There is more empirical physical, cause/effect evidence of God as the Universe (pantheism) or God *IN* the universe (panentheism) than for any other so called "scientific" theory of the universe.
To my knowledge, that simply isn't so.
There is certainly more evidence of a living, intelligent universe than there is for "dark energies' or dead inflation genies.
Certainly? Not to my knowledge. You are likely talking about
woo of the sort Deepak Chopra indulges in.
Historically speaking, you're way out on a "fundy" limb by questioning his existence.
Nevertheless, this is an important enough philosophical consideration to make it worth mentioning.
Accounts of his life appear not only in the Bible, but in apocryphal accounts as well. Historically speaking, his existence is pretty well recorded.
No, what we seem to have are
at best accounts of people who have heard that there was someone named Jesus who did such-and-such, but had never met him personally.
We don't have anything like a first hand account, which might run something like this: "I was in Jerusalem during the 19th year of the reign of Tiberius Ceasar in Rome, and I saw a gathering around a man called Jesus, who preached of salvation in another world. I had assumed that he was just another doomsayer, but he seemed unusually kind and wise. I didn't know what to make of him, but I had pressing business in Jerusalem, so I went to see Pontius Pilate on matters of governance."
That would be impressive, but no accounts of this sort have ever been found. That doesn't mean that they don't exist, of course, but there's no reason why they must either.
Writings about Jesus, for instance from Paul, seem to fit in to an established form of apocalyptic literature popular at the time. They use certain literary devices, such as claims of visions, to give weight to the teachings to follow. It might seem to you that Paul's writings, and the Gospel, are entirely unprecedented and could only have arisen in response to a historical Jesus, but when one takes the full context, there's some reasonable doubt about that.
So do you pray or meditate on a regular basis?
I don't pray, and I meditate occasionally. I also practice certain spiritual exercises on a semi-regular basis, but they aren't theistic ones.
The reason I ask is that Jesus did suggest that these "techniques" would allow one to communicate and commune with God themselves.
I doubt that these "techniques" would do anything other than to create the illusion of this by making changes in my brain. I'm a big fan of spiritual techniques, but not as mystical sources of knowledge. They may be effective for spiritual goals such as peace of mind, but are epistemologically empty.
If not, don't you think your "inexperience" might be due more to laziness than to anything else?
Not laziness as such, but rather wisdom in knowing that nothing is to be gained in that way. Likewise, if someone were to suggest to me to take LSD in order to "see God", it wouldn't matter to me if other users had claimed to see God in that way. I would not have any reason to think that they were seeing anything other than what was produced by their own psyches.
eudaimonia,
Mark