There also isn't evidence that fire breathing dragons don't exist. You could play that game with anything that there isn't evidence for. No touch knock outs, afterlife, unicorns, .....
If there was evidence, of course I'd except. Evidence is evidence.
Well, no, in the case of religious experience, evidence isn't evidence at all. Real scientific evidence is, after all, objective, and we're talking about something that is completely
subjective: I can say what I experience, and it may even have told me exactly what it signifies, but you
can't tell me what it is. In that respect, I probably can't convince you if you need "evidence." You have to take it on faith.
There are, as I said, completely replicable experiences in shamanic ritual that have even been subjected to double blind testing with all individuals reporting the same information. These, however, are easily attributable to any of the various causes you mentioned earlier: brain chemistry, etc.-which still brings us back to my question: what evolutionary purpose does this capacity for religious/spiritual/transcendent experiences have?
I added "transcendent" because it's been my observation that in some of my colleagues,
science provides the same sort of experience. Thus, when Dr. Andy Saunders managed to capture a record number of super-cold neutrons in a magnetic bottle, it was, for him, a religious experience, despite his atheism. It was, likewise, a religious experience for our mentor, Dr. Kevin Jones, though, being an Episcopalian, Kevin probably didn't recognize it as such.
For me, having had religious experiences independent of science, it was simply the culmination of a lot of hard work.
You made the assertion that most or all of them originated to be allegorical. I don't know. Thanks, I will look in to it.
It's certainly true of the Genesis creation myth, and was commented upon as such through much of the period between 500 B.C. to about 1000 A.D., when literal interpretation came to the fore. Thus, literal interpretation of the Bible is, essentially, Dark Ages thinking.
A really good example in the Old Testament is the story of wise King Solomon,and the two mothers-the "Judgement of Solomon." If you're unfamiliar with it, essentially, two women claimed a baby as their own, and came before King Solomon to settle it. He told them that he'd cut the baby in two, and give them each half-whereupon he could discern the true mother, because she yielded her claim in order to keep the baby alive. The backstory is that Solomon wasn't thought of as the rightful claimant to the throne of Israel-they thought that David's older, fourth son Adonijah was the rightful claimant, and were trying to dispute the claim, possibly dividing the kingdom of Israel. The story of the two mothers is a bit of politics by Solomon, whereby he says that he will be the "false claimant," and cut the baby-Israel-in two, and that the "true claimants" should yield their claim for the good of all.
Many sure don't take them as just allegorical or poetry. Many take the quran as: A science book, history book, law book, ........Same with the bible
Unquestionably. I'm saying that this is usually a mistake-however, since religious experiences are subjective, it's not for me, or anyone else, to say, sadly.
And since the thread is about Muslims beheading people. I wonder where they got this morality from. And I'm not talkin about some 'twisted ideology' like the Eugenics program or anything, I'm talking about direct and perfect words from a real god.
Well, yes and no. While religious texts have been used to justify various human depridations throughout the centuries, and they can find verses to justify and support their actions, the fact is that the "morality" comes from a twisted political agenda that uses perversions and misinterpretations to justify and accomplish political ends-think Solomon actually splitting a baby in two.
