God experience can change atheists

[ACEofALLaces]

Only if the Father draws them / calls them will they find salvation ....
anyone can believe 'IN' God .. the issue is, do they 'BELIEVE' God .....
many 'cases' are probably headed from the frying pan to the fire

Abraham BELIEVED God, and it was counted to him for righteousness

I will never EVER become associated with such a religion that employs the threat of being burned alive all the while never really dying, such as what the Christian religion does.

Fear should not be a reason to believe. Jesus made a valiant effort to dispel that notion, displacing it with LOVE, but He didn't erase the threat....it IS still there, looming large, in the background.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I can't agree with your conclusion that such an experience would be a lie.

We most likely see conscious reality in the left side of our brain. A few inches away, in the right side, there's something going in in the powerful unconscious. We see some of its effects in reality as intuition, dreams, the placebo and nocebo effects, and so on.

In an amateur volleyball tournament one evening, I spent two hours in a state that athletes call "the zone." My ego was a spectator watching my body perform at its peak.

When Jill Taylor, a brain scientist, had a stroke that shut down a portion of the left side of her brain, she was left with an oceanic feeling. Mystics might call it "oneness" I suppose.

I suspect that some drugs break down the barrier in our brains between the conscious and unconscious worlds. I don't think we can jump to the conclusions that what we might experience of the unconscious would be lies or delusions. I suspect that the unconscious mind is in touch with a "greater reality."

I also suspect that the founders of religion knew no more about the mysteries of that greater reality than you or me.

I have to challenge you on one point in particular, that the unconscious mind is in touch with a "greater reality." There's actually no reason whatever to suppose that it is "in touch" with anything outside itself, nor that what it is doing is either "greater" or some other "reality." It's just different. It works differently, and it certainly is able to inform the conscious part of our minds -- one way or another -- about what is going on.

"Feelings" (as in Taylor's "oceanic feeling") are, in the view of many neuroscientists, little more than the outputs to various algorithms hard- and soft-wired into our brains. When a female (of any species) looks at a male and feels that sense of desire, it's because a cascade of algorithmically informed assessments of his fitness to sire superior offspring with her all say "yes." She doesn't know she's "doing the math," she just knows she's open to what happens next.

And Taylor herself never makes any claim to being "in contact" with anything, other than of having the noise of the dominant side of her brain silenced long enough to hear the other side, for a while.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

In a survey of thousands of people who reported having experienced personal encounters with God, Johns Hopkins researchers report that more than two-thirds of self-identified atheists shed that label after their encounter, regardless of whether it was spontaneous or while taking a psychedelic.

Experiences of 'ultimate reality' or 'God' confer lasting benefits to mental health


Survey of subjective "God encounter experiences": Comparisons among naturally occurring experiences and those occasioned by the classic psychedelics psilocybin, LSD, ayahuasca, or DMT

...

As I always say the stupendous taste of mango can be known only by eating a mango.

So... if I follow you:

After what they themselves describe as an encounter with God, 1 in 3 people who didn't believe in God before still don't believe in God?

I would havd thought that any god worth his salt would be more convincing, no?

"60 percent of the time, it works every time."

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

It is not belief in supernatural. It is experience of dissolution of subject-object division and consequently knowing the non dual as the Real, beneath the mental-physical objects that tend to cover up the non dual.

I take something different from it: that the more a person takes steps to make their brain unreliable, the easier it is to convince them that a god exists.

Now... what I'm not clear on is how you think this gives any new weight to any claims of gods.

 

[atanu]

I take something different from it: that the more a person takes steps to make their brain unreliable, the easier it is to convince them that a god exists.

Now... what I'm not clear on is how you think this gives any new weight to any claims of gods.

Taking a decision to meditate and following up with practice is not a step to make the brain unreliable.

It requires utmost discipline and care to remain attentive to any and all movement of mind/thought.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Taking a decision to meditate and following up with practice is not a step to make the brain unreliable.

It requires utmost discipline and care to remain attentive to any and all movement of mind/thought.

Your OP said that the effects were similar to LSD or ayahuasca.

 

[sealchan]

In a survey of thousands of people who reported having experienced personal encounters with God, Johns Hopkins researchers report that more than two-thirds of self-identified atheists shed that label after their encounter, regardless of whether it was spontaneous or while taking a psychedelic.

Experiences of 'ultimate reality' or 'God' confer lasting benefits to mental health


Survey of subjective "God encounter experiences": Comparisons among naturally occurring experiences and those occasioned by the classic psychedelics psilocybin, LSD, ayahuasca, or DMT

...

As I always say the stupendous taste of mango can be known only by eating a mango.

I am an example of an atheist who became a believer after a God experience or two.

 

[atanu]

Your OP said that the effects were similar to LSD or ayahuasca.

You study the paper. Yes, entheogens have been used to loosen up the rigidity of mind that the sensual structures that we experience are the absolutes.

But meditation is deliberate and requires discipline that very few will be able to muster.

 

[atanu]

I am an example of an atheist who became a believer after a God experience or two.

Same with me.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

You study the paper. Yes, entheogens have been used to loosen up the rigidity of mind that the sensual structures that we experience are the absolutes.

... by messing with brain function and perception.

But meditation is deliberate and requires discipline that very few will be able to muster.

... yet you say has the same effects as mind-altering drugs?

I'm not disagreeing with the idea that inducing an altered state without the assistance of drugs or extreme physiological conditions (e.g. the heat of a sweat lidgr) takes effort and skill. I AM disputing the idea that the brain is reliable in its perception and cognition when it's in this state.

 

[The Hammer]

In a survey of thousands of people who reported having experienced personal encounters with God, Johns Hopkins researchers report that more than two-thirds of self-identified atheists shed that label after their encounter, regardless of whether it was spontaneous or while taking a psychedelic.

Experiences of 'ultimate reality' or 'God' confer lasting benefits to mental health


Survey of subjective "God encounter experiences": Comparisons among naturally occurring experiences and those occasioned by the classic psychedelics psilocybin, LSD, ayahuasca, or DMT

...

As I always say the stupendous taste of mango can be known only by eating a mango.

A god-experience during drug intoxication is not the same thing as a true to life god experience. It does not match the level of intensity or serenity that can truly be experienced through the spiritual.

 

[Willamena]

I disagree. We might be able to agree upon some language using analogies, metaphors, etc., but there is currently no way for one individual to experience the experience of another...And no description or artistic expression is going to really bridge that gap.

I believe the point of artistic expression isn't to have one experience what the other experienced, but to have them relate to another's experience through their own.

 

[The Hammer]

... by messing with brain function abd perception.


... yet you say has the same effects as mind-altering drugs?

I'm not disagreeing with the idea that inducing an altered state without the assistance of drugs or extreme physiological conditions (e.g. the heat of a sweat lidgr) takes effort and skill. I AM disputing the idea that the brain is reliable in its perception and cognition when it's in this state.

The cognition lost, only seems to be of the self.

We now know what a spiritual awakening looks like inside the brain

Although I'd love to see more studies like this.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

In a survey of thousands of people who reported having experienced personal encounters with God, Johns Hopkins researchers report that more than two-thirds of self-identified atheists shed that label after their encounter, regardless of whether it was spontaneous or while taking a psychedelic.

Experiences of 'ultimate reality' or 'God' confer lasting benefits to mental health


Survey of subjective "God encounter experiences": Comparisons among naturally occurring experiences and those occasioned by the classic psychedelics psilocybin, LSD, ayahuasca, or DMT

...

As I always say the stupendous taste of mango can be known only by eating a mango.

Very few atheists I know would claim they'd be an atheist if they met God...

 

[Willamena]

Very few atheists I know would claim they'd be an atheist if they met God...

Except me.

God is beyond such paltry distinctions as "exists" or "doesn't exist."

 

[wandering peacefully]

But sir, The non dual experience — characterised by loss of subject-object distinction and the accompanying unbroken peace — is commonly known across religions.

But it is also common in meditating atheists. It really isn't necessarily a "religious or connection to god" experience. It can be if one chooses to make it that way.

Edit to say; or if one decides to think of it that way.

 

[wandering peacefully]

Taking a decision to meditate and following up with practice is not a step to make the brain unreliable.

It requires utmost discipline and care to remain attentive to any and all movement of mind/thought.

Again, the experience does not equal believing in god.

 

[Revoltingest]

But we can never know if YOUR experience of mango is the same as MY experience of mango...

And what if it's wacky mango (hallucinogenic)?

 

[QuestioningMind]

In a survey of thousands of people who reported having experienced personal encounters with God, Johns Hopkins researchers report that more than two-thirds of self-identified atheists shed that label after their encounter, regardless of whether it was spontaneous or while taking a psychedelic.

Experiences of 'ultimate reality' or 'God' confer lasting benefits to mental health


Survey of subjective "God encounter experiences": Comparisons among naturally occurring experiences and those occasioned by the classic psychedelics psilocybin, LSD, ayahuasca, or DMT

...

As I always say the stupendous taste of mango can be known only by eating a mango.

Not at all surprising. Since there is absolutely ZERO verifiable evidence for any god or gods, it's safe to say that any 'evidence' anyone has for a god or gods is a purely subjective experience that cannot be duplicated for anyone else.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Except me.

God is beyond such paltry distinctions as "exists" or "doesn't exist."

That sounds like it's twisting things in knots to me. If God is beyond definition or understanding, then you'd be a pure agnostic.