Question to religious types

[John Dibble]

Basically, it is: If someone else, using your methodology (although perhaps not heuristics which come out of that methodology), comes to a different conclusion, why would you (if you would) accept your experience over theirs without agnosticism?  This seems ludicrous to me.

can you restate that using smaller words?  i've had 1.5 beers, which is a lot for me, even though I am 190 pounds, so I am not in any mood to fake having a vocabulary

also, if you could try to give me a hard-coded example, instead of using abstract A and B examples, it might help me understand where you're coming from

Haha, I totally understand.  Let me try tomorrow, hopefully less sleep-deprived, and able to actually translate abstract to concrete examples.  I know most people work better when starting at concrete and moving to abstract, but alas that's not how my brain works

I think I know what Alcon is trying to ask, and if it isn't what he wants to ask I'm still going to give my interpretation anyways because I'd be interested in hearing jmfcst's response.

Ok, here goes...

Jmfcst had a religious experience that he believed to be of a Christian nature, and so he has compared his experience to what is written in the scriptures and has determined that it truly was. From there he studies scripture further and comes to have a certain interpretation of it.

Billy Joe Bob Junior the Fourth, who I henceforth shall refer to as Stan just to confuse you, also had a religious experience that he believed to be of a Christian nature, and so he compared his experience to what was written in the scriptures and determined that it truly was. From there he studies scripture further and comes to have a certain interpretation of it.

However, if you were to compare the two experiences as described by these two men, they would sound very different. Also, their interpretations of scripture that too would be quite different, and in fact would be contradictory in many places. Obviously, they both can't be right, and the differences are so great that one or both of them might doubt that the source of their experience was truly of a Christian nature. Yet both of their interpretations are rather self-consistent across the scriptures, and both have arguments for their case that are rather convincing.

This leaves us with questions - is there a way to see if either of them are right? Could one or both of them be using their experience to interpret scripture rather than the other way around without realizing it? After all, even if what the Bible says is true you could still come to incorrect conclusions if you look at it the wrong way. So in such a situation where the other guy's interpretation is radically different from yours due to a different experience would you A) dismiss his experience as one from a bad spirit, B) voice doubts but not outright say that his experience was one from a bad spirit since you can't be sure, C) be completely agnostic on the subject and express no doubts, D) openly accept his experience even though it's different and lead to a different conclusion even if you think the conclusion is wrong because you think he's at least right in spirit or something like that, or E) something I didn't think of. (I suppose it could be any of these depending on the individual details of the case, but for the sake of the example I again express that the result is that there are many differences)

Also, just as an extra question to jmfcst since he believes in bad spirits that try to throw you off course: would you say there are such bad spirits that try to point people to the Bible but also try to make sure they interpret it wrong?

[John Dibble]

Jmfcst had a religious experience that he believed to be of a Christian nature, and so he has compared his experience to what is written in the scriptures and has determined that it truly was. From there he studies scripture further and comes to have a certain interpretation of it.

Billy Joe Bob Junior the Fourth, who I henceforth shall refer to as Stan just to confuse you, also had a religious experience that he believed to be of a Christian nature, and so he compared his experience to what was written in the scriptures and determined that it truly was. From there he studies scripture further and comes to have a certain interpretation of it.

However, if you were to compare the two experiences as described by these two men, they would sound very different. Also, their interpretations of scripture that too would be quite different, and in fact would be contradictory in many places. Obviously, they both can't be right, and the differences are so great that one or both of them might doubt that the source of their experience was truly of a Christian nature. Yet both of their interpretations are rather self-consistent across the scriptures, and both have arguments for their case that are rather convincing.

Is this a hypothetical, or are you thinking of something in particular?  In the non-salvational areas (timing of rapture, view of godhead, etc), I would agree there is room for disagreement  But in foundational issues concerning salvation (sin, faith, repentance, love, etc), I don’t know of any example that has come before this forum in the last 10 years where both sides of the argument are self-consistent across scripture.

So, you’ll have to give a specific example.

It's a broad hypothetical, not necessarily speaking to one particular part of the Bible, so I don't have a specific example to give. The point of focus is supposed to be on both people claiming to have had a religious experience and not necessarily on the particulars of their disagreements, but rather the fact that they had radical disagreements.

Anyways, the rest of your answer sufficiently answer the first question I think, though Alcon will have to comment since it was him asking originally. If you would could you give your opinion on the second one I asked?

[John Dibble]

Dibble,

Not that it is conclusive or anything, but do you see how the part of my testimony concerning being made aware of the battle of spiritual forces behind the deception of Armstrongism is yet another area where my testimony is exactly in line with scripture?

Not quite sure which testimony you're talking about, so I can't say I really care whether it's in line with scripture or not. It really isn't relevant anyways - whatever experience you had only pertains to you, and is not demonstrably true to others such as myself. From my perspective your claims are not so much different in nature than any other claim to a supernatural experience, and that you have a way to describe whatever testimony it might be in such a way that it might be consistent with your preferred religious text isn't really interesting since people do that all that time.

For the rest of it... tl;dr.