Rodge

Romansh, "Energy" is a physical concept. Human consciousness may not consume energy, beyond that consumed by brain activity. I suppose that I'm arguing that human consciousness is the experience of brain activity that does not require additional energy to exist. I concede that science may prove my argument to be wrong, by showing an entirely physical construct of consciousness. But if I'm right, no one can ever use science to prove that I am right. That fact puts me at a disadvantage. I suppose the best I can do is to say that my argument is based on circumstantial evidence.

Soma, Thank for responding to my questions, but I’m afraid you didn't really address my uncertainty. It might be helpful if I outline my assumptions that lie behind my questions. First, I assume that the goal of this web site is not just to sponsor a theological seminar, but to strengthen the Christian church. Second, I assume that an institutional religion is drawn toward asserting its possession of “truth,” that it has a more correct understanding than its rivals. Third, I assume that institutional Christianity has been discredited over the centuries by having various claims disproven. (Not so much a problem when the church had a monopoly on spiritual, political, and scholarly power, a monopoly that has been torn down, especially since the Renaissance, with the advent of the scientific method, public education, political independence, and mass communication.) Fourth, I assume that there can be no confirming proof (validation by impartial observers) of any spiritual claims, since proof requires physical tools and spiritual claims involve non-physical phenomena. Fifth, there is a fundamental difference between “God” and “Jesus,” one being an abstraction and one being a specific person. Or, to put it another way, one being incapable of being proven and one being potentially capable of being proven. Sixth, there has been an evolving understanding of the divine that moves from the concrete toward the abstract, from the spirit that lives in the volcano to theistic and mono-theistic divinity to the extreme abstraction of “Ground of Our Being.” Seventh, this trend toward abstraction has made it increasingly difficult for most people to identify with the concept of divinity. Eight, the man named Jesus, being specific and human, continues to be identifiable to most people. Ninth, institutional Christianity should turn away from unprovable claims about the existence and nature of “God” and “Christ,” and instead focus on trying to uncover the significance of the teachings of a man named Jesus. (This does not mean denying “God,” but just testifying about personal experience without projecting it onto others.) Those are the assumptions that have led me to this site. It seems that you recognize the importance of Jesus as a guide. As does Bishop John Shelby Spong. But, in calling for a Christian revolution, Bishop Spong still seems to trying too hard to give meaning (if not a definition) to the concept of “God.” Bishop Spong’s historcial correctness about the Bible is one thing, but his arguing for theological correctness bothers me, because I think it involves false claims and poor strategy. It just doesn’t seem promising to me to go up to Fundamentalists who have experienced what seemed like the presence of Jesus, and tell them that they couldn't really have experienced that. It seems more promising to engage them in a discussion about what we know about Jesus and what that means. So, I followed Bishop Spong to your web site, and was immediately baffled by what you were claiming regarding the divine. To be frank, my suspicion was that it was just the kind of intellectual word play that would further isolate Christianity from most people, but I don’t want to jump to conclusions. Can’t ypu just focus on Jesus without drawing boundaries around something as subjective and unprovable as our experience (or non-experience) of the divine?

Romansh, I'm not sure that it's helpful to play definitional games. But, since you asked, "proof" and "evidence" are different concepts. A consistency of evidence constitutes proof. But care must be taken in evaluating the evidence. If 20 people said Jesus had red hair, that is not evidence that Jesus had red hair. It is evidence that 20 people believed they had an experience that confirmed it. We have proof that they made the statements, not that the statements were true. Now, one could argue that there is no such thing as proof of anything, by defining "proof" in a certain way. But then the word would describe nothing and have no meaning. With regard to calorimeters, you are back to arguing that non-material activity can't exist because it can't be measured by material tools, which is an assertion of an assumption, not a fact. Can you explain, logically, how calorimeters or any physical tool would be able to measure non-physical activity?

Romansh, One wouldn't even have to be a participant to know that they all had headaches. But how did each experience that headache? What did it feel like to him or her? They — and we — have no way of knowing. One cannot describe with precision the experience of a headache. One can only use metaphors to capture an approximation. Do you dispute the idea that some people have a high threshold for pain and some have a low threshold? Isn't that a claim that peple experience pain differently?

Romansh, Regarding: "In the sense that colour of an object is an illusion so is consciousness." How do you define "illusion"? If you mean "something that is not part of physical reality," you are trying to win an argument by giving words meanings that preclude argument. All I can say is that my experience of consciousness is real, and can be relied on to help me function. Regarding the essay. That's a joke, right? Someone must work really hard to complicate something so obvious and everyday as the experience of human consciousness as a continual internal representation of the world around us and within our bodies. Regarding: "If it does interact with the physical, then it is subsumed into the physical." What do you mean by "subsumed"? Are you again giving a word a meaning that precludes debate? How can you prove that the non-phsical can't have an impact on the physical? Regarding: "Can subjective truths be observed? Can the be deduced?" Subjective truths are personal and internal. They cannot be observed. They can be testified to by the person experiencing them, but that testimony has to be filtered through human language, which has no words for what "green" looks like to me. The best we can do is get a glimpse of subjective truth through symbolic (metaphorical, poetic) language. Finally, regarding: "Joseph could be right and you will never know." Joseph is surely "right" about his subjective truth. Only if he claims it to be an objective (universal) truth does the question of being objectively "right" arise. If he claims it to be true for everyone and can't produce physical verification, then I say he is 'wrong" to proclaim it as objective truth, but still "right" to testify to it as subjective truth.

What is the meaning of "Sacred and the Oneness and Unity of all life" in your 8 Points? Is it just a way to refer to God without using the word? The "Oneness of life" seems to say that everything that shares a name is united by that name, so we could also refer to the "Oneness of grapes" or the "Oneness of solar planets"? The same question arises with the "Unity of life." But the phrases are probably intended to mean something more than that. And what meaning is attached to "Sacred," especially with that capital S?

JosephM, That is a rather mystical concept that I do not pretend to understand. But it is your subjective truth, and subjective truths can only be testified to, not proven or disproven.

Romansh, Evolution has led to human consciousness, which is based on physical input and can activate physical results. But consciousness is not physical, indicated by the fact that the components of our experience of human consciousness are not part of the physical world (we experience color, but color does not exist in light waves; we experience sound but sound does not exist in changes in air pressure, etc.). It is this non-physical component of human experience that makes possible free will. But the inability to define or measure human consciousness does not mean that it does not exist, any more than the inability to define or measure God does not mean that a non-physical God does not exist. We need to recognize the limits of physical tools to measure only physical phenomena. To say that nothing can exist except physical phenomena is an assumption, not a fact. (Please note that I am not saying that any of this proves that God exists; just that we can't say for sure, one way or the other.)

Romanss, What happens when I press a key is predictable. If pressing the "A" key does not produce "A" on the screen, I do not think that some randomness has intruded into the process. I think that something has gone wrong mechanistically, and search for that transformed cause. But I don't want to get bogged down in a discussion of predictability and chaos theory. So, to your "central point": A belief in free will does not deny physical cause and effect. It requires only that a part of reality exists where cause and effect cannot be detected, because it is not operative.

Romansh, I am talking about theoretical predictability — the presence of complete information and the mental/computing power to instantly digest it and produce a prediction. My argument is that no amount of physical data would allow the accurate prediction of human free will choice. I realize that some people make a big deal about quantum randomness, but I'm not one of them. It is my impression that the randomness averages out when you get to bigger scale events, and the quantum randomness doesn't really affect how my keyboard operates in a completely non-random way. As to the pendulum experiment, I think it seems "chaotic" only to a casual observer. Are you suggesting that a computer program fed information about the physical facts about the two pendulums and their environment couldn't predict the sequence of flips and flops that we witness? Now I recognize that my discussion of predictability is somewhat theoretical and abstract, but it does go to the question of whether or not something other than the laws of physics can determine outcomes.

Romansh, I believe my human consciousness is influenced by and limited by physical cause-and-effect. But genuine choices can remain. My free will act of picking a choice is the cause of my action. I hope this answers your questions. Let me give an example. Yesterday, I was mall-walking to get some exercise. At one point, I realized that the pace of my steps matched the beat of music being piped over the mall's loudspeakers. With that realization, I had a choice, either to declare my independence by changing my pace or to shrug off the coincidence by continuing the same pace. I chose to continue my pace. I then realized that, as I continued walking, I would from time to time become aware of whether or not my pace matched the song's, and each time I would have a choice of whether or not to alter my pace, whether or not my pace matched the song's. And I was convinced that there was no way someone could have predicted with certainty whether I would alter or maintain my pace each time that happened. And I, in fact, did sometimes alter my pace after that, and sometimes maintained my pace. This is a trivial example, but to me it was strong evidence that my choices were the product of my human consciousness's free will, and not any mechanical cause-and-effect.

Fatherman, If I understand you correctly, you are saying that you were not really referring to the brain but to the subconscious. I have been trying to focus on human consciousness, which I think is different from dreams and the subconscious. But they are all part of subjective truth, I believe.

Fatherman, You wrote: "I want amend to say that I do think there is value in experiencing the world without my brain's judgment, but I wonder if there are limits to it. " What are your assumptions regarding "my brain's judgment." It judgment merely an experience, or is it an opinion about an experience? Is it an opinion that something does or does not exist? Or an opinion about whether or not that something has value, is good, is evil, etc.? And do you literally mean that judgments are made by our brains? Or are they made by out free-will consciousness, our spiritual "self"? Without knowing for sure what you mean by the statement, I would question whether it is even possible to experience the words without our consciousness.

Fatherman, Thank your for sharing your personal story. With regard to The Matrix, perhaps I didn't focus enough on your "color illustration." You wrote: "He has a choice to experience the illusion that his food is appealing and delicious. He chooses the reality that his food is gray and tasteless because he is training himself to live in reality. " I object to both halves of that statement. FIrst, how he reacts to the food is not an illusion. Whatever the food is, his reaction is real, it is his subjective reality, it is truly what he experiences. Second, the color and taste of the food is not a reality, since the food has no inherent color or taste. Color and taste are his subjective reactions to it. He can, with the proper tools, easily determine the frequency of light reflected off the food and the presence or absence of molecules of salt and other flavorings. This in no way conflicts with his experience of eating the food. This is not pushing through to any real dilemma. It is not that challenging to hold the truth of experience and the truth of objective reality at the same time. I have never seen any of the Matrix movies, but your comment seems to suggest that they are based on a dramatic device of trying to set our experience in conflict with reality. That may make good drama, but I don't' see how it demonstrates any truth.

I'm new to this site and am jumping in here without having read everything that's gone before. But someone in another topic suggested that something I wrote there might be of interest here, so I'm sharing it here. This is an argument from personal experience, not theological belief or scientific research. I realize that that approach upsets some, but I think that ultimately everything we believe is based on our subjective evaluation of what we experience (including what we read about technical matters). So, here goes: My view of the physical world is mechanistic, predictable. That if I press the "Y" key on on the keyboard, "Y" will appear on the computer screen. That if I heat an egg in very hot water, the liquid contents inside the shell will turn solid. That the rotation of the Earth will cause the sun to appear to rise in the East. We constantly depend of the fact that a certain cause will have a certain effect. What happens in the physical world is predetermined by what happened previously. Theoretically, every physical event today was the result of a series of fixed causes and effects since the Big Bang. Of course, some processes are so complex it is difficult to imagine that we could gather enough information for a precise, correct prediction. But I take that to be a limit of our ability to gather sufficient data instantly, rather than a failure of cause and effect. I also recognize that quantum mechanics describes a different process at the atomic and sub-atomic level, but I'm not aware that anyone has claimed that this atomic activity invalidates Newtonian laws at the scale we experience reality. But I do find that my experience of life doesn't match this mechanistic view. First, regarding predictability. After reading your post, I considered how to reply. I thought of one approach, then abandoned it for the approach I am now taking. And, as I type, I revise sentences and substitute new words for ones I have written. That's not how the laws of nature work. Nature doesn't correct errors and make revisions in a specific case. My toaster doesn't correct itself if the setting burns my toast. My radio doesn't correct itself if a short distorts the sound. Nature doesn't "correct" a mutant cell division. One could argue that evolution is self-correcting, but that's not because nature "fixes" a specific mistake; it's just that some causes lead to more enduring results than others. Getting "heads" five coin flips in a row is not due to nature changing anything; it is just a matter repeatedly flipping the coin enough times. When I decide this morning to have a waffle rather than an egg for breakfast, I don't think it is reasonable to believe that that choice was determined at the moment of the Big Bang. I think it is more reasonable to think my human consciousness was able to make an unpredictable choice. Second, regarding experience itself. I experience my life being full of sensations — color, sound, taste, scent, etc. And yet, none of these exist in nature. Grass may reflect electromagnetic radiation of a certain frequency, but there is no color there. Slamming a door may send shock waves through the air, but there is no sound there. We have evolved to have receptors of data about our bodies and our surroundings. But evolution has also created brains and central nervous systems that make consciousness possible, but the raw data bombarding us is useless as raw data; it must be interpreted. So where does data turn into the experience of color? Not in the rods and cones of our eyes. Not in the neurons of our brains. There is no physical locus where we can objectively show that data has been turned into the experience of color. So I conclude that experience is non-physical, and that our consciousness is affected by external stimulus, but is not totally controlled by it. Hence, our consciousness enables us to choose among real options, and that's free will. Our choices are limited by physical realities, and our ability to carry out our decisions is limited by our physical location and capabilities. Free will does not, to me, mean anything supernatural, anything in violation of natural law. It is the product of natural processes that created, first, life out of non-life, then consciousness out of programmed responses, then human consciousness that permits our decisions to take into account abstract concepts. So, that's what made me side with free will. But that's not a decision against cause-and-effect. It's an addition to cause-and-effect.

Fatherman, I've just noticed that I didn't respond to your comment that "This raises the question for me, then what are we to make of the difference between our perception and the ultimate reality?" I'm not sure what you mean. Are you suggesting that there is a significant difference between our experience of "green" and the frequency of light reflected off grass, other than being different versions of the same thing? Are you talking about things such as optical illusions? Are you suggesting that The Matrix franchise is more than imaginative science fiction, that it represents reality in any way? Are you suggesting a serious issue, or just a playful exercise?

Fatherman One of the major decisions for me during the last ten years was to stop debating what to believe, and to start with what I knew for sure — my own experience. Since then, my belief system has grown outward from my personal experience and knowledge, and in general contains less certainty the further I move beyond my own experience of life. As a result, I'm not very interested in hypotheticals, such as the possibility that science could discover an observable and testable God. I guess that explains why I'm not a great fan of science fiction, but I respect the mind exercises of those who are. Harry, Why do you think it is necessary, or even legitimate, to pass judgment on your stepdaughter's personal truth? (Unless she charges you for a bad reading.)

Harry, And how do we know that their spirits aren't cruising the the shadow of Hale-Bopp?

I can't comment on the role of mental illness because I'm not qualified. But I agree that subjective truths can contain claims of objective truth. To the extent that they do, those objective claims can be challenged and tested with evidence. But that won't work if the subjective claim includes an exemption from physical laws. But going that route also removes the possibility of claiming that the truth applies to anyone else. Also, I am skeptical of the idea that science will one day make all subjective claims objectively testable. There is admittedly a trend line in that direction. But I'm inclined to think the trend reflects the church's tendency to pretend that subjective claims (that the sun moves overhead in the Firmament, for example) are objectively true. It may be that science will eventually reach an impenetrable barrier between the physical and the spiritual. We just don't know.

Fatherman and Harry, Here's a thought: Suppose the person who believes in the literal, physical ascension of Jesus also believes that there is a supernatural God who is capable of violating physical law at will. To say that such a belief is delusional is to apply an objective test to a subjective claim. Since there is no objective truth about God, we can't prove or disprove subjective testimony to personal experience and belief. I happen to believe that the idea of physical ascension is ridiculous, but that is my subjective truth, not something I can force on the other person. I can prove that physical ascension is not possible under physical law, but I can't prove that God can't mess with physical law. My position is tolerance for each person's subjective belief, but intolerance for attempts to impose one's subjective truth on others. Fatherman, For several years there was in my city an Interfaith Forum for several weeks each fall, organized by the "downtown" clergy (Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Unitarian, and Muslim). Each session featured a panel of clergy from different faiths discussing an assigned topic, followed by table talk among those of different faiths, ending with panel commentaries about questions or ideas submitted by the table-talkers. There seemed to be three informal rules that made these sessions successful: Be respectful of others; speak honestly about your faiths' position, and enjoy some good-natured kidding. This model inspires me to the possibility. But my similar idea is different in these ways: The discussions would be within an ongoing community (the church); they would be a continuing part of the weekly routine; many different lay persons, not the clergy, would be a focus of the gatherings; the gatherings would spiritually focused, and there would be enough time for a person testifying to fully develop the thought.

Romansh, My view of the physical world is mechanistic, predictable. That if I press the "Y" key on on the keyboard, "Y" will appear on the computer screen. That if I heat an egg in very hot water, the liquid contents inside the shell will turn solid. That the rotation of the Earth will cause the sun to appear to rise in the East. We constantly depend of the fact that a certain cause will have a certain effect. What happens in the physical world is predetermined by what happened previously. Theoretically, every physical event today was the result of a series of fixed causes and effects since the Big Bang. Of course, some processes are so complex it is difficult to imagine that we could gather enough information for a precise, correct prediction. But I take that to be a limit of our ability to gather sufficient data instantly, rather than a failure of cause and effect. I also recognize that quantum mechanics describes a different process at the atomic and sub-atomic level, but I'm not aware that anyone has claimed that this atomic activity invalidates Newtonian laws at the scale we experience reality. But I do find that my experience of life doesn't match this mechanistic view. First, regarding predictability. After reading your post, I considered how to reply. I thought of one approach, then abandoned it for the approach I am now taking. And, as I type, I revise sentences and substitute new words for ones I have written. That's not how the laws of nature work. Nature doesn't correct errors and make revisions in a specific case. My toaster doesn't correct itself if the setting burns my toast. My radio doesn't correct itself if a short distorts the sound. Nature doesn't "correct" a mutant cell division. One could argue that evolution is self-correcting, but that's not because nature "fixes" a specific mistake; it's just that some causes lead to more enduring results than others. Getting "heads" five coin flips in a row is not due to nature changing anything; it is just a matter repeatedly flipping the coin enough times. When I decide this morning to have a waffle rather than an egg for breakfast, I don't think it is reasonable to believe that that choice was determined at the moment of the Big Bang. I think it is more reasonable to think my human consciousness was able to make an unpredictable choice. Second, regarding experience itself. I experience my life being full of sensations — color, sound, taste, scent, etc. And yet, none of these exist in nature. Grass may reflect electromagnetic radiation of a certain frequency, but there is no color there. Slamming a door may send shock waves through the air, but there is no sound there. We have evolved to have receptors of data about our bodies and our surroundings. But evolution has also created brains and central nervous systems that make consciousness possible, but the raw data bombarding us is useless as raw data; it must be interpreted. So where does data turn into the experience of color? Not in the rods and cones of our eyes. Not in the neurons of our brains. There is no physical locus where we can objectively show that data has been turned into the experience of color. So I conclude that experience is non-physical, and that our consciousness is affected by external stimulus, but is not totally controlled by it. Hence, our consciousness enables us to choose among real options, and that's free will. Our choices are limited by physical realities, and our ability to carry out our decisions is limited by our physical location and capabilities. Free will does not, to me, mean anything supernatural, anything in violation of natural law. It is the product of natural processes that created, first, life out of non-life, then consciousness out of programmed responses, then human consciousness that permits our decisions to take into account abstract concepts. So, that's what made we side with free will. But that's not a decision against cause-and-effect. It's an addition to cause-and-effect.

Fatherman, First, regarding faith, the issue is whether or not "faith" can be objective truth, whether personal beliefs can be transformed into universal truths by a political process. A person's subjective faith cannot be challenged because we do not have access to the internal processes by which the faith was created. Therefore, I must accept the person's testimonial to his or her faith as subjectively true for that person. The institutional process is different; we can observe the disagreements and compromises that go into the final statement. The result cannot be subjective truth, because an institution does not have self-consciousness and cannot experience anything. And the result cannot be turned into objective truth by calling it "faith." I suspect you would agree that some Christians say that non-believers will go to Hell because their "faith"says so. And some would say that God forgives our sins before we even ask because their "faith" says so. I'm just saying that someone's testimony to their personal faith can be helpful and even inspiring, but a person's or a church's claim that their faith is objectively true for me is offensive and ignorant. Second, regarding open discussions about human consciousness. I have no doubt that such discussions take place — but in what context? They are often framed in the context of God's creation and purposes. Not always, perhaps, but usually. They tend to take the form of testimonies to the predominate "faith" of the congregation. I'm talking about having these discussions in a community that explicitly acknowledges that everyone's subjective truth is valid, and none is more valid than another. It is a community where there is no objective truth regarding religious experience, and therefore it can welcome and support testimonies to miracles, to transformations, to skepticism, to anger, to failures, and to doubt, without judgment. I am trying to avoid making this a personal discussion of my personal experience. What I am saying is either generally true or it is not. But, to be specific, I belong to a liberal mainline Protestant church, one that welcomes a variety of religious opinions, and one that currently has a lead minister who is decidedly theistic but not in any way Fundamentalist about moral or social issues. It is a church that offers classes on Progressive Christians like John Shelby Spong and medieval mystics like Meister Eckhart. (Spong has even preached there, but not Eckhart.) Still, I think most members would hesitate talk about a fiery Hell or a Godless universe. As you suggest, there is a sort of consensus that includes a variety of theologies but still there are boundaries.

Harry, The difference between the reality of God and the reality of Jesus is that God is an abstract concept and Jesus is a specific case. I'm arguing that it is futile to try to verify an abstract religious claim; there can be no evidence of causation, although there can be evidence of claimed effect. We can show that the Hebrews were victorious in a battle, but we cannot prove that God caused it. In contrast, a claim about a specific fact, that someone we call Jesus actually existed, can be examined and there is the potential for evidentiary proof. I think we all could agree that it is possible to confirm claims that Harry Truman existed, and claims about what he said and did. We have his papers, photographs, films, and accounts of those who worked with him. We don't have that much verification regarding Martin Luther, but there is ample evidence that he existed and what he said and did. We go back in time, and the record becomes more sketchy, but we have confidence that ancient political leaders, such as Julius Caesar, and philosophers, such as Aristotle, existed and what they said. Jesus is clearly a more difficult case. He wrote nothing that has been preserved, if indeed he could write. He was not a figure of political or even religious importance during his life time. But we do have circumstantial evidence in the impact he made on some of those who knew and heard him. And that circumstantial evidence provides clues to what the man may have actually done and said, and what later followers attributed to him to strengthen their advocacy. My point is that Jesus can be presented as an objective truth. We have some evidence, and we can have an informed discussion about what the evidence does or does not show. The evidence for divinity does not point back to any specific reality (as shown by the many quite different beliefs about something divine). That's why claims of objective truth about God are demonstrably false. And why the search for the authentic Jesus is different.

Fatherman, I find it exciting to get into this respectful discussion of profound issues. So, let's talk about "faith." I don't think members of any denomination speak with one voice. Still, I don't know of any of them whose preachers don't present an argument based on faith. I would define "faith" as a profound conviction based on experience, learning, and inspiration. But doesn't that add up to subjective truth ("belief")? That means that it can be claimed to be true for the individual expressing it, but not that it can be claimed to be true for anyone else. Can anyone present their faith as an objective, universal truth? Can they define their faith with literal words and present a means by which a skeptic could verify the claim? I think not. They can describe, in metaphorical or poetic terms, how they experience their faith and what it means to them. It's valuable to listen to their explanations. But they can't prove that their faith is better than my very different faith. That's why "faith" can't be more than subjective truth on an individual basis. Institutionally, "faith" is an even bigger problem. If personal faith is based on experience, learning, and inspiration, what is institutional faith based upon? Institutions do not have human consciousness; they cannot experience, learn, and be inspired. Individual members of an institution can do that, but not the institution itself. Institutions can issue committee reports, but they cannot testify to faith. They can have members or leaders or scholars vote about various aspects of "true faith," but that produces a political, not religious, truth. Every time a religious institution endorses a creed or issues a catechism or makes a papal pronouncement it is falsely claiming that "faith" validates what it is saying. Presumably this web site is not a forum for those casually interested in religion. I am not trying to find a better denominational home for me, nor am I trying to persuade the casually interested. I am trying to rally thoughtful Christians to the possibility that the church as a whole, in its many different divisions, needs to reconsider its basic belief that its mission is to "preach the Word of God." Instead, I am arguing, the true mission given by Jesus is to call people to consider more seriously their gift of human consciousness. The Christian church can do this by providing communities where respectful discussions about subjective truths can take place.

Harry, So my question for the group is: Does Christianity — even Progressive Christianity — explicitly or implicitly claim to know the objective truth about the existence and nature of what they call "God"? If so, isn't that intellectual dishonesty and strategic error, since there can be no objective truth about such matters? Wouldn't it be more productive to stop proclaiming and debating objective claims about God, and instead focus of building communities that celebrate the human ability to experience a variety of subjective truths about spirituality?