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Can you even define a "spiritual principle"?

"Abandon your reason for faith,....... "

That's not even close to what I said.

The ability to reason is but one part of the Self. The Self is all you are.

And there is no "faith" involved.

You simply offer yourself, honestly and completely, to whatever Creative Force there may be.

If there is no Creative Force, you will remain unchanged.

But the depth of the surrender required is such, and the human ego is so strong, that the majority of people can only accomplish it when all their human resources have failed them.

However,Dr. William James claims that there are what he called the "Once Born" among us. They seem to have been born into a state of harmony with the Spiritual Realm.

So,my friend, YOU contain the very best evidence of a Creative Force right inside your own being, yet you demand that CCCC produce evidence on your terms.

Not a very Scientific approach.

Excellent argument and yet it completely destroys any single faith/belief stance as well.

That's because I wasn't quoting you.

I was quoting CCCC, but you cut off that part of my quot.

You ask for a definition, not an example, so......

There are only TWO wills in the Physical realm.

Mine, and yours.

In a particular instance,when we disagree, I can follow yours.... or mine.

In the Spiritual Realm, there is a third will.

If I follow it... I'll be OK, even if you don't agree.

Spiritual Principles are the essence of that "still, small, voice".[btw...there's my definition]

Religion, which is humanly derived, will always seek out Justification and Rationalization. These are the "Ancient enemies of Spirituality".

"Excellent argument and yet it completely destroys any single faith/belief stance as well."

IF there is only ONE God...... can a wrong one answer?

So you claim we should offer ourselves to a creative force, one which you admit may not exist, then claim there is no cost to offering yourself to something that may not exist? Sounds like shades of Pascals Wager.

If you are trying to say we must all accept there are thing we cannot change, well, yea, that's just the way it is. This isn't some "spiritual truth", it's just the plain truth, whether we like it or not.

As for William James, nice philosophy, now how do you turn that into evidence?

It sounds like you are equating "spiritual principles" with our conscience?

I KNOW that Force exists. There was a time I only suspected it. Then I performed the "experiment" and now I know.

If you try it and find nothing, what has it cost you? No Pascal's wager involved.

Why are you talking about "acceptance"? It has nothing to do with anything I've posted. It would be a better discussion if you respond to the words I type.

William James' comment about the "Once Born" was a result of studying THOUSANDS of cases of "Religious Experiences" which resulted in profound changes in the Subjects of his studies.

Do you consider Psychology a Science? He is reckoned as the "Father of Modern Psychology", you know.

No.... look up "essence".

BTW.... where did your conscience come from? We ruled out evolution as its source in earlier conversations.

Here is a Spiritual Principle for you:

"As you sow, you will surely reap".[what goes around comes around]

The Spiritual Realm seems to be a balance between a Perfect Justice and a Perfect Mercy.

With respect to us, the Creator's Perfect Mercy trumps his Perfect Justice,

If I had one more class in it, I've have enough psychology for a minor. Of the sciences, by far, I consider psychology the weakest. Psychologist are notoriously lousy statisticians. It's amazing how often they do a "study" with a sample size in the single digits. There's a reason at my last University Psychology classes did not qualify as science credit.

As for your psychologist from 100 years ago with proof of God, do you have a link the the pear review journal article containing this "proof", or was no one else ever able to replicate his results?

Didn't read his lecture series, did you? University of Edinburgh,,,"Varieties of Religious Experiences".

Nothing about "proving God". Just studying the experiences of the people involved.

His "results" are being replicated as we speak, somewhere. By the millions.

Every time a human establishes communication with the God that made him, and his life is changed for the better.

And they laugh at your presumptuous demand for "proof", or "evidence".

Fist, I never agreed that an evolutionary nature of the conscience could be rules out. If anything, I would propose just the opposite of your conclusion,

As for your definition, see how quickly it falls apart?

You mention the work essence, then never work it into the definition. Then you propose it as an balance between two opposites. Mercy is the suspension of justice. With perfect Mercy, there is not justice and vise versa.

In other words you offered a self contradictory definition, meaning that which you propose cannot exist.

Regarding your example "As you sow, you will surely reap", earlier you said spirituality had nothing to do with the Bible, but then you quote Galatians? So, if as you claim, a spiritual truth is something that comes from inside you, and not from religion, why are you quoting the Bible for your "spiritual truths"?

What you really quoted is jut a proverb, so in your example "spiritual truths" are just everyday experiences and common observations summarized in a conscious way?

I'm still trying to understand where the "spiritual" part comes from?

So his results were not peer reviewed, nor replicated by his peers. Good to know.

As for people thinking they are communicating with God as evidence, there sure are a lot of contradictory gods these people think they are communicating with. If there was only one god we should expect a more unified message.

"So his results were not peer reviewed, nor replicated by his peers. Good to know.

As for people thinking they are communicating with God as evidence, there sure are a lot of contradictory gods these people think they are communicating with. If there was only one god we should expect a more unified message."

An overwhelming majority of your fellow humans claim to visit a place, a Spiritual Dimension , which you claim does not exist because they can't provide evidence meeting your standards. You have been given directions on how to get to it, but you refuse to make the trip. You have a lot in common with the Flat Earth adherents of a few centuries ago.

If the Spiritual Dimension operated under the same Physical Laws as the Universe we CAN comprehend, it wouldn't be a separate dimension, would it?

You are like a man attempting to referee a soccer match using an NFL rule book.

The players are amused.

Imagine the Spiritual Realm as being like a wagon wheel. The Creator God is the hub and we humans are like spokes. We cannot see the rim, but as long as we hold fast to our attachment to the hub, we are secured to the rim and are in exactly the right relationship to the other spokes.

There are loose spokes which haven't found their socket in the hub. There are spokes who claim they can see the rim and are concerned that other spokes are in the wrong socket, even though they appear to be secured to the hub.

Some loose spokes judge the entire Wheel by the actions of these vocal spokes and stop looking for their socket.

But they can never escape the Wheel's boundaries, the Hub and the rim.

"Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know."

After all his research, Dr. James wrote something like this:

"All the books ever written can not begin to explain what happens in the mind of a man who meets his Creator for the first time".

AS - either you are unprincipled within yourself or you are talking out of your mind. You know full well that there is nothing deceptive about that straightforward response - and one can understand why you don't like to read it. And, again, don't try to deflect the fact that never have you provided your promised "proof" that an atheist exists even though another guy did 'fess up and spring that trap on himself (and on you).

You also know that never have I said that I wished to, or could, provide evidence (let alone proof) to you regarding God, but also certainly never "conceded" a lack of the same. I challenge you to search everything said on here and re-post my words making such a concession. You should be ashamed of the above post.

I said nothing about God; I said that your excellent argument destroys any single faith/belief stance.

So not you are claiming people visit that which you cannot even define. When asked to define "spiritual truths", the best you could come up with was a collection of proverbs.

As for people experiencing strange things within their brain, that does not prove the assistance of another realm. If you take LSD you will have a very strange experience within your brain, but this does not prove the existence of a spiritual realm, just that you are experiencing an altered brain state. Drugs are not the only way to bring about an altered brain state, dehydration, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, oxygen deprecation, hypothermia, hunger, being covered with stinging insects, or some combination of the above can all bring about an altered brain state. These are actually things we understand, and with modern science can even detect the changes as the occur within the brain.

An altered brain state is evidence of an altered brain state, not the existence of some "spiritual realm" or god(s).