I miss God

[Sar1n]

Yes I know about philosophical zombie, in fact I was in doubts if to post here or not.
I said terrain on purpose. You only consider testimonies that favour your point as true, and testimonies that do not favour your point as un-true by default. This is very childish atitude in the post, and not even related to EMM.
We get it sarin you are the most zealous atheist of them all, intimidating even Dawkins with your scepticism.

But you are potentially de-railing the point of OP showing off so much zealotry to the Great Atheistic Cause.

And Solipsism isn't self defeating. Saying that is for quitters in logical thinking. It simply is something people throw down the memory hole to function daily.

Come on...do we have to hijack another thread to try again and teach you basic facts about science? Running out of time so I have to be brief.



Despite your beliefs, science never tried to disprove god. It simply states that god is irrelevant to it, for a good reason. Basic premise of science is, very simply, asking "how", and then proceeding to explain the phenomena under premises of determinism and causality. For that reason, the idea of god is irrelevant to science, as the idea of god is inherently not bound by these, so no phenomena can be attributed to it. And guess what...it works. The proof to you is simply the fact that you use a device created thanks to applied science to view this message.



There is only evidence for spiritual tendencies of humans. The spiritual phenomena, however...well, see what I wrote above. It applies to any spiritual phenomena, not just the idea of god.

Tsk...presumptions. I consider myself being agnostic rather than atheistic, but that's a discussion for another time. I'm not really fan of Dawkins either, he's taking it too far and basically creating himself a kind of religion from atheism. Oh, and here's a little update for you. Catholic church's official stance to evolution is acceptance, and Francis himself maintains that in material matters, science takes precedence over religion.

We're running in circles here.

Back to the basic assumptions I talked about. They are a framework through which we percieve not only what is, but what is possible. Logic, reason...those are products of our experience percieved through these assumptions. Knock them out, and as I explained earlier, that's exactly what metaphysics, including spiritual experience is, human experience percieved without this framework, and anything goes. Literally anything you can think of can be explanation for anything. For that reason, spiritual experience is not an evidence for spiritual phenomena.

Clear now?

Because you are apparently incapable of reading or understanding my previous posts piecemeal, here are all relevant arguments. Despite your whining, my position is reasoned and far from arbitrary. You repeatedly failed to address these arguments, instead you constantly whine.

Solipsism is self-defeating, and in case you cannot understand it from my previous posts, let me walk you through it nice and slow.

Your mind constitutes of qualia, memories and thought processes, let's call it the "inner world". Solipsism holds that only these things exist. But we all also take a few basic assumptions, that outside reality exists, it is governed by causality, progression of time, determinism, and that our qualia and memories of past qualia are reflection of that reality. These assumptions provide a framework for interpreting the qualia etc. We take those assumptions not arbitrary, but out of necessity. We have simply no other way. Logic is one of basic consequences of these assumptions. Solipsism means ignoring these basic assumptions. But without them, how can you think, how can you exist? You have no point of reference and no logic, as you are denying that from which logic originates.

[basics]

Sar1n,

If asking how to find an answer is based on pure conjecture that stands on chance alone then the argument is obviously going to be very biased. The question should never be how, rather why? Science teaches us that there is a line beyond which reason cannot go meaning that chance takes over, but in this case the chances of it happening by chance are so overwhelmingly against as fkizz has said as well as many scientists of repute that we get into the realms of pure imaginary opinion. We think but we're not sure that this is how things happened becomes the foreword of just about every scientific explanation for our existence.

[fkizz]

@Sar1n
You do not accept as valid testimonies that support ideas you disagree with. Only testimonies in your favour bear "true witness". By such standards Courts wouldn't even exist, as Dr. Legend pointed out.
You also admit twice to hijacking the thread.
Sar1n, some people will be atheists, other will not, that's how the world works. I think you should just finally deal with it and move on.

You also said twice you're hijacking this thread to teach us about evolution. Well you can start, teach us about Macroevolution and the origin of life, was it abiogenesis or not? Which of the theories of the start of the Universe is the true one?

Science teaches us that there is a line beyond which reason cannot go meaning that chance takes over, but in this case the chances of it happening by chance are so overwhelmingly against as fkizz has said as well as many scientists of repute that we get into the realms of pure imaginary opinion. We think but we're not sure that this is how things happened becomes the foreword of just about every scientific explanation for our existence.

Science does not have a consensual Macro-evolution theory, leading each R&D dude to have its favorite Pet Theory on how the beginning of the Universe was.
Some follow the Catholic how, which is the

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

the Big Bang theory

. Others follow other ideas, believing in several universes starting and ending, and us happening to be in this one.

On how life started, even the poster boy of proud scepticism admits to believing in Intelligent Design behind evolution, he just replaces the responsible character known as God with Primordial Ancient Alien race, but the Intelligent Design idea exactly is there.

Which means even Richard Dawkins finds too many favorable odds at once to be just a streak of lucky incidents in favour of creating life by darwinistic evolution. It demands both macro (beyond darwin) and micro evolution conditions.

And we have fermi paradox despite so many stars regardless.

[Prodromos]

I'll try it for the last time. For material phenomenon, testimony is a valid supporting evidence. For metaphysical phenomenon, however, due to its nature as I explained earlier, testimony is no evidence at all.

Says who? What universal law says this? This is your subjective and arbitrary opinion.

[Sar1n]

Sar1n,

If asking how to find an answer is based on pure conjecture that stands on chance alone then the argument is obviously going to be very biased. The question should never be how, rather why? Science teaches us that there is a line beyond which reason cannot go meaning that chance takes over, but in this case the chances of it happening by chance are so overwhelmingly against as fkizz has said as well as many scientists of repute that we get into the realms of pure imaginary opinion. We think but we're not sure that this is how things happened becomes the foreword of just about every scientific explanation for our existence.

You either did not read, or did not understand what I wrote. Not surprising, since obviously your approach to science is exactly the same.

No argument I presented here is based on pure conjecture. I explained everything, most of it more than once.

And for science...you totally fail to understand both its principles, and actual knowledge about evolution. I already refuted fkizz's chance argument. You're making just a bunch of baseless claims here. Yes, science can be inaccurate at times. But that is in its principles, to improve and strive toward understanding of universe. It is incomplete at this moment, but that situation improves. Don't put your faith in god of the gaps, one day you might find that there are none.

The question should never be how, rather why?

And this is most hypocritical thing I've ever seen you write here, and that says a lot. Asking how brought us things from mastery of fire to the computers we're using now, technology that prints your precious Bible and, if I remember or previous encounters correctly, medicine that keeps you alive. Biggest thing that asknig why brought us was bodycount.

@Sar1n
You do not accept as valid testimonies that support ideas you disagree with. Only testimonies in your favour bear "true witness". By such standards Courts wouldn't even exist, as Dr. Legend pointed out.

I have explained my reasoning here several times, and you failed to bring any counterargument, only keep repeating this mantra as if it would suddenly make it true. And I'm tired of this, so I bring you:

1) Debate in good faith by addressing rebuttals through the introduction of additional evidence or by enlarging upon the argument. Do not merely keep repeating the same points without further elaboration.

You broke this rule multiple times by this conduct.

You also admit twice to hijacking the thread.

You also said twice you're hijacking this thread to teach us about evolution. Well you can start, teach us about Macroevolution and the origin of life, was it abiogenesis or not? Which of the theories of the start of the Universe is the true one?

Actually, this debate started with you bringing up evolution out of the blue, and when I corrected your misconceptions, you kept repeating "no, you're wrong" without bringing any additional arguments. I've nevers said I'm hijacking the thread, in fact I intentionally phrased a rhetorical question in a specific way to warn you that you're forcing such hijack here.

And micro- and macro- evolution are non-scientific, arbitrary terms invented by creationists in order to to try and deny that evolutionary experiments reflect the evolution of species.

As for the origin of life and universe...well, we don't know yet. There are many hypotheses, abiogenesis being blanket term for all hypotheses regarding non-guided origin of life from inanimate matter. But you know that of course. You are just trying here to invoke common but fallacious reasoning along the lines "they don't know, therefore my baseless claim about it is correct", and of course god of the gaps.

On how life started, even the poster boy of proud scepticism admits to believing in Intelligent Design behind evolution, he just replaces the responsible character known as God with Primordial Ancient Alien race, but the Intelligent Design idea exactly is there.

Which means even Richard Dawkins finds too many favorable odds at once to be just a streak of lucky incidents in favour of creating life by darwinistic evolution. It demands both macro (beyond darwin) and micro evolution conditions.

And we have fermi paradox despite so many stars regardless.

You are attempting again to attack me personally by invoking imagined link between me and him and then ridiculing him. That brings us:

2) Respect for others is the rule here. Argue the position, not the person. The Britannica says, "Usually, in a well-conducted debate, speakers are either emotionally uncommitted or can preserve sufficient detachment to maintain a coolly academic approach." Insults or attacks against individuals or groups will lead to disciplinary warnings being issued and eventually to suspension of posting privileges if those warning go unheeded.

5) Avoid any form of misrepresentation. Do not state that something is fact or a well known fact just because you read it in a message board or on a web site.

As for Fermi paradox...that is just an inconclusive thought experiment, not actual hard argument. I've refuted your interpretation of it as argument before.

Even since your initial claims, you've failed to bring up actual argument in this discussion, and you repeatedly break the rules of this forum. At this point, continuing this discussion is pointless because you are obviously not interested in civilized discussion.

So I'm going to say this simply. Start behaving or get out.

Edit:

Says who? What universal law says this? This is your subjective and arbitrary opinion.

The above applies to you too. I've explained my position well enough several times. I wrote why my position is not arbitrary or subjective. Your turn to say why it is.

[Prodromos]

The above applies to you too. I've explained my position well enough several times. I wrote why my position is not arbitrary or subjective. Your turn to say why it is.

No, you made a claim, but you are yet to prove it. It's broadly accepted that testimony is a form of evidence. It's up to you to prove this doesn't apply when spiritual matters are involved. Note that "evidence" isn't necessarily convincing evidence. Whether you consider the evidence convincing or not, it is still evidence. The vast majority of people, however agree that the evidence is sufficient for them to have faith in spirituality. Faith is belief based on evidence, which is what "knowledge", "science", "truth", really are ultimately.

[Sar1n]

No, you made a claim, but you are yet to prove it. It's broadly accepted that testimony is a form of evidence. It's up to you to prove this doesn't apply when spiritual matters are involved. Note that "evidence" isn't necessarily convincing evidence. Whether you consider the evidence convincing or not, it is still evidence. The vast majority of people, however agree that the evidence is sufficient for them to have faith in spirituality. Faith is belief based on evidence, which is what "knowledge", "science", "truth", really are ultimately.

Let's see, you missed it several times already...

This was my initial claim and argument (actually, argument first, but it was to another claim, but applicable to this too):

Despite your beliefs, science never tried to disprove god. It simply states that god is irrelevant to it, for a good reason. Basic premise of science is, very simply, asking "how", and then proceeding to explain the phenomena under premises of determinism and causality. For that reason, the idea of god is irrelevant to science, as the idea of god is inherently not bound by these, so no phenomena can be attributed to it. And guess what...it works. The proof to you is simply the fact that you use a device created thanks to applied science to view this message.

There is only evidence for spiritual tendencies of humans. The spiritual phenomena, however...well, see what I wrote above. It applies to any spiritual phenomena, not just the idea of god.

Second attempt to get the message through:

Seems like I have to repeat basic problem with metaphysical. It is unproveable.

We all make assumptions about reality. Causality, determinism, progression of time...we all make these basic assumptions, use them and reaffirm them every moment of our lives. Therefore, it follows that to prove a phenomenon within this reality, it has to be subject to these principles.

And essential quality of the idea of god, regardless of which specific idea we're talking about, is that it is not bound by determinism. That's the core of it. And for this simple reason, god cannot be proven or disproven, and any evidence concerning it can be interpreted in different ways.

Same reasoning can be applied to entire metaphysics. Metaphysics, as you should know, is based on qualia, rather than the outside reality, and therefore is not bound by the basic assumptions about reality.

This is argument, not claim. I'm saying here why I maintain this position, contrary to you repating same claim over and over again without an argument.

And in case you missed it, this applies too, as solipsism is, in its essence, a metaphysical claim.

Solipsism is self-defeating, and in case you cannot understand it from my previous posts, let me walk you through it nice and slow.

Your mind constitutes of qualia, memories and thought processes, let's call it the "inner world". Solipsism holds that only these things exist. But we all also take a few basic assumptions, that outside reality exists, it is governed by causality, progression of time, determinism, and that our qualia and memories of past qualia are reflection of that reality. These assumptions provide a framework for interpreting the qualia etc. We take those assumptions not arbitrary, but out of necessity. We have simply no other way. Logic is one of basic consequences of these assumptions. Solipsism means ignoring these basic assumptions. But without them, how can you think, how can you exist? You have no point of reference and no logic, as you are denying that from which logic originates.

So, I'm saying this one last time. Either make an actual argument, or get out. You're way out of the rules of this forum by behaving this way.

Oh, by the way...it also shows why your last post is fallacious.

[fkizz]

No, you made a claim, but you are yet to prove it. It's broadly accepted that testimony is a form of evidence. It's up to you to prove this doesn't apply when spiritual matters are involved. Note that "evidence" isn't necessarily convincing evidence. Whether you consider the evidence convincing or not, it is still evidence. The vast majority of people, however agree that the evidence is sufficient for them to have faith in spirituality. Faith is belief based on evidence, which is what "knowledge", "science", "truth", really are ultimately.

I agree with this. Anyone who studied a least a little bit of Law knows this is inevitable. If not followed, you can bring upon yourself a needlessly bigger sentence.
Not sure how it is in your particular country, but respecting other people religion (and their metaphysical beliefs) is a given by constitutional or civil code law at least, in typical western country.
Which means in practical life you cannot just say that testimonies you dislike are false and the ones you like are true, just because you dislike metaphysics. That is silly. Any Court could chop you into hamburguer in a few minutes.

Sar1n not sure why you are falsely accusing me of breaking debating conducts.

Is there some urgency in supressing dissident thought felt? Because I don't partake in cheerleading for atheism? Or because I pointed out you your post admited wilfully hijacking the thread, (twice)?

[Sar1n]

I agree with this. Anyone who studied a least a little bit of Law knows this is inevitable. If not followed, you can bring upon yourself a needlessly bigger sentence.

Sar1n not sure why you are falsely accusing me of breaking debating conducts.

Is it because I'm not rooting for atheism, and someone who posts as champion of atheism must supress dissident thought? Or because I pointed out you were bragging about hijacking the thread (and you did it twice, to make it worse)?

Quote me. Go ahead. I never made a claim that I'm hijacking the thread, I only once warned you and basics, via rhetorical question, that your posts are causing the thread go off topic.

And you accuse me of breaking the debating conduct, while you again falsely call me zealot despite being warned twice before that you are dead wrong, in effort to pain yourself victim. That is breaking the rules again.

But since you are apparently unable to form an argument and I'm sick of you, I'm calling in the cleanup.

[fkizz]

My point was just that you can't dismiss testimonies as false just because you dislike their ideas. It will get you in trouble in real life justice system, speaking of pragmatic problems.. If debate gets you so upset, then you should cool your head given this is optional and not mandatory.

[Iskar]

You keep treating the concept of testimony as if there was only one kind of testimony and all of it equally valid/believable, but you need to differentiate and take context into account:

Testimony in law (or more general in all matters related to physically observable phenomena) can be linked to and put in correlation with other forms of evidence. The testimony of different witnesses can also be checked against each other as they refer to the same "external" instance/event observable by all witnesses in the same way. Finally the testimony can be put against scientific evidence to gauge its credibility. (Someone claiming the murderer escaped on a winged unicorn is not going to be taken seriously as a witness by the courts.)

On the other hand testimony of the spiritual refers to entirely subjective, "internal" experiences and by the nature of the transcendent cannot be checked against scientific validity, as it is independent of it. Therefore such testimony is well enough to establish that humans have spiritual experiences, but not enough to infer some external object exists that causes them.
And rightly so, for if God was underpinnable by tangible evidence, what would be the worth of faith? Believing in God would be simply nolens-volens accepting the evidence, rather than a moral decision of the individual.

[Sar1n]

My point was just that you can't dismiss testimonies as false just because you dislike their ideas. It will get you in trouble in real life justice system, speaking of pragmatic problems.. If debate gets you so upset, then you should cool your head given this is optional and not mandatory.

What gets me upset is ignorance. Like yours, I wrote several times WHY testimony isn't valid evidence for metaphysical, as opposed to material. You never formed counterargument to that, but keep repeating the false claim that it is arbitrary dislike.

[fkizz]

Testimony in law (or more general in all matters related to physically observable phenomena) can be linked to and put in correlation with other forms of evidence. The testimony of different witnesses can also be checked against each other as they refer to the same "external" instance/event observable by all witnesses in the same way. Finally the testimony can be put against scientific evidence to gauge its credibility. (Someone claiming the murderer escaped on a winged unicorn is not going to be taken seriously as a witness by the courts.)

Well, let's call the phenomena of someone suddenly going into mad rage and commiting a case of serial murder.
In old metaphysical speak, it would be said that said person had a case of having been possessed by a demon, but comitted the crime regardless. Would receive exorcism and imprisionment.
In modern metaphysical speak, it would be said that said person had a case of high mental instability, and some strong/dangerous mental disorder. Would receive heavy psychiatric treatment and possibly long term asylum in mental hospital.

Today for example. We don't say anymore that nature does not abhor vacuum, but simply that atoms push each other and when vacuum appears they fill it. But for Romans in Military engineering that did not enter with atomic concepts, saying that nature abhors vacuum or that atoms push each other into the vacuum would in practical terms be exactly the same.

Even if today one can claim "nature abhors vacuum" is metaphysical therefore false. (but would be clueless how military engineers of back then played well with concept of vacuum in real practice)

Same thing, different ages. What kind of words would this same phenomena be spoken with 500 years from now on? Can such a thing even be predicted? Maybe people 500 people ahead of us will find our psychiatric aproach to the mad murderer as very primitive or even supersticious or based on "false" concepts.

That's why dismissing old speak that sounds more abstract as "inexistant supersticion" may be a huge loss in translation when trying to understand our ancestors and the people that lived centuries before. It may just be words and terms that eventually fell out of use, but that pragmatically speaking had the same use as other terms have today.

And rightly so, for if God was underpinnable by tangible evidence, what would be the worth of faith? Believing in God would be simply nolens-volens accepting the evidence, rather than a moral decision of the individual.

That's the dilema, having accounts of religious phenomena already has a built in paradox, and for reasons you stated they cannot go much further in description or it would kill the concept of faith. In same way explaining directly the Tao and the Zen would destroy their purpose and meaning. Or like math strict rules allowing the square root of minus one.

And people ask even for more!

What gets me upset is ignorance. Like yours, I wrote several times WHY testimony isn't valid evidence for metaphysical, as opposed to material. You never formed counterargument to that, but keep repeating the false claim that it is arbitrary dislike.

You repeated the materialistic dogma. Material world and metaphysical values do have their distinction. That's why, for example manslaughter and murder are different things, despite being in materialistic realm outcome being exactly the same thing (a person dying).

In this simple distinction, can you put on the table or grab with your hands what made the difference? You can't even see it, it's part of the person's values which has no material direct projection. Therefore, the difference is not (as a whole) materialistic.

[Muizer]

Neither creationism, nor intelligent design, nor, in fact, darwinistic evolution tackle what the earth's history suggests has been the greatest 'difficulty' on the road to homo sapiens. It is not, as some seem to think, the origin of life itself. Wherever or however it originated, it manifested itself on earth pretty much as soon as the conditions allowed it to survive. There's no billions of years stirring a primordial soup involved waiting for a chance event. Creating life may well have been 'easy'. "Point for intelligent design!", I hear you say. Yes, except from that point on it took over 3 billion years to progress from single celled prokaryotes to multicellular prokaryotes. So, it kind of looks like the world was designed for bacteria, and complex life is the statistically unlikely fluke.

[Prodromos]

And rightly so, for if God was underpinnable by tangible evidence, what would be the worth of faith? Believing in God would be simply nolens-volens accepting the evidence, rather than a moral decision of the individual.

It is belief based on evidence. I think the meaning of faith has been twisted over the years to mean blind, baseless wishful thinking.

The word Pistos (the root word translated ‘faith’ in the New Testament) as used in ancient Greek has the understanding of being persuaded. It implies that evidence exists that can persuade. I think the analogy to airplanes is a good one in that there is objective (meaning true of the object itself) evidence regarding gravity, air pressure, and safety records that persuade many people to fly in airplanes. On the other hand, not everyone is persuaded, and many refuse to fly. In fact, the disciple John himself writes at the end of his biography of Jesus that he has written down this account as evidence for Jesus deity so that the readers may believe (be persuaded) that he is God. So even the disciples has an understanding of faith being belief based on evidence. If the evidence doesn’t persuade you, that does not mean there is no evidence.

Faith: ‘wishful thinking’ | CrossExamined.org

[Iskar]

Important distinction:

Persuaded vs. Convinced.

I can persuade someone to believe in God (perhaps) by telling them how nice it is to be in the holy, catholic and apostolic church. That God loves and cares for us, charity is a good thing, mercy even more so, etc. etc. etc.

I cannot convince them of it, as I cannot bring cogent evidence. I can convince people to accept the results of cosmology and quantum physics (if they can grasp them), I need not persuade them with flowery language (and would in fact do physics a disservice by that).

[Diocle]

Important distinction:

Persuaded vs. Convinced.

I can persuade someone to believe in God (perhaps) by telling them how nice it is to be in the holy, catholic and apostolic church. That God loves and cares for us, charity is a good thing, mercy even more so, etc. etc. etc.

I cannot convince them of it, as I cannot bring cogent evidence. I can convince people to accept the results of cosmology and quantum physics (if they can grasp them), I need not persuade them with flowery language (and would in fact do physics a disservice by that).

Sorry, but his distinction seems to me pretty Jesuitic.

Consider that if you succeed in persuading someone about faith, he shall be entirely convinced that Jesus Christ was the child of God generated by the Virgin Mary, or that an angel whispered to Muhammad from behind, on a mountain for months and months, or that Buddha has a supramundane nature. In other words, persuading someone about faith means he will be convinced by its revealed truths.

[Iskar]

Nope, that is just a semantic trick, inserting "convinced" instead of "persuaded". People don't believe in God(s) because they have been convinced, but simply because they choose to do so. Faith is all about making a transcendent choice. Someone might persuade you to take one or the other choice, but ultimately it is a decision, not a cogent consequence.

[Diocle]

Nope, that is just a semantic trick, inserting "convinced" instead of "persuaded". People don't believe in God(s) because they have been convinced, but simply because they choose to do so. Faith is all about making a transcendent choice. Someone might persuade you to take one or the other choice, but ultimately it is a decision, not a cogent consequence.

Yes of course, but rememebr: religious people is not persuaded, they are fully convinced, they don't think God exists, they know He exists, they see His Light, they hear His voice, we could say they are more than convinced, they have experience of God.

[Sar1n]

Neither creationism, nor intelligent design, nor, in fact, darwinistic evolution tackle what the earth's history suggests has been the greatest 'difficulty' on the road to homo sapiens. It is not, as some seem to think, the origin of life itself. Wherever or however it originated, it manifested itself on earth pretty much as soon as the conditions allowed it to survive. There's no billions of years stirring a primordial soup involved waiting for a chance event. Creating life may well have been 'easy'. "Point for intelligent design!", I hear you say. Yes, except from that point on it took over 3 billion years to progress from single celled prokaryotes to multicellular prokaryotes. So, it kind of looks like the world was designed for bacteria, and complex life is the statistically unlikely fluke.

Actually, IIRC multicellular organisms sporadically appeared several times from cca. 3 bilion years ago, but never made their break in a world overgrown with bacteria until a meteorite came along, wiping huge chunk of existing life and thus opening a niche for multicellular organisms to thrive. An example of darwinistic evolution, actually.

That's the dilema, having accounts of religious phenomena already has a built in paradox, and for reasons you stated they cannot go much further in description or it would kill the concept of faith. In same way explaining directly the Tao and the Zen would destroy their purpose and meaning. Or like math strict rules allowing the square root of minus one.

And people ask even for more!

You repeated the materialistic dogma. Material world and metaphysical values do have their distinction. That's why, for example manslaughter and murder are different things, despite being in materialistic realm outcome being exactly the same thing (a person dying).

In this simple distinction, can you put on the table or grab with your hands what made the difference? You can't even see it, it's part of the person's values which has no material direct projection. Therefore, the difference is not (as a whole) materialistic.

A good EKG would prove you wrong, and you had to know that, as you wrote earlier that you are familiar with the philosophical zombie.

Since you are incapable of understanding the principle, I'm gonna try an example.

You have a spiritual experience. That means that whatever it was, the only evidence for it is contained in your "inner world" (remember how I used that term before?). That is not an arbitrary distinction. The difference between metaphysical and physical is that physical phenomena leaves evidence in the reality and the evidence is considered in light of those basic assumptions that I mentioned earlier.

So without the link to reality, you do not have the logical reference frame under which you can consider the spiritual experience. That is another thing I already mentioned when talking about solipsism. It could be real. Or you could be going crazy, or had dream and reality mangled together in your memories (there are many cases when this phenomenon has been proven). Any of those possiblities are equally likely to be true, just like infinite number of other possibilities, as you're lacking any reference frame. You migth believe it was real, but you are taking a huge leap of faith by doing that. And you cannot expect other people to accept your claim based purely on leap of faith as evidence.