Atheist chance to debate me:Thomas Reid argument (or From Epistemic Judgment)

Thomas Reid 1710-1796

This is my own original God Argument and it is my favorite

If you want to debate, I promise I will be nice, and we can debate here in the comment box. Christians/ theists please comment what do you think of the argument?

Reid never made this argument he just inspired it.

Argument:

(1) No empirical evidence can prove the existence of the external world, other minds, or the reality of history, or other such basic things.

(2) We do not find this epistemological dilemma debilitating on a daily basis because we assume that if our experiences are consistent and regular than we can navigate in "reality" whether it is ultimately illusory of not.

(3) Consistency and regularity of personal experience is the key.

(4) religious experience can also be regular and consistent, perhaps not to the same degree, but in the same way.

(5) Inersubjective

RE of this type has a commonality shared by bleievers all over the world, in different times and diffrent places, just as the exeternal world seems to be percieved the same by everyone.

(6) Real and Lasting effects.

(7) therefore, we have as much justification for assuming religious belief based upon experince as for assuming the reality of the external world or the existence of other minds.

*We assume reality by means of a Jugement

*we make such jugements based upon criteria

*Because RE fits the same criteria we are justfied in making the same assumption; ie that these experinces are idicative of a reality.

The criteria: If our experiences are:

*Regular
*consistant
*inter=subjective
*navigational

Then we assume our eperience3s reflect reality.

VIII. The Thomas Reid Argument.

A. How do we Know the external world exists?

Philosophers have often expressed skepticism about the external world, the existence of other minds, and even one's own existence. Rene Descartes went so far as to build an elaborate system of rationalism to demonstrate the existence of the external world, beginning with his famous cogito, "I think, therefore, I am." Of course, he didn't really doubt his own existence. The point was to show the method of rationalism at work. Nevertheless, this basic point, that of epistemology (how we know what we know) has always plagued philosophy. It seems no one has ever really given an adequate account. But the important point here is not so much what philosophers have said but what most people do. The way we approach life on a daily basis the assumptions we make about the external world. Skeptics are fond of saying that it is irrational to believe things without proof. I would argue that they, an all of us, believe the most crucial and most basic things without any proof whosoever, and we live based upon those assumptions which are gleaned with no proof of their veracity at all!

B. Consider Thomas Reid's Common Sense Philosophy of Foundatinalism and Fallibalism.

The point of departure here is Reid's discussion of Hume and the problem of justification of the external world. This is discussed in lecture notes of a contemporary philosopher, G.J. Mattey, in his lecture notes.

1) Skepticism about the External World

Thomas Reid, Theory of Knowledge lecture notes.G.J. Mattey
Philosophy, UC Davis

"Consider the question whether we are justified in believing that a physical world exists. As David Hume pointed out, the skepticism generated by philosophical arguments is contrary to our natural inclination to believe that there are physical objects." "[T]he skeptic . . . must assent to the principle concerning the existence of body, tho' he cannot pretend by any arguments of philosophy to maintain its veracity. Nature has not left this to his choice, and has doubtless esteem'd it an affair of too great importance to be trusted to our uncertain reasonings and speculations. We may well ask, What causes induce us to believe in the existence of body?, but 'tis in vain to ask, Whether there be body or not? That is a point, which we must take for granted in all our reasoning." (A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, Part IV, Section II) "Nonetheless, after considering the causes of our belief in the existence of body and finding them inadequate for the justification of that belief, Hume admitted to be drawn away form his orignal assumption that bodies exist. 'To be ingenuous, I feel myself at present . . . more inclin'd to repose no faith at all in my senses, or rather imagination, than to place in it such an implicit confidence,' because ''tis impossible upon any system to defend either our understanding or senses." His solution to these doubts was "carelessness and in-attention,' which divert the mind from skeptical arguments."

2) Reid's Defense of Commonsense Beliefs.

Mattey again:

"Thomas Reid, who was a later contemporary of Hume's, claimed that our beliefs in the external world are justified.'I shall take it for granted that the evidence of sense, when the proper circumstances concur, is good evidence, and a just ground of belief' (Essay on the Intellectual Powers of Man, Essay IV, Chapter XX). This evidence is different from that of reasoning from premises to a conclusion, however."

"That the evidence of sense is of a different kind, needs little proof. No man seeks a reason for believing what he sees or feels; and, if he did, it would be difficult to find one. But, though he can give no reason for believing his senses, his belief remains as firm as if it were grounded on demonstration. Many eminent philosophers, thinking it unreasonable to believe when the could not shew a reason, have laboured to furnish us with reasons for believing our senses; but their reasons are very insufficient, and will not bear examination. Other philosophers have shewn very clearly the fallacy of these reasons, and have, as they imagine, discovered invincible reasons agains this belief; but they have never been able either to shake it themselves or to convince others. The statesman continues to plod, the soldier to fight, and the merchant to export and ijmport, without being in the least moved by the demonstations that have been offered of the non-existence of those things about which they are so seriously employed. And a man may as soon by reasoning, pull the moon out of her orbit, as destroy the belief of the objects of sense." (Essay on the Intellectual Powers of Man, Essay IV, Chapter XX)

"Here Reid shows himself to have foundationalist tendencies, in the sense that our beliefs about physical objects are not justified by appeal to other beliefs. On the other hand, all he has established at this point is what Hume had already observed, that beliefs about physical objects are very hard to shake off. Hume himself admitted only to lose his faith in the senses when he was deeply immersed in skeptical reflections. But why should Reid think these deeply-held beliefs are based on "good evidence" or "a just ground?" One particularly telling observation is that a philosopher's "knowledge of what really exists, or did exist, comes by another channel [than reason], which is open to those who cannot reason. He is led to it in the dark, and knows not how he came by it" (Essay on the Intellectual Powers of Man, Essay IV, Chapter XX). Philosophers "cannot account for" this knowledge and must humbly accept it s a gift of heaven."

"If there is no philosophical account of justification of beliefs about the physical world, how could Reid claim that they are justified at all? The answer is the way in which they support common sense."

"Such original and natural judgments [based on sense-experience] are, therefore, a part of that furniture which Nature hath given to the human understanding. They are the inspiration of the Almighty, no less than our notions or simple apprehensions. They serve to direct us in the common affairs of life, where our reasoning faculty would leave us in the dark. They are part of our constitution; and all the discoveries of our reason are grounded upon them. They make up what is called the common sense of mankind; and, what is manifestly contrary to any of those first principles, is what we call absurd. (An Inquiry into the Human Mind, Chapter VII, Section 4)"

"One might say that judgments from sense-experience they are justified insofar as they justify other beliefs we have, or perhaps because they are the output of a perceptual system designed by God to convey the truth. (Of course, if the latter is what gives these beliefs their justification, the claim that we are designed in this way needs to be justified as well.)"

C. In other words, We accept the existence of the external world as a matter of course merely because we perceive it.

1) Acceptance of Perceptions about the world.

But it is not merely because we percieve it that we accept it. It is because we perceive it in a particular sort of way. Because we perceive it in a regular and consistent way. This has been stated above by Reid. The common man goes on with his lot never giving a second thought to the fact that he can no more prove the veracity of the things around him than he can the existence of God or anything else in philosophy. Yet we accept it, as does the skeptic demanding his data, while we live out our lives making these assumptions all the time.

2) Consistency and Regularity.

If every time we woke up in the morning it was in a different house, with a different family, but one which make the assumption that we did nevertheless belong there and always had, and if the route to work changed every morning, if we never went to the same job twice, if our names and our looks were always different each day, we might think less of direct observation. But because these things are always the same from moment to moment and they never differ, we learn to trust them and we trust them implicitly as a matter of course. We do not try to prove to our selves each day when we get up "I am the same person today that I was yesterday," precisely because we learn very early that we always are the same person. We observe early on that we cannot penetrate physical objects without leaving holes and so we do not try to walk though walls; we know that doesn't work because it never works.

Hume observed that when we see two billiard balls we do not really see the cause of one making the other one move. What we really observe is one stopping and the other one starting. But, in practical terms, we do not observe the causality of a car running over the pedestrian as causing the pedestrian to fly across the road, but we know from experience that these two factors usually go hand in hand and so we don't play in the street.

a) Empirical proof?

In making this argument on boards many skeptics have argued "I see that the world is real with my own eyes." That's the point, why trust your eyes? You cannot prove they are seeing things properly. Everything could be an illusion everything we observe could be wrong. We cannot prove the existence of the external world, we assume it because it is always there. Some try to claim this direct observation as empirical proof. But they are confusing the notion of scientific empiricism with epistemological empiricism. Before we make the assumption that scientific data is valid we first make the epistemological assumption that perception is valid. Otherwise there would be no point in assuming the data. So epistemological empiricism is prior to scientific methods. In fact we have to simply make this assumption a priori with no proof and no way around the problem in order to able to make the assumptions necessary to accept scientific data. WE do usually make these assumptions, but they are assumptions none the less.

b) Science cannot prove reality.

Still others try to content that empirical scientific evidence proves the reality of the external world. But of course if the world were an illusion than any scientific evidence we gather would be part of the illusion as well. So there is no other way to demonstrate the truth of the external world, the existence of other minds, or the reality of our own existence except through the consistency and regularity of our sense data.

D. Religious belief Justified prima facie based upon Religious Experience

1) Prima Facie Justification.

Mattey again:

"Far from concluding that our senses are "fallacious," Reid placed them on the same footing as memory and reason, though they are "undervalued" by philosophers because "the informations of sense are common to the philosopher and to the most illiterate. . . . Nature likewise forces our belief in those informations, and all the attempts of philosophy to weaken it are fruitless and in vain."

"Reid pointed out that when we fall into error regarding the objects of sense, we correct our errors "by more accurate attention to the informations we may receive by our senses themselves." So the "original and natural judgments" that are made on the basis of our constitution lose their original justification in the presence of additional information. Contemporary philosophers call this kind of justification "prima facie," a term from law which describes an initially plausible case that could prove to be entirely implausible given further evidence. A belief of common sense, then, is justified "on the face of it."

"According to the doctrine of prima facie justification, one is justified in accepting that things are the way they appear, when

* it does appear to one that they are that way, and
* there is no reason to think that something has gone wrong.
[Ibid]

"But if there is such a reason, one's justification is "defeated." Thus prima facie justification is "defeasible."

"For Reid, our beliefs about physical objects are justified by sense-experience, which he took to be a product of the interaction between the senses and physical objects. Twentieth-century philosophers have been somewhat more cautious, however, and have followed more closely the account of perceptual knowledge given by Reid's predecessors such as Descartes, Locke and Hume: that what justifies our beliefs about physical objects is a mental state such as:

* looking like something is red
* a sensation of red
* seeing red-ly"

"For example, what justifies a person in believing that he sees something red is that it looks to him as though there is something red. The mental state of that person is one in which there is an appearance of red, and just being in this mental state is enough to give prima facie justification to the belief that he really sees something red. On the other hand, what confers justification might be a belief about how things appear."

2) No contradiction to prmia facie case.

But I will argue that such further evidence is not forth coming. This is because no amount of evidence can ever prove the basis of the external world. If the world is an illusion everything we have access to as evidence of its veracity is always going to be inside the illusion. This is because we can never break out of the epistemologist dilemma, we cannot step outside of our own perceptions to check them. The consistency of experience itself is no guarantee of their truth content, but we live as though it is because we cannot live otherwise.

3) Prima Facie justification for Religious experience

Religious experience is "properly basic," it is built upon experiences that are regular and consistent in the same way that our experiences of the external world are, and thus they are justified prima facie. observe the two criteria:

E. Objection: Is The PF case is overturned with further examination?

1) Is religious experience consistent and regular?

Skeptics have argued that religious experience is not regular or consistent because such experiences are all different. Not only do you have so many different religions, but even from mystic to mystic things differ.

a) Consistency and over time.

Over the years as one develops a disciplined life of prayer, one does encounter growing diversity and newness, but a certain sense of the familiar as well. Experiences become regular and consistent in that the presence of God is usually found in prayer, the sense of the presence is always the of the same quality (although varying intensity) and the sense of God can become familiar enough that it is always recognized as the same.

b) Times millions of believers.

This sense of the familar is communicable and can be recognized form one believer to another. The mystical and devotional literature presents a kind of ordered sameness. One can read accounts as different form one experiencer to another as those between St. Augustine and A.W. Tozer and still find passages that seem to be talking about the same things. This is amplified times millions of believers in the history of the church who have experienced the same things. Even though there is diversification and difference there is still a sameness. This is not even confined to mystics. The same can be said of conversion accounts, that the same aspects keep pooping up. Once can recognize the work of God from one person to another, form one time to the next, from one culture to all cultures.

c) across traditions.

But what about the vast aray of different religions? These differences are due to cultural constructs. One experiences God beyond words, and when one tries to speak of such experiences one must encode them in a symbolic universe, that is to say, in culture. These differences in symbolic universes over time have spelled out the differences in the many religions. But there is a cretin unity even between all the differences in religion. The data presented above on long term effects represents typologies which can be used to compare "peak experience" with that of other phenomena. The Peak experiencers can be grouped together into a collection of those who have experiences X. They are not isolated assortments of differing phenomena. These studies do represent differing cultures and times. Thus, religious experience has a consistency to it even between cultures.

Atheists Confuse Logic and Argument, with Science

these links are all specific to certain message board so I don't think they are any good anymore. They might work if you are signed up, I no longer am.

 
 Toulmin Argument Diagram


Many atheists don't know that arguments are constructed out of  lines of reason and that their function is to persuade us that there a particular conclusion that we should agree to. Many of them confuse logic with scientific experiment. they think an argument should start with evidence, then in an objective manner observe to see the facts rather than making petition for a particular view point. Of course in saying this they are not being open ended and unbiased as they would have us believe. They are destroying arguments that give us reason to believe in God and replacing them with their own biased view point int he fortress of facts.

Some examples of atheists doing this and saying these things can be seen on carm. Pseudoexpat can be seen on carm making a post on top down logic in response to Royce's post attacking a "special kind of top down logic" that he can't name or describe but it's found in God arguments. Here is Royce's original thread. My responding thread on "atheist double talk on top down reasoning," and "atheists privilege doubt."


by all this talk of "top down" they mean they don't like arguments with premises that necessitate conclusions. That is idiotic because that's how argument works.

In Pseudoexpat's thread and in response to his OP (which is an excellent refutation of Royce's original nonsense)Pixie says:


Originally Posted by Pseudoexpat

As Royce puts it, top-down reasoning's first and most important characteristic is that it will say anything in defence of a claim, no matter how crazy. Ok, if this is as far as it goes, then of course we should never do it. Saying anything in defence of a claim is transparent lunacy.

Pixie:

I think the point is that an argument should go from evidence to reasoning to conclusion. So-called top-down reasoning in contrast starts with a conclusion, then attempts to contrive the reasoning and evidence to support it. It is motivated reasoning because is is based on a motivation to prove the desired (and pre-determined) conclusion. I do not think you really address this properly.

He has an argument starting from evidence and preceding to conclusion as though it's observing the evidence to see what happens. He condemns reasoning that "is based on a motivation to prove the desired (and per-determined) conclusion." That's what arguemnt is. He's thinking of a scientific experiment that has to be open ended.Logical arguments are not open ended. Their function is to guide us to a specific point through showing the reasoning takes us there. The confusion with scinece is expressed in an even stronger fashion by an atheist who chimes in to agree with this guy:Fanghur. He says:

Right, and the premises of any argument should always be based on the empirical evidence we currently possess, not on blind speculation regarding things that are currently beyond our ability to test, and hence which we have zero basis to make any sort of probability estimation regarding.

Premises need not be based upon emprical evidence. The reason he thinks so is because he thinks it's like a scientific experiment. That's a bad understanding of science as well argument. The true nature of science is not to prove things but to disprove. Science does not work by observing what ahpepns objectivley then recording facts.Yes that is done to an extent but not in all cases. That's not the true aim. The true aim is to disprove bad bad hypothesis and from that to offer an adequate explanation, which by virtue of it's status as the only hypothesis still standing is accepted as default. At least that's according to Popper. [1] Compare this with a web definition of argument:

a reason or set of reasons given with the aim of persuading others that an action or idea is right or wrong.

"there is a strong argument for submitting a formal appeal"

synonyms:

reasoning, justification, explanation, rationalization; More[2]

The Toulmin model of argument presents the parts of an argument:

The Toulmin Model

1. Claim: the position or claim being argued for; the conclusion of the argument.
2. Grounds: reasons or supporting evidence that bolster the claim.
3. Warrant: the principle, provision or chain of reasoning that connects the grounds/reason to the claim. 
4. Backing: support, justification, reasons to back up the warrant.
5. Rebuttal/Reservation: exceptions to the claim; description and rebuttal of counter-examples and counter-arguments.
6. Qualification: specification of limits to claim, warrant and backing.  The degree of conditionality asserted. [3]

None of that is about observing nor is it open ended. It may or may not begin by presenting data, but that is a matter of impersonation not logic.


When Fanghur says that arguments should be based upon data and "not on blind speculation regarding things that are currently beyond our ability to test, and hence which we have zero basis to make any sort of probability estimation regarding," he is telling us that he thinks arguments are scientific experiments. He says it even more blatantly in a second post: "Pat, the point is that when one is trying to determine what the most logical explanation for something is, all presuppositions other than those that are logically inescapable should be set aside right from the get go; that is one of the defining necessities of scientific discovery and thinking, and something that Craig categorically does not do." He compares arguments to scinece, implies that their purpose is discovery, and asserts that arguments that argue for something are seen as "ciruclar reasoning." Never mind the fact that all atheist seem to start form the point that there can't be a God and any evidence for God is not evidence but must be wrong. That's not ciruclar, but it's circular if you are know what you are arguing for?

I suggest that science itself can't survive without "top down reasoning." they are confusing form of argument with the nature of logic. and the nature of logic with science. It's a truncated ideologically bound form of scinece that is calculated form the Atheist truth regime. Top down reasoning means that a top of the metaphysical hierarchy determines the bottom terms. So that a premise determines a conclusion is part of top down reasoning.

This whole discussion is predated upon the atheist assumption that there can't be anything but physical causes in reality. That physical causes are facts and have only to be observed to be understood clearly. They are totally in the dark as to the framed nature of any understanding of interpreted data. In other words is the no pure data objectively observed that is free from interpretation and frame work. They are privileging doubt about God. They can't beat the God arguments when logic is used fairly and in its classical sense, so they have to destroy logic as we know it and reduce it to quasi scientific experiment in order to get around the kind of logic that beats their arguments in defense of belief. No God argument that I use or that I know of begins with the assumption "God has to exist." The Kalam argument begins with the assumption that everything that is, and that exists contingently, has a cause that necessitates its existence. Then it assumes that anything coming into existence must have a cause. This is predicated upon the concepts of necessity and contingency. That is "top down" because it assumes that one term is at the top of the metaphysical order and it necessitates terms that are below it, or that dependent upon it for their existence. These are the assumptions they don't want us to make.

They read those as assumptions that there must be a God. They are not the assumptions of God, they are assumptions from which we can derive the conclusion that there must be  a God. That is fair and logical, provided we can pull it off in the nature of the argument. They object because it doesn't privilege their view. That's the only way know to do logic is to privileged their own view. The assumption that things need causes is not unfair nor is it illogical. It's mere the result of all of our experience. We have no counters to that experience. Even quantum particles don't coutner that experience because as David Albert showed in his brilliant review of Krauss's book (the Universe from Nothing) nothing is not really noting, it comes form prior conditions and prior particles which must still be expalined.[4] They are causes of more particles. thus everything we know is the product of a cause and thus it is not illogical that all things that are contingent need cause. Of course that doesn't mean God means a cause since God is not contingent. The rub is that this is in line with the atheist assumption that they can only buy logic that's based upon empirical assumptions. This is an empirical assumptions, it's i line with all our observations. Confronted with an empirical assumption they refuse to accept it and try to make it seem unfairly privileging belief in God.

That's because they can't stand the logical conclusion that flows from it, that there must be a God. Thus they rebel agaisnt logic itself.







Sources

[1] Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London, New York:Routledge Classics, original English publication 1959 by Hutchison and co. by Routldege 1992. On line copy URL: http://www.cosmopolitanuniversity.ac/library/LogicofScientificDiscoveryPopper1959.pdf digital copy by Cosmo oedu visited 2/6/2012, p4

[2] https://www.google.com/#q=what+is+an+argument

[3] Rohan, "The Toulmin model of Argument." Website by Sandiego State University: http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~digger/305/toulmin_model.htm

[4] David Albert, “On the Origin of Everything ‘a Universe form Nothing’ by Lawrence Krauss,” New York Times Sunday Book Review (March 23, 2012). On line version URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/books/review/a-universe-from-nothing-by-lawrence-m-krauss.html visited June 20, 2012. David Albert also has a Ph.D. in theoretical phsyics.

see also my article form this blog on Albert's review of Krauss.  
Metacrock's Blog,"Review and Debnucking of Lawrence Krauss's A Unvierse From Nothing,"
 Thursday, January 10, 2013, URL: http://metacrock.blogspot.com/2013/01/review-and-debnucking-of-lawrence.html

Jesus "Myther" Use of the Southern Cross

I've been writing blog pieces for Cadre blog on Peter and Paul mythers, I.ve also been doing stuff on Richard "Bayes Boy" Carrier, looking at my old stuff I found this amusing piece.



I came across a video on you tube[1] which was attempt to use the Acharya S thing about son to imply copy cat savior thing. pun on 'sun' and 'son.' Acharya S. She was a Jesus myther who believed that little gray aliens commissioned her to destroy Christianity. She is well known as a crack pot who says outrageious things. Consider her answer to a critic who calims Jesus myth theory was new:

Truth be known

"This thinking," i.e, that Jesus Christ is a mythical character, is not at all a "new fad." It has been around since the very beginning, because the intelligentsia of the ancient world knew that what the early Church fathers were palming off was mummified mythology. As Rev. Robert Taylor says:

And from the apostolic age downwards, in a never interrupted succession, but never so strongly and emphatically as in the most primitive times, was the existence of Christ as a man most strenously denied.

Indeed, the first and second epistles of John were written principally to combat such deniers of the historical Christ. (1 Jn. 4:2-3; 2 Jn. 7) The denial of "Christ come in the flesh" is an early "heresy" called "Docetism," whose proponents not only abounded during the first centuries of the Christian era but were the original "Christians," i.e., Gnostics.[2]

 Here she pulls a bait and switch talking about Jesus divine nature as something that had been argued for and therefore opposed, but not his existence in history. That's a constant game the mythers play to talk about the existence of the man as though it disproves the divine nature and the divine nature as though ti disproves the existence of the man. The original argument was the idea that Jesus did not exist as a man or any kind of entity in history (flesh and blood) is new. That she does not answer.

Quoting the gnostic is a trick becuase their assertion that Christ did not come in the flesh is not be understood as denial that was a man called Jesus of Nazareth. They claim he was illusory and not flesh and blood but to all appearances seemed to be a  man in history. They don't deny the place holder "Jesus of Nazareth" thought to be a flesh and blood man by those who saw him. They impose their doctrine on him they don't deny his existence. She would have believe that the "Christ come in the flesh" issue dines there was such a man which is highly dishonest. That's a sample of her dishonesty.

This video follows suit form her example which argues that designation of Jesus as "son" of God was either a ply on words or a degeneration from the worship of the sun in pagan culture. The problem is the Greek word for "son" and the English word for sun sound nothing alike. So the pun can't be name thus the connection is not there in history. Another dishonesty. Greek word for son is υἱός (hyiús, hyiós), while the Greek word for sun is Ἥλιος (Helios). They are pronounced in very different ways. "wee-os" vs Hel-i-os.

dying rising savior god stuff. new cast of characters.

I notice they have changed the characters (on the video) as to who the dying rising savior Gods' were. That's becuase we stomped all over their original set. NO pun (Egyptian god "Set").  First they talked about Horus, we kicked the crap out of that then they switched to Osiris. Then we kicked the crap out of that, now they use gods so obscure I've never heard of them. the proof is clear. when we look at the real myth books, real scholars writing about myth not trying to destroy Christianity we find the similarities all go away. See my Copy cat savior page on Doxa.
still have the anchor cross.

sacred day of worship for mithra was "sunday"

That BS again! they still haven't learned. There is no proof that anywhere. The fact about mithrism is we have no writings about the cult but what was said by chruch fathers. They were highly secretive. We can't know that Sunday was sacred to them. What if it was? It was probably sacred to a lot of groups that doesn't prove that Christians shifting to Sunday means Jesus was copied after pagan myth.

from the copy savior page: Almost no Textual evidence exists for Mithraism

Most of the texts that do exist are from outsiders who were speculating about the cult. We have no information form inside the cult.

Cosmic Mysteries of Mythras (website--visted July 1, 2006)

David Ulansey (the Major scholar of Mithraism in world)

Owing to the cult's secrecy, we possess almost no literary evidence about the beliefs of Mithraism. The few texts that do refer to the cult come not from Mithraic devotees themselves, but rather from outsiders such as early Church fathers, who mentioned Mithraism in order to attack it, and Platonic philosophers, who attempted to find support in Mithraic symbolism for their own philosophical ideas.

"At present our knowledge of both general and local cult practice in respect of rites of passage, ceremonial feats and even underlying ideology is based more on conjecture than fact." (Mithraic Studies: Proceedings of the First International Congress of Mithraic Studies. Manchester U. Press, 1975. ,437)

And Cumont himself observed, in the 50s

"The sacred books which contain the prayers recited or chanted during the [Mithraic] survives, the ritual on the initiates, and the ceremonials of the feasts, have vanished and left scarce a trace behind...[we] know the esoteric disciplines of the Mysteries only from a few indiscretions." (Cumont, Franz. The Mysteries of Mithra. New York: Dover, 1950.152)
 

(b) Roman Cult began after Jesus life

Our earliest evidence for the Mithraic mysteries places their appearance in the middle of the first century B.C.: the historian Plutarch says that in 67 B.C. a large band of pirates based in Cilicia (a province on the southeastern coast of Asia Minor) were practicing "secret rites" of Mithras. The earliest physical remains of the cult date from around the end of the first century A.D., and Mithraism reached its height of popularity in the third century. (Ulansey, David. Cosmoic Mysteries of Mithras (website)

(c) No Continuity between Ancient Persian past and Roman Cult

Throughout most of the twentieth century Franz Cumont so influenced scholarship that the entire discipline followed in the wake of his assumption that the Roman cult was spread by the Persian cult. In the early 70's David Ulansey did for Mithric scholarship what Noan Chomsky did for linguistics, he totally redefined the coordinates by which the discipline moved. Ulansey showed that the Roman cult was not the continuance of the Persian cult, that there was no real evidence of a Persian cult. He showed that the killing of the great comic bull which latter became the major event in Mithraism, and the parallel from which Jesus Mythers get the shedding of blood and sacrifice, was not known in the Persian era. This was be like showing that the story of the Cross was not known to Christians in the first century. The major likeness to Christianity and the central point of the cult of Mithraism was not known in the time of Christ, in the time Paul, or for at least two centuries after:

"There were, however, a number of serious problems with Cumont's assumption that the Mithraic mysteries derived from ancient Iranian religion. Most significant among these is that there is no parallel in ancient Iran to the iconography which is the primary fact of the Roman Mithraic cult. For example, as already mentioned, by far the most important icon in the Roman cult was the tauroctony. This scene shows Mithras in the act of killing a bull, accompanied by a dog, a snake, a raven, and a scorpion; the scene is depicted as taking place inside a cave like the mithraeum itself. This icon was located in the most important place in every mithraeum, and therefore must have been an expression of the central myth of the Roman cult. Thus, if the god Mithras of the Roman religion was actually the Iranian god Mithra, we should expect to find in Iranian mythology a story in which Mithra kills a bull. However, the fact is that no such Iranian myth exists: in no known Iranian text does Mithra have anything to do with killing a bull." (David Ulansey Mithras Mysteries).[3]

(5) Mithraism Emerged in the west only after Jesus' day.
Mithraism could not have become an influence upon the origins of the first century, for the simple reason that Mithraism did not emerge from its pastoral setting in rural Persia until after the close of the New Testament canon. (Franz Cumont, The Mysteries of Mithra (Chicago: Open Court, 1903), 87ff.)

use the southern cross 

Come to the video the funniest thing about it is that they try to use the southern cross, constellation in the southern hemisphere, as proof that the Christian cross comes form pagan sources. They are tyring to say it was based upon astrological symbol. The problem is the souther cross, while visible form north wasn't seen as a cross and wasn't called cross until several centuries after Bible times when explorers when down the coast of Africa.



Universe Today
Southern Cross Constollation

The first recorded example of Crux’s discovery was around 1000 BC during the time of the Ancient Greeks. At the latitude of Athens, Crux was clearly visible, though low in the night sky. At the time, the Greeks identified it as being part of the constellation Centaurus. However, the precession of the equinoxes gradually lowered its stars below the European horizon, and they were eventually forgotten by the inhabitants of northern latitudes. Crux fell into anonymity for northerners until the Age of Discovery (from the early 15th to early 17th centuries) when it was rediscovered by Europeans. The first to do so were the Portuguese, who mapped it for navigation uses while rounding the southern tip of Africa. During this time, Crux was also separated from Centaurus, though it is not altogether clear who was responsible. Some attribute it to the French astronomer Augustin Royer who did it in 1679 while others believe it was Dutch astronomer PetrusPlancius who did the deed in 1613. Regardless, it is believed to have taken place in the 17th century, placing it within the context of European expansion and the revolution that was taking place in the sciences at the time.

 

Read more:  southern cross.


 That doesn't give me a lot of confidence in their research. Another aspect of their failed research is the use of the anchor Cross. It's an amulet of Orpheus who is tired to an anchor but it makes a cross. This has been exposed as a fake. James Hannam has has a detailed critique of it.[4] Richard Carrier tries to defend it. His major argument is that it's not a cross but just an anchor. If that's the case then it loses it's connection to Jesus.[5] The point of it is, as used by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy to imply that the cross comes to Christianity from pagan sources becuase there was no Jesus thus no Jesus' death on cross. To say it's just a picture or Orpheus tied to an anchor may save the mythers from the specter of forgery but at the price of losing their Jesus myth connection. These two articles are actually much more complex than surface report I'm giving. I urge the reader to look at both. It think this really underscores the untrustworthy nature of Jesus myth research. Most of it is rehashed bad research that's been debuncked in the past and they really depend upon the reader not to be conversant.




________________________
 Sources:

(1) Real Proof that Jesus was not Real: youtube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljRKhZ81aqY accessed 7/25/13

(2) Acharya S. Acharya S's Truth be Known, Website, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljRKhZ81aqY access 7/25/13

(3) David Ulansey, Mythrism The Cosmic Mysteries of Mythras, Website, http://www.mysterium.com/mithras.html accessed 7/25/13
 Visiting Professor of Religious Studies at U.C. Berkeley, and Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Religion at the California Institute of Integral Studies. He is the leading scholar in the field of the study of Mirthrism.

(4) James Hannam, "The Orpheus Amulet From the Cover of the Jesus Mysteries."Bede's Library, On line source: http://www.bede.org.uk/orpheus.htm  Accessed 7/25/13
Hannam is a Cambridge Trained historian

(5) Richar Carrier, "Jesus myth on  CNN.com" Richard Carrier Blogs. blog. http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/889Accessed 7/25/13
Carrier has a Ph.D. in ancient history form Columbia University.

Atheist Propaganda and Religious Experience: Daren Brown

 

 

 

 

Perhaps nothing scares atheists like feelings. They scared to death of religious experience arguments. Nothing raises their hatred like talking about religious experiences. Daren Brown is some sort of British stage magician who has a new stage act supposedly inducing religious experiences. Atheists waste no time in arguing that this is proof that such experiences are just accidents that mean nothing. He states "I examined the Placebo effect and proved just how powerful fear and faith can be." Of course he assumes that because there is a psychological process that produces faith that then there's no object of faith beyond that process that has any real bearing on life. This is really no different than the one's who claim to stimulate parts of the brain to induce religoius experiences.

In calling it "placebo" he's trying to set up the suggestion that it's unreal, it's unnecessary, God is the great cosmic sugar pill. Then he totally ignores the nature of real placebo. It's only for medicine, there's no evidence that such suggestive keys can manipulate us apart from expectation. All the things that he does in relation to evoking the psychological process are manipulative means of setting up the association. Yet most religious experience of the sort called "mystical" is not expected. In about half the time it's experienced in childhood, and much of the time mystical experiences contradict the doctrine of the experincer. If it was a real placebo it should confirm expectations. Placebo work by expectation. They don't work by challenging expectations. Calling it a placebo is wrong and improper and it's probably only done to evoke the concept and prepare the atheist to inoculated against emotion by making her suspicious of religious feelings.

He sets up several incidents before the main show (the phony atheist conversion) that are intended to get across the idea that suggestion works powerfully and most such feelings as one associates with the supernatural are also just manipulation. He makes people feel afraid by putting them in a room alone after reading to them some satanic right supposedly form the eleventh century. People are turned on by a sense of dark mysterious and ancient.  He gave people a fake drug which is no more than a sugar pill and by getting them to believe in it I got them to make dramatic changes in their lives. Of course he doesn't follow them in their lives or do a longitudinal study to determine if the changes are really transformational (dramatic, positive, and long term). He has no real control and no real way of determining if he's given anyone a real experience. Empirical study has demonstrated that religious experience is real, that's transformational, and that there is a way to determine real experiences from phony ones. No there is no proof direly that it's caused by God but this can be argued successfully by paying attention to what can be proved and using it with logic. It is the M scale that provides us with that means of verification for religious experience and it's been validated by a half dozen studies around the world.

His psychological explanation for the process is typically convoluted and not well throughout. He does an experiment that shows people in private when not watched lie about their mistakes. The idea is tp show that there's a presence in the room no one cheats. If people are given a idea of supernatural presence they act more moral. It is asserted that there are evolutionary reasons why we developed the idea of a supernatural presence. Don't want to be outcast form the tribe so we can reproduce. divine presence would ensure the sense of being cought out. God is made up to make us be moral. In other words like Foucault's take on the Panopticon the prisoners are learning to watch themselves. The problem here is he's convoluted several different reasons in to one.

First of all, if we feel a sense of presence that in itself is reason to assume we feel it. It doesn't have to be the result of needing a moral campus and inviting an invisible God. the illustration itself shows cave men ostracize a guy because he lied. So the fact of how people treated each other would be the reason for moral behavior and the fear of being rejected by the tribe and not being allowed to make would be enforcement enough, why make up an internal watch dog to do the job as well? If one has not felt experiences one doesn't know what they are. why invent a psychological process to evoke them then try to explain them. The fact that one has had such experience itself the reason to believe in the reality of such experiences, then the need to explain it comes out of having the need. The idea of ancient cave men trying to produce a sophisticated psychological technique for evoking some experience they haven't had is ridiculous and if they had it, it has its own reality.If they had it prior to producing the process of evoking it then it is real.

 Brown is certain that the experience explained by psychology. He asserts that these kinds of experiences come from big religious rallies with hyper suggestibility but there's no basis for that assumption. He's not using M scale studies to determine what percentage of religious experience is privately induced and percentage comes out of the big hyper rallies. Here's a clue, with half coming in childhood they are not coming form big rallies.

Then he goes through an elaborate production to produce a fake conversion in an atheist woman. He dose this indirectly without mentioning God. He uses several techniques such as tapping his fingers while they talk about her father to make her associate emotions the sound of the tapping with feelings of fatherly love. In several ways he evokes feelings of powerful father figure to bring atheist to believe. Establishes rapport. learns about her father. The woman is unconsciously processing, core religious belief evoked that God has plan for us and pulls strings to help us. No direct mention of God was made the woman made the connection to God herself through feelings of the father figure (tap tap tap). Brown says things that imply a grand plan, talk about things going wrong for a reason. sense of awe and wonder. Talks about the stars and space, evokes being cherished with awe. The woman describes her experience as "all the love in the world had been thrown at me. I pushed it away by not letting it into my life." Now she sees it's so stupid and she sees through it.

He says "I feel douty bound to make sure you understand that the postive stuff you got through this is not religious belief." This is what he tells her latter after they brought back befoer the audiecne. She's already been debriefed. He says explicitly "it certainly didn't come form God." The result of this elaborate dog and pony show is that we are supposed to come away with the grand feeling religion has been totally exposed and deconstructed and unraveled we see close up who fake it is there's no need for it. Of course the Brit media is opporating from the assumption that atheism is the standard, the grounding for society, the status quoe. The Audience is pre slected to reflect this idea. So one's going to challenge it.

It is a dog and pony show, he has no longitudinal study, no double blind, no control, he has no scale to measure the nature, depth, or effect of experience. He has no theory of religious experience to play it off of. That is all very crucial without that he's proved nothing. He can't guarantee that what she experienced is even a religious experience. One clue to that question is she says nothing about undifferentiated unity. she didn't say that she felt an all pervasive presence. She felt there's a plan and a purpose and she's cared for but that doesn't prove that it's the same religious experience that W.T. Stace talked about (see my link above on M scale).

The real problem is without a control there's no way to know if he isn't just evoking the we are given by God to be able to find him. The fact that he's evoking some of them doesn't prove that they are merely a matter of manipulation. There was no guy tapping when I got saved. Any associations that were evoked alone in my living room had to be coincidental or accidental rather than arranged. To say that there's a psychological process that enables to internalize the value of belief in God is hardly a denunciation of the reality of validity of that process. So there is a psychological process and we can manipulate it. I also had a need for a father figure, and guess what, I had a father. Saying that having a psychosocial need disproves the reality of the solution is just foolish.

That's like saying you have proved that love is just a psychological trick becuase when you when you do  things to make them think they are loved they respond emotionally. He's giving all the ques that God would give us to guide into a relationship with him, thus they respond becuase it's put in them to respond. The only real test of the validity of such feelings is the long term change and production of positive experiences and behaviors resulting from it. Plenty of studies establish that this is the case with mystical experience. It's not been proved that it is the case with phony evoked experiences.

 Essentially there is a psychological process to conversion. it make sense that there would be becuase if God wants us to have  a personal relationship with him then there must be affects which would draw us into a psychological state that is conducive to that relationship. Those affects are not hard to find because we all know  about them, the they things that motivate us and turn us on. So he merely found them and induced them in cleaver ways.

oct 13

I am debating Michael Hill on Doxa Forums

He showed up on the Zuckerman IQ study post and said this:

"Forget the IQ idea. How smart is someone who has an invisible friend that they have no evidence for? I have yet to come across a religionist on youtube I cannot beat. With facts and truth on my side, how can I lose against someone who believes in fairy tales?"

We are Debating here The God Corrolate argument I put up here on AW a few days ago.

Athyeism, Illiteracy, and Intellectual Dishonesty.

Bluegrass Skeptic decries the frustration of dealing withy open minded atheists who say: ”You are being intellectually dishonest by saying deities absolutely do not exist." You cannot know 100%..." She asserts that one can state with confidence that, ”Gods does not exist! 100% if you lay the appropriate foundation for understanding in your conversation."[1] Before doing that you want to lay a fou8ndation for grammar. if God doesn't exist he doesn't exist just 75%. Be that as it may, she is mistaken. Intellectual dishonesty is not belief in God, it is not disbelief, nor is it being open minded and admitting you don't know everything. Intellectual dishonesty is when you refuse to even consider counter evidence. I am confident that there is God the basis of reality but I would never try to say that disbelief is dishonesty.

The height of intellectual dishonesty is pretending that you know all about something when you have never studied it. Like most atheists BGS is basing her view of Christian doctrine of God upon Christians with whom she has clashed on the net, or in her personal church going or acquaintances in real life. Example:

First things first, there is an equivocation problem with the concept of god in the religious and atheist communities. The concept that there are mysterious beings/forces/entities in the Universe we have not yet discovered that might possess amazing powers of healing, immortality, and psychic afterlives, is not far fetched. In fact, it is impossible to say with 100% certainty that they do not exist. But the statement “Gods do not exist! 100%” has absolutely nothing to do with fantastically powered beings that watch you masturbate, and cry for your wasted semen in that kleenex.Godliness has to do with worship, dogma, reverence, and sovereignty. We are not going to automatically worship the wonderfully different creature that just made that amputee’s leg grow back. It’s still just an alien of sorts. When this thing crosses the threshold of awe and brings the euphoria of worship, then you have a god. But how does it cross that threshold of importance? Well, it is an individual decision that one embraces after a certain level of criteria has been met emotionally, as well as intellectually.

A sure sign she not studied anything misuse of the term "godliness." The term she is looking for is "deity," or "divinity." That refers to God's divine nature. Godliness refers to our attempt to exhibit live lives that reflect righteousness. That's a telling error because even casual familiarity with any Biblical literature should tell one that, not to mention a dictionary. As for the bit about the Kleenex that tells us more about her than it does about God, but more than I care to know as well. BGS says: "As you can see, there is a very obvious difference between god and an all powerful being somewhere in the Universe. Yet the religious, and many atheists, tend to equivocate the two as one and the same..." She means equate, if they equivocate they are saying different things. She seems to thi9ng that religious people th9in God is like a powerful space alien just a magnification or humanity. That is not what Christianity teaches. At this point she says that the equivocation (now morphed from saying the3 same as agnostic atheists a--see above--to the sameness between Christian idea of God and space alien. When she first misused the term it meant Christians and atheists thin he same thing, wrongly, now it means thinking God and aliens are the same. Actually I don't know any Christians who don't understand the difference. After a couple of unintelligible paragraphs that mean nothing she says:

“I am not 100% sure there isn’t something in the Universe I wouldn’t consider worshiping.” This sentence is what the discussion should really be about. It’s about personal accountability instead of shifting choices on to other manifestations and ideologies. This sentence doesn’t say “Yes, deities might exist.” It says one is willing to consider giving that reverence to something in the Universe if the appropriate amount of personal standards are met. Too often, many people, even famous writers and historians, have a tendency to round up their belief system to the next qualifier, misunderstanding that what they perceive as a small leap in reasoning is actually a very large one.

This is actually a contradiction. I understand the first sentence said "I am sure God does not exist." (Passover the 100%vmuddle). This says I'm not 100% there isn't something I would worship. That is a contradiction. God is the only valid thing to worship. The concept of God is that of the ultimate concern, the basis of all things. What if the proper thing to worship is God, the is the concept of God:object of ultimate concern. The statement:I am not 100% sure there isn’t something in the Universe I wouldn’t consider worshiping means there is something you would worship. If you are not sure there is not how can you be sure there is no God? Only if you refuse to ever worship God, but then what would you worship? See this is a contradiction? Thyen she says we like to round thinfs off, "Some possible being out there who we don’t understand, and who may have powers we don’t understand – if we ever found one of these beings, a lot of us would also say “eh, close enough”, and round “mysterious powerful being” up to “god”, and then start worshiping it." Then she says:"And why would all these mainstream intellects like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitches, or Sam Harris just “round” things up? Maybe because they haven’t taken the time to learn the difference." Mainstream intellectuals? Not a word how she can be sure there's no God. not a argument not a hint. Is your irony met4er running? She chides people on both sides for intellectu8al laziness!. The comment section: [1] Bluegrass Skeptic, "Intellectual Dishonesty And Being Certain Gods Do Not Exist," Atheist Nexus August 1, 2014 at 6:11am >, blog, URL:http://atheistnexus.org/profiles/blogs/intellectual-dishonesty-and-being-certain-gods-do-not-exist

Debate: belief in God rationally warranted? Metacrock vs. Michael Hill

First Affirmative Constructive: religious belief is rationally warranted; Metacrock Joe Hinman).

Decision Making Paradigm:

God Corrolate: The co-determinate is like the Derridian trace, or like a fingerprint. It's the accompanying sign that is always found with the thing itself. In other words, like trailing the invisible man in the snow. You can't see the invisible man, but you can see his footprints, and wherever he is in the snow his prints will always follow.

We cannot produce direct observation of God, but we can find the "trace" or the co-determinate, the effects of God in the world.The only question at that point is "How do we know this is the effect, or the accompanying sign of the divine? The answer is in the argument below. Here let us set out some general parameters:

We can set up criteria based upon what we would expect from encounter with the divine:

A. Life Transforming and vital in a positive life=affirming sense

B. It would give us a sense of the transcendent and the divine.

C. No alternate or naturalistic causality could be proven

These criteria are based upon the writings of the great mystics and religious thinkers of history, especially in the Christian tradition, and distilled into /theory by W.T. Stace. The theory is verified and validated by several hundred studies using various methodologies all of them published in peer reviewed journals. The following argument is based upon the findings of these studies. All of this, the studies, the methods used, Stace's theory, these studies and their methodologies are discussed in depth in The Trace of God: a Rational Warrant for Belief by Joseph Hinman, (all proceeds go to non profit) available on Amazon



Read much about the book on the Trace of God blog..

Argument:

(1) The affects and effects of mystical experience are real in that they are measurably transformative in a positive sense.

(2)These affects cannot be reduced to naturalistic cause and affect, bogus mental states or epiphenomena.

(3)Since the affects of Mystical consciousness are independent of other explanations and the affects are real we should assume that they are genuine experiences of something transcendent of our own minds.

(4)Since mystical experience is usually experience of something, the Holy, the sacred, or some sort of greater transcendent reality we should assume that the origin of the experience is rooted in transcendent reality.

(5)Since mystical experience is usually about the divine we can assume a divine origin.

This fulfills the criteria for the trace: therefore, e are warranted in asserting that mystical experience is the trace of God, and this gives us warrant for belief in God.

Analysis:

Real Affects of Mystical Experience Imply Co-determinate

A. Study and Nature of Mystical Experiences

Mystical experience is only one aspect of religious experience, but I will focus on it in this argument. Most other kinds of religious experience are difficult to study since they are more subjective and have less dramatic results. But mystical experience can actually be measured empirically in terms of its affects, and can be compared favorably to other forms of conscious states.

1) Primarily Religious

Transpersonal Childhood Experiences of Higher States of Consciousness: Literature Review and Theoretical Integrationm (unpublished paper 1992 by Jayne Gackenback

http://www.sawka.com/spiritwatch/cehsc/ipure.htm

Gackenback website is Spiritwatch
Quotes:

"The experience of pure consciousness is typically called "mystical". The essence of the mystical experience has been debated for years (Horne, 1982). It is often held that "mysticism is a manifestation of something which is at the root of all religions (p. 16; Happold, 1963)." The empirical assessment of the mystical experience in psychology has occurred to a limited extent."

2) Defining charactoristics.

[Gackenback]

"In a recent review of the mystical experience Lukoff and Lu (1988) acknowledged that the "definition of a mystical experience ranges greatly (p. 163)." Maslow (1969) offered 35 definitions of "transcendence", a term often associated with mystical experiences and used by Alexander et al. to refer to the process of accessing PC."

Lukoff (1985) identified five common characteristics of mystical experiences which could be operationalized for assessment purposes. They are:

1. Ecstatic mood, which he identified as the most common feature;
2. Sense of newly gained knowledge, which includes a belief that the mysteries of life have been revealed;
3. Perceptual alterations, which range from "heightened sensations to auditory and visual hallucinations (p. 167)";
4. Delusions (if present) have themes related to mythology, which includes an incredible range diversity and range;
5. No conceptual disorganization, unlike psychotic persons those with mystical experiences do NOT suffer from disturbances in language and speech.
It can be seen from the explanation of PC earlier that this list of qualities overlaps in part those delineated by Alexander et al.

3)Studies use Empirical Instruments.

Many skeptics have argued that one cannot study mystical experince scientifically. But it has been done many times, in fact there are a lot of studies and even empirical scales for measurement.

(Ibid.)

Quote:

"Three empirical instruments have been developed to date. They are the Mysticism Scale by Hood (1975), a specific question by Greeley (1974) and the State of Consciousness Inventory by Alexander (1982; Alexander, Boyer, & Alexander, 1987). Hood's (1975) scale was developed from conceptual categories identified by Stace (1960). Two primary factors emerged from the factor analysis of the 32 core statements. First is a general mysticism factor, which is defined as an experience of unity, temporal and spatial changes, inner subjectivity and ineffability. A second factor seems to be a measure of peoples tendency to view intense experiences within a religious framework. A much simpler definition was developed by Greeley (1974), "Have you ever felt as though you were very close to a powerful, spiritual force that seemed to lift you out of yourself?" This was used by him in several national opinion surveys. In a systematic study of Greeley's question Thomas and Cooper (1980) concluded that responses to that question elicited experiences whose nature varied considerably. Using Stace's (1960) work they developed five criteria, including awesome emotions; feeling of oneness with God, nature or the universe; and a sense of the ineffable. They found that only 1% of their yes responses to Greeley's question were genuine mystical experiences. Thus Hood's scale seems to be the more widely used of these two broad measures of mysticism. It has received cross cultural validation" (Holm, 1982; Caird, 1988).

4) Incidence.

(Ibid.)

Quote:

"Several studies have looked at the incidence of mystical experiences. Greeley (1974) found 35% agreement to his question while Back and Bourque (1970) reported increases in frequency of these sorts of experiences from about 20% in 1962 to about 41% in 1967 to the question "Would you say that you have ever had a 'religious or mystical experience' that is, a moment of sudden religious awakening or insight?" Greeley (1987) reported a similar figure for 1973".

"The most researched inventory is the State of Consciousness Inventory (SCI; reviewed in Alexander, Boyer, and Alexander, 1987). The authors say "the SCI was designed for quantitative assessment of frequency of experiences of higher states of consciousness as defined in Vedic Psychology (p. 100)."

"In this case items were constructed from first person statements of practitioners of that meditative tradition, but items were also drawn from other authority literatures. Additional subscales were added to differentiate these experiences from normal waking experience, neurotic experience, and schizophrenic experience. Finally, a misleading item scale was added. These authors conceptualize the "mystical" experience as one which can momentarily occur in the process of the development of higher states of consciousness. For them the core state of consciousness is pure consciousness and from it develops these higher states of consciousness.

Whereas most researchers on mystical experiences study them as isolated or infrequent experiences with little if any theoretical "goal" for them, this group contextualizes them in a general model of development (Alexander et al., 1990) with their permanent establishment in an individual as a sign of the first higher state of consciousness. They point out that "during any developmental period, when awareness momentarily settles down to its least excited state, pure consciousness [mystical states] can be experienced (p. 310). " In terms of incidence they quote Maslow who felt that in the population at large less than one in 1,000 have frequent "peak" experiences so that the "full stabilization of a higher stage of consciousness appears to an event of all but historic significance (p. 310)."

"Virtually all of researchers using the SCI are very careful to distinguish the practice of meditation from the experience of pure consciousness, explaining that the former merely facilitates the latter. They also go to great pains to show that their multiple correlation's of health and well-being are strongest to the transcendent experience than to the entire practice of meditation (for psychophysiological review see Wallace, 1987; for individual difference review see Alexander et al., 1987;

B. Empirical Studies show Long-Term Positive Effects of Mystical Experience

Research Summary

From Council on Spiritual Practices Website

"States of Univtive Consciousness"

Also called Transcendent Experiences, Ego-Transcendence, Intense Religious Experience, Peak Experiences, Mystical Experiences, Cosmic Consciousness. Sources:

(1) Studies Wuthnow, Robert (1978). "Peak Experiences: Some Empirical Tests." Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 18 (3), 59-75.

Noble, Kathleen D. (1987). ``Psychological Health and the Experience of Transcendence.'' The Counseling Psychologist, 15 (4), 601-614.

Lukoff, David & Francis G. Lu (1988). ``Transpersonal psychology research review: Topic: Mystical experiences.'' Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 20 (2), 161-184.

Roger Walsh (1980). The consciousness disciplines and the behavioral sciences: Questions of comparison and assessment. American Journal of Psychiatry, 137(6), 663-673.

Lester Grinspoon and James Bakalar (1983). ``Psychedelic Drugs in Psychiatry'' in Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered, New York: Basic Books.

Furthermore, Greeley found no evidence to support the orthodox belief that frequent mystic experiences or psychic experiences stem from deprivation or psychopathology. His ''mystics'' were generally better educated, more successful economically, and less racist, and they were rated substantially happier on measures of psychological well-being. (Charles T. Tart, Psi: Scientific Studies of the Psychic Realm, p. 19.)

(2)Long-Term Effects

Wuthnow:

*Say their lives are more meaningful,
*think about meaning and purpose
*Know what purpose of life is
Meditate more
*Score higher on self-rated personal talents and capabilities
*Less likely to value material possessions, high pay, job security, fame, and having lots of friends
*Greater value on work for social change, solving social problems, helping needy
*Reflective, inner-directed, self-aware, self-confident life style

Noble:

*Experience more productive of psychological health than illness
*Less authoritarian and dogmatic
*More assertive, imaginative, self-sufficient
*intelligent, relaxed
*High ego strength,
*relationships, symbolization, values,
*integration, allocentrism,
*psychological maturity,
*self-acceptance, self-worth,
*autonomy, authenticity, need for solitude,
*increased love and compassion

(3) Trend toward positive view among psychologists. Spiriutal Emergency MYSTICAL OR UNITIVE EXPERIENCE "Offsetting the clinical literature that views mystical experiences as pathological, many theorists (Bucke, 1961; Hood, 1974, 1976; James, 1961; Jung, 1973; Laski, 1968; Maslow, 1962, 1971; Stace, 1960; Underhill, 1955) have viewed mystical experiences as a sign of health and a powerful agent of transformation." (4) Most clinicians and clinical studies see postive. (Ibid) "Results of a recent survey (Allman, et al,. 1992) suggest that most clinicians do not view mystical experiences as pathological. Also, studies by several researchers have found that people reporting mystical experiences scored lower on psychopathology scales and higher on measures of psychological well-being than controls (Caird, 1987; Hood, 1976, 1977, 1979; Spanos and Moretti, 1988)".