everything else, and than declare that everyone who has this experience shares the same thing. Well, DUH! Open your eyes, Joe. There's more to it than that. There are other ways of interpreting the experience, and there's NO REAL BASIS for making the arguments and conclusions that you have made.
Joe:
I don't think "mystical" necessarily connotes religious outlook although "Peak experience" may have been employed as a term to include atheist's experiences.
Skep:
- Yes, it includes the experience of atheists, and Christians, and non-Christians, and all nationalities, and all walks of life. In short, it includes all of humanity. The term "mystical experience" definitely has a connotation of religious or supernatural content.
so does mystical Mystical only Means you can't talk about it
Joe: you have never read Hood You don't know how he talks, stop slandering people.
Skep:- You refuse to read outside your little bubble. So one-dimensional.
that is such bull shit/ you lying little swine I am clearly far better read than you are,jackass. I was in phD program in history of Ideas for 12 years,I studied Derrida for four of those years, read Lacan, and Boriard, Mrx, Gracisce and Trotksy I ran an academic journal on the Frankfort School and read Marcuse, you are autocratically literate you can't even read a blog post,ignorant know nothing,
Joe:How does it do that exactly? why would he? 90% o people believe in God why would he feel the need to filter out atheist experiences? How do you explain the fact that he made versions of the scale with non Christian langue and with no religious linage? How would that filter out atheist experience?
Skep:- Hood attempts to distinguish "true mystical experience" from others. That's a false distinction.
Remember above you admitted that you base that on the fact he made different versions of the M scale, I said you are think he's excluding atheists but I said he;'s actually including them.
Now it turns out you really don;t understand what it means to be able to tell a true mystical experience from a false one, Obviously we need to be able to determine what the experience is, you can't study it if you can't define it,Hood defined it by Stace's theory he validated Stace to prove his theory was valid,
Reader notice by upping then ante on a bigger lie he removes the focus from the fact that he still has not named the Christian organization,I never said Hood was an atheist I've all along he's unity or Unitarian.
- First you said he was an atheist.
nope another damn lie ,you lie almost as much as Trump.
This was a lame attempt to prove me wrong by claiming he was not religious. When I showed that You were wrong (if you want to see where this took place, YOU take the time to find it - I have a life), you changed your claim to Hood not being a Christian, which is still wrong. I don't know what his denomination is, But if he's a unitarian, he's still a Christian.
I still don;t see you quotingmeor linkingtomy words,lying shit hole.
slandering and lying a lot you are really just about to go byebye from this blog,
In other words you made it up
- Anything outside your little bubble is made up. Fake news! Fake news!
(1) No reason why he shouldn't if the goal is to study religions experience then you have to.
(2) He makes the obvious distinction but I;m not sure what you mean by separates? Before you were complaining because seperates whatevertahtmeans ?soundslike a contradiction
- Joe, your whole argument is based on the claim that mystical experience IS religious in nature. If it doesn't have the religious content that you claim, then your M-scale tells us that it isn't a "genuine" mystical experience. Your book is all about making
stop trying to pretend like you understand the scale because you don't
when you say:"If it doesn't have the religious content that you claim, then your M-scale tells us that it isn't a genuine" we know you know nothing about because that's the opposite of the way it works,Rather than saying it doens't have a religious content that;s why Hood made a non religious version to get over the bais of language, it does not have to have religious content to score high on the M scale it has to have a STace content, ut has to fit Stace's theory,
the basic thing religious experience is is undifferentiated unity that does not have to relate to God or to deity, it usually does in people;s experience but it does't have to he M scale is not designed that way
the case for this argument. You stated it on your blog. I will repeat it here:
(1) Real effects come from real causes
(2) If effects are real chances are the cause is real
(3) the effects of mystical experience are real
(4) Therefore, the cause of mystical experience is real.
(5) the content of mystical experience is about the divine
(6) Since the content of ME is divine the cause must be the divine
(7) Since the cause is real and it is divine then the divine must be real.
(8) Therefore belief in the divine is warranted by ME
I also said it;s a probability argument so when it says "the content of mystical experience is about the divine" it means it is probably so because in most cases it tends to be,
Joe, you go on and on about the M-scale, and how it tells you which experiences are real mystical experiences. And you clearly state in this argument that "the content of mystical experience is about the divine". That obviously excludes any other peak experience that isn't interpreted as religious. All of this comes directly from what YOU have written.
I didn't say that because it's on the M scale I said that because it really does tend to be so. I also think I show that atheists experiences are of God they are just interpreted differently
11:27 AM Delete
so does mystical Mystical only Means you can't talk about it
- I don't confine it to only what is seen as the experience of God. You do.
you lying little swine I am clearly far better read than you are,jackass ... you are autocratically literate you can't even read a blog post,ignorant know nothing
- Right, Joe. I've never read anything. I think the real jackass in this conversation is readily apparent.
Remember above you admitted that you base that on the fact he made different versions of the M scale, I said you are think he's excluding atheists but I said he;'s actually including them
- You don't get what I was saying. It's not an issue of whether he excludes atheists. I NEVER said that. It's an issue of excluding non-religious interpretations of the experience. I agree that an atheist can have a mystical interpretation of a peak experience, or something equivalent. What the M-scale does is set aside any interpretation different from that. That's the problem with your argument. You have only one way of seeing it, and you assume that is the only way that is valid, because you have your M-scale telling you that if it isn't mystical, it isn't real.
Obviously we need to be able to determine what the experience is, you can't study it if you can't define it,Hood defined it by Stace's theory he validated Stace to prove his theory was valid
- Your view is restricted to religious content. Stace "defined" it as a feeling of the "unity of all things" - in other words, all things are united in God. But this is NOT a scientific understanding of a natural emotional experience, and the broader scientific community (including Maslow, who you love to quote) agrees with me, not with you.
IReader notice by upping then ante on a bigger lie he removes the focus from the fact that he still has not named the Christian organization,I never said Hood was an atheist I've all along he's unity or Unitarian.
- The point back then is the same as it is now. It's the fact that he has a RELIGIOUS ideology. It's true, no matter how much you try to deny it.
Rather than saying it doesn't have a religious content that;s why Hood made a non religious version to get over the bais of language, it does not have to have religious content to score high on the M scale it has to have a STace content, ut has to fit Stace's theory
- I'm convinced that YOU don't understand it. Hood is still trying to distill the experience down to religious content. He has a version for atheists that doesn't use overtly religious terminology, but the objective is the same.
the basic thing religious experience is is undifferentiated unity that does not have to relate to God or to deity, it usually does in people;s experience but it does't have to he M scale is not designed that way
- Yes, it's religious. That's what YOU say. It's right there in your own argument. Science doesn't study "the unity of all things".
I also said it;s a probability argument so when it says "the content of mystical experience is about the divine" it means it is probably so because in most cases it tends to be
- You never talked about probability when you presented this argument. You are quite clear that the content is divine, and the cause must be divine.
I didn't say that because it's on the M scale I said that because it really does tend to be so. I also think I show that atheists experiences are of God they are just interpreted differently
- You insist it's "the divine". But only after the M-scale has rejected everything else. Can't have reality creeping in to mess up your theory. You ignore that peak experiences are NOT always religious in content.
Joe:
so does mystical; Mystical only Means you can't talk about it
- I don't confine it to only what is seen as the experience of God. You do.
I just told you mystical means an ex-experience beyond one's conceptual ability to understand,do you not understand the concept of "tendnecy?"
Joe:you lying little swine I am clearly far better read than you are,jackass ... you are autocratically i;literate you can't even read a blog post,ignorant know nothing
- Right, Joe. I've never read anything. I think the real jackass in this conversation is readily apparent.
I say that rather than believe you're so stupid you keep referring to things I've answered as though I didn't answer them because you just don't get it,rather than believe that I believe you didn't read it,
Joe:Remember above you admitted that you base that on the fact he made different versions of the M scale, I said you are think he's excluding atheists but I said he;'s actually including them
- You don't get what I was saying. It's not an issue of whether he excludes atheists. I NEVER said that. It's an issue of excluding non-religious interpretations of the experience.
That's what we are talking about He's not excluding interpretation he's making versions of the test that are not biased by any particular serious belief. How can he make a version that is not based for belief in God and yet exclude non belief in God? Obviously you are wrong, get that I'm going to repeat that
That's what we are talking about. He's not excluding interpretation he's making versions of the test that are not biased by any particular serious belief. How can he make a version that is not based for belief in God and yet exclude non belief in God? Obviously you are wrong, get that I'm going to repeat that
He's not excluding interpretation he's making versions of the test that are not biased by any particular serious belief. How can he make a version that is not based for belief in God and yet exclude non belief in God?
Joe:Obviously we need to be able to determine what the experience is, you can't study it if you can't define it,Hood defined it by Stace's theory he validated Stace to prove his theory was valid.
- Your view is restricted to religious content. Stace "defined" it as a feeling of the "unity of all things" - in other words, all things are united in God.
You have not read Stace you don;t know that he says that.You are just assuming it because it;s necessary to your little delusional world of dismissing Hood. Listen Trump you are in the bubble,of your own delusional world. I've already told you that that concept need not necessarily be about God,
But this is NOT a scientific understanding of a natural emotional experience, and the broader scientific community (including Maslow, who you love to quote) agrees with me, not with you.
You have no basis for the term a natural emotion,: Mystical experience is not an emotion it;s a level of consciousness, You are trying to sound quasi scientific but you know the first thing about it,
Reader notice by upping the ante on a bigger lie he removes the focus from the fact that he still has not named the Christian organization,I never said Hood was an atheist I've all along he's unity or Unitarian.
- The point back then is the same as it is now. It's the fact that he has a RELIGIOUS ideology. It's true, no matter how much you try to deny it.
NO HE DOES NOT HAVE A RELIGIOUS IDEOLOGY YOU ARE JUST DOING THAT THROUGH GUILT BY ASSOCIATION. YOU DON'T KNOW FUCKING SHIT ABOUT HOOD(i ALREADY QUOTED THE PASSAGE FROM HIS BOOK WHERE HE SAYS THAT AS A SOCIAL SCIENTIST HE'S EXCLUDED FROM ARGUMENTS ABOUT THE EXISTENCE OF GOD.
YOU DID NOT READ IT, HERE IS ANOTHER EXAMPLE
Joe:Rather than saying it doesn't have a religious content that;s why Hood made a non religious version to get over the bais of language, it does not have to have religious content to score high on the M scale it has to have a STace content, ut has to fit Stace's theory
- I'm convinced that YOU don't understand it. Hood is still trying to distill the experience down to religious content. He has a version for atheists that doesn't use overtly religious terminology, but the objective is the same.
It's completely obvious that you lack the conceptual machinery to understand how the test works. There's no way to exclude someone from the test on the basis of religious belief (or lack there of) especially in the test that is configured to avoid the bias of religious language. The scoring is tied the specific test,There's no no score for reflecting belief in God.
Joe:the basic thing religious experience is is undifferentiated unity that does not have to relate to God or to deity, it usually does in people;s experience but it does't have to he M scale is not designed that way
- Yes, it's religious. That's what YOU say. It's right there in your own argument. Science doesn't study "the unity of all things".
Not all people sense that as a relation to any kind of deity, or maybe they do and they interpret t it differently,But the point is there's nothing intrinsically religious about undifferentiated unity. If you don't link it and you just ask the question that way with no reference to God how are you going to know who to exclude?
I also said it;s a probability argument so when it says "the content of mystical experience is about the divine" it means it is probably so because in most cases it tends to be
- You never talked about probability when you presented this argument. You are quite clear that the content is divine, and the cause must be divine.
It's based upon people's actual experiences how could it not be a probability argument? it's inductive.
JoeI didn't say that because it's on the M scale I said that because it really does tend to be so. I also think I show that atheists experiences are of God they are just interpreted differently
- You insist it's "the divine". But only after the M-scale has rejected everything else. Can't have reality creeping in to mess up your theory. You ignore that peak experiences are NOT always religious in content.
Look doufus you don't know how M scale works. There is no way to exclude people;s beliefs, there no questions about doctrine, no questions about beliefs,
9:00 PM Delete
Highlights
Hood has no Religious ideological motive, He opposes social scientists arguing for existence of God. quoting Hood
"For Some Mystical experience cannot support a belief that one has united with God or experienced ultimate reality, for others mysticism is an experience that provides sufficient warrant for belie in God or ultimate reality....our concern as social scientists ls restricted to the aspect of these literatures that have direct relevance for empirical research. Of immediate concern is the clarification of the nature of mystical experience as well as it's relationship to other forms of mystical experience"[12] [12] Ralph Hood Jr. and Bernard Spilka,et al "Mysticism, Chapter 11, " The Psychology of Religion: A Empirical Approach. 4th Ed.New Yor, Lomdo: Guildord Press. 2009, 332.
no way to exclude people for their belief or lack of it
Me: That's what we are talking about He's not excluding interpretation he's making versions of the test that are not biased by any particular serious belief. How can he make a version that is not based for belief in God and yet exclude non belief in God?
There's no way to exclude someone from the test on the basis of religious belief (or lack there of) especially in the test that is configured to avoid the bias of religious language. The scoring is tied the specific test,There's no no score for reflecting belief in God.
I just told you mystical means an ex-experience beyond one's conceptual ability to understand,do you not understand the concept of "tendnecy?"
- "beyond one's conceptual ability to understand" equates to something transcendental. But just because many people don't understand the emotional feeling they are having is no reason to assert that it is anything more than a natural emotion.
I say that rather than believe you're so stupid you keep referring to things I've answered as though I didn't answer them because you just don't get it,rather than believe that I believe you didn't read it
- You are impervious to my responses. I answer your statements, and it's as if I never said anything at all. You completely fail to understand.
That's what we are talking about He's not excluding interpretation he's making versions of the test that are not biased by any particular serious belief.
- Listen to what I'm saying for once. I'll put it in plain English. I get that Hood has a version of the questionnaire for people who don't make an explicitly religious interpretation of it. What the M-scale is looking for is the "common core" of Stace. It's what Hood has equated with this "sense of unity" or "ultimate reality". Even an atheist can have this kind of feeling without seeing it as God. I GET THAT. Now YOU get this: the M-scale filters out anyone who doesn't report that kind of feeling, telling us that it's not a "genuine mystical experience".
He's not excluding interpretation he's making versions of the test that are not biased by any particular serious belief.
- yes, it does exclude all interpretations that are not deemed to be "genuine". That's what you can't get through your head.
You have not read Stace you don;t know that he says that.You are just assuming it because it;s necessary to your little delusional world of dismissing Hood. Listen Trump you are in the bubble,of your own delusional world. I've already told you that that concept need not necessarily be about God
- But it IS about God. You said so yourself. You believe this common core, this sense of ultimate reality is God. And you believe that an atheist who has this feeling is really experiencing God.
You have no basis for the term a natural emotion,: Mystical experience is not an emotion it;s a level of consciousness, You are trying to sound quasi scientific but you know the first thing about it
- It's a natural emotion, Joe. That's what science tells us. That's what Maslow believed, and any real scientist who has ever investigated these things.
NO HE DOES NOT HAVE A RELIGIOUS IDEOLOGY YOU ARE JUST DOING THAT THROUGH GUILT BY ASSOCIATION. YOU DON'T KNOW FUCKING SHIT ABOUT HOOD
- I know he's religious, and I know he uses this M-scale to put a scientific spin on religious belief. And I know you buy it, while ignoring the mainstream scientific community, because it's what you want to hear.
It's completely obvious that you lack the conceptual machinery to understand how the test works.
- Say what you want about me. It's obvious that you are blinded by your religious ideology.
Not all people sense that as a relation to any kind of deity, or maybe they do and they interpret t it differently,But the point is there's nothing intrinsically religious about undifferentiated unity.
- I agree that the experience itself is not inherently religious. But that doesn't stop YOU from insisting that it is an experience of God. As far as you're concerned, it IS religious.
It's based upon people's actual experiences how could it not be a probability argument? it's inductive.
- The point is that YOU never spoke of it that way. There's nothing about that in your own argument.
Hood has no Religious ideological motive, He opposes social scientists arguing for existence of God. quoting Hood
- The quote you provide says nothing about arguing for the existence of God. Hood doesn't explicitly do that. He's trying to give his belief a facade of scientific objectivity. But he clearly has stacked the deck.
ME: I just told you mystical means an ex-experience beyond one's conceptual ability to understand,do you not understand the concept of "tendnecy?"
- "beyond one's conceptual ability to understand" equates to something transcendental. But just because many people don't understand the emotional feeling they are having is no reason to assert that it is anything more than a natural emotion.
Transcendental does not expatiate to God or to transcendent, transcendental //= transcend, leash something. Even transcendent does not necessarily mean God, But show me where Hood says ME is transcendent. Natural does not preclude transcendent.
You do not know what transcendental means,
I say that rather than believe you're so stupid you keep referring to things I've answered as though I didn't answer them because you just don't get it,rather than believe that I believe you didn't read it
- You are impervious to my responses. I answer your statements, and it's as if I never said anything at all. You completely fail to understand.
your answers always show extreme ignorance,like the one above,
That's what we are talking about He's not excluding interpretation he's making versions of the test that are not biased by any particular serious belief.
rather than serious it should sacrilegious
- Listen to what I'm saying for once. I'll put it in plain English. I get that Hood has a version of the questionnaire for people who don't make an explicitly religious interpretation of it. What the M-scale is looking for is the "common core" of Stace. It's what Hood has equated with this "sense of unity" or "ultimate reality". Even an atheist can have this kind of feeling without seeing it as God. I GET THAT. Now YOU get this: the M-scale filters out anyone who doesn't report that kind of feeling, telling us that it's not a "genuine mystical experience".
tell me how it does that genius? how does it do that? it does't score those kind of answers lower so how does it filter them out?
let;s also remember you do not know shit about this,you have never seen an M scale or even a single question from one,
He's not excluding interpretation he's making versions of the test that are not biased by any particular serious belief.
you have no idea what that means, when I said it can be used to tell real mystical experience form false one you have no idea how it does it, you are only conjecturing that this has some means of excluding certain types of answers,, since you don;t know how it works you can;t know,
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- yes, it does exclude all interpretations that are not deemed to be "genuine". That's what you can't get through your head.
stop pretending you know how it works is dumb I'm not going to talk to you about this any more, you don not understand it and you think you know all about it Read the post I did on Wednesday because that explains it all.
ME is not a feeling, M scale does not weed out false experiences on the basis of just deeming the not genuine,
go read the last post I did and learn something about it
You have not read Stace you don;t know that he says that.You are just assuming it because it;s necessary to your little delusional world of dismissing Hood. Listen Trump you are in the bubble,of your own delusional world. I've already told you that that concept need not necessarily be about God
- But it IS about God. You said so yourself. You believe this common core, this sense of ultimate reality is God. And you believe that an atheist who has this feeling is really experiencing God.
don;t be daft, you don;t know shit about God or belief in God. You have no basis for the term a natural emotion,: Mystical experience is not an emotion it;s a level of consciousness, You are trying to sound quasi scientific but you know the first thing about it
- It's a natural emotion, Joe. That's what science tells us. That's what Maslow believed, and any real scientist who has ever investigated these things.
it is not an emotion its a level of consciousness, emotions are like pity love, anger. ME includes sensation but sensation is not emotion, per se. putting your hand real cold water is a sensation, it's not an emotion, ME is also consciousness because it raises the level of awareness of the nature of being, that i not emotion,
9:40 AM Delete
Skep I know it's a struggle for you to read but read this post it will show how the scale works and why your ideas of it are wrong
the Empiroical Study of Mystical Experience
Skep I know it's a struggle for you to read but read this post it will show how the scale works and why your ideas of it are wrong ... the Empiroical Study of Mystical Experience
- Joe, there isn't one word in that article that I haven't heard from you already - numerous times. What new piece of information do you expect me to get from this?
The thing is, I do understand scientific analysis. I understand it far better than you can ever hope to. I've done plenty of it myself. You can stop the pretense of intellectual superiority. You're not fooling anyone, except perhaps for one or two of your most avid followers.
And it's because I understand that I am able to make criticism. I explained the major problem with Hood's work, and you just don't get it. It sails right past you. You misinterpret what I'm telling you precisely because you don't understand it. And then you try to tell me how stupid and ignorant I am. Lay off, Joe. Trust me on this. It only reveals your own level of intellect.
Metacrock:Skep I know it's a struggle for you to read but read this post it will show how the scale works and why your ideas of it are wrong ... the Empirical Study of Mystical Experience
- Joe, there isn't one word in that article that I haven't heard from you already - numerous times. What new piece of information do you expect me to get from this?
Obviously you don't understand it. The statements you make about "it's excluding atheists" when the test is worded to exclude the bias of belief in God, shows me you don't get any of it. You don't get the first thing of how it works,
The thing is, I do understand scientific analysis. I understand it far better than you can ever hope to.
this is not really a matter of scientific analysis you don't understand how the M scale distinguishes real mystical experience from false, because if you did you would see why it can't exclude atheist experience, So you don't get that but that's not so much science as good reading stills, you don;'t have them.
I'm not going to play that little ego involvement game trying to make yourself feel important n because you are Superior to some "out group" that doesn't adhere to your ideological indoctrination, don't say that again because I wont tolerate it.
I've done plenty of it myself. You can stop the pretense of intellectual superiority. You're not fooling anyone, except perhaps for one or two of your most avid followers.
Plenty of what? Bull shit? I've noticed.
And it's because I understand that I am able to make criticism.
Your criticisms are stupid, they are jack ass assertions you could not be more wrong,
I explained the major problem with Hood's work,
hahahahahhahahahahahahhahabahahahahahahahahhhahahm I corrected the work of upstart Hawking, for some reason he insists that he knows more than I do, That can't be because he doesn't subscribe to my worldview. You are good for a laugh anyway.
Listen Skep stop making it about yiour self wroth, who knows more science is irrelevant, its not a matter of being science worthy to win an argument you have to be on point.
this has degenerated into ego involvement os i;m closing it,
THREAT CLOSED!,
thread closed
Listen, you moron. I NEVER SAID IT EXCLUDES ATHEISTS.
you said filter them out, filtering out is excluding
" I know he's religious, and I know he uses this M-scale to put a scientific spin on religious belief. And I know you buy it, while ignoring the mainstream scientific community, because it's what you want to hear."
you are quite an imbecile. The test is worded to allow high score in spite of not being religious how does that privilege religious belief?
you never said what religious organization Hood headed?, what church does he go to if he;'s so religious?
Joe, I wish you'd learn to read. I NEVER said the M-scale filters out atheists. I said it filters out various interpretations of the peak experience that are not deemed to be "genuine", regardless of who has them. YOU are the one who filters out atheists. You simply don't hear anything but your own narrow view. You certainly don't hear what I'm trying to tell you.
can the hysterics, you did say filtered,There is no real difference in the two, Stop acting like it somehow vindicates your stupidity it does not!
I told you it's closed
BLIND. You are totally blind to what I say.
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