Medicine and Faith
someone said " No religion has a monopoly on strong spiritual experiences."
This opening statement is something that DIRECTLY confronts a unspoken cultural belief held my many traditional members of the church. It is however, very true. There are many people within the church who are of the opinion that any spiritual experience had by any person not belonging to the church must be either delusional or deceptive in nature. There are plenty of commonly accepted traditional ideas passed down among members of the LDS church that I do not believe, and the idea that mormons have a monopoly on any kind of spiritual experiences is one of them.
Someone said: People often get intense, personal, spiritual, confirmations of religious truths they believe in.
Houston, Texas offered a very diverse religious population. I interviewed all shapes and colors of Christianity, but also got to meet with people who identified as Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic, and Sikh, just to name a few. During my mission I exchanged words with over 8000 different people (I kept a daily record and I have a stack of about 6 filled journals). I discovered something very interesting. People would sometimes have what I would identify as a spiritual experience which resulted in them being devout to the tenets of their faith-- however, on further discussion, I learned that their actual spiritual experience had nothing to do with 99% of the tenets of their faith. It was a kind of enlightening connection or assurance/knowledge of the existence of a higher Being accompanied by knowledge of this Beings character and attributes (such as love, knowledge and power). Now is a good time to address the next part of what you said:
.
Someone said: "The problem is that these strong feelings (I've felt them myself!) are often for beliefs that are mutually exclusive."
And this is exactly what I wanted to get at-- The experiences that I heard from the 8000 people I spoke with were NOT exclusive, on the contrary, they fundamentally "inclusive". In essence these experiences are based off of the basic tenets that consist of the 3% of nearly all religions that overlap. Think of the experience that you had-- not knowing what experience(s) you are talking about, I would be willing to bet (assuming that you wrote the experience down and so can recall it properly), that they were regarding concepts or ideas that are more inclusive than exclusive-- or that they were more like an assurance of the existence of a higher Being (a very fundamental concept in essentially all religions). **HOWEVER** If you are like me (and perhaps many people), you made jumps in your reasoning. You jumped to the conclusion and assumed that since you were a mormon and since you had this experience that no one who belonged to any other religion could have such experiences and also that since you were a mormon at the time when you had the experience, that this must mean that ALL of the ideas that had ever been expressed by ANY leader in the church at ANY time must therefore be essentially flawless, free of all delusion and perfectly true.
Someone said: How reliable are they, then, in identifying truth?
By my experience and the experience of the 8000+ person sample during my mission, they are extremely reliable at identifying a few core truths. And much less reliable at identifying much beyond that. Most other beliefs, seem to me as post-experience reasoning or traditional/cultural concepts that were more or less adopted or assumed as true because of the initial experience, or using the initial experience as a launching point.
Someone said: One person might have obtained a strong personal spiritual witness that there is a critical necessity for infant baptism. This is what God wants, and if you don't pay the priest and get your baby baptized, that child will be damned forever. They believe this with every fiber of their being, it's the basis for their testimony.
Yeah, I have encountered people who believe things like this (and much stranger and more extreme things even), but I do not recall ever encountering a person who had what I would consider to be an actual spiritual experience about something like this.
This is a good time to introduce delusion.
In clinical trials, a medication is compared to a placebo. The placebo is essentially "delusion". In nearly every instance where a placebo has ever been given, there are people who will report responses-- delusional responses. The presence of these delusional symptoms do not eliminate the actuality of the effect of the actual medication.
Similarly, there are "spiritual experiences" and these are compared to a placebo: "delusion". There are even instances with medicine where a person will be given the medication and report the appropriate response AS WELL AS placebo-like (delusional) responses. Meaning that the results can be a mix of actual experience combined with delusional experience. People sell placebos (medical delusions) for money. People also sell pseudo-spiritual experiences (delusions) for money.
If this can be the case with medicine, why can not be AT LEAST as gracious with enlightenment.
It is possible to come to a logically sound and intelligent conclusion that all enlightenment is delusion. There is PLENTY of examples of places where I could site silly things that people have done or said in the name of "religion". Similarly some come to the conclusion that all modern medicine is bad, because there are also PLENTY of examples where people have done and believed silly things in the name of medicine. However, I think this is an extreme view in both cases, perhaps equally as extreme as coming to the conclusion that all medicine is good or that fortune tellers are all having "spiritual experiences" when you pay them money and they tell you your fortune.
For someone who actually understands medicine and for someone who actually has experienced some degree of spiritual enlightenment, this is obviously silly and extreme. It is contrary to the nature of such experiences-- and I bet it is contrary to the nature of your experiences.
If you want to clump all of medicine with snake-oil salesmen, you can do that. If you want to clump all spiritual experiences with fee-based fortune tellers, or dogmatic hell-raising religious traditions-- you can do that too. But I think there is a part of you that knows better. If you have truly had an experience even remotely close to what I have experienced (and actually recorded or remembered it properly) then I would be certain that you know the difference, otherwise, I would doubt you have experienced what I have. There are those who have never had such an experience, and I think there are also those who have gone so long without having such an experience that they have all but forgotten what they learned from it and the coals have gone out.
Medicine and its effects are not free of delusion or mistake today. It is an ever evolving field full of errors and inconsistencies. However, it is the best thing I have got to help me be "whole".
In many ways Religion is no different than medicine.
Even if somehow I could prove that all spiritual enlightenment were delusion-- it would still be the greatest experience a mortal could have and I would hope that everyone could have such an experience. Though I think few do.
This opening statement is something that DIRECTLY confronts a unspoken cultural belief held my many traditional members of the church. It is however, very true. There are many people within the church who are of the opinion that any spiritual experience had by any person not belonging to the church must be either delusional or deceptive in nature. There are plenty of commonly accepted traditional ideas passed down among members of the LDS church that I do not believe, and the idea that mormons have a monopoly on any kind of spiritual experiences is one of them.
Someone said: People often get intense, personal, spiritual, confirmations of religious truths they believe in.
Houston, Texas offered a very diverse religious population. I interviewed all shapes and colors of Christianity, but also got to meet with people who identified as Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic, and Sikh, just to name a few. During my mission I exchanged words with over 8000 different people (I kept a daily record and I have a stack of about 6 filled journals). I discovered something very interesting. People would sometimes have what I would identify as a spiritual experience which resulted in them being devout to the tenets of their faith-- however, on further discussion, I learned that their actual spiritual experience had nothing to do with 99% of the tenets of their faith. It was a kind of enlightening connection or assurance/knowledge of the existence of a higher Being accompanied by knowledge of this Beings character and attributes (such as love, knowledge and power). Now is a good time to address the next part of what you said:
.
Someone said: "The problem is that these strong feelings (I've felt them myself!) are often for beliefs that are mutually exclusive."
And this is exactly what I wanted to get at-- The experiences that I heard from the 8000 people I spoke with were NOT exclusive, on the contrary, they fundamentally "inclusive". In essence these experiences are based off of the basic tenets that consist of the 3% of nearly all religions that overlap. Think of the experience that you had-- not knowing what experience(s) you are talking about, I would be willing to bet (assuming that you wrote the experience down and so can recall it properly), that they were regarding concepts or ideas that are more inclusive than exclusive-- or that they were more like an assurance of the existence of a higher Being (a very fundamental concept in essentially all religions). **HOWEVER** If you are like me (and perhaps many people), you made jumps in your reasoning. You jumped to the conclusion and assumed that since you were a mormon and since you had this experience that no one who belonged to any other religion could have such experiences and also that since you were a mormon at the time when you had the experience, that this must mean that ALL of the ideas that had ever been expressed by ANY leader in the church at ANY time must therefore be essentially flawless, free of all delusion and perfectly true.
Someone said: How reliable are they, then, in identifying truth?
By my experience and the experience of the 8000+ person sample during my mission, they are extremely reliable at identifying a few core truths. And much less reliable at identifying much beyond that. Most other beliefs, seem to me as post-experience reasoning or traditional/cultural concepts that were more or less adopted or assumed as true because of the initial experience, or using the initial experience as a launching point.
Someone said: One person might have obtained a strong personal spiritual witness that there is a critical necessity for infant baptism. This is what God wants, and if you don't pay the priest and get your baby baptized, that child will be damned forever. They believe this with every fiber of their being, it's the basis for their testimony.
Yeah, I have encountered people who believe things like this (and much stranger and more extreme things even), but I do not recall ever encountering a person who had what I would consider to be an actual spiritual experience about something like this.
This is a good time to introduce delusion.
In clinical trials, a medication is compared to a placebo. The placebo is essentially "delusion". In nearly every instance where a placebo has ever been given, there are people who will report responses-- delusional responses. The presence of these delusional symptoms do not eliminate the actuality of the effect of the actual medication.
Similarly, there are "spiritual experiences" and these are compared to a placebo: "delusion". There are even instances with medicine where a person will be given the medication and report the appropriate response AS WELL AS placebo-like (delusional) responses. Meaning that the results can be a mix of actual experience combined with delusional experience. People sell placebos (medical delusions) for money. People also sell pseudo-spiritual experiences (delusions) for money.
If this can be the case with medicine, why can not be AT LEAST as gracious with enlightenment.
It is possible to come to a logically sound and intelligent conclusion that all enlightenment is delusion. There is PLENTY of examples of places where I could site silly things that people have done or said in the name of "religion". Similarly some come to the conclusion that all modern medicine is bad, because there are also PLENTY of examples where people have done and believed silly things in the name of medicine. However, I think this is an extreme view in both cases, perhaps equally as extreme as coming to the conclusion that all medicine is good or that fortune tellers are all having "spiritual experiences" when you pay them money and they tell you your fortune.
For someone who actually understands medicine and for someone who actually has experienced some degree of spiritual enlightenment, this is obviously silly and extreme. It is contrary to the nature of such experiences-- and I bet it is contrary to the nature of your experiences.
If you want to clump all of medicine with snake-oil salesmen, you can do that. If you want to clump all spiritual experiences with fee-based fortune tellers, or dogmatic hell-raising religious traditions-- you can do that too. But I think there is a part of you that knows better. If you have truly had an experience even remotely close to what I have experienced (and actually recorded or remembered it properly) then I would be certain that you know the difference, otherwise, I would doubt you have experienced what I have. There are those who have never had such an experience, and I think there are also those who have gone so long without having such an experience that they have all but forgotten what they learned from it and the coals have gone out.
Medicine and its effects are not free of delusion or mistake today. It is an ever evolving field full of errors and inconsistencies. However, it is the best thing I have got to help me be "whole".
In many ways Religion is no different than medicine.
Even if somehow I could prove that all spiritual enlightenment were delusion-- it would still be the greatest experience a mortal could have and I would hope that everyone could have such an experience. Though I think few do.
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