[metricspaces]

that doesn’t provide the real thing - it is a ‘Fire’ destroys the person. God’s Love is a ‘Light’ builds you up and makes you strong and vital. You really have to experience it - and read Pascal’s wager in the light of his expressing a subjective personal understanding of spiritual experience not a logical formula for converting non-experienced. (Pascal got a hit of Love from God not a hit of opium.)

[RankingMember]

> that doesn’t provide the real thing

How would you know without experiencing it? The experience of joy someone else gets from anything- physical activity, their own religion, love, drugs (however fleeting) is as valid as yours.

[metricspaces]

it’s a matter of duration not external evaluation. i say the “real thing” since that comes to you rather than you affecting a state of mind-body. there is no street corner for someone to deal you that drug. this is the fundamental difference that is discernible from without. you can see the source of one type of bliss (and you can buy it) and the other one is subject to endless debate except by those who are blissed /out!