God experience can change atheists

[ACEofALLaces]

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.

Not surprising at all, really. For example, if a believer in UFO's declares that one landed in his back yard and he went out and had a chat with the occupants, he will DEFEND his right to believe that really happened and NO ONE would be able to "prove' to him otherwise.

Like you said, "any 'evidence' anyone has for a god or gods is a purely subjective experience that cannot be duplicated for anyone else"
Amen to THAT !~

 

[Polymath257]

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.

But it is also quite possible to have experienced this and have found it to be irrelevant. Just because you have an experience of non-duality doesn't mean that non-duality is reality. You may, for example, discount it because of the circumstances in which is it experienced or because you find it to be invalid for other reasons.

 

[Polymath257]

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.

For me, the realization that a very small amount of some chemical can have such massive effects of the psyche confirmed that consciousness is a process in the matter of the brain.

The point is that no experience carries its own interpretation. Just because you have had a feeling of non-duality or a feeling of transcendence doens't mean that is the actual fact of the matter. It is a perception, along with all the other types of perception we can have.

I suspect the ability to have this perception of non-duality is a common thread for many religions and a common human possibility. But that commonality doesn't make it true and more than a common experience of an optical illusion makes the illusion true.

 

[osgart]

Reason is preferred over any self experience.

Every experience a person has is just their own experience.

God needs a presence outside of personal experience.

How would you distinguish between what is you, and what is God?

Proof in the realm of reason is where i would like to meet God. An exterior presence other than my own would suffice.

God must enter through the mind of reason.

Experience alone is going to be self interpreted. And one must be objective about their own experience.

Every time i have a dream, i know its only me conjuring in my sleep. Every effect, and affect, every imagination that runs wild. Its like something out of the movie Brazil at times.

How can you trust experiences to reveal The God?

 

[Polymath257]

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

And I am an atheist in spite of such. It's all a matter of interpretation of the perception. Once you realize that, the experience comes to be seen as a less reliable indicator of reality.

So, yes, meditation can induce some experiences that can also be induced by entheogens. Does that validate either set of experiences? or are they both just another aspect of the illusions we can all experience?

 

[Polymath257]

The findings of the study does not apply to you. Or your experience was not of God, perhaps.

So it wasn't a *real* mango because he disliked it?

 

[Polymath257]

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

Actually, we can know that they are *not* the same. He likes them and I don't. That alone says the experiences are different.

This is also why we say some things are a 'matter of taste': there are enough variations in taste receptors that the experience does, in fact, vary from person to person.

 

[Polymath257]

So, if the drug use in question was done as a legal study in the US, let's say published by Timothy Leary, then this would be fair game for discussion?

I'd recommend taking it to site feedback to get a moderator consensus on that one.

https://www.religiousforums.com/forums/site-feedback.344/

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

But we can and often do reach common agreement through common understanding. If we didn’t have a common understanding we couldn’t function financially or as a human race in any form or manner.

We are all human so although not identical there is enough in common to have a common understanding between each other.

Imagine if we had a worldwide common understanding how we could use that as a basis for world peace. It doesn’t mean we are identical just that as human beings we have a lot in common.

Of course; but coming to or acting on common understandings means that we can collectively construct some set of social stories and processes that we all agree to, even create an understanding (a story or model) of perhaps some of the material and energetic bases for our shared existence, even to the point where most people can't understand the nuances--such as quantum mechanics or special relativity--which are much different than our day-to-day experience.

But that doesn't mean that we have the same experience, even when we stand right next to each and watch a sunrise from a mountaintop. We are present at the same physical event, yet our experiences are uniquely our own...even though we share the same basic physical architecture and processes, our individual perception and experience is not the same.

For example, if I am colorblind, I do not see the nuanced colors that you do. You experience is not mine, and while we can point at commonalities, those commonalities are what we agree to say about experiences, but are not the experiences...symbols, not substance. The COLOR of the sunrise is something I CANNOT experience...the sight, the colors, may be very moving to you, but literally, and cannot conceive or perceive as you do. I may find the sunrise moving, but it will be a different experience, even if we both call it a "God experience." Where is the commonality in that?

Having a god experience is not the same, even if we agree that how you describe yours is similar to how I describe mine. The agreement is symbol and not substance. What it means is personal not shared.

 

[Willamena]

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.

Just putting a word ("exists") in perspective.

 

[Willamena]

But it is also quite possible to have experienced this and have found it to be irrelevant. Just because you have an experience of non-duality doesn't mean that non-duality is reality. You may, for example, discount it because of the circumstances in which is it experienced or because you find it to be invalid for other reasons.

I can't think of one experience that is irrelevant (in what sense could it be?). Reality is nothing more than experience given the nod of truth. Even the falsehoods are relevant, for they are not falsehoods until they are discovered to be false. The illusions are only illusion when experience shows us that they are. The mistakes are only mistaken when we know them to be.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Just putting a word ("exists") in perspective.

What perspective?

 

[charlie sc]

I skimmed the study. It appears that if someone takes strong drugs, they're more likely to become, "Other." This applies to atheists and mono-theists. I assume Other is spiritual and maybe some kind of polytheism

 

[sealchan]

Reason is preferred over any self experience.

Every experience a person has is just their own experience.

God needs a presence outside of personal experience.

How would you distinguish between what is you, and what is God?

Proof in the realm of reason is where i would like to meet God. An exterior presence other than my own would suffice.

God must enter through the mind of reason.

Experience alone is going to be self interpreted. And one must be objective about their own experience.

Every time i have a dream, i know its only me conjuring in my sleep. Every effect, and affect, every imagination that runs wild. Its like something out of the movie Brazil at times.

How can you trust experiences to reveal The God?

Personal meaning comes from your experiences. They shape who you are and who you think you can become. No one lives on reasoned knowledge alone.

 

[sealchan]

I can't think of one experience that is irrelevant (in what sense could it be?). Reality is nothing more than experience given the nod of truth. Even the falsehoods are relevant, for they are not falsehoods until they are discovered to be false. The illusions are only illusion when experience shows us that they are. The mistakes are only mistaken when we know them to be.

Now this is first and foremost an honest epistemology.

 

[sealchan]

Of course; but coming to or acting on common understandings means that we can collectively construct some set of social stories and processes that we all agree to, even create an understanding (a story or model) of perhaps some of the material and energetic bases for our shared existence, even to the point where most people can't understand the nuances--such as quantum mechanics or special relativity--which are much different than our day-to-day experience.

But that doesn't mean that we have the same experience, even when we stand right next to each and watch a sunrise from a mountaintop. We are present at the same physical event, yet our experiences are uniquely our own...even though we share the same basic physical architecture and processes, our individual perception and experience is not the same.

For example, if I am colorblind, I do not see the nuanced colors that you do. You experience is not mine, and while we can point at commonalities, those commonalities are what we agree to say about experiences, but are not the experiences...symbols, not substance. The COLOR of the sunrise is something I CANNOT experience...the sight, the colors, may be very moving to you, but literally, and cannot conceive or perceive as you do. I may find the sunrise moving, but it will be a different experience, even if we both call it a "God experience." Where is the commonality in that?

Having a god experience is not the same, even if we agree that how you describe yours is similar to how I describe mine. The agreement is symbol and not substance. What it means is personal not shared.

Right!

And if at a sunrise your first true love confessed they love another...what sunset would they see then?

We dont like to think of the vast influence that our personal subjective experience has on our sense of meaning, our sense of self-worth, our attitude towards others...we all carry experiences, we make fateful choices, we are born into circumstances fortunate or not...

All this is so immensely important and yet we live as if we are some abstract point in a three dimensional world with complete freedom to think and feel as if we have had no history at all.

 

[Sapiens]

Yes. One finds better ways to use the available faculties.

Clearly something that you have accomplished, though I doubt if anyone but you and a passing few few others, who have similarly pursued the abandonment of reasoning skills, would style as "better."

 

[osgart]

Personal meaning comes from your experiences. They shape who you are and who you think you can become. No one lives on reasoned knowledge alone.

Without experience we would know nothing, true. Yet all experiences are subjective, and are susceptible to inaccurate self interpretation.

A God experience would have to be irrefutably true, and that takes reasoning about the experience. There would be no room for doubt. No experience is infallibly 100 percent absolutely clear as to its accurate and complete truth. Perhaps a certain percent of personal experience is as is, but the interpretations of experience always can be questioned and it would be rare indeed to get an infallibly true self interpreted personal experience; where you know that you know that you know that what you are experiencing is God.

 

[Shad]

while taking a psychedelic.

Yah this would do it. Although this really makes it a placebo while doing little to change my view of theists.

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

Problem is with how many drug users compared to non-drug participants shows those experiences are far more chemical induced fantasies. I am sure the drug users also had great experiences with tomatoes and flashlights too.

 

[viole]

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.

Can you remove all deepities so that I understand what you are saying?

Ciao

- viole