not really.....just expanding on it.........what have we agreed upon thus far?

They are empirical because they are based on observation and experience, but they are not empirical proof, because they do not prove the existence of God, either to me or to you.

But to them it does to them, so what the fuck are you going to do about it?

prove them wrong?

*chuckles* how?

I'm not going to do anything about it. It's nothing to do with me. But something is only proved when you've asked all the hard questions about it, and answered them convincingly.

And to them, they have.

thatz true

I know where you're coming from Guy, I was just talking to someone about it yesterday. When something is proven to someone on a totally empirical level. It has been proven to them beyond a doubt and therefore they have total faith in an experience that cannot be proven to anyone else. Eg. Religion, UFO experiences, revelations, after death experience, the list is endless of things that can't be physically proven or measured.

But they don't know that their experience is any different in substance from the religious experiences that some serial killers have, which were equally convincing.

Com'on Guy, answer him.

Yes they do, they're not killing people.

ha! bah-zing!

i didn't read thru all the posts, so if i repeat something that was already said.. sorry...

what about blind faith? or faith clouded by desire or some sort of intense emotion?..what i'm getting at is that sometimes we don't even know or understand what we're believing in but we like where it might lead us to (not neccesarily in ignorance) and what it can do for us...

faith helps the lonely get thru life without sinning...whatever you would dub a "sin"...

How does that prove anything? Not every pseudo-religious experience has to result in somebody's death.

So who are you differentiate between a "real" religious experience and "pseudo-religious" experience?

Hang on! People who have a religious epiphany are rational and people who have hack-off-peoples-heads voices, delusional. Aren't we straying a little far from the path though? Unfortunately I am more of a skeptic. I do lose faith in my gut-instinct and always question others scientific research. I think you have to have faith to believe anything. Life is harder without faith.

Gut-instinct is not at all what a religious experience is.

explain......

Don't nit-pick! Gut instinct, as in a physical manifestation metaphor of an unprovable faith. You feel it in your gut (essence/soul) but there is no known logical explanation. I haven't had a religious experience per se, but I have had metaphysical experiences which gave me total faith in a spiritual philosophy that has little scientific evidence.