Religious (Personal) Experience

[Laudate_Dominum]

This vid came up in my youtube recommendations and reminded me of this thread a bit.

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_4PSgFjtvI"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_4PSgFjtvI[/url]

[MithLuin]

Another comment to make that might be helpful from the point of view of your 'poll'...

Religious experiences are, of course, highly personal and subjective. Even immediately afterwards, it would not be unusual to think...did that *really* just happen? So, in a situation where a person later falls away from their faith, it would be a simple matter to dismiss the memory of the religious experience as 'not real.' Honestly, that would be easier than dismissing the people one used to associate with who still sincerely practice the faith . I would not expect any person who denies faith to affirm a personal religious experience, though there is a difference between someone who genuinely has never had any experience like that and someone who dismisses whatever experience they did have as merely an emotional reaction to a group or whatever.

Just my 2 cents.

[mysisterisalittlesister]

well, nuns are amesome sooo...

[stevil]

[quote name='Nola Seminarian' timestamp='1323382992' post='2347539']

i would like to ask what [i]you[/i] would classify as a religious experience before i respond to this.

(Nota Bene: im not trying to be a jerk, just curious about what you define it as)
[/quote]
I don't know what it is, but have heard the phrase from theists, hence the thread, so that I can learn what it is. No preconceptions here.

Edited December 9, 2011 by stevil

[Mark of the Cross]

[quote name='sixpence' timestamp='1322055969' post='2339740']
How common are these? Does everyone at your church have one or do only a special few?
I do not know; people tend not to blab about them for three reasons; 1. they are very personal, 2. not wanting to appear to be bragging about it, 3. concern that others (even within your religion) will think your off your rocker LOL

[/quote]
LOL aint that the truth! ! for 1/ I don't mind, I think it my duty to share my experiences of God. 2/ Yeah I even got accused of that here on PM. How much more with non theists. 3/ For sure! I have a mental illness so I just kind of expect that most will dismiss me as another nut case and who would blame them? The only people who take me seriously are the deeply religious or who have had experiences themselves.

[quote name='stevil' timestamp='1323337585' post='2347231']
I was just wondering how much importance from a group culture a religious experience might have. I mean, are people expected to have one? Do they feel that they are not close enough to god if they haven't had one?
[/quote]
I wouldn't think so! I am not very high up on the saintly charts nor have I suffered more than most. All of my experiences were unexpected. I cannot offer an explanation as to why there are haves and have nots.
If you are interested you can read my story here. [url="http://www.ozcatechumenate.org/"]Go to our stories-Marks story. [/url]

[Amppax]

Thought this was very interesting, from Marc Barnes blog:

[url="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/badcatholic/2011/12/atheists-disprove-gods-existence-again.html"]http://www.patheos.com/blogs/badcatholic/2011/12/atheists-disprove-gods-existence-again.html[/url]

Apparently, they stimulated religious experience.