What do you mean by religious experience and can atheists have them?

[rousseau]

Some of you are making me wish that I used drugs in the 70s, but I was straight as an arrow back then. I've never tried anything stronger than weed and that wasn't until I was 30. I don't regret that anymore than I regret giving up Jesus. He never even bothered to return my calls. Men!

Drugs for me was a waste of time. I would never suggest that anyone use drugs. For me living and exploting and learning was a far greter experince than escapist drugs.

I agree with this. I had some fun experimenting in college, but eventually life became it's own reward.

I can relate to the feeling of needing drugs to enjoy life because I once felt that way, but these days I don't think there is much I could feel while on something that I can't feel sober. Sometimes maybe a little chamomile tea to quiet the mind, or coffee to wake me up, but that's about it.

 

[Tharmas]

Some of you are making me wish that I used drugs in the 70s, but I was straight as an arrow back then. I've never tried anything stronger than weed and that wasn't until I was 30. I don't regret that anymore than I regret giving up Jesus. He never even bothered to return my calls. Men!

Drugs for me was a waste of time. I would never suggest that anyone use drugs. For me living and exploting and learning was a far greter experince than escapist drugs.

I agree with this. I had some fun experimenting in college, but eventually life became it's own reward.

I can relate to the feeling of needing drugs to enjoy life because I once felt that way, but these days I don't think there is much I could feel while on something that I can't feel sober. Sometimes maybe a little chamomile tea to quiet the mind, or coffee to wake me up, but that's about it.

I regret the time I wasted excessively drinking alcohol and the negative effects it had on my life, and I guess I could say the same about pot, but I have no regrets for the psychedelics I did. I agree however that life on its own terms is the most rewarding.

 

[rousseau]

I agree with this. I had some fun experimenting in college, but eventually life became it's own reward.

I can relate to the feeling of needing drugs to enjoy life because I once felt that way, but these days I don't think there is much I could feel while on something that I can't feel sober. Sometimes maybe a little chamomile tea to quiet the mind, or coffee to wake me up, but that's about it.

I regret the time I wasted excessively drinking alcohol and the negative effects it had on my life, and I guess I could say the same about pot, but I have no regrets for the psychedelics I did. I agree however that life on its own terms is the most rewarding.

I figure I was a different person back when I was drinking more heavily, smoking pot, and using the occasional psychedelic. It worked then, it was fun then.. just stopped needing or wanting it. So no regrets, who I am now is the logical conclusion of what I was doing back then.

What I do miss is the culture. The people I spent time smoking with in university were some of the finest and most interesting people I've ever known. Granted, many of those people who never left hippie culture are now struggling, while the ones who moved on and got themselves careers are in a better spot later in life.

 

[steve_bank]

In the 60s drugs and music began replacing religion and convention. People derive values from music. It has become far more insidous than the old conventions and religion, IMO.

Yea. When I got engaged in electronics drugs and all that went with it fell away. It was not a comsious decision. Most of the music of the times today have no value for me. I don't need to escape into music either.

To rephrase Marx, music is the opium of the people. Just as bad asn religion.

 

[Underseer]

If "religious experience" is valid evidence, then all or at least most religions are true.

Since most religions claim to be the one and only true religion, this is an untenable truth claim according to the very people who insist that "religious experience" is valid supporting evidence for truth claims.

So either "religious experience" is valid supporting evidence, in which case every religion that claims to be exclusive is definitely false, or else it is not valid supporting evidence for any truth claims, and religious people have to find something else to support their truth claims with.

 

[steve_bank]

What do you mean by valid?

If you do not nelive in the supernatural the dicussion expands to perceptions and reality in general. As somebody pointed out atheists have their beliefs as well, and superstions as well. We all do. For me religion just one manifestaion of a basic human aspect/

Back in the 60s somw took Bob Dylan as a prpohet. They did not realize his Bohemian personal was a stage act. When he went to electric guitar there was an uproar.

A video clip of a heavy metal concert showed people bobbing their heads up and down to a drone beat. Zombies.

 

[Lion IRC]

If "religious experience" is valid evidence, then all or at least most religions are true.

Yes, all of them are true insofar as they agree that atheism is false.
If I think the moon is a god and the tree is a different god and the river is a third god (polytheism) and someone else thinks all three are part of one pantheistic god and yet another person says that things like trees and rivers and moons arent gods in themselves but are created BY God, then theism of one kind or another is wholly or partly at play.

...Since most religions claim to be the one and only true religion, this is an untenable truth claim according to the very people who insist that "religious experience" is valid supporting evidence for truth claims.

I don't think it's fair to blame the person who is sincerly mistaken about whether an elephant is entirely a trunk, or a tusk, or an ear, or a tail, for being mistaken nonetheless in their belief that theirs is the one true religion.

...So either "religious experience" is valid supporting evidence, in which case every religion that claims to be exclusive is definitely false, or else it is not valid supporting evidence for any truth claims, and religious people have to find something else to support their truth claims with.

No, it doesn't logically follow that two partially incorrect religions completely invalidate one or the other.

 

[abaddon]

Can people look to the OP for how "religious experience" is defined?

Can people look to the OP for how "religious experience" is defined? The topic is not if theism is true or whether experience is "valid".

Thinking the moon is a god isn't an experience, the word "thinking" should be a clue. It's important to keep the distinction between religious belief and religious experience in mind.

What's religious about a religious experience?

-----------------------------------

I can describe my "born again" experience at age 14, for one example of a religious experience. At the time I said that I felt Jesus enter my heart.

Ok, so what's religious about it? The context which forced the particular interpretation is all I can think of. There was no "Jesus", "enter" or "heart" in the experience. That's a figure of speech they taught me, a social convention; and thus not in itself an experience. The experience was a viscerally felt and deeply affecting sense of belonging. Which I've felt in nonreligious contexts, generally in nature. I could give it a nontheistic religious spin, call it a "sacred" bond with nature maybe, but I don't see that that adds anything worthwhile to it. It's viscerally felt, deeply affecting, and communicable to others without religious jargon. Poets do it best, and that's extremely valuable (what a tragedy, to society and maybe to the whole ecosphere, that poetry is so unpopular).

So, maybe what's religious is the context and not the experience itself. Stating metaphors as if they're real "things" is something I'm guessing plays a big role in experiences turning religious (which is part of why I distrust religious jargon). "A blinding light shown down upon me!" could be hyperbole and not hallucination. Everyone other than theists will be familiar with how loose theists are with language.

I've had drug-induced transcendent experiences. I don't know a single religious thing about them, since I was no longer religious at the time. Sometimes they included the feeling of an "other", it felt sometimes like a kind of disembodied guide revealed insights to me. That'd be a "spirit" in some contexts. But not to someone like me who distinguishes psychology from metaphysics. BTW, that's not a matter of consigning the experience to "hallucination", but rather a recognition of how replete and complex the human psyche is.

Also I feel "oneness" when my mind falls more silent than it generally is, or I gain a degree of dissociation from its jibber-jabber. The sense of self-dentity is more diffuse, with all phenomena within awareness feeling like one interconnected system (it's very difficult to explain but in a way it's all "me"), rather than like a motley assortment of "things" that are "out there" in "the environment" and different to myself. The instant I think "ah, a pretty flower" or "lovely scenery!" I split the world into an appreciative "me in here" and a pretty thing that is "out there". And so thinking takes a wonderful experience and diminishes it into an interpretation or explanation to stick in one's pocket and keep for a reminder of when I wasn't isolated to being "inside" my head. Cogitating about the flower and judging its appearance can also be pleasant; but it's a different, more mundane and more merely esthetic, sort of experience.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I take religious to mean heavy on the woo. So can non religious people have the same experiences but that are not heavy on the woo? Sure, the experiences are completely natural, satisfying and explainable, however. No woo, no ghosts entering our hearts from a ghost king in the clouds, no pretending in magic spells, no demons, no silly supernatural twaddle talk or sacred writings involved.

I am cyclothymic, a light, non-debilitating variety of bipolar. As such I've experienced great episodes of both euphoria and exquisite calm, episodes that have weakened in both intensity and frequency as I've gotten older. There have been times when I've suddenly felt I was everywhere and all knowing, even if it only lasted seconds. I never once thought an invisible spaceman was communicating with me about some issue, but perceived the experience to simply be brain activity, and quite satisfying. The longer these episodes lasted, however, the more stupid things I'd do or say because my judgement was compromised, a hallmark of religious behavior.

These experiences were for me more meaningful when examined rationally and intellectually, and not emotionally attributed to pretend creatures with magic powers.

 

[Politesse]

I take religious to mean heavy on the woo. So can non religious people have the same experiences but that are not heavy on the woo? Sure, the experiences are completely natural, satisfying and explainable, however. No woo, no ghosts entering our hearts from a ghost king in the clouds, no pretending in magic spells, no demons, no silly supernatural twaddle talk or sacred writings involved.

I am cyclothymic, a light, non-debilitating variety of bipolar. As such I've experienced great episodes of both euphoria and exquisite calm, episodes that have weakened in both intensity and frequency as I've gotten older. There have been times when I've suddenly felt I was everywhere and all knowing, even if it only lasted seconds. I never once thought an invisible spaceman was communicating with me about some issue, but perceived the experience to simply be brain activity, and quite satisfying. The longer these episodes lasted, however, the more stupid things I'd do or say because my judgement was compromised, a hallmark of religious behavior.

These experiences were for me more meaningful when examined rationally and intellectually, and not emotionally attributed to pretend creatures with magic powers.

But everyone's Very Important Experiences sound like so much woo to someone else who doesn't share their context...

 

[Learner]

Joedad, never-say-never, I knew an atheist that claimed to have seen a ghost. Another sceptic (to theism) I've come across claimed to see and hear moving objects but no visual ghost (perhaps in her case she could have imagined it)

I used to be on a forum quite a few years ago on a thread "Evidence of God" (no longer existing) and one of the members was a teacher and a lecturer in the field of mathematics. He was quite a strong debating intellectual , theists would find it quite difficult to respond back likewise.

Anyway he did mention something he found remarkable but had no explanation for. According to him (if he's telling the truth- although I'm sure he is) , It started when he stayed at a hotel and then one evening he got the shock of his life. A lady suddenly appeared in the corner of the room standing there dressed IIRC's in an earlier dress fashion.

Obviously he would naturally boil this down to his imagination playing tricks due to some fatigue or daydream...however his wife was there with him ... freaked out seeing the same the same thing. He did find out from hotel staff that others have seen the same.


He believes it was real.
woooooo

 

[Politesse]

Joedad, never-say-never, I knew an atheist that claimed to have seen a ghost. Another sceptic (to theism) I've come across claimed to see and hear moving objects but no visual ghost (perhaps in her case she could have imagined it)

I used to be on a forum quite a few years ago on a thread "Evidence of God" (no longer existing) and one of the members was a teacher and a lecturer in the field of mathematics. He was quite a strong debating intellectual , theists would find it quite difficult to respond back likewise.

Anyway he did mention something he found remarkable but had no explanation for. It started when he stayed at a hotel and then one evening he got the shock of his life. A lady suddenly appeared in the corner of the room standing there dressed IIRC's in an earlier dress fashion.

Obviously he would naturally boil this down to his imagination playing tricks due to some fatigue or daydream...however his wife was there with him ... freaked out seeing the same the same thing. He did find out from hotel staff that others have seen the same.

He believes it was real.
woooooo

Well he's not a very good skeptic; you're supposed to maintain unshakeable faith in a "scientific explanation", even if you have no empirical data to suggest one. When no other avenue presents itself, pathologize your own perception.

 

[Learner]

Well he's not a very good skeptic; you're supposed to maintain unshakeable faith in a "scientific explanation", even if you have no empirical data to suggest one. When no other avenue presents itself, pathologize your own perception.

I think he had enough data (i.e. other witness with him) other reports and details he would / could have asked to make a good and safe enough logical conclusion that "importantly": he was NOT imagining what he saw in front of him ...but knowing what it actually is he was seeing, is still his unaswered question.

He is definitely on the side of the science method and would agree with you.

 

[Jobar]

Some of you are making me wish that I used drugs in the 70s, but I was straight as an arrow back then. I've never tried anything stronger than weed and that wasn't until I was 30. I don't regret that anymore than I regret giving up Jesus. He never even bothered to return my calls. Men!

Drugs for me was a waste of time. I would never suggest that anyone use drugs. For me living and exploting and learning was a far greter experince than escapist drugs.

Despite having walked that (quite ancient) path myself, I wouldn't suggest it, either- although with proper guidance and self control, they can make for an interesting, effective and even enjoyable way of self-knowledge. But yes, I've seen far too many people who let the drugs become the master instead of the servant, whose lives were lessened or even destroyed, rather than expanded.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Just hypothetically, to believers:
What if I, as an unapologetic atheist, fall off a ladder and have a NDE involving a sensation of slowly rising up out of my body, approaching a bright light, going down a long white hallway, seeing a blinding, blazing, glowing being -- then suddenly find myself back on earth, and still an atheist? Are we then in the territory of discrediting belief in NDEs, or is the whole thing a reflection on my sinful, rebellious nature?
Does it complicate the scenario if I stay "up" there a while longer, looking at the glowing being, and some of the glow fades away and it turns out to be Oprah sitting at a giant white reception desk, offering me a reduced price on an O Magazine subscription? (BTW, you know she's gonna be in heaven and you know she's gonna have business ventures going on.)

 

[Jobar]

Joedad, never-say-never, I knew an atheist that claimed to have seen a ghost. Another sceptic (to theism) I've come across claimed to see and hear moving objects but no visual ghost (perhaps in her case she could have imagined it)

I used to be on a forum quite a few years ago on a thread "Evidence of God" (no longer existing) and one of the members was a teacher and a lecturer in the field of mathematics. He was quite a strong debating intellectual , theists would find it quite difficult to respond back likewise.

Anyway he did mention something he found remarkable but had no explanation for. It started when he stayed at a hotel and then one evening he got the shock of his life. A lady suddenly appeared in the corner of the room standing there dressed IIRC's in an earlier dress fashion.

Obviously he would naturally boil this down to his imagination playing tricks due to some fatigue or daydream...however his wife was there with him ... freaked out seeing the same the same thing. He did find out from hotel staff that others have seen the same.

He believes it was real.
woooooo

Well he's not a very good skeptic; you're supposed to maintain unshakeable faith in a "scientific explanation", even if you have no empirical data to suggest one. When no other avenue presents itself, pathologize your own perception.

As good skeptics ourselves, we have to consider the fact we are hearing a tale that has passed through several tellers; we can't be sure of the truthfulness of anyone in the chain. All we have here is an extraordinary tale, with no extraordinary evidence to back it.

Now, if *we* were to actually experience such an event- particularly one with other witnesses- then we should work to document and investigate it. Pathologizing our own perception would be a definite hypothesis, yes- but we might also be the butt of a high-tech practical joke. What we would *not* do is immediately start telling people we saw a ghost.

 

[southernhybrid]

Just hypothetically, to believers:
What if I, as an unapologetic atheist, fall off a ladder and have a NDE involving a sensation of slowly rising up out of my body, approaching a bright light, going down a long white hallway, seeing a blinding, blazing, glowing being -- then suddenly find myself back on earth, and still an atheist? Are we then in the territory of discrediting belief in NDEs, or is the whole thing a reflection on my sinful, rebellious nature?
Does it complicate the scenario if I stay "up" there a while longer, looking at the glowing being, and some of the glow fades away and it turns out to be Oprah sitting at a giant white reception desk, offering me a reduced price on an O Magazine subscription? (BTW, you know she's gonna be in heaven and you know she's gonna have business ventures going on.)

NDEs are weird because most people who are near death don't experience them. Why is that? My late father suffered a heart attack when he was 75. His heart stopped and luckily for him, the EMTs made it to the house in a few minutes and successfully resuscitated him. He never had an NDE and since he was a "born again" evangelical Christian, that worried him. He wondered why he experienced absolutely nothing during the time that his heart and respirations had stopped. NDE's are probably just something that happens to some people as their body shuts down, with their brains. I would simply consider it a hallucination. A lot of people experience hallucinations during the dying process.

I wasn't there when my father actually died at the age of 87, but from what I've been told, he was very confused and restless for a couple of hours, then by the time his hospice nurse arrived, he was dead. I've seen a lot of people die. Most of them go out gradually with little to say about it. If they have loved ones to comfort them and the right drugs to control pain and fluid backing up in the lungs as the heart fails to pump adequately, it can be a very peaceful thing.

The way I look at it is this. If all these strange experiences are due to a god, why doesn't that god appear or speak to everyone? Why just a very small percentage?

Why do people think that every weird thing that happens to some of us must be supernatural? There are many weird things that happen to a lot of us that have perfectly natural explanations, even if we currently don't fully understand them. I mean. Come on. Some people still believe the earth is flat or the earth was created in 7 days. Actually 6 days, since he rested on the 7th. They still believe these things despite all the overwhelming evidence that they were simply stories told in ancient times, long before we understood evolution.

Don't worry. I'm not suggesting that anyone on this thread is stupid or naive enough to believe these stories as literal. But, I've known plenty of people that do. I know y'all are smarter than that.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Joedad, never-say-never, I knew an atheist that claimed to have seen a ghost. Another sceptic (to theism) I've come across claimed to see and hear moving objects but no visual ghost (perhaps in her case she could have imagined it)

I used to be on a forum quite a few years ago on a thread "Evidence of God" (no longer existing) and one of the members was a teacher and a lecturer in the field of mathematics. He was quite a strong debating intellectual , theists would find it quite difficult to respond back likewise.

Anyway he did mention something he found remarkable but had no explanation for. According to him (if he's telling the truth- although I'm sure he is) , It started when he stayed at a hotel and then one evening he got the shock of his life. A lady suddenly appeared in the corner of the room standing there dressed IIRC's in an earlier dress fashion.

Obviously he would naturally boil this down to his imagination playing tricks due to some fatigue or daydream...however his wife was there with him ... freaked out seeing the same the same thing. He did find out from hotel staff that others have seen the same.


He believes it was real.

woooooo

In a word: Ontology. If belief in the reality of ghosts is part of my reality then I'll attribute these experiences to woo. I could watch a Macy's day parade of apparent ghosts all afternoon and I'd find an explanation that didn't involve emotional religious weirdness. With migraine auras this actually occurs on and off for days.

If you can't repeat or test the behavior it's woo. People love to pretend and tell stories. That much is fact.

 

[steve_bank]

Yup. Those theists atr crazy, but I am sure my house is haunted. Hee Heee. Got a problem, call Ghost Busters.


If you see a ghost then it is yiur brain or some phenomena making a causl link to your brain.

If there is no ;supernatural', the seeing a ghost is no different than a beliver hearing god spaek to hum or her.

There was a book caslled Bicameral Mind that suggested seeing thungs superimposed
on reality was a normal human mode, bred out by the rise of Greek logic and reasoning. We initially thought things through visually.

 

[steve_bank]

Some of you are making me wish that I used drugs in the 70s, but I was straight as an arrow back then. I've never tried anything stronger than weed and that wasn't until I was 30. I don't regret that anymore than I regret giving up Jesus. He never even bothered to return my calls. Men!

Drugs for me was a waste of time. I would never suggest that anyone use drugs. For me living and exploting and learning was a far greter experince than escapist drugs.

Despite having walked that (quite ancient) path myself, I wouldn't suggest it, either- although with proper guidance and self control, they can make for an interesting, effective and even enjoyable way of self-knowledge. But yes, I've seen far too many people who let the drugs become the master instead of the servant, whose lives were lessened or even destroyed, rather than expanded.

LSD was legal until the late 60s. The author Ken Kesy was introduced to LSD as a grad student in a study group.

Pschology students were using it. Snadoz in Europe manufactured clincal grade drugs. The Greatful Dead had a personal chemist, Owsley.

If you want to get a feel for it, Read The Electric Kool Aide Acid Test.

There were parties ith cans off kool aude spiked with acid.