What is a Religious Experience?

[Rockinghorse Winner]

It is a fact of human experience that most people experience something that
they recognize at the time or in hindsight as a religious feeling or
experience. Those who have these experiences are often not religious.
William James in his classic study, Varieties of Religious Experience
<http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/Jamvari.html>, includes
numerous anecdotes of nonbelievers, even atheists, having had experiences of
this type.

What is it about these experiences that set them apart, and make them
identifiable as religious, even by people who have no or very limited
knowledge of religion? One of the elements that distinguish a religious
experience from a 'fantasy' or a 'daydream,' is the uncanny feeling that one
am not completely in control of the experience.

With a fantasy or daydream, I am all the time aware that I am the author of
the images or ideas that flit before my mind's eye. With experiences of a
religious type, I have the uncomfortable feeling that the ideas and images
are at least partially outside of my control. IOW, they seem to come from
someplace 'outside' me.

I am not interested in whether the experiences do ultimately issue from an
exterior source, even if it were possible to determine. I am interested in
what makes them unique. One of these marks as I've said is a sense of having
come to us in spite of ourselves - that is, without a conscious intention to
have such an experience.

What are some other hallmarks of religious feelings? Another element of all
religious feeling is it's captivating aspect. It for a moment at least is
transfixing, and we are struck by it, by it's uniqueness from all other
types of experience we may have had. It may not be interpreted in religious
terms, but there is no denying the powerful pull it exerts on the person who
has it, such that he is able to recall it even many years later.

What are some other aspects of religious feeling? What are some of the
differences between the religious experiences of people already steeped in
religion and those of people without the terminology or schema to wrap their
experience in?

Does religious feeling have to include an experience of 'God?' Is religious
feeling incompatible with atheism? Can a religious experience ever
contradict previously held religious beliefs rather than be interpreted in
terms of those beliefs? Thoughts? Ideas?

Terry
--
"There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats."
-Albert Schweitzer

badass linux - 3.2.12-gentoo

[Giga]

"Rockinghorse Winner" <badass....@gmx.com> wrote in message
news:slrnjqmm24.dik....@badass.edu...

I agree. That it what makes it an 'experience' rather than a fantasy etc.

>
> What are some other hallmarks of religious feelings? Another element of
> all
> religious feeling is it's captivating aspect. It for a moment at least is
> transfixing, and we are struck by it, by it's uniqueness from all other
> types of experience we may have had. It may not be interpreted in
> religious
> terms, but there is no denying the powerful pull it exerts on the person
> who
> has it, such that he is able to recall it even many years later.

It is very novel as you say and intense often emotionally.

>
> What are some other aspects of religious feeling?

It changes a persons view of life and what may be beyond it. IOW it has
profound affects on them just like other intense life experiences (this
doesn't happen with dreams, fantasies or halucinations normally).

> What are some of the
> differences between the religious experiences of people already steeped in
> religion and those of people without the terminology or schema to wrap
> their
> experience in?

I suppose it *must* be expressed in some symbolism appropriate to the
person. Certainly in retrospect they will need to use their own resources to
interpret it and frame it within their cultural understanding. That is an
interesting point!

>
> Does religious feeling have to include an experience of 'God?'

Buddhist would say not but does partly depend on what counts as a religious
experience. Does experience of your self as not-limited to the physical body
count as a religious experience (spiritual experience)? Is that an
experience of God or just part of oneself that is beyond the physical?

> Is religious
> feeling incompatible with atheism?

I would say an experience that seems to imply a supernatural element to life
is.

> Can a religious experience ever
> contradict previously held religious beliefs rather than be interpreted in
> terms of those beliefs?

I suspect that religious ideas that do not have a foundation in personal
mystic experiences are probably quite shallow and would be severly
challenged by any such experience even if it were compatible with them. This
is because these ideas would only be accepted on a very shallow basis and
not really believed fully. A kind of cheap beleif, that is just there and
convenient and comforting etc.

>Thoughts? Ideas?
>

[tooly]

> Does religious feeling have to include an experience of 'God?' Is religious
> feeling incompatible with atheism?  Can a religious experience ever
> contradict previously held religious beliefs rather than be interpreted in
> terms of those beliefs?  Thoughts?  Ideas?
>
> Terry
> --
> "There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats."
> -Albert Schweitzer
>
> badass linux - 3.2.12-gentoo

My own take [not that anyone would care to hear, but I'm gonna tell
you anyway]...my own take on the 'religious experience'...is that one
cannot understand it 'thorugh discussion' or by 'intellectual
analysis'. Like "beauty", when one tries to take it into the
laboratory and dissect it to find out what it is...it 'vanishes' to
become something 'not beautiful' in and of itself. Beauty, to the
rationalist, then becomes, 'flighty', just an 'irrational' viewpoint
of the non-intellect.

And yet, can anyone DENY that beauty exists? If they do, they have
squandered much of the potential for positivity to their human
existence [IMHO of course].

There are so many angles; zillions of people have tried over
eons...and what little pittance can I offer to the subject? But what
the hell...here I go. [just another love song, or something, ha].

Being raised 'rationally' [through parentage], I questioned from early
on 'what the crap is this?...what is this LIFE I have awoken up
'within', here, on this planet, in space, time, the cosmos...somewhere
in the midst of the infinite or whatever? I tried to reduce it to
base logic...nothing more [dispensing with just about everything
everyone else was telling me]. Ok...so...I'm a machine of some sort.
I have parts, and they operate in such a way as to sustain this ME,
from which my consciousness emanates [I won't even get into the
questions of what consciousness is here; who am I to say, but only
say, 'it is' and 'I am'].

Ok...what is the machine's function, I asked? Base logic...from the
most general point of understanding...I concluded the base function of
all these parts was somehow to stimulate this thing we call
consciousness, in some vital, postive way [positive in that, it must
equate to come out on a teeter saw of experience to be something
'worth the while'...or else, I suppose the parts would seek to 'not
work' as it were].

Anyway, I'm getting convuluted here...but I'm trying to get to the
part where I concluded the general PURPOSE of all these parts making
up this machine I was, was to create, by base logic, EXPERIENCE. I
was an 'experience machine'.

This is an oversimplification of course, but it helped me to realize a
certain 'categorization' of EXPERIENCES that LIFE while conscious as a
human being on this planet, has to offer. I would always STOP in the
middle of life's activities, and try to 'review' the experience I was
having [in whatever activity it was I was doing]. What was the
object? To 'win' something? To 'obtain' something? To find purpose
to something? Glory? Riches? Adoration? Some sense of self
significanse? All...just EXPERIENCES while alive. So...what was I
after? What EXPERIENCE in this life, that was open to my reach,
seemed to be 'what it was all about'? And was the present activity,
whatever it was that I was doing, 'worth the effort' [considering the
ultimate object I was after]?

I found early on that, the deeper I analyzed my own behaviors, the
more I realized a 'general' object in life was to MATE [which probably
leads to reproduction, but that was never the conscious
consideration...but only finding that mate; that special someone of
the opposite sex to share things with]. There was a great emotional
pull in this, that in may ways, dwarfed all other activities and
experiences. The EXPERIENCE in mating is SUBLIME...especially when it
does end in physical intimacy. But it is the EMOTIONAL bonding that
was so 'significant'...that trumphed nearly everything else as to
justifiable experiences. In fact, most of the 'other life's
activities', had much to do with this one general pursuit...to mate
[as sublimative energies I found out in my studies; which made perfect
sense to me]. I wasn't really trying to win that ball game I played
back in high school, but I was TRYING to impress Cindy Loo...to
somehow 'win' her love and adoration of me.

If I had to catorgize life's experiences, say on a scale from 1 to 10,
the emotional energies found in that one single relationship with
Cindy Loo [my idealized woman], was a 1000. It dwarfed everything
else...I thought. At the time, if one had to pigeonhole me as to what
is Life's meaning, I'd have then said, 'to find Cindy Loo, seal the
deal emotionally, and live happily ever after, raising kids and white
picket fence houses and all'. Such idealized fantasy of course, but
most of us have it at some point in our early lives.

I found my Cindy Loo; a young 22 year old South Carolina Woman,
'BEAUTIFUL' to my eyes, and my 24 year old hormones were RIPE. Mating
is far more than copulation, or else any good whore would do [which is
entirely missing the whole OBJECT to life, imho]. The object, is to
find that EMOTIONAL BOND between that opposite sexual partner where a
'higher self' of obtained between the two; a marriage as it were.

Be as it may, such idealized 'fantasy' romantic views of life rarely
come to fruition. As flawed human beings, we find the actual people
we choose as possible mates fall far away from our
'idealization'...and the intellectuals find ready argument to convey
it is all illusive, and made upon 'necessary attractions' to 'betray
us', rather than serve us. Thus, the rose is a 'thorn tree' more than
it is a flower bush [in nature, everything justified through it's
survival potential].

In other words, most of us get our hearts broken, we become
disallusioned, disappointed, and even 'used or misused' as the song
goes. We mature, grow harder barks, and learn...but all the while,
'withdrawing' from the emotional potential we once were as 'youth'.
Perhaps that's needed too, in a predatory world, where hard barked
trees have better natural defences [and get laid more often] than
those trees with softer, fleshy, outer skins.

Needless to day, 'my' Cindly Loo...broke my heart. Details don't
matter [as far the experience goes, I dare say, we ALL go through it,
in some relativistic way, each in our own circumstances, but...as 'raw
experience' an equivalency nonetheless].

LIke I said, I was raised to be rational; to QUESTION experience, even
as I was in it's throes. LIke Socrates, this great loving energy I
felt for this 'Cindy Loo', that had set me on wings in a pure
adulation of life itself, as something sublime and full of purpose and
meaning [without having to question it]...had then, almost overnight,
become a bottomless pit if turmoil and chaos...and a REAL, bonafide
physical torture, the likes of which I had never experienced the
depths of before or since Well, I garned what muster of objectivity I
could while in such horrible pain, and tried to LOOK AT IT...like
perhaps Socrates might have; to question the misery, the torture, the
sheer hopelessness of it...even as I swam in it.

And thusly, I questioned...exactly what, indeed, was happening to me?

One day, I was on cloud nine...in the midst of the highest rapture I
could imagine; life abundant, love's energy swimming throughout my
consciousness, leaving me in such a profondly happy state, well, there
are no words. And then, the very next day...the almost near opposite;
being sent into hellish hole of misery as a soul forsaken from it's
very purpose to even co-exist with the very thing it loved so
dearly.

Something was amiss here. Cindy Loo, a single human being like
myself, could have so much POWER over me; to have total control over
my emotional output, energy, my very BEing. Why was this? What was
so demonstrably 'real' in this 'intangible' thing we call
'consciousness' that I was so 'profoundly' now attached to [before I
probably should have been so attached].

Indeed, what was Cindy Loo...except an OBJECT in my environment...like
all other objects? Oh, functionally, a very important object of
course, since she represented my 'reproductive rights' in this world;
my capacity to mate. But...also to FEEL?

That simply would not do.

Something 'real' had been drawn out from me due to her BEAUTY. LIke
the fleshy snail unwinding from it's protective shell, something very
tangible had 'disembarked' its protective shell from my consciousness,
and was 'sorely naked and open'. The emanation seemed centered in my
chest...but was whole throughout whatever I was. And I found it would
take me many months to 'withdraw' this emantion back into it's proper
protective place within, and indeed, could never be fully recoiled to
the innocense I once was [what some argue is a lasting scar from such
'first cuts' of romance, as it were].

I go into all his in some detail, not to bore others with my now long
forgotten love life, but to explain how my 'emotional' self was
brought to 'full bore' hormonal robustness in the presence of my
Cindly Loo. I was energized like the energizer bunny...and I'd keep
on ticking for quite some time after that. But...I had no object; she
had left me; rejected me as it were. I had immaturely 'unraveled
myself' not checking the road both ways before crossing. I was
out...something real from me was 'out and about'...and nowhere now to
go. It hurt like hell.

But love was the SUBLIME experience...not Cindy Loo. It was her
beauty that pulled me out is all. All I needed was a NEW object to
funnel this energy toward.

Get the picture here? Yet?

Thank goodness, my paternal grandmother had insisted that I be raised
with solid Christain foundation when young. I can see how such
'negative experiences' as I was having at the time, could send people
insane. Most come through it like mentioned, but with harder barks
and a just a little bit less optimism in life. We mature.

But...something happened to me...and the point why I would post this
in a thread relating to 'religious experence'. My 'emotions' were
already on 'high octane'...exacerbated to the nth degree. And so, the
object I turned to...well, was God.

Now, now...please; I can see the Sir Freds and Immorts [ha, not that
they would have read this far anyway], scamper for the hills. Oh,
lordy be...there's that 'G' word again.

But, hear me out. An object is an object is an object. We've been
talking about threads where aliens might have sixteen appendages, and
noses on their butts and eyes on the end of fingers...who knows. And
yet, BEAUTY...might exist to them as well. And whatever ATTRACTIONS
that exist to exacerbate that emotional output that puts one in such
high octane 'energized' "state", well, for me, it was Cindy Loo.
But...she was JUST AN OBJECT. Get it yet?

Why should ANY object, good bad, or ugly, DEFINE to any of us 'how we
should FEEL'? The 'G' word simply became a FUNNEL, whereby my
consciousness COULD 'migrate' this emotional output as an 'attachment
to all things'.

"What's that", you say, "All things"? Yep, that's what I found, at
least as a possibility [and for me, as reality for some very
significant, robust, and quite memorable moments in my life].

You see, there is not definition of what God is. The best I heard
while growing up, was that God was 'all things'. Some might call that
just absurdity...but it doesn't matter. It was 'real' for me at that
moment [and other moments since]. The OBJECT was not Cindy Loo I
concluded...but it was always about ME...MY EXPERIENCE in life [sounds
selfish I know, but that's the way it is]. I wanted to LOVE...I
wanted to FEEL...just like I did with Cindy Loo. And lo and behold, I
found that as I funneled my Consciousness 'through' this non-descript
[and probably othewise meaningless 'word' we call GOD]...well,

No, that's not saying it right. I recognized not OBJECTS at that
point...but MY STATE. I was the thing I was AFTER...that is, the LOVE
I saught was not so much that Cindy Loo loved me [that would have been
a more simplistic remedy and probably more what nature intended for
reproduction]...but that I could STILL 'be love' myself.

Ah...this all sound silly as I write here, ha. But you know that
profound highest sublime state I said I found with Cindy Loo as my
object...there was 'better'. I found that through a conceptualization
of God [and I would imagine we all have imagination to conceptualize
however we can, if we care too of course], I was essentially a spigot
of energy that was...well, just as the good book said, a 'cup
runnething over', LOL.

Our brains make whatever sense it can of the whole affair of course;
some might venture into mysticism and magic...some into dogmatic
rendition taught them from birth. I use what I can...which is not a
whole lot from the bible [maybe I'm just slow or something]...but my
OBJECT remains to sustain this sublime state we call LOVE. I hate the
word BTW; does not do the state justice IMHO...makes mushy or
something, like that fairy guy Leo Buscaglia used to preach.

But realize, I speak now with my 'intellect'. I cannot convey the
EXPERIENCE with words; not well anyway. I was born lucky [maybe, if
this holds any water anyway]...and can believe in Santa Claus and the
tooth fairy [ha, not really...but close]. It is a POWER of mind to
me...nothing else. Controlling it; now that's the challenge.

One thing about love though...it does change you. Whatever energy
this is, however it is produced, be it nervous pathways, or chemical
bombs going off inside one's brain, or whatever it is...it IS, by
FAR...the greatest experience LIFE has to offer [by my own
categorization of course and even makes romantic love with Cindy Loo
pale in comparison]. I can't explain it well, but it's every essence
is meaning and purpose itself [but without object, if that makes any
sense]. I suppose humans have been trying to define it since time
memorial...everyone having their angle at it. This is mine. I
suppose it's no worse than any other looney bin tale, ha. Ah...but
while in it's throes...everything fits; it all comes together; makes
sense; has purpose, and all is well. As the genders are torn apart
romantically in today's world, I pity those who do not have God to
fall back upon. But then...I never got to fuck Cindy Loo either;
so...who's to say who is better off. I'm just old and tired now...

[Fred M. McNeill]

At a common minimum : qualia. In other specific words
the representation of certain photon energies
as 'red' is a religious experience. Any sensory, 'self', or
situation brain based representation(qualia, virtual reality, mind,etc.)
This then would include vision(rituals, etc.), hearing(music, etc.),
taste(sacraments, lunch, etc.), touch(laying on of hands, praying, etc.),
smell(incense, smoke, etc,).

At a maximum, the reported conversations with
'God' by epileptics such that they refuse any
medication.

At a common personal experience : several dreams I have
had in which I acted out practiced cultural religious
stories.

Different brains produce different effects(experiences).

[Dare]

"Rockinghorse Winner" <badass....@gmx.com> wrote in message news:slrnjqmm24.dik....@badass.edu...

It seems to me a "religious" experience is believed to have meaning...
meaning beyond just the facts of what happened.
Sometimes there may be a "revelation" of sorts....
interpreted as a special message or some special knowledge
given to the individual.
There may be a change in perception....
a change in light, or the "flow of time"...
a separation from the normal world....
an altered state of consciousness.
Perhaps the experience is immune to the effects of analysis...
it defies attempts at explanation. Even if the individual has
some doubts about the "super-natural" aspect, there is still
that nagging reluctance to dismiss the feeling that it is a
different kind of experience.

[Rockinghorse Winner]

* It may have been the liquor talking, but

Do you mean beyond it, as in after death, or behind it as in 'another level
of awareness?'

As for the profound influence it has on us, I interpret this as meaning the
experience touches something in us that reverberates (literally vibrates),
and that we are attuned to some aspect of our being that we weren't before
the experience.

>> What are some of the
>> differences between the religious experiences of people already steeped in
>> religion and those of people without the terminology or schema to wrap
>> their
>> experience in?
>
> I suppose it *must* be expressed in some symbolism appropriate to the
> person. Certainly in retrospect they will need to use their own resources to
> interpret it and frame it within their cultural understanding. That is an
> interesting point!
>
>>
>> Does religious feeling have to include an experience of 'God?'
>
>
> Buddhist would say not but does partly depend on what counts as a religious
> experience. Does experience of your self as not-limited to the physical body
> count as a religious experience (spiritual experience)? Is that an
> experience of God or just part of oneself that is beyond the physical?

Yes, I would call that a religious experience. I think a feeling of
incoporeality is not theistic in and of itself, though it can lead to a a
belief in a deity through reflection and refinement.

In fact, might it be that religious belief all starts from the experiences
you describe - of an incorporal existence? Might this be the origin of
religion?

>
>> Is religious
>> feeling incompatible with atheism?
>
> I would say an experience that seems to imply a supernatural element to life
> is.
>
>> Can a religious experience ever
>> contradict previously held religious beliefs rather than be interpreted in
>> terms of those beliefs?
>
> I suspect that religious ideas that do not have a foundation in personal
> mystic experiences are probably quite shallow and would be severly
> challenged by any such experience even if it were compatible with them. This
> is because these ideas would only be accepted on a very shallow basis and
> not really believed fully. A kind of cheap beleif, that is just there and
> convenient and comforting etc.

Perhaps you're right that it would be challenging to each and every person
who experienced it, including those already religious. Perhaps this is the
way religion is kept fresh, by the continual injection of direct experiences
of this kind.

[Immortalist]

On May 9, 10:55 pm, Rockinghorse Winner <badass.super...@gmx.com>
wrote:

Some animals are social and need to communicate more than animals that
are solitary or in dumb herds which means they must go beyond other
animals in recognizing the self and others. In humans language was add
to this more complex level of instinctual social communication.

A critical question in human evolution is how the hierarchy typical of
ape societies was transformed into its opposite, the egalitarianism of
hunter gatherers. Human brain size started to expand dramatically from
the split with chimps. One consequence of this increased cognitive
capacity was the invention of weapons such as wooden spears. Weapons
were the great equalizers, and would have had the effect of flattening
out the hierarchy of a still apelike society, Boehm suggests. Another
leveler would have been the cognitive ability of the weak to form
coalitions against tyrannical leaders...

...as egalitarianism slowly evolved in the human lineage, it would
have exposed a critical weakness in the social structure: with the
power of the alpha males eclipsed, how was order to be kept? If no one
were willing to defer to anyone else, who would determine the
interests of the group? Who would take the personal risk of punishing
deviant and antisocial behavior?

The threat of freeloading and anarchy would have become increasingly
serious as human cognitive abilities increased. Individuals would have
figured out new and better ways to take advantage of the group's
protection without contributing anything in return. Nothing is more
corrosive to a group's cohesion than free riders. If they go
unpunished, the advantage of social living quickly diminishes; others
will contribute less, and the group will disintegrate or crumble under
challenge from neighbors. Free riders would have gained new power with
the advent of language, a perfect instrument with which to deceive,
prevaricate and manipulate. Those who were not pulling their full
weight had a new means of cloaking their selfishness...

...In evolutionary theory the role of religion as a force for social
cohesion and this is a fairly standard idea. But a new wrinkle on this
argument argues that the development of language allowed the
elaboration of reciprical altruism in human societies. With this
elaboration came greater opportunities for 'freeloaders' to cheat the
system by deception. There must be "...some context in which
statements were reliably and indubitably true.".. ...scared truths
which are unverifiable and unfalsifiable along with the communal
rituals of religion provide committed individuals with defense
"against the lie" ...there are good examples of this aspect of
religion operating even today, for instance among Orthodox Jews in the
diamond district seal even large contracts with a handshake. So the
defense against the the lie allows enhanced trust between members of
the community. Presumably repeated participation in the rituals of
religion provides a measure of verification that the trust is
warranted, making freeloaders easier to detect.

http://theforcethat.blogspot.com/2006/05/religion-and-science.html

Before the Dawn: Recovering the
Lost History of Our Ancestors
by Nicholas Wade
http://www.amazon.com/Before-Dawn-Recovering-History-Ancestors/dp/014303832X/

The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and
Why It Endures - Nicholas Wade
http://www.amazon.com/Faith-Instinct-Religion-Evolved-Endures/dp/B003B3NVZY/

Once there is language, conflicts of language ideas emerge layered on
top of mammalian instinctual hardware.

Basically, cognitive dissonance is a state of tension that occurs
whenever an individual simualtaniiously holds two cognitions (ideas,
attitudes, beliefs, opinions) that are psychologically inconsistent.
Stated differently, two cognitions are dissonant if, considering these
two cognitions alone, the opposite of one follows from the other.
Because the occurrance of cognitive dissonance is unpleasant, people
are motivated to reduce it; this is roughly analogous to the processes
involved in the induction and reduction of such drives as hunger or
thirst----except that, here, the driving force arises from cognitive
dissonance rather than physiological needs. To hold two ideas that
contradict each other is to flirt with absurdity, and---as Albert
Camus, the existentialist philosopher, has observed---humans are
creatures who sppend their lives trying to convine themselves their
existence is not absurd.

And since religious ideas are parasites on our strongest emotional
hardware they can trigger the tangle up in;

Quine's Web of Beliefs

According to Quine's metaphor of the web, all of our beliefs justify
and are justified by all of our other beliefs. They are all connected
by an explanatory network, and changes in one place can require
changes elsewhere. Thus, all of our beliefs are connected to our
observations of the world. What we observe can lead us to change any
of our beliefs, no matter how certain we may have been that they were
true. ...we try to change as few beliefs as possible, but we cannot
rule out the possibility that some observations will require sweeping
changes in the web.

Such sweeping changes do not occur often. When they do occur, they are
usually heralded as scientific revolutions, such as when Albert
Einstein (1879-1955) replaced Isaac Newton's (1642-1727) world view
with his special and general theories of relativity, and when Charles
Darwin (1809-1882) presented his theory of evolution, and when Sigmund
Freud (1856-1939) revealed the powers of unconscious motivation.
Similar sweeping changes may also occur in our personal lives, as when
we embrace a new religion with great fervor or decide that atheism is
the correct attitude and reject all religion.

...Are any beliefs immune from this process? Many philosophers believe
so. They hold that some beliefs do not depend on observation for their
justification, and that no observations whatever could show them to be
wrong. Beliefs of this type are said to count as a priori knowledge,
meaning that their justification is independent of experience. A
priori knowledge is contrasted with empirical knowledge, which does
depend on observation for its justification.

Thus, these philosophers give certain beliefs a privileged place in
the web. They are protected by something like a one-way glass. The
beliefs behind the glass, our a priori knowledge, provide
justification for the beliefs in front of it, our empirical beliefs,
but nothing that happens in front of the glass can change what goes on
behind it...

...The web of belief is set up in such a way that it is always
possible to hold any belief, come what may...

...Think of our beliefs as being spread throughout our web. Some
beliefs are in the center, some on the edges, and the rest scattered
in between. The beliefs on the edges are those we are most willing to
give up in the face of unexpected observations. The ones in the center
are those we are least willing to give up, those we are most likely to
hold, come what may. For most of us, the belief that tables do not
move themselves is much closer to the center than the belief that we
have not misjudged the distance to the table. A great number of
unexpected observations would have to occur before we would begin to
believe that tables move themselves. As we get closer and closer to
the center, our beliefs seem to be totally protected from unexpected
observations, so protected that we cannot imagine changing them. The
belief that twice two is four, for example, seems entirely immune from
revision.

Although most of us put the same beliefs in the center, it is possible
to put anything there...

Persons And Their World: An Introduction to Philosophy - Jeffrey Olen
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0075543117

In summary a million years ago an apes picked up rocks and hit
existing tyrants making society much more equal, and thus began the
stone age. Just joking.

[Rockinghorse Winner]

* It may have been the liquor talking, but

Fred M McNeill <mmcn...@fuzzysys.com> wrote:

> At a common minimum : qualia. In other specific words
> the representation of certain photon energies
> as 'red' is a religious experience. Any sensory, 'self', or
> situation brain based representation(qualia, virtual reality, mind,etc.)
> This then would include vision(rituals, etc.), hearing(music, etc.),
> taste(sacraments, lunch, etc.), touch(laying on of hands, praying, etc.),
> smell(incense, smoke, etc,).

Might this by necessity include all experience whatsoever? Might being human
in it's totality qualify as a religious type of being, according to this
definition? If so, why don't we always experience ourselves as religious -
amnesia? Willful forgetfulness?

>
> At a maximum, the reported conversations with
> 'God' by epileptics such that they refuse any
> medication.
>
> At a common personal experience : several dreams I have
> had in which I acted out practiced cultural religious
> stories.
>
> Different brains produce different effects(experiences).

[thomas p.]

"Giga" <"Giga" <just(removetheseandaddmatthe end)ho...@yahoo.co> skrev i
meddelelsen news:joftmu$mq6$1...@news.albasani.net...

According to whom?

>
>>
>> What are some other hallmarks of religious feelings? Another element of
>> all
>> religious feeling is it's captivating aspect. It for a moment at least
>> is
>> transfixing, and we are struck by it, by it's uniqueness from all other
>> types of experience we may have had. It may not be interpreted in
>> religious
>> terms, but there is no denying the powerful pull it exerts on the person
>> who
>> has it, such that he is able to recall it even many years later.
>
>

> It is very novel as you say and intense often emotionally.

So are many forms of hallucinations and the voices schizophrenics report
hearing. So what?

>
>>
>> What are some other aspects of religious feeling?
>
> It changes a persons view of life and what may be beyond it. IOW it has
> profound affects on them just like other intense life experiences (this
> doesn't happen with dreams, fantasies or halucinations normally).

It doesn't? Because you say so?

>
>> What are some of the
>> differences between the religious experiences of people already steeped
>> in
>> religion and those of people without the terminology or schema to wrap
>> their
>> experience in?
>
> I suppose it *must* be expressed in some symbolism appropriate to the
> person. Certainly in retrospect they will need to use their own resources
> to interpret it and frame it within their cultural understanding. That is
> an interesting point!

People with a religious background will often interpret an hallucination as
a religious experience, others may not. You think this is something
special?

>
>>
>> Does religious feeling have to include an experience of 'God?'
>
>
> Buddhist would say not but does partly depend on what counts as a
> religious experience. Does experience of your self as not-limited to the
> physical body count as a religious experience (spiritual experience)? Is
> that an experience of God or just part of oneself that is beyond the
> physical?

Or is it similar to the hallucinations expereienced by people who take acid?

>
>> Is religious
>> feeling incompatible with atheism?
>
> I would say an experience that seems to imply a supernatural element to
> life is.

I would say that leprechauns like to do the Hokey Pokey.

>
>> Can a religious experience ever
>> contradict previously held religious beliefs rather than be interpreted
>> in
>> terms of those beliefs?
>
> I suspect that religious ideas that do not have a foundation in personal
> mystic experiences are probably quite shallow and would be severly
> challenged by any such experience even if it were compatible with them.
> This is because these ideas would only be accepted on a very shallow basis
> and not really believed fully. A kind of cheap beleif, that is just there
> and convenient and comforting etc.

I suspect that one can say or suspect many things without any objective
basis in reality.

>
>>Thoughts? Ideas?
>>
>
>



--
thomas p

Ignorance is the mother of devotion.

David Hume

[thomas p.]

"Rockinghorse Winner" <badass....@gmx.com> skrev i meddelelsen
news:slrnjqnn30.lun....@badass.edu...

>* It may have been the liquor talking, but
> Fred M McNeill <mmcn...@fuzzysys.com> wrote:
>
>> At a common minimum : qualia. In other specific words
>> the representation of certain photon energies
>> as 'red' is a religious experience. Any sensory, 'self', or
>> situation brain based representation(qualia, virtual reality, mind,etc.)
>> This then would include vision(rituals, etc.), hearing(music, etc.),
>> taste(sacraments, lunch, etc.), touch(laying on of hands, praying, etc.),
>> smell(incense, smoke, etc,).
>
> Might this by necessity include all experience whatsoever? Might being
> human
> in it's totality qualify as a religious type of being, according to this
> definition? If so, why don't we always experience ourselves as religious -
> amnesia? Willful forgetfulness?

The fact that you are babbling?

>
>>
>> At a maximum, the reported conversations with
>> 'God' by epileptics such that they refuse any
>> medication.
>>
>> At a common personal experience : several dreams I have
>> had in which I acted out practiced cultural religious
>> stories.
>>
>> Different brains produce different effects(experiences).
>
> Terry
> --
> "There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats."
> -Albert Schweitzer
>
> badass linux - 3.2.12-gentoo

[Fred M. McNeill]

On Thu, 10 May 2012 08:18:56 -0700, Rockinghorse Winner <badass....@gmx.com> wrote:

>* It may have been the liquor talking, but
>Fred M McNeill <mmcn...@fuzzysys.com> wrote:
>
>> At a common minimum : qualia. In other specific words
>> the representation of certain photon energies
>> as 'red' is a religious experience. Any sensory, 'self', or
>> situation brain based representation(qualia, virtual reality, mind,etc.)
>> This then would include vision(rituals, etc.), hearing(music, etc.),
>> taste(sacraments, lunch, etc.), touch(laying on of hands, praying, etc.),
>> smell(incense, smoke, etc,).
>
>Might this by necessity include all experience whatsoever?

Yes. The mysterious fact of existence invites 'religious'
interpretation and confabulation. 'Why' is there anything at all?
I suspect any 'real' 'reason' is beyond 'human' ken, thus extent
institutional religions are 'human' based and simply part of the
unsolvable problem.

[Christopher A. Lee]

On Thu, 10 May 2012 18:04:39 +0200, "thomas p." <gud...@yahoo.com>
wrote:

>"Rockinghorse Winner" <badass....@gmx.com> skrev i meddelelsen
>news:slrnjqnn30.lun....@badass.edu...
>>* It may have been the liquor talking, but
>> Fred M McNeill <mmcn...@fuzzysys.com> wrote:
>>
>>> At a common minimum : qualia. In other specific words
>>> the representation of certain photon energies
>>> as 'red' is a religious experience. Any sensory, 'self', or
>>> situation brain based representation(qualia, virtual reality, mind,etc.)
>>> This then would include vision(rituals, etc.), hearing(music, etc.),
>>> taste(sacraments, lunch, etc.), touch(laying on of hands, praying, etc.),
>>> smell(incense, smoke, etc,).
>>
>> Might this by necessity include all experience whatsoever? Might being
>> human
>> in it's totality qualify as a religious type of being, according to this
>> definition? If so, why don't we always experience ourselves as religious -
>> amnesia? Willful forgetfulness?
>
>The fact that you are babbling?

Has he ever done anything else?

[Alan Ferris]

On Wed, 9 May 2012 22:55:16 -0700, Rockinghorse Winner
<badass....@gmx.com> wrote:

>Does religious feeling have to include an experience of 'God?' Is religious
>feeling incompatible with atheism? Can a religious experience ever
>contradict previously held religious beliefs rather than be interpreted in
>terms of those beliefs? Thoughts? Ideas?

I assisted with videoing a photographing at an evangelical rally over
a week where thousands of Christians turned up each day and each
evening there was a massed service. Now my friend kept telling me
that it was amazing the feeling of Jesus's presence, he could fee a
real buzz every evening. I to could feel a buzz, but I recognised it
for what it was. It is the same buzz you get at a concert or major
sports final. That smell of adrenaline causing your own body to
respond as well. So, you would call that Jesus, I just call it a
massed public response.

One laugh I had was the visiting pastor one evening who came from an
American healing church and tried to claim my knee.....when there was
absolutely no reaction or change I was blamed for not having faith.
The look on his face when I reminded him that it was his faith that
mattered when it comes to healing left me laughing all the way home.

What it really meant was that as I did not believe in his god I was
not suckered by his lines and did not fall for being fleeced.


--
Ferrit

()'.'.'()
( (T) )
( ) . ( )
(")_(")

[Petra]

> Might this by necessity include all experience whatsoever? Might being human
> in it's totality qualify as a religious type of being, according to this
> definition? If so, why don't we always experience ourselves as religious -
> amnesia? Willful forgetfulness?
>

possibly because it can be treated as temporal epilepsy and people are
taken into hospital and put under sedation on very strong drugs, if
you can avoid the 'sense of enlightenment' or 'aesthetic joys' outside
of the pillar boxes or places marked where such places are anticipated
or encouraged, eg a registered relationship, a marriage bureau, art
galleries football matches, fan shows, fav rave bands clubs, brothels
etc, you are less likely to be called 'pathetic bipolar diseased'

it also saves cash on the metal health who are paid hundreds and
thousands from tax payers money to employ people to monitor the
dangers inherent or possible to that sort of addiction.

[Petra]

when I come to think on that women in labour and giving birth are more
at risk of suffering from pain and delusions, consequently lots of
money and research and medicine are have evolved to try prevent those
sad occurrences happening...

[Petra]

and if you do breast feed at home, which is very out of fashion in UK,
be warned !! never ever to describe your sense or feeling of that
satisfaction as 'saintly', oxytocin doesn't last, but reports can go
on for years and years and again...bottle feeding is very fashionable
and 'less expensive'

[Petra]

If you are from any old UK colony the old saying was 'lie back and
think of your country' women shouldn't make any noises associated with
carnal pleasure, so if you are feminine, it would not be wise to
express your delight as being 'faithfully dedicated and hormonal' or
worse still 'worship of the male prowess', worship of anything that
gives religious charity freely is barred unless its registered and tax
is counted.

It seem very strange that the indecency is only associated with the
Lords work where feelings and expression of loyalty and deep
satisfying pleasure is involved.

Billions of women have been warned not to marry men that they worship,
I suppose because they will be enjoying it far too much.

[Art]

On Wed, 9 May 2012 22:55:16 -0700, Rockinghorse Winner
<badass....@gmx.com> wrote:

>It is a fact of human experience that most people experience something that
>they recognize at the time or in hindsight as a religious feeling or
>experience. Those who have these experiences are often not religious.
>William James in his classic study, Varieties of Religious Experience
><http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/Jamvari.html>, includes
>numerous anecdotes of nonbelievers, even atheists, having had experiences of
>this type.
>
>What is it about these experiences that set them apart, and make them
>identifiable as religious, even by people who have no or very limited
>knowledge of religion?

William James took great liberties with the term "religious". In
addition to "religious", terms such as "spiritual", "mystical" and
"paranormal" are used to help delineate the particular kinds of
experiences you have in mind. For example, telepathy or mind
reading would be called by many people a paranormal experience
and not a religious, or mystical or spiritual experience. However,
many experiences aren't that easy to categorize.

>One of the elements that distinguish a religious
>experience from a 'fantasy' or a 'daydream,' is the uncanny feeling that one
>am not completely in control of the experience.

Sorry, but especially in the context of William James' "Varieties" I
have to disagree. One of his categories was the "religion of healthy
mindedness" which has little or nothing to do with some special
experience that seems uncontrollable.

>With a fantasy or daydream, I am all the time aware that I am the author of
>the images or ideas that flit before my mind's eye. With experiences of a
>religious type, I have the uncomfortable feeling that the ideas and images
>are at least partially outside of my control. IOW, they seem to come from
>someplace 'outside' me.

I recall having a experience where words formed in my mind seeming to
come from "elsewhere" or some entity other than myself. This
particular kind of experience occurs in a unusual state of
consciousness while awakening from sleep. The critical faculty is not
engaged and you act as a mere receiver. You think critically later on
after becoming fully awake.

At the time, I placed this particular kind of unusual experience in
the category of "spiritual". However, one might also view the
experience as simply one ability of consciousness, and avoid the
term "spiritual". In fact, as I've progressed over the years, I now
view _all_ experiences as simply capabilities of consciousness ....
including paranormal, mystical, spiritual and religious experiences...
as well as so called normal experiences.

>I am not interested in whether the experiences do ultimately issue from an
>exterior source, even if it were possible to determine. I am interested in
>what makes them unique. One of these marks as I've said is a sense of having
>come to us in spite of ourselves - that is, without a conscious intention to
>have such an experience.
>
>What are some other hallmarks of religious feelings? Another element of all
>religious feeling is it's captivating aspect. It for a moment at least is
>transfixing, and we are struck by it, by it's uniqueness from all other
>types of experience we may have had. It may not be interpreted in religious
>terms, but there is no denying the powerful pull it exerts on the person who
>has it, such that he is able to recall it even many years later.
>
>What are some other aspects of religious feeling? What are some of the
>differences between the religious experiences of people already steeped in
>religion and those of people without the terminology or schema to wrap their
>experience in?
>
>Does religious feeling have to include an experience of 'God?' Is religious
>feeling incompatible with atheism? Can a religious experience ever
>contradict previously held religious beliefs rather than be interpreted in
>terms of those beliefs? Thoughts? Ideas?

Simply view all experiences as capabilities of consciousness. Some are
quite unusual and some aren't :) But remember that your after-death
consciousness will be far more free, flexible and agile than your
usual waking consciousness during life. The "varieties" are glimpes of
the broader capabilites.

Art

[Giga]

"Rockinghorse Winner" <badass....@gmx.com> wrote in message

news:slrnjqnlre.lun....@badass.edu...

>>>
>>> What are some other aspects of religious feeling?
>>
>> It changes a persons view of life and what may be beyond it. IOW it has
>> profound affects on them just like other intense life experiences (this
>> doesn't happen with dreams, fantasies or halucinations normally).
>
> Do you mean beyond it, as in after death, or behind it as in 'another
> level
> of awareness?'

As in after death (or before).

>
> As for the profound influence it has on us, I interpret this as meaning
> the
> experience touches something in us that reverberates (literally vibrates),
> and that we are attuned to some aspect of our being that we weren't before
> the experience.

Perhaps. Anyway this is a strong feature that distiguishes it from fanatsy
etc.

>
>
>>> What are some of the
>>> differences between the religious experiences of people already steeped
>>> in
>>> religion and those of people without the terminology or schema to wrap
>>> their
>>> experience in?
>>
>> I suppose it *must* be expressed in some symbolism appropriate to the
>> person. Certainly in retrospect they will need to use their own resources
>> to
>> interpret it and frame it within their cultural understanding. That is an
>> interesting point!
>>
>>>
>>> Does religious feeling have to include an experience of 'God?'
>>
>>
>> Buddhist would say not but does partly depend on what counts as a
>> religious
>> experience. Does experience of your self as not-limited to the physical
>> body
>> count as a religious experience (spiritual experience)? Is that an
>> experience of God or just part of oneself that is beyond the physical?
>
> Yes, I would call that a religious experience. I think a feeling of
> incoporeality is not theistic in and of itself, though it can lead to a a
> belief in a deity through reflection and refinement.
>
> In fact, might it be that religious belief all starts from the experiences
> you describe - of an incorporal existence? Might this be the origin of
> religion?
>

Certainly makes you wonder what else might 'out there'.

>
>>
>>> Is religious
>>> feeling incompatible with atheism?
>>
>> I would say an experience that seems to imply a supernatural element to
>> life
>> is.
>>
>>> Can a religious experience ever
>>> contradict previously held religious beliefs rather than be interpreted
>>> in
>>> terms of those beliefs?
>>
>> I suspect that religious ideas that do not have a foundation in personal
>> mystic experiences are probably quite shallow and would be severly
>> challenged by any such experience even if it were compatible with them.
>> This
>> is because these ideas would only be accepted on a very shallow basis and
>> not really believed fully. A kind of cheap beleif, that is just there and
>> convenient and comforting etc.
>
> Perhaps you're right that it would be challenging to each and every person
> who experienced it, including those already religious. Perhaps this is the
> way religion is kept fresh, by the continual injection of direct
> experiences
> of this kind.
>
> Terry

No substitue for experience.

[Giga]

"thomas p." <gud...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:4fabe678$0$291$edfa...@dtext01.news.tele.dk...

> "Giga" <"Giga" <just(removetheseandaddmatthe end)ho...@yahoo.co> skrev i
>>>

>>> I am not interested in whether the experiences do ultimately issue from
>>> an
>>> exterior source, even if it were possible to determine. I am interested
>>> in
>>> what makes them unique. One of these marks as I've said is a sense of
>>> having
>>> come to us in spite of ourselves - that is, without a conscious
>>> intention to
>>> have such an experience.
>>
>> I agree. That it what makes it an 'experience' rather than a fantasy etc.
>
>
> According to whom?
>

Would you disagree that the fact it is not self-produced (or at least
appears that way) is the difference between fantasy and experience? Or at
least one of them. That feeling that something happening *to* you.

>>
>>>
>>> What are some other hallmarks of religious feelings? Another element of
>>> all
>>> religious feeling is it's captivating aspect. It for a moment at least
>>> is
>>> transfixing, and we are struck by it, by it's uniqueness from all other
>>> types of experience we may have had. It may not be interpreted in
>>> religious
>>> terms, but there is no denying the powerful pull it exerts on the person
>>> who
>>> has it, such that he is able to recall it even many years later.
>>
>>
>
>> It is very novel as you say and intense often emotionally.
>
> So are many forms of hallucinations and the voices schizophrenics report
> hearing. So what?
>

If you say so. I wouldn't know.

>>
>>>
>>> What are some other aspects of religious feeling?
>>
>> It changes a persons view of life and what may be beyond it. IOW it has
>> profound affects on them just like other intense life experiences (this
>> doesn't happen with dreams, fantasies or halucinations normally).
>
>
> It doesn't? Because you say so?

At least not for me AFAIK.

>
>>
>>> What are some of the
>>> differences between the religious experiences of people already steeped
>>> in
>>> religion and those of people without the terminology or schema to wrap
>>> their
>>> experience in?
>>
>> I suppose it *must* be expressed in some symbolism appropriate to the
>> person. Certainly in retrospect they will need to use their own resources
>> to interpret it and frame it within their cultural understanding. That is
>> an interesting point!
>
> People with a religious background will often interpret an hallucination
> as a religious experience, others may not. You think this is something
> special?
>

Difficult to say, it might be. It is so personal.

>>
>>>
>>> Does religious feeling have to include an experience of 'God?'
>>
>>
>> Buddhist would say not but does partly depend on what counts as a
>> religious experience. Does experience of your self as not-limited to the
>> physical body count as a religious experience (spiritual experience)? Is
>> that an experience of God or just part of oneself that is beyond the
>> physical?
>
> Or is it similar to the hallucinations expereienced by people who take
> acid?
>

This is something anyone can experience through very low-level meditation I
would say. Once you realise that your thoughts are not you then things
become clearer it seemed to me.

>>> Is religious
>>> feeling incompatible with atheism?
>>
>> I would say an experience that seems to imply a supernatural element to
>> life is.
>
>
> I would say that leprechauns like to do the Hokey Pokey.
>

OK.

>>
>>> Can a religious experience ever
>>> contradict previously held religious beliefs rather than be interpreted
>>> in
>>> terms of those beliefs?
>>
>> I suspect that religious ideas that do not have a foundation in personal
>> mystic experiences are probably quite shallow and would be severly
>> challenged by any such experience even if it were compatible with them.
>> This is because these ideas would only be accepted on a very shallow
>> basis and not really believed fully. A kind of cheap beleif, that is just
>> there and convenient and comforting etc.
>
> I suspect that one can say or suspect many things without any objective
> basis in reality.
>

For sure.

[Giga]

"Alan Ferris" <hairy....@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:h9vnq7pemudicmu95...@4ax.com...

> On Wed, 9 May 2012 22:55:16 -0700, Rockinghorse Winner
> <badass....@gmx.com> wrote:
>
>>Does religious feeling have to include an experience of 'God?' Is
>>religious
>>feeling incompatible with atheism? Can a religious experience ever
>>contradict previously held religious beliefs rather than be interpreted in
>>terms of those beliefs? Thoughts? Ideas?
>
> I assisted with videoing a photographing at an evangelical rally over
> a week where thousands of Christians turned up each day and each
> evening there was a massed service. Now my friend kept telling me
> that it was amazing the feeling of Jesus's presence, he could fee a
> real buzz every evening. I to could feel a buzz, but I recognised it
> for what it was. It is the same buzz you get at a concert or major
> sports final. That smell of adrenaline causing your own body to
> respond as well. So, you would call that Jesus, I just call it a
> massed public response.

Are you so sure you were experiencing the same things he was?

[Alan Ferris]

On Thu, 10 May 2012 21:31:29 +0100, "Giga" <"Giga"
<just(removetheseandaddmatthe end)ho...@yahoo.co> wrote:

>
>"Alan Ferris" <hairy....@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:h9vnq7pemudicmu95...@4ax.com...
>> On Wed, 9 May 2012 22:55:16 -0700, Rockinghorse Winner
>> <badass....@gmx.com> wrote:
>>
>>>Does religious feeling have to include an experience of 'God?' Is
>>>religious
>>>feeling incompatible with atheism? Can a religious experience ever
>>>contradict previously held religious beliefs rather than be interpreted in
>>>terms of those beliefs? Thoughts? Ideas?
>>
>> I assisted with videoing a photographing at an evangelical rally over
>> a week where thousands of Christians turned up each day and each
>> evening there was a massed service. Now my friend kept telling me
>> that it was amazing the feeling of Jesus's presence, he could fee a
>> real buzz every evening. I to could feel a buzz, but I recognised it
>> for what it was. It is the same buzz you get at a concert or major
>> sports final. That smell of adrenaline causing your own body to
>> respond as well. So, you would call that Jesus, I just call it a
>> massed public response.
>
>Are you so sure you were experiencing the same things he was?

Most likely, he reacted no different and felt the buzz at exactly the
same time. What you want to call it does not change the fact that it
was a standard chemical response. He would probably agree with me now
having had more experience of such events and the reactions they can
invoke.

[HVAC]

On 5/10/2012 1:46 PM, Alan Ferris wrote:
>
>
> I assisted with videoing a photographing at an evangelical rally over
> a week where thousands of Christians turned up each day and each
> evening there was a massed service. Now my friend kept telling me
> that it was amazing the feeling of Jesus's presence, he could fee a
> real buzz every evening. I to could feel a buzz, but I recognised it
> for what it was. It is the same buzz you get at a concert or major
> sports final. That smell of adrenaline causing your own body to
> respond as well.

Last time *I* was at a concert, there was a smell that produced a buzz.














--
"OK you cunts, let's see what you can do now" -Hit Girl
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjO7kBqTFqo

[tooly]

On May 10, 10:45 am, "Dare" <clydad...@gmail.com> wrote:
> "Rockinghorse Winner" <badass.super...@gmx.com> wrote in messagenews:slrnjqmm24.dik....@badass.edu...

> different kind of experience.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

"Altered State"...yea, that was the concept I was reaching toward.
Almost like another dimension, how does one explain one dimension to
another? Like there is no way to envision an upside down inside out
quadrahedral[is there?], perhaps there is no way to understand France
(sic) except by going there and living it. The 'religious experience'
I argue, IS an 'altered state' that does not translate well to our
sobered intellectual state. You just gotta go there and experience it
for yourself. But then, that means letting go of the rigidity of
rational discourse perhaps.

Can billions of people be so wrong throughout human history? And
though how we have 'translated' the Experience in each era by the
knowledge we possessed at any given time, and thusly often in error in
those translations [as future understandings would suggest], does it
mean that the EXPERIENCE itself was never valid either? Something is
'there'...and people keep going back, time and time gain, for
literally thousands of years now; even now, in the modern age, when
science professes to crack the code and 'understand' it all [from a
certain viewpoint anyway].

Time, space, perception...things I think we take arrogantly for
granted as anchored to our sobered state as it has evolved on this
planet [our rational view]. But there are 'other' states. Still,
there is this idea of 'the real world' versus something imagined,
conceptualized, idealized, or otherwise, dreamed up as fantasy or
insaneness. We have a science that even now tries to 'convince' us
that there are 12 or 13 'string dimensions' holding up space. WTF?
There is no way to comprehend 12 or 13 dimensions except by some fancy
math no matter why eggheads tell you otherwise [and math is not even a
good schematic, much less 'real' represenation]. Is it such a far
throw to suggest that there are 'altered states of consciousness' that
are just as valid as the 'rational mindset' we use as our homebase
standard to verify and justify 'reality' from?

[Alan Ferris]

On Thu, 10 May 2012 16:40:30 -0400, HVAC <mr....@gmail.com> wrote:

>On 5/10/2012 1:46 PM, Alan Ferris wrote:
>>
>>
>> I assisted with videoing a photographing at an evangelical rally over
>> a week where thousands of Christians turned up each day and each
>> evening there was a massed service. Now my friend kept telling me
>> that it was amazing the feeling of Jesus's presence, he could fee a
>> real buzz every evening. I to could feel a buzz, but I recognised it
>> for what it was. It is the same buzz you get at a concert or major
>> sports final. That smell of adrenaline causing your own body to
>> respond as well.
>
>
>Last time *I* was at a concert, there was a smell that produced a buzz.

Dem was de smells of the debil weed........oooo for my youth :)

Now it is a nice glass of horlicks and early to bed

[Jack McKinney]

On Wed, May 9, 2012, 10:55pm (CDT-2) From: badass....@gmx.com
(Rockinghorse Winner) wrote:

<snip>

It is a fact of human experience that most people experience something
that they recognize at the time or in hindsight as a religious feeling
or experience. Those who have these experiences are often not religious.
William James in his classic study, Varieties of Religious Experience

=============

I say keep the faith... In general, religious feelings are external
manifestations of inner spiritual knowledge... Some people are
consciously aware of these feelings and some are not...

But how ironic, that self proclaimed agnostics and non-experiencers are
now experts on the religious feelings of others...

As a *strong* rule I don't consult with agnostics/atheists when it comes
to religious feelings, and I would suggest that you do the same.... That
would be as ridiculous as consulting the bible to find out about the
theory of evolution...

[Smiler]

On Thu, 10 May 2012 18:46:14 +0100, Alan Ferris wrote:

> On Wed, 9 May 2012 22:55:16 -0700, Rockinghorse Winner
> <badass....@gmx.com> wrote:
>
>>Does religious feeling have to include an experience of 'God?' Is religious
>>feeling incompatible with atheism? Can a religious experience ever
>>contradict previously held religious beliefs rather than be interpreted in
>>terms of those beliefs? Thoughts? Ideas?
>
> I assisted with videoing a photographing at an evangelical rally over
> a week where thousands of Christians turned up each day and each
> evening there was a massed service. Now my friend kept telling me
> that it was amazing the feeling of Jesus's presence, he could fee a
> real buzz every evening. I to could feel a buzz, but I recognised it
> for what it was. It is the same buzz you get at a concert or major
> sports final. That smell of adrenaline causing your own body to
> respond as well. So, you would call that Jesus, I just call it a
> massed public response.

A mild case of mass hysteria.

--
Smiler,

The godless one. a.a.# 2279

All gods are tailored to order. They're made to

exactly fit the prejudices of their believers.

[Richo]

On May 10, 3:55 pm, Rockinghorse Winner <badass.super...@gmx.com>
wrote:

> It is a fact of human experience that most people experience something that
> they recognize at the time or in hindsight as a religious feeling or
> experience.  Those who have these experiences are often not religious.
> William James in his classic study, Varieties of Religious Experience

> <http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/Jamvari.html>, includes
> numerous anecdotes of nonbelievers, even atheists, having had experiences of
> this type.
>
> What is it about these experiences that set them apart, and make them
> identifiable as religious, even by people who have no or very limited
> knowledge of religion?  One of the elements that distinguish a religious
> experience from a 'fantasy' or a 'daydream,' is the uncanny feeling that one
> am not completely in control of the experience.
>

Yeah - its a part of being aware and human.

> With a fantasy or daydream, I am all the time aware that I am the author of
> the images or ideas that flit before my mind's eye. With experiences of a
> religious type, I have the uncomfortable feeling that the ideas and images
> are at least partially outside of my control. IOW, they seem to come from
> someplace 'outside' me.
>

The feeling is real.
One explanation is that you have "turned off" your awareness that you
are the source.

> I am not interested in whether the experiences do ultimately issue from an
> exterior source, even if it were possible to determine.

Really? You have no curiosity about it at all?
I find this statement hard to believe.

>I am interested in
> what makes them unique.

Why not be interested in everything?
8-)

>One of these marks as I've said is a sense of having
> come to us in spite of ourselves - that is, without a conscious intention to
> have such an experience.
>
> What are some other hallmarks of religious feelings? Another element of all
> religious feeling is it's captivating aspect.  It for a moment at least is
> transfixing, and we are struck by it, by it's uniqueness from all other
> types of experience we may have had.  It may not be interpreted in religious
> terms, but there is no denying the powerful pull it exerts on the person who
> has it, such that he is able to recall it even many years later.
>
> What are some other aspects of religious feeling? What are some of the
> differences between the religious experiences of people already steeped in
> religion and those of people without the terminology or schema to wrap their
> experience in?
>

> Does religious feeling have to include an experience of 'God?' Is religious
> feeling incompatible with atheism?  Can a religious experience ever
> contradict previously held religious beliefs rather than be interpreted in
> terms of those beliefs?  Thoughts?  Ideas?
>

Religious experiences are real. They are also personal, subjective and
unavailable to anyone else.
Atheist can have similar experiences - they can engage in deep
meditation for example and lose their feeling of identity. They can go
on LSD or Peyote trips.

You are what is happening in your brain - if you fiddle about with
that - you are altering *you*

"Can a religious experience ever
contradict previously held religious beliefs rather than be
interpreted in
terms of those beliefs?"

I don't know - it should be *possible* . I do know that usually the
experience IS interpreted according to the persons preconceived
religious viewpoint and culture.
There have been experiments where Trans Craial Magnetic Stimulation
has induced feelings of "transendence" of the loss of self idenity -
of merging with the universe - in patients who were conscious and
asked to describe the experience.
Monotheists reported that they felt the presence of God.
Buddhists reported that they experienced a loss of self and merging
with the One - a taste of Nirvana.
Atheists reported they felt weird - that they lost the sense of where
they ended and the "outside" world began.

The experiences are real experiences - what they *mean* - the thing
you say you have no interest in - is what people murder each other to
decide who has the right "interpretation".


Mark.

[thomas p.]

"Giga" <"Giga" <just(removetheseandaddmatthe end)ho...@yahoo.co> skrev i

meddelelsen news:joh8fm$enr$1...@news.albasani.net...

>
> "thomas p." <gud...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:4fabe678$0$291$edfa...@dtext01.news.tele.dk...
>> "Giga" <"Giga" <just(removetheseandaddmatthe end)ho...@yahoo.co> skrev i
>>>>
>>>> I am not interested in whether the experiences do ultimately issue from
>>>> an
>>>> exterior source, even if it were possible to determine. I am interested
>>>> in
>>>> what makes them unique. One of these marks as I've said is a sense of
>>>> having
>>>> come to us in spite of ourselves - that is, without a conscious
>>>> intention to
>>>> have such an experience.
>>>
>>> I agree. That it what makes it an 'experience' rather than a fantasy
>>> etc.
>>
>>
>> According to whom?
>>
>
> Would you disagree that the fact it is not self-produced (or at least
> appears that way) is the difference between fantasy and experience? Or at
> least one of them. That feeling that something happening *to* you.

I have no idea why you think so. Mentally ill people do not think their
delusions are self-produced.

>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> What are some other hallmarks of religious feelings? Another element of
>>>> all
>>>> religious feeling is it's captivating aspect. It for a moment at least
>>>> is
>>>> transfixing, and we are struck by it, by it's uniqueness from all other
>>>> types of experience we may have had. It may not be interpreted in
>>>> religious
>>>> terms, but there is no denying the powerful pull it exerts on the
>>>> person who
>>>> has it, such that he is able to recall it even many years later.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>> It is very novel as you say and intense often emotionally.
>>
>> So are many forms of hallucinations and the voices schizophrenics report
>> hearing. So what?
>>
>
> If you say so. I wouldn't know.

How can you not know? Are you under the impression that delusions cannot be
very intense and emotional?

>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> What are some other aspects of religious feeling?
>>>
>>> It changes a persons view of life and what may be beyond it. IOW it has
>>> profound affects on them just like other intense life experiences (this
>>> doesn't happen with dreams, fantasies or halucinations normally).
>>
>>
>> It doesn't? Because you say so?
>


> At least not for me AFAIK.

What does that mean? Have you had both halucinations and real religious
experiences and had some objective way to judge between them? In any event
delusional people are ususally very convinced that their experiences are
real, and such experiences have had profound consequences on their lives.

>
>>
>>>
>>>> What are some of the
>>>> differences between the religious experiences of people already steeped
>>>> in
>>>> religion and those of people without the terminology or schema to wrap
>>>> their
>>>> experience in?
>>>
>>> I suppose it *must* be expressed in some symbolism appropriate to the
>>> person. Certainly in retrospect they will need to use their own
>>> resources to interpret it and frame it within their cultural
>>> understanding. That is an interesting point!
>>
>> People with a religious background will often interpret an hallucination
>> as a religious experience, others may not. You think this is something
>> special?
>>
>


> Difficult to say, it might be. It is so personal.

But you did say it.

>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Does religious feeling have to include an experience of 'God?'
>>>
>>>
>>> Buddhist would say not but does partly depend on what counts as a
>>> religious experience. Does experience of your self as not-limited to the
>>> physical body count as a religious experience (spiritual experience)? Is
>>> that an experience of God or just part of oneself that is beyond the
>>> physical?
>>
>> Or is it similar to the hallucinations expereienced by people who take
>> acid?
>>
>
> This is something anyone can experience through very low-level meditation
> I would say. Once you realise that your thoughts are not you then things
> become clearer it seemed to me.

Once you realize that everything you describe is quite common to people who
are mentally ill or under the influence of drugs, you will see that you no
basis for any of the claims you made above.

>
>>>> Is religious
>>>> feeling incompatible with atheism?
>>>
>>> I would say an experience that seems to imply a supernatural element to
>>> life is.
>>
>>
>> I would say that leprechauns like to do the Hokey Pokey.
>>
>
> OK.

Never mind. I was fairly sure that you would not be unduly disturbed by
reality.

>
>>>
>>>> Can a religious experience ever
>>>> contradict previously held religious beliefs rather than be interpreted
>>>> in
>>>> terms of those beliefs?
>>>
>>> I suspect that religious ideas that do not have a foundation in personal
>>> mystic experiences are probably quite shallow and would be severly
>>> challenged by any such experience even if it were compatible with them.
>>> This is because these ideas would only be accepted on a very shallow
>>> basis and not really believed fully. A kind of cheap beleif, that is
>>> just there and convenient and comforting etc.
>>
>> I suspect that one can say or suspect many things without any objective
>> basis in reality.
>>
>
> For sure.

And, no doubt, you will continue to play your silly, dishonest game.

[thomas p.]

"Christopher A. Lee" <ca...@optonline.net> skrev i meddelelsen
news:r8snq7tbeimq6fthq...@4ax.com...

When he is not telling direct lies, yes that is what he does.

[thomas p.]

"Alan Ferris" <hairy....@yahoo.co.uk> skrev i meddelelsen
news:ep9oq79b03kscteo8...@4ax.com...

I experienced it as a teenager when I listened to a recording of marching
music from a 30's Nazi rally. I felt an emotional reaction. I realized
then that I would have had the same reaction to a band playing the "Star
Spangled Banner". It had absolutely nothing to do with any implied
philosophy. It's all about "pushing buttons" to get a desired response.


snip

[Rockinghorse Winner]

* It may have been the liquor talking, but

I find that agnostics/atheists and people with unconventional religious
beliefs are often the most directly connected to their religious feelings
and ideas, since they are not processed through a presupposed scheme, or
feel pressured to interpret them in a particular way.

Of course, there are the scoffers and those who can't make sense of their
experience. Remember, that the Christian Bible contains a lot of religious
episodes with people who were not of the 'religious establishment.' It is
often just such ignorance of established forms that gives their vision it's
authenticity.

[Rockinghorse Winner]

* It may have been the liquor talking, but

Dare <clyd...@gmail.com> wrote:

> "Rockinghorse Winner" <badass....@gmx.com> wrote in message news:slrnjqmm24.dik....@badass.edu...

>> It is a fact of human experience that most people experience something that
>> they recognize at the time or in hindsight as a religious feeling or
>> experience. Those who have these experiences are often not religious.
>> William James in his classic study, Varieties of Religious Experience

>> <http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/Jamvari.html>, includes
>> numerous anecdotes of nonbelievers, even atheists, having had experiences of
>> this type.
>>
>> What is it about these experiences that set them apart, and make them
>> identifiable as religious, even by people who have no or very limited
>> knowledge of religion? One of the elements that distinguish a religious
>> experience from a 'fantasy' or a 'daydream,' is the uncanny feeling that one
>> am not completely in control of the experience.
>>

>> With a fantasy or daydream, I am all the time aware that I am the author of
>> the images or ideas that flit before my mind's eye. With experiences of a
>> religious type, I have the uncomfortable feeling that the ideas and images
>> are at least partially outside of my control. IOW, they seem to come from
>> someplace 'outside' me.
>>

>> I am not interested in whether the experiences do ultimately issue from an
>> exterior source, even if it were possible to determine. I am interested in
>> what makes them unique. One of these marks as I've said is a sense of having
>> come to us in spite of ourselves - that is, without a conscious intention to
>> have such an experience.
>>

>> What are some other hallmarks of religious feelings? Another element of all
>> religious feeling is it's captivating aspect. It for a moment at least is
>> transfixing, and we are struck by it, by it's uniqueness from all other
>> types of experience we may have had. It may not be interpreted in religious
>> terms, but there is no denying the powerful pull it exerts on the person who
>> has it, such that he is able to recall it even many years later.
>>

>> What are some other aspects of religious feeling? What are some of the

>> differences between the religious experiences of people already steeped in
>> religion and those of people without the terminology or schema to wrap their
>> experience in?
>>

>> Does religious feeling have to include an experience of 'God?' Is religious
>> feeling incompatible with atheism? Can a religious experience ever
>> contradict previously held religious beliefs rather than be interpreted in
>> terms of those beliefs? Thoughts? Ideas?
>

> It seems to me a "religious" experience is believed to have meaning...
> meaning beyond just the facts of what happened.
> Sometimes there may be a "revelation" of sorts....
> interpreted as a special message or some special knowledge
> given to the individual.
> There may be a change in perception....
> a change in light, or the "flow of time"...
> a separation from the normal world....
> an altered state of consciousness.

Yes, I would agree there is an altered state, as you say. However, are you
implying that a religious feeling is 'contained' in this altered state? I
think rather that the altered state is _caused_ by the awareness raised by
the religious consciousness.

> Perhaps the experience is immune to the effects of analysis...
> it defies attempts at explanation. Even if the individual has
> some doubts about the "super-natural" aspect, there is still
> that nagging reluctance to dismiss the feeling that it is a
> different kind of experience.

[Rockinghorse Winner]

* It may have been the liquor talking, but

I think this is also the way some artists and writers receive inspiration.
It is also the reason why the recommended way to remember your dreams is to
keep a notebook by your bedside, because often you are most lucid when first
awaking from such a dream state.

[Rockinghorse Winner]

* It may have been the liquor talking, but

I wonder if your friend is a religious person or not.

[Richo]

On May 11, 10:21 am, Richo <m.richardso...@gmail.com> wrote:
wrote:

> "Can a religious experience ever
>  contradict previously held religious beliefs rather than be
> interpreted in
>  terms of those beliefs?"
> I don't know - it should be *possible* . I do know that usually the
> experience IS interpreted according to the persons preconceived
> religious viewpoint and culture.
> There have been experiments where Trans Craial Magnetic Stimulation

"Transcranial magnetic stimulation" -sorry.

Mark.

[Giga]

"thomas p." <gud...@yahoo.com> wrote in message

news:4facb2ba$0$282$edfa...@dtext01.news.tele.dk...

> "Giga" <"Giga" <just(removetheseandaddmatthe end)ho...@yahoo.co> skrev i
> meddelelsen news:joh8fm$enr$1...@news.albasani.net...
>>
>> "thomas p." <gud...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>> news:4fabe678$0$291$edfa...@dtext01.news.tele.dk...
>>> "Giga" <"Giga" <just(removetheseandaddmatthe end)ho...@yahoo.co> skrev i
>>>>>
>>>>> I am not interested in whether the experiences do ultimately issue
>>>>> from an
>>>>> exterior source, even if it were possible to determine. I am
>>>>> interested in
>>>>> what makes them unique. One of these marks as I've said is a sense of
>>>>> having
>>>>> come to us in spite of ourselves - that is, without a conscious
>>>>> intention to
>>>>> have such an experience.
>>>>
>>>> I agree. That it what makes it an 'experience' rather than a fantasy
>>>> etc.
>>>
>>>
>>> According to whom?
>>>
>>
>> Would you disagree that the fact it is not self-produced (or at least
>> appears that way) is the difference between fantasy and experience? Or at
>> least one of them. That feeling that something happening *to* you.
>
> I have no idea why you think so. Mentally ill people do not think their
> delusions are self-produced.
>

Again I wouldn't know. If it is the case that a metally ill person's unusual
experiences are very similar to real experience (in this way) then what
relevance does that have for someone who has none or few of the other usual
signs of significant mental illness?

>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> What are some other hallmarks of religious feelings? Another element
>>>>> of all
>>>>> religious feeling is it's captivating aspect. It for a moment at
>>>>> least is
>>>>> transfixing, and we are struck by it, by it's uniqueness from all
>>>>> other
>>>>> types of experience we may have had. It may not be interpreted in
>>>>> religious
>>>>> terms, but there is no denying the powerful pull it exerts on the
>>>>> person who
>>>>> has it, such that he is able to recall it even many years later.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>> It is very novel as you say and intense often emotionally.
>>>
>>> So are many forms of hallucinations and the voices schizophrenics report
>>> hearing. So what?
>>>
>>
>> If you say so. I wouldn't know.
>
> How can you not know? Are you under the impression that delusions cannot
> be very intense and emotional?
>

I've got no experience of what it is like I'm glad to say, so have no way to
compare it.

>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> What are some other aspects of religious feeling?
>>>>
>>>> It changes a persons view of life and what may be beyond it. IOW it has
>>>> profound affects on them just like other intense life experiences (this
>>>> doesn't happen with dreams, fantasies or halucinations normally).
>>>
>>>
>>> It doesn't? Because you say so?
>>
>
>
>> At least not for me AFAIK.
>
> What does that mean? Have you had both halucinations and real religious
> experiences and had some objective way to judge between them?

Obviously I have had dreams and daydreams. Also I have experienced very mild
visual illusions before from smoking. In those cases I was fully aware at
the time or shortly afterwards that they were probably self-generated. As
opposed to everyday experience or occasional 'spiritual' experiences I have
had. There is nothing objective here. We are talking about personal
subjective experiences.

> In any event delusional people are ususally very convinced that their
> experiences are real, and such experiences have had profound consequences
> on their lives.
>

The former is true, not sure about the later. If you are making the point
that whatever experiences I have had could be mental aberations or chemical
induced etc of course you are right. On the other they may not have been,
and the weight of evidence IMO is that they were not. Also they may not have
been what they appeared to be. This is even a better objection to any
conclusions from their content I would say. Then they are open to
interpretation and false memory as well. So for myself they are not great
evidence for anything but more of starting point, like a glimpse of what
might be true. For anyone else they would present very little evidence if
any even if they believed me and thought I was not halucinating etc.

>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>> What are some of the
>>>>> differences between the religious experiences of people already
>>>>> steeped in
>>>>> religion and those of people without the terminology or schema to wrap
>>>>> their
>>>>> experience in?
>>>>
>>>> I suppose it *must* be expressed in some symbolism appropriate to the
>>>> person. Certainly in retrospect they will need to use their own
>>>> resources to interpret it and frame it within their cultural
>>>> understanding. That is an interesting point!
>>>
>>> People with a religious background will often interpret an hallucination
>>> as a religious experience, others may not. You think this is something
>>> special?
>>>
>>
>
>
>> Difficult to say, it might be. It is so personal.
>
> But you did say it.

See above

>
>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Does religious feeling have to include an experience of 'God?'
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Buddhist would say not but does partly depend on what counts as a
>>>> religious experience. Does experience of your self as not-limited to
>>>> the physical body count as a religious experience (spiritual
>>>> experience)? Is that an experience of God or just part of oneself that
>>>> is beyond the physical?
>>>
>>> Or is it similar to the hallucinations expereienced by people who take
>>> acid?
>>>
>>
>> This is something anyone can experience through very low-level meditation
>> I would say. Once you realise that your thoughts are not you then things
>> become clearer it seemed to me.
>
> Once you realize that everything you describe is quite common to people
> who are mentally ill or under the influence of drugs, you will see that
> you no basis for any of the claims you made above.
>

Do *you* have any evidence for that statement lol.

>
>>
>>>>> Is religious
>>>>> feeling incompatible with atheism?
>>>>
>>>> I would say an experience that seems to imply a supernatural element to
>>>> life is.
>>>
>>>
>>> I would say that leprechauns like to do the Hokey Pokey.
>>>
>>
>> OK.
>
> Never mind. I was fairly sure that you would not be unduly disturbed by
> reality.
>

OK

>
>>
>>>>
>>>>> Can a religious experience ever
>>>>> contradict previously held religious beliefs rather than be
>>>>> interpreted in
>>>>> terms of those beliefs?
>>>>
>>>> I suspect that religious ideas that do not have a foundation in
>>>> personal mystic experiences are probably quite shallow and would be
>>>> severly challenged by any such experience even if it were compatible
>>>> with them. This is because these ideas would only be accepted on a very
>>>> shallow basis and not really believed fully. A kind of cheap beleif,
>>>> that is just there and convenient and comforting etc.
>>>
>>> I suspect that one can say or suspect many things without any objective
>>> basis in reality.
>>>
>>
>> For sure.
>
> And, no doubt, you will continue to play your silly, dishonest game.
>

Believe whatever suits you, however I suspect the truth would be that in the
long run.

[Giga]

"Alan Ferris" <hairy....@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message

news:ep9oq79b03kscteo8...@4ax.com...

'Most likely' and 'probably' is a somewhat different tone than your original
assumption. Say he did now agree with you, his 'knowledge' of what you were
experiencing is as dubious as yours of his internal state.

[Giga]

"thomas p." <gud...@yahoo.com> wrote in message

news:4facb4c6$0$305$edfa...@dtext01.news.tele.dk...

Wow, so you know the internal state of someone you have never met at a
meeting you have never been to! And they say atheists don't believe in the
supernatural or spiritual experiences!

[Alan Ferris]

On Fri, 11 May 2012 08:41:40 +0200, "thomas p." <gud...@yahoo.com>
wrote:

>> Most likely, he reacted no different and felt the buzz at exactly the
>> same time. What you want to call it does not change the fact that it
>> was a standard chemical response. He would probably agree with me now
>> having had more experience of such events and the reactions they can
>> invoke.
>
>I experienced it as a teenager when I listened to a recording of marching
>music from a 30's Nazi rally. I felt an emotional reaction. I realized
>then that I would have had the same reaction to a band playing the "Star
>Spangled Banner". It had absolutely nothing to do with any implied
>philosophy. It's all about "pushing buttons" to get a desired response.

If you ever attend and evangelical rally you will feel those same
emotions. Having had training in reading body language and
presentational skills you can spot a speaker using techniques which
will evoke such emotional responses. I am sure those Christians there
will claim they were feeling the power of Jesus, whereas the speaker
will know exactly what they were doing to evoke that emotional
response.

Art, music, poems are all about emotional responses. Strange how some
will ignore that and claim some higher, religious, response to them. I
wonder what it is about the real world that scares them so much that
they need to invent religious belief to cope with it.

[Alan Ferris]

On Fri, 11 May 2012 09:51:43 +0100, "Giga" <"Giga"

The difference is that I am trained to raise such emotional responses
and could do it in the same situation or even 1 or 1 which is what my
training is for. It allows you to spot others using similar
techniques and most preachers use these. I am to cynical from my
work, but I will give them the benefit of the doubt and accept they
may not be always doing it deliberately.

But I ask you. 2 people having the same reactions and emotional
response, why do you believe 1 is religious and the other not?

[Alan Ferris]

On Thu, 10 May 2012 21:19:48 -0700, Rockinghorse Winner

>I wonder if your friend is a religious person or not.

Are you claiming he is not a true Christian?

How would you tell? He attends his local 'church' regularly, is one
of the kindest persons I know and is active in ministering to the
young. So no, maybe you are right. He accepts that I am not caring
about his faith so unlike you he clearly is not likely to be Christian
enough for you.

But hey, I will let him know you doubt him, I can guess his answer.

[Petra]

> I say keep the faith... In general, religious feelings are external
> manifestations of inner spiritual knowledge... Some people are
> consciously aware of these feelings and some are not...
>
> But how ironic, that self proclaimed agnostics and non-experiencers are
> now experts on the religious feelings of others...
>

and any behaviour is caused by chemicals, even the right to refuse is
caused by a bad chemical, if you disobey your grandparents, its the
bad chemicals in the brain, literacy or IQ is a component that
chemicals can't do without, so if you are sub-literate or have lower
literacy or lower average intelligence you can have an emotional
affair because literacy prevents you from self expression at higher
powers of reasoning, if you have higher than average intelligence,
those bad chemicals really do tend to show up as errors in the genetic
makeup right across the world.

If you really want to experience and express emotionality...be
smart...be as dumb ass as you like and campaign for lower grades

[SAMEJACK MCKINNEY]

On Thu, May 10, 2012, 9:29pm (CDT-2) From: badass....@gmx.com
(Rockinghorse Winner) wrote:

<snip>

I find that agnostics/atheists and people with unconventional religious
beliefs are often the most directly connected to their religious
feelings and ideas, since they are not processed through a presupposed
scheme, or feel pressured to interpret them in a particular way.

==============

I am not against insightful information coming from any source, for
indeed all perspectives must be considered, on the road to
enlightenment...I would even consider information coming from satan
himself, if I thought it had validity...NO ENTITY CAN BE WRONG ALL THE
TIME...

I have found that some of the most insightful near death testimonials
have come from people who were former atheists... Generally speaking,
their testimonials are free of religious gobbly gook...

No, what irks me is that those, or some of those, who have not had these
experiences, are no experts on those who have had these experiences...

SUDDENLY IT CAN HAPPEN
http://community.webtv.net/BJAK1949/SUDDENLYITCANHAPPEN

[Christopher A. Lee]

On Fri, 11 May 2012 10:35:23 +0100, Alan Ferris
<hairy....@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

>If you ever attend and evangelical rally you will feel those same
>emotions. Having had training in reading body language and
>presentational skills you can spot a speaker using techniques which
>will evoke such emotional responses. I am sure those Christians there
>will claim they were feeling the power of Jesus, whereas the speaker
>will know exactly what they were doing to evoke that emotional
>response.

The Battle For Your Mind

Persuasion & Brainwashing Techniques
Being Used On The Public Today

http://www.dicksutphen.com/html/battlemind.html

[Zinnic]

On May 11, 6:50 am, SAMEJ...@webtv.net (SAMEJACK MCKINNEY) wrote:
> On Thu, May 10, 2012, 9:29pm (CDT-2) From: badass.super...@gmx.com

I could respond by saying that "what irks me is that those, who have
had these experiences are no (sic) experts on those who have not had
these experiences". I will not however because it would be no more
relevant than your statement.

[Alan Ferris]

That made very interesting reading as I can see some of our training
linked to items mentioned there.

Investigation work will often rely on you forming a good bond with
people, where they beleive you are wanting to help them. It does not
always work, but I am still suprised by how often it does.

[Rockinghorse Winner]

* It may have been the liquor talking, but

You bring up some interesting points. However, just because a certain
illness may mimic a certain healthy state does not mean that the two things
are the same. The fact still remains that on one hand you have a person with
mental illness and on the other a person, otherwise healthy, who had an
unusual experience.

[Dare]

"Rockinghorse Winner" <badass....@gmx.com> wrote in message news:slrnjqp4lp.5b1....@badass.edu...

>* It may have been the liquor talking, but
> Dare <clyd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> There may be a change in perception....
>> a change in light, or the "flow of time"...
>> a separation from the normal world....
>> an altered state of consciousness.
>
> Yes, I would agree there is an altered state, as you say. However, are you
> implying that a religious feeling is 'contained' in this altered state? I
> think rather that the altered state is _caused_ by the awareness raised by
> the religious consciousness.

I don't know what causes religious consciousness.
It seems people may seek to bring about a religious feeling
by creating a particular environment...withdrawal from the
busy-ness of life to a "sanctuary" of sorts, either literally in
a separate room (like a chapel) or by meditation or prayer
to calm and focus their thoughts(affecting brain chemistry?).
Is this a different kind of religious feeling than one that just
"hits" you out of the blue as you are driving down the highway?

I've experienced a version of both of these....
from listening to music or meditating/praying....
and a couple of times while I was actually just
driving down the highway. The flow of Time
seemed to almost come to a stop and there was
an intense feeling of an eternal "now", an appreciation
for "being" and a feeling of peace and (maybe) love?
It seemed strange since the instant before, my thoughts
were racing on about what I had to do today and impatience
at the traffic and long stop lights, etc.

It seems religious experiences aren't always pleasant.
Some people have claimed to "see" a vision of hell.

The common factor seems to be intense emotions...
doe the emotions and the feeling of religious experience
come from the same source? Why do some people
_not_ have religious experiences? Do they also not
feel intense emotions?

[Fidem Turbare, the non-existent atheist goddess]

On Fri, 11 May 2012 10:41:40 +0100

Please let us know if he laughs (and tell him a non-existent atheist
goddess is rooting for him).

--
Fidem Turbare, the non-existent atheist goddess
"There is a cat squatter that has taken over in my house. I think I
will let him open his own cans of food."
-- Robert Parker (April 5, 2012)

[Rockinghorse Winner]

* It may have been the liquor talking, but
Alan Ferris <hairy....@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

It could be that what scares them about the real world is it's _unreality_
as compared with their religious belief. It could be that those who reject
religion fear too _much_ reality.

Perhaps too much reality requires too much of us, perhaps we have to face
aspects of ourself we'd rather not have to face. It may be much safer to
study supernovas and ground sloths, instead. :)

> --
> Ferrit
>
> ()'.'.'()
> ( (T) )
> ( ) . ( )
> (")_(")

[Fidem Turbare, the non-existent atheist goddess]

I suspect these experiences are somtimes labeled as "religious" for
lack of better labels. Some of what you described might almost qualify
as an adrenaline rush (as emotions can cause this to occur), although
this is more often part of a fight-or-flight response (which ties into
our natural survival instincts).

The somewhat common notions in society that people even have religious
experiences is, in my view, an introduction of a bias that would have
to be accounted for so as not to skew the results of a study on this
subject.

--
Fidem Turbare, the non-existent atheist goddess

"Wanting people to suffer in agony forever is not nice. Bad dog!"
-- Michelle "hypatiab7" Malkin (April 4, 2012)

[Dare]

"Fidem Turbare, the non-existent atheist goddess" <god...@fidemturbare.com> wrote in message
news:20120511080133....@fidemturbare.com...

It does seem to imply something about the experience.
Is the label "religious" a kind of "place-holder" for
lack of knowledge or explanation about the experience?
When does an experience transition to what some
consider religious?...where is the "tipping point"?
Is it truly a different "kind" of experience or a
difference in "degree"?

[Fidem Turbare, the non-existent atheist goddess]

On Fri, 11 May 2012 11:14:13 -0400
"Dare" <clyd...@gmail.com> wrote:
> "Fidem Turbare, the non-existent atheist goddess"
> <god...@fidemturbare.com> wrote in message
> news:20120511080133....@fidemturbare.com...
> > On Fri, 11 May 2012 10:37:51 -0400
> > "Dare" <clyd...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> The common factor seems to be intense emotions...
> >> doe the emotions and the feeling of religious experience
> >> come from the same source? Why do some people
> >> _not_ have religious experiences? Do they also not
> >> feel intense emotions?
> >
> > I suspect these experiences are somtimes labeled as "religious" for
> > lack of better labels. Some of what you described might almost
> > qualify as an adrenaline rush (as emotions can cause this to
> > occur), although this is more often part of a fight-or-flight
> > response (which ties into our natural survival instincts).
> >
> > The somewhat common notions in society that people even have
> > religious experiences is, in my view, an introduction of a bias
> > that would have to be accounted for so as not to skew the results
> > of a study on this subject.
>
> It does seem to imply something about the experience.
> Is the label "religious" a kind of "place-holder" for
> lack of knowledge or explanation about the experience?

That's an excellent point, particularly because the world has seen this
place-holder used many times throughout history (and many of used it
themselves, sometimes as a matter of social-political tradition).

> When does an experience transition to what some
> consider religious?...where is the "tipping point"?
> Is it truly a different "kind" of experience or a
> difference in "degree"?

I'm pretty sure that the tipping point varies with each person, and for
a wide variety of reasons.

--

Fidem Turbare, the non-existent atheist goddess

"Ambition, n.: An ant crawling up an elephant's leg with rape on his
mind."
-- Uncyclopedia.org

[Rockinghorse Winner]

You didn't mention anything about your friend's beliefs in the OP. Since you
said your friend felt the presence of Jesus, I was curious whether this was
a strong, unanticipated response from a nonchristian, or a normal response
from someone who was already prepared to accept the premise of the event.
You have satisfied my curiosity as to that point, so I thank you.

[thomas p.]

"Rockinghorse Winner" <badass....@gmx.com> skrev i meddelelsen
news:slrnjqpf8q.7bj....@badass.edu...

>* It may have been the liquor talking, but
> thomas p. <gud...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> "Giga" <"Giga" <just(removetheseandaddmatthe end)ho...@yahoo.co> skrev i
>> meddelelsen news:joh8fm$enr$1...@news.albasani.net...

snip

>>
>
> You bring up some interesting points. However, just because a certain
> illness may mimic a certain healthy state does not mean that the two
> things
> are the same. The fact still remains that on one hand you have a person
> with
> mental illness and on the other a person, otherwise healthy, who had an
> unusual experience.

You have two people who have the same kind of symptoms. You have no
objective way of showing that one of them is delusional while the other is
not. You have, in fact, assumed your conclusion.

>
>
> Terry
> --
> "There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats."
> -Albert Schweitzer
>
> badass linux - 3.2.12-gentoo

[Alan Ferris]

But the whole point of religion is hiding from the truth. Refusing to
accept what we are and the inner drivers, instead trying to blame it
on 'sin', claiming it is something you can be saved from by some
higher power. That is the cop out. Or dealing with injustices by
appeasing themselves by saying he will be punished in the next life.
Another cop out from the reality that some people do evil things and
get away with it.

Most religion is about making excuses for why crap happens that takes
responsibility away from the individual. Look how often believers
will deny religion in others just for some action they have taken. So
many times we will see one Christian claiming that another is not a
true Christian.

Faith is about not accepting that there are some things that cannot be
explained. The biggest fear man faces is the unknown, so religion
takes those gaps and makes up little stories and fairy tails to fill
them. Dishonesty at its best. In reality religion is now finding
itself in smaller and smaller gaps and having to think of new excuses
for why god is no present in those gaps.

At one time the supposed enlightened religious people who had the ear
of god believed that he put the earth at the centre of the universe.
Clearly that is wrong, so were they just not true Christians, where
they lacking in faith or is it that there is no god giving anybody
enlightenment so as history shows, they get things wrong again and
again.

So why should we trust the modern Christianity to be any different
from the old in its ability to get things right?

[thomas p.]

"Giga" <"Giga" <just(removetheseandaddmatthe end)ho...@yahoo.co> skrev i

meddelelsen news:joijp5$ss7$1...@news.albasani.net...

The point is that if two people have the same symptoms on what objective
basis do you determine that one of them is not delusional? Your argument
assumes your conclusion.

>
>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> What are some other hallmarks of religious feelings? Another element
>>>>>> of all
>>>>>> religious feeling is it's captivating aspect. It for a moment at
>>>>>> least is
>>>>>> transfixing, and we are struck by it, by it's uniqueness from all
>>>>>> other
>>>>>> types of experience we may have had. It may not be interpreted in
>>>>>> religious
>>>>>> terms, but there is no denying the powerful pull it exerts on the
>>>>>> person who
>>>>>> has it, such that he is able to recall it even many years later.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> It is very novel as you say and intense often emotionally.
>>>>
>>>> So are many forms of hallucinations and the voices schizophrenics
>>>> report hearing. So what?
>>>>
>>>
>>> If you say so. I wouldn't know.
>>
>> How can you not know? Are you under the impression that delusions cannot
>> be very intense and emotional?
>>
>
> I've got no experience of what it is like I'm glad to say, so have no way
> to compare it.

Please! You must know that delusions can cause extreme emotional reactions.
Such reactions have very often caused people to do incredible things both
positive and negative. This is not arcane knowledge, so it is rather odd
that you would deny knowing it.

>
>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> What are some other aspects of religious feeling?
>>>>>
>>>>> It changes a persons view of life and what may be beyond it. IOW it
>>>>> has profound affects on them just like other intense life experiences
>>>>> (this doesn't happen with dreams, fantasies or halucinations
>>>>> normally).
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> It doesn't? Because you say so?
>>>
>>
>>
>>> At least not for me AFAIK.
>>
>> What does that mean? Have you had both halucinations and real religious
>> experiences and had some objective way to judge between them?
>
> Obviously I have had dreams and daydreams. Also I have experienced very
> mild visual illusions before from smoking. In those cases I was fully
> aware at the time or shortly afterwards that they were probably
> self-generated. As opposed to everyday experience or occasional
> 'spiritual' experiences I have had. There is nothing objective here. We
> are talking about personal subjective experiences.

And obviously you know that people have delusions that they completely
believe in. People who think they are Napoleon for example or people who
think they have magical powers. Why pretend that you do not?

>
>> In any event delusional people are ususally very convinced that their
>> experiences are real, and such experiences have had profound consequences
>> on their lives.
>>
>
>
> The former is true, not sure about the later. If you are making the point
> that whatever experiences I have had could be mental aberations or
> chemical induced etc of course you are right. On the other they may not
> have been, and the weight of evidence IMO is that they were not.

You have yet to provide any objective evidence. Saying that they were not
the same as delusions is not evidence, and many delusional people have said
exactly the same thing.

Also they may not have
> been what they appeared to be. This is even a better objection to any
> conclusions from their content I would say. Then they are open to
> interpretation and false memory as well. So for myself they are not great
> evidence for anything but more of starting point, like a glimpse of what
> might be true. For anyone else they would present very little evidence if
> any even if they believed me and thought I was not halucinating etc.

There are literally millions of people (probably many more) who have exactly
the same conviction that you have. They are subjective feelings, and
subjective feelings are notoriously unreliable. The one objective claim
that you have made is clearly not true; such feelings, even when obviously
delusional, have produced profound changes in people's lives. There simply
is nothing unique about what you claim.

>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> What are some of the
>>>>>> differences between the religious experiences of people already
>>>>>> steeped in
>>>>>> religion and those of people without the terminology or schema to
>>>>>> wrap their
>>>>>> experience in?
>>>>>
>>>>> I suppose it *must* be expressed in some symbolism appropriate to the
>>>>> person. Certainly in retrospect they will need to use their own
>>>>> resources to interpret it and frame it within their cultural
>>>>> understanding. That is an interesting point!
>>>>
>>>> People with a religious background will often interpret an
>>>> hallucination as a religious experience, others may not. You think
>>>> this is something special?
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>> Difficult to say, it might be. It is so personal.
>>
>> But you did say it.
>
> See above

Yes, do.

>
>>
>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Does religious feeling have to include an experience of 'God?'
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Buddhist would say not but does partly depend on what counts as a
>>>>> religious experience. Does experience of your self as not-limited to
>>>>> the physical body count as a religious experience (spiritual
>>>>> experience)? Is that an experience of God or just part of oneself that
>>>>> is beyond the physical?
>>>>
>>>> Or is it similar to the hallucinations expereienced by people who take
>>>> acid?
>>>>
>>>
>>> This is something anyone can experience through very low-level
>>> meditation I would say. Once you realise that your thoughts are not you
>>> then things become clearer it seemed to me.
>>
>> Once you realize that everything you describe is quite common to people
>> who are mentally ill or under the influence of drugs, you will see that
>> you no basis for any of the claims you made above.
>>
>
> Do *you* have any evidence for that statement lol.

Are you seriously going to claim that mental illnes or even simple
self-delusion does not produce these symptoms? Do you think you have scored
a point? You do not even need to ask a psychologist, a general practitioner
would be able to tell you if you are seriously in doubt (which, by the way,
is hard to believe).

I am not the one who believes what suits me. I am looking at the objective
evidence. You are denying it.

[thomas p.]

"Giga" <"Giga" <just(removetheseandaddmatthe end)ho...@yahoo.co> skrev i

meddelelsen news:joik32$the$1...@news.albasani.net...

I was wondering how you would distort what I said. Thank you for clearing
it up for me.

[Mike Lovell]

+1

Well said.

--
Jews, Christians & Muslims
The content of your posts will show how much you
really believe God is looking over your shoulder

[Alan Ferris]

The fact he already has an atheist friend has some people claiming he
is not a true Christian. His answer is that if it was good enough for
Jesus to have a doubting Thomas he can have me as a friend :)

The fact is we were friends from attending the same school. He left
Catholicism like me and whereas my study of religion led me to abandon
religion, he found he had faith but not the catholic version.

We even now have long nights of debating religion and faith. I call
it a good excuse for a drink with a friend, I am sure he is ever
hopeful of converting me.

Unfortunately I will not see him for a week as I am leaving tomorrow
for a ride to Budapest.

[Alan Ferris]

On Fri, 11 May 2012 08:02:21 -0700, Rockinghorse Winner

Then clearly you have problems processing information. Why else would
an atheist help out a friend at a Christian event unless that friend
was Christian. Do you find yourself helping out at humanist events
often?

[Rockinghorse Winner]

Yes, this sounds like an 'ecstatic' moment, in which past, present and
future, telescope into a single eternal moment. There are numerous examples
of this in the religious literature.

> It seemed strange since the instant before, my thoughts
> were racing on about what I had to do today and impatience
> at the traffic and long stop lights, etc.
>
> It seems religious experiences aren't always pleasant.
> Some people have claimed to "see" a vision of hell.
>
> The common factor seems to be intense emotions...
> doe the emotions and the feeling of religious experience
> come from the same source? Why do some people
> _not_ have religious experiences? Do they also not
> feel intense emotions?

I'm pretty sure everyone is open to intense feelings and emotions. However
the emotional component of religion is not one that is often mentioned.
IMHO, partly this is due to the strict, staid form of Christianity that
comes down to us from the Reformation. All the saints around God are
banished from the pantheon - leaving God by himself.

It was the saints' life story, and the prayers of intercession that went up
to them, that historically provided an emotional undercurrent to
Christianity. When this was jetissoned by parts of Christendom, God was
left by Himself, alone in his temple, companionless. This may still have
inspired awe, but gone was the compassion, empathy, and earthy love that the
saints inspired.

[Petra]

> You bring up some interesting points. However, just because a certain
> illness may mimic a certain healthy state does not mean that the two things
> are the same. The fact still remains that on one hand you have a person with
> mental illness and on the other a person, otherwise healthy, who had an
> unusual experience.
>

while one person reads a book on serious physics or a fantasy novel is
now delusional, certainly there are tests that will be used across the
board to test the health and chemistry or hormones in the human bodies.

[Fidem Turbare, the non-existent atheist goddess]

On Fri, 11 May 2012 17:57:23 +0100

What he's really saying is that he values genuine friendship above all
else. This, indeed, is a friendship of high-quality since it cannot
be shaken by differing moral viewpoints.

> The fact is we were friends from attending the same school. He left
> Catholicism like me and whereas my study of religion led me to abandon
> religion, he found he had faith but not the catholic version.
>
> We even now have long nights of debating religion and faith. I call
> it a good excuse for a drink with a friend, I am sure he is ever
> hopeful of converting me.
>
> Unfortunately I will not see him for a week as I am leaving tomorrow
> for a ride to Budapest.

Vacation or business? Have a great trip either way.

--

Fidem Turbare, the non-existent atheist goddess

"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal."
-- Aristotle (???st?t???? Aristotéles)

[Christopher A. Lee]

On Fri, 11 May 2012 10:37:51 -0400, "Dare" <clyd...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>"Rockinghorse Winner" <badass....@gmx.com> wrote in message news:slrnjqp4lp.5b1....@badass.edu...
>>* It may have been the liquor talking, but
>> Dare <clyd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> There may be a change in perception....
>>> a change in light, or the "flow of time"...
>>> a separation from the normal world....
>>> an altered state of consciousness.
>>
>> Yes, I would agree there is an altered state, as you say. However, are you
>> implying that a religious feeling is 'contained' in this altered state? I
>> think rather that the altered state is _caused_ by the awareness raised by
>> the religious consciousness.

What "awareness"?

Once again Reeking Hearse Loser can't grasp that his doctrinal
presumptions aren't automatically granted in the workd beyond his
religion.

>I don't know what causes religious consciousness.
>It seems people may seek to bring about a religious feeling
>by creating a particular environment...withdrawal from the
>busy-ness of life to a "sanctuary" of sorts, either literally in
>a separate room (like a chapel) or by meditation or prayer
>to calm and focus their thoughts(affecting brain chemistry?).
>Is this a different kind of religious feeling than one that just
>"hits" you out of the blue as you are driving down the highway?

It's the people who are reigious who interpret it as a religious
experience.

Those of us who aren't, have other explanations, especially those who
weren't raised in any religion in the first place.

>I've experienced a version of both of these....
>from listening to music or meditating/praying....
>and a couple of times while I was actually just
>driving down the highway. The flow of Time
>seemed to almost come to a stop and there was
>an intense feeling of an eternal "now", an appreciation
>for "being" and a feeling of peace and (maybe) love?
>It seemed strange since the instant before, my thoughts
>were racing on about what I had to do today and impatience
>at the traffic and long stop lights, etc.
>
>It seems religious experiences aren't always pleasant.
>Some people have claimed to "see" a vision of hell.

Those who already believe in one.

>The common factor seems to be intense emotions...
>doe the emotions and the feeling of religious experience
>come from the same source? Why do some people
>_not_ have religious experiences? Do they also not
>feel intense emotions?

The closest I've been to this was the awe I felt the first time I
drove into Yosemite from the South, through the tunnel that comes out
at the parking/viewing spot at Inspiration Point, and saw the most
incredible view I have seen on two continents.

It wasn't religious.

[Christopher A. Lee]

On Fri, 11 May 2012 07:50:05 -0700, Rockinghorse Winner
<badass....@gmx.com> wrote:

>It could be that what scares them about the real world is it's _unreality_
>as compared with their religious belief. It could be that those who reject
>religion fear too _much_ reality.

Why do you feel the need to keep lying about those who haver no reason
to take your religious fantasies seriously rather than listening to
them when they explain why, pathological narcissist?

[Christopher A. Lee]

On Fri, 11 May 2012 08:02:21 -0700, Rockinghorse Winner
<badass....@gmx.com> wrote:

>You didn't mention anything about your friend's beliefs in the OP. Since you
>said your friend felt the presence of Jesus,

What he THOUGHT was, imbecile.

> I was curious whether this was
>a strong, unanticipated response from a nonchristian, or a normal response
>from someone who was already prepared to accept the premise of the event.
>You have satisfied my curiosity as to that point, so I thank you.

By twisting what was said to fit your preconceptions, because you are
incapable of grasping that there is a real world beynd your religion.

>Terry

[Mike Lovell]

On 2012-05-11, Rockinghorse Winner <badass....@gmx.com> wrote:
> Yes, this sounds like an 'ecstatic' moment, in which past, present and
> future, telescope into a single eternal moment. There are numerous examples
> of this in the religious literature.

And numerous examples in mental health literature.

Along with "speaking to God"

[Christopher A. Lee]

On Fri, 11 May 2012 11:14:13 -0400, "Dare" <clyd...@gmail.com>
wrote:

The religious interpret things in terms of their beliefs.

But religion erects walls around the mind to keep out anything which
might cast doubt on it.

So far too many believers imagine their beliefs apply to everybody
else too, including their religious interpretations.

RHW has never once admitted that atheists don't grant his beliefs nor
had the courtesy not to talk as if they did.

And like far too many theists, he amateur-psychologises all sorts of
falsehoods about us as though his beliefs described the rest of the
world outside his religion.

Like his lie in a post a few minutes earlier about why atheists
"reject religion".

[Christopher A. Lee]

On Fri, 11 May 2012 18:27:39 +0200, "thomas p." <gud...@yahoo.com>
wrote:

>"Rockinghorse Winner" <badass....@gmx.com> skrev i meddelelsen
>news:slrnjqpf8q.7bj....@badass.edu...

>You have two people who have the same kind of symptoms. You have no
>objective way of showing that one of them is delusional while the other is
>not. You have, in fact, assumed your conclusion.

Many of his beliefs are demonstrably delusional - like his being in
denial about the world beyond his religion where there are a whole
slew of other equivalent but different religions and god-beliefs.

As well as the amateur-psychologised falsehoods he invents about those
who don't share his beliefs.

[Christopher A. Lee]

On Fri, 11 May 2012 17:57:23 +0100, Alan Ferris

Some of my friends have been there as well.

>The fact is we were friends from attending the same school. He left
>Catholicism like me and whereas my study of religion led me to abandon
>religion, he found he had faith but not the catholic version.

Some of my Lady Friend's former circle once asked me "why I hung out
with Catholics".

My response was that I hung out with friends, some of whom were
Catholics.

These were the same people who couldn't understand why I liked a lot
of religious classical music.

>We even now have long nights of debating religion and faith. I call
>it a good excuse for a drink with a friend, I am sure he is ever
>hopeful of converting me.

I try to avoid doing this.

It's the easiest way to lose friends because they have no idea how to
talk with an atheist no matter how often you point out that the
presumptions behind their fallacious arguments aren't granted.

When you seem to be getting this rather obvious pointy through to them
they seem to reboot and star again as if you hadn't spent the last
half hour explaining this.

>Unfortunately I will not see him for a week as I am leaving tomorrow
>for a ride to Budapest.

<envious>

[Rockinghorse Winner]

I thought that you had been contracted to work the event, perhaps as
soundmen, videographers or some such thing. My mistake. :)

[Rockinghorse Winner]

* It may have been the liquor talking, but
thomas p. <gud...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> "Rockinghorse Winner" <badass....@gmx.com> skrev i meddelelsen
> news:slrnjqpf8q.7bj....@badass.edu...
>>* It may have been the liquor talking, but
>> thomas p. <gud...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> "Giga" <"Giga" <just(removetheseandaddmatthe end)ho...@yahoo.co> skrev i
>>> meddelelsen news:joh8fm$enr$1...@news.albasani.net...
>
> snip
>
>>>
>>
>> You bring up some interesting points. However, just because a certain
>> illness may mimic a certain healthy state does not mean that the two
>> things
>> are the same. The fact still remains that on one hand you have a person
>> with
>> mental illness and on the other a person, otherwise healthy, who had an
>> unusual experience.
>
> You have two people who have the same kind of symptoms. You have no
> objective way of showing that one of them is delusional while the other is
> not. You have, in fact, assumed your conclusion.

I wasn't referring to delusion, for the simple reason that I don't know what
form the particular religious experience took. If it was simply an
intuition of the connectedness of all being accompanied by a rush of
emotion, where is the delusion? How do you prove it?

I was really referring to the medical fact of mental illness. This is quite
easy to establish, as I think you would agree.

[thomas p.]

"Rockinghorse Winner" <badass....@gmx.com> skrev i meddelelsen

news:slrnjqqk8e.dhi....@badass.edu...

That is not my responsibility. It is your claim that a particular
experience is religious and objectively real even though the symptoms are
clearly shared by people suffering from delusions. Surprise me and respond
to that.

>
> I was really referring to the medical fact of mental illness. This is
> quite
> easy to establish, as I think you would agree.

Yes, my point depends on it. There are people who are mentally ill. These
people have delusions that they strongly believe in, that they see as coming
from outside themselves, that profoundly change their lives. In other words
they have exactly the same type of experience ( as far as any objective
evidence can determine) that you say are unique to the true religious
experience. I look forward to your answer that responds to the above
directly and relevantly; in other words I look forward to being incredibly
surprised.

>
>
> Terry
> --
> "There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats."
> -Albert Schweitzer
>
> badass linux - 3.2.12-gentoo

[thomas p.]

"Rockinghorse Winner" <badass....@gmx.com> skrev i meddelelsen

news:slrnjqq9ot.9nq....@badass.edu...

Why of course! What makes sense is really just crazy, and what seems to be
crazy is really what makes sense. We atheists just stubbornly deny that
obvious fact.

>
> Perhaps too much reality requires too much of us, perhaps we have to face
> aspects of ourself we'd rather not have to face. It may be much safer to
> study supernovas and ground sloths, instead. :)

Which are clearly halucinatory, right?

>
>> --
>> Ferrit
>>
>> ()'.'.'()
>> ( (T) )
>> ( ) . ( )
>> (")_(")
>
> Terry
> --
> "There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats."
> -Albert Schweitzer
>
> badass linux - 3.2.12-gentoo

[thomas p.]

"Alan Ferris" <hairy....@yahoo.co.uk> skrev i meddelelsen

news:mbnpq7t5iq5lktbqu...@4ax.com...
> On Fri, 11 May 2012 09:51:43 +0100, "Giga" <"Giga"

> <just(removetheseandaddmatthe end)ho...@yahoo.co> wrote:
>
>>
>>"Alan Ferris" <hairy....@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
>>news:ep9oq79b03kscteo8...@4ax.com...
>>> On Thu, 10 May 2012 21:31:29 +0100, "Giga" <"Giga"
>>> <just(removetheseandaddmatthe end)ho...@yahoo.co> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>"Alan Ferris" <hairy....@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
>>>>news:h9vnq7pemudicmu95...@4ax.com...

>>>>> On Wed, 9 May 2012 22:55:16 -0700, Rockinghorse Winner
>>>>> <badass....@gmx.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>Does religious feeling have to include an experience of 'God?' Is
>>>>>>religious
>>>>>>feeling incompatible with atheism? Can a religious experience ever
>>>>>>contradict previously held religious beliefs rather than be
>>>>>>interpreted
>>>>>>in
>>>>>>terms of those beliefs? Thoughts? Ideas?
>>>>>
>>>>> I assisted with videoing a photographing at an evangelical rally over
>>>>> a week where thousands of Christians turned up each day and each
>>>>> evening there was a massed service. Now my friend kept telling me
>>>>> that it was amazing the feeling of Jesus's presence, he could fee a
>>>>> real buzz every evening. I to could feel a buzz, but I recognised it
>>>>> for what it was. It is the same buzz you get at a concert or major
>>>>> sports final. That smell of adrenaline causing your own body to
>>>>> respond as well. So, you would call that Jesus, I just call it a
>>>>> massed public response.
>>>>

>>>>Are you so sure you were experiencing the same things he was?

>>>
>>> Most likely, he reacted no different and felt the buzz at exactly the
>>> same time. What you want to call it does not change the fact that it
>>> was a standard chemical response. He would probably agree with me now
>>> having had more experience of such events and the reactions they can
>>> invoke.
>>>

>>'Most likely' and 'probably' is a somewhat different tone than your
>>original
>>assumption. Say he did now agree with you, his 'knowledge' of what you
>>were
>>experiencing is as dubious as yours of his internal state.
>>
> The difference is that I am trained to raise such emotional responses
> and could do it in the same situation or even 1 or 1 which is what my
> training is for. It allows you to spot others using similar
> techniques and most preachers use these. I am to cynical from my
> work, but I will give them the benefit of the doubt and accept they
> may not be always doing it deliberately.
>
> But I ask you. 2 people having the same reactions and emotional
> response, why do you believe 1 is religious and the other not?

He has been asked this many times by now. No doubt he has just missed those
posts and would gladly answer them if only he had seen them.

>
> --
> Ferrit
>
> ()'.'.'()
> ( (T) )
> ( ) . ( )
> (")_(")

[Rockinghorse Winner]

Good points.

>
> Most religion is about making excuses for why crap happens that takes
> responsibility away from the individual. Look how often believers
> will deny religion in others just for some action they have taken. So
> many times we will see one Christian claiming that another is not a
> true Christian.
>
> Faith is about not accepting that there are some things that cannot be
> explained. The biggest fear man faces is the unknown, so religion
> takes those gaps and makes up little stories and fairy tails to fill
> them. Dishonesty at its best. In reality religion is now finding
> itself in smaller and smaller gaps and having to think of new excuses
> for why god is no present in those gaps.
>
> At one time the supposed enlightened religious people who had the ear
> of god believed that he put the earth at the centre of the universe.
> Clearly that is wrong, so were they just not true Christians, where
> they lacking in faith or is it that there is no god giving anybody
> enlightenment so as history shows, they get things wrong again and
> again.

Well, you said a mouthful, but some of it is off topic to this discussion,
so I would just like to steer it toward the topic of this thread if I can
(with your permission).

I agree that fear of the unknown is one of the greatest fears. However I
disagree with your assessment of religion as 'little stories and fairy
tails.' We have stories, fables, and fairy tales; they are distinct from
religion.

Your understanding of religion betrays a lack of appreciation for the
variety of religious expression out there. Sure, there are fairy tales and
made up stories to convey profound ideas to less sophisticated types of
people; but there are also lengthy theological tracts, impressive poems and
prayers, some of the greatest literature ever written, magnificent hymns,
communities, public works, etc. The list of religious expressions is
practically endless. To dismiss it all with one stroke seems to me unjust.

> So why should we trust the modern Christianity to be any different
> from the old in its ability to get things right?

Well, each manifestation of faith is appropriate to the age in which it
occurs. That is because religion is people centered - it is performed
primarily for an audience, and that audience is always a contemporary
audience.

That is why interpreting the Bible without understanding the historical,
religious, cultural and literary contexts that surround it leads to
ludicrous results.

So, the short answer is that we should trust modern Christianity more than
ancient Christianity because it is to the modern man that it is addressed.
That means you and I. And you shouldn't 'trust' it; you should investigate
it with an open mind, like you would any other deep, thoughtful,
intellectual thing. HTH. :)

>
> --
> Ferrit
>
> ()'.'.'()
> ( (T) )
> ( ) . ( )
> (")_(")

[Giga]

"thomas p." <gud...@yahoo.com> wrote in message

news:4fad42f6$0$289$edfa...@dtext01.news.tele.dk...

You have to take it in context. Of course there are people who are mentally
ill but it is ridiculous to claim everyone who has unusual experiences is
mentally ill!

>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> What are some other hallmarks of religious feelings? Another element
>>>>>>> of all
>>>>>>> religious feeling is it's captivating aspect. It for a moment at
>>>>>>> least is
>>>>>>> transfixing, and we are struck by it, by it's uniqueness from all
>>>>>>> other
>>>>>>> types of experience we may have had. It may not be interpreted in
>>>>>>> religious
>>>>>>> terms, but there is no denying the powerful pull it exerts on the
>>>>>>> person who
>>>>>>> has it, such that he is able to recall it even many years later.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> It is very novel as you say and intense often emotionally.
>>>>>
>>>>> So are many forms of hallucinations and the voices schizophrenics
>>>>> report hearing. So what?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> If you say so. I wouldn't know.
>>>
>>> How can you not know? Are you under the impression that delusions
>>> cannot be very intense and emotional?
>>>
>>
>> I've got no experience of what it is like I'm glad to say, so have no way
>> to compare it.
>
> Please! You must know that delusions can cause extreme emotional
> reactions. Such reactions have very often caused people to do incredible
> things both positive and negative. This is not arcane knowledge, so it is
> rather odd that you would deny knowing it.

I must admit I don't know much about it. The only mentally ill people I've
known seemed to be well aware at times that their delusions were delusions.
They have often given me the impression that they have a dim awareness of
this even during episodes and they have to fight falling deeper into the
fantasy etc.

>
>>
>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> What are some other aspects of religious feeling?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It changes a persons view of life and what may be beyond it. IOW it
>>>>>> has profound affects on them just like other intense life experiences
>>>>>> (this doesn't happen with dreams, fantasies or halucinations
>>>>>> normally).
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> It doesn't? Because you say so?
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> At least not for me AFAIK.
>>>
>>> What does that mean? Have you had both halucinations and real religious
>>> experiences and had some objective way to judge between them?
>>
>> Obviously I have had dreams and daydreams. Also I have experienced very
>> mild visual illusions before from smoking. In those cases I was fully
>> aware at the time or shortly afterwards that they were probably
>> self-generated. As opposed to everyday experience or occasional
>> 'spiritual' experiences I have had. There is nothing objective here. We
>> are talking about personal subjective experiences.
>
> And obviously you know that people have delusions that they completely
> believe in. People who think they are Napoleon for example or people who
> think they have magical powers. Why pretend that you do not?
>

I must admit I'm not entirely sure whether these are myths. I have no
information on this. Is it a very unusual phenomenon?

>
>>
>>> In any event delusional people are ususally very convinced that their
>>> experiences are real, and such experiences have had profound
>>> consequences on their lives.
>>>
>>
>>
>> The former is true, not sure about the later. If you are making the point
>> that whatever experiences I have had could be mental aberations or
>> chemical induced etc of course you are right. On the other they may not
>> have been, and the weight of evidence IMO is that they were not.
>
> You have yet to provide any objective evidence. Saying that they were not
> the same as delusions is not evidence, and many delusional people have
> said exactly the same thing.

Quite right. I'm not attempting to offer any evidence. I hope my posts are
evidence enough that I am lucid. However I could be lying! There is no way
for me to show the actual experiences. All I can do is assure you I often
doubt what they really were, so there would be ample room for scepticism
even if I could share them.

>
> Also they may not have
>> been what they appeared to be. This is even a better objection to any
>> conclusions from their content I would say. Then they are open to
>> interpretation and false memory as well. So for myself they are not great
>> evidence for anything but more of starting point, like a glimpse of what
>> might be true. For anyone else they would present very little evidence if
>> any even if they believed me and thought I was not halucinating etc.
>
> There are literally millions of people (probably many more) who have
> exactly the same conviction that you have. They are subjective feelings,
> and subjective feelings are notoriously unreliable.

Of course.

> The one objective claim that you have made is clearly not true; such
> feelings, even when obviously delusional, have produced profound changes
> in people's lives. There simply is nothing unique about what you claim.
>

I can well imagine that is true. I was not claiming that this is *only* true
of spiritual expriences but that it *is* often a feature. And for most
normal people is a difference between experience and fantasy.

I've never heard of this sympton being pathological. I would be interested
if it has. 'Help me doc I've realised I am not my thoughts' lol

>Do you think you have scored a point?

Did not realise we were playing darts!?

>You do not even need to ask a psychologist, a general practitioner would be
>able to tell you if you are seriously in doubt (which, by the way, is hard
>to believe).
>

No link then?

Not at all, but I have access to subjective evidence you do not. And you
deny that it seems to me. BTW nearly everyone believes what suits them, just
some have already realised the truth is the most suitable in the long-run.

[Giga]

"Alan Ferris" <hairy....@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:mbnpq7t5iq5lktbqu...@4ax.com...
> On Fri, 11 May 2012 09:51:43 +0100, "Giga" <"Giga"
> <just(removetheseandaddmatthe end)ho...@yahoo.co> wrote:
>
>>
>>"Alan Ferris" <hairy....@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
>>news:ep9oq79b03kscteo8...@4ax.com...
>>> On Thu, 10 May 2012 21:31:29 +0100, "Giga" <"Giga"
>>> <just(removetheseandaddmatthe end)ho...@yahoo.co> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>"Alan Ferris" <hairy....@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
>>>>news:h9vnq7pemudicmu95...@4ax.com...

>>>>> On Wed, 9 May 2012 22:55:16 -0700, Rockinghorse Winner
>>>>> <badass....@gmx.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>Does religious feeling have to include an experience of 'God?' Is
>>>>>>religious
>>>>>>feeling incompatible with atheism? Can a religious experience ever

>>>>>>contradict previously held religious beliefs rather than be
>>>>>>interpreted
>>>>>>in

>>>>>>terms of those beliefs? Thoughts? Ideas?
>>>>>
>>>>> I assisted with videoing a photographing at an evangelical rally over
>>>>> a week where thousands of Christians turned up each day and each
>>>>> evening there was a massed service. Now my friend kept telling me
>>>>> that it was amazing the feeling of Jesus's presence, he could fee a
>>>>> real buzz every evening. I to could feel a buzz, but I recognised it
>>>>> for what it was. It is the same buzz you get at a concert or major
>>>>> sports final. That smell of adrenaline causing your own body to
>>>>> respond as well. So, you would call that Jesus, I just call it a
>>>>> massed public response.
>>>>
>>>>Are you so sure you were experiencing the same things he was?
>>>

>>> Most likely, he reacted no different and felt the buzz at exactly the
>>> same time. What you want to call it does not change the fact that it
>>> was a standard chemical response. He would probably agree with me now
>>> having had more experience of such events and the reactions they can
>>> invoke.
>>>

>>'Most likely' and 'probably' is a somewhat different tone than your
>>original
>>assumption. Say he did now agree with you, his 'knowledge' of what you
>>were
>>experiencing is as dubious as yours of his internal state.
>>
> The difference is that I am trained to raise such emotional responses
> and could do it in the same situation or even 1 or 1 which is what my
> training is for. It allows you to spot others using similar
> techniques and most preachers use these. I am to cynical from my
> work, but I will give them the benefit of the doubt and accept they
> may not be always doing it deliberately.
>
> But I ask you. 2 people having the same reactions and emotional
> response, why do you believe 1 is religious and the other not?
>

I'm just wondering how exactly you managed to establish that you both had
the same reaction? It sounds like projection to me.

[Giga]

"thomas p." <gud...@yahoo.com> wrote in message

news:4fad59de$0$294$edfa...@dtext01.news.tele.dk...

Usenet is not IM you know!

[Rockinghorse Winner]

Well, obviously it can't be the _same_ experience in every particular, or
one wouldn't be mentally ill; they both would. Now, you're not claiming that
everyone who has a religious experience is mentally ill, are you? Of course
not; that would be absurd. So, while there are similarities, there are also
important differences. What those are would depend on the exact
circumstances.

[Rockinghorse Winner]

* It may have been the liquor talking, but

I'm afraid for some people it is, Giga. LOL!

[Alan Ferris]

On Fri, 11 May 2012 10:14:59 -0700, "Fidem Turbare, the non-existent

I have always been a person who believes true love and friendship is
unconditional and is based on loving the person for who they are. I
suppose we are friends because despite our differences we accept each
other as we are. I have also found that those strongest in their
faith are not worried by those who do not.

>> The fact is we were friends from attending the same school. He left
>> Catholicism like me and whereas my study of religion led me to abandon
>> religion, he found he had faith but not the catholic version.
>>
>> We even now have long nights of debating religion and faith. I call
>> it a good excuse for a drink with a friend, I am sure he is ever
>> hopeful of converting me.
>>
>> Unfortunately I will not see him for a week as I am leaving tomorrow
>> for a ride to Budapest.
>
>Vacation or business? Have a great trip either way.

Business/Pleasure. Meeting with other government officials, just
managed to make my manager accept me riding their as this is cheaper
than flying. So I get to enjoy the roads of Europe there and back as
well as some nicely chosen rest stops.

[Alan Ferris]

On Fri, 11 May 2012 10:46:39 -0700, Christopher A. Lee
<ca...@optonline.net> wrote:

>>We even now have long nights of debating religion and faith. I call
>>it a good excuse for a drink with a friend, I am sure he is ever
>>hopeful of converting me.
>
>I try to avoid doing this.
>
>It's the easiest way to lose friends because they have no idea how to
>talk with an atheist no matter how often you point out that the
>presumptions behind their fallacious arguments aren't granted.
>
>When you seem to be getting this rather obvious pointy through to them
>they seem to reboot and star again as if you hadn't spent the last
>half hour explaining this.

Sorry if I did not make it clear. We mainly talk about the history of
faith and religion and normally most of it is historical. He never
tries to preach to me or argue me into believing, he knows that is
pointless. But he does hope, just as I hope the beer and good company
will make him see sense :)

[Alan Ferris]

On Fri, 11 May 2012 10:13:55 -0700, Rockinghorse Winner

Sorry, reading it again I realise I should have said I was asked to
assist. One of my hobbies is photography and at the time had my own
processing lab.

[Fidem Turbare, the non-existent atheist goddess]

On Fri, 11 May 2012 22:00:09 +0100

That's excellent.

The world would do better with less intolerance.

> >> The fact is we were friends from attending the same school. He
> >> left Catholicism like me and whereas my study of religion led me
> >> to abandon religion, he found he had faith but not the catholic
> >> version.
> >>
> >> We even now have long nights of debating religion and faith. I
> >> call it a good excuse for a drink with a friend, I am sure he is
> >> ever hopeful of converting me.
> >>
> >> Unfortunately I will not see him for a week as I am leaving
> >> tomorrow for a ride to Budapest.
> >
> >Vacation or business? Have a great trip either way.
>
> Business/Pleasure. Meeting with other government officials, just
> managed to make my manager accept me riding their as this is cheaper
> than flying. So I get to enjoy the roads of Europe there and back as
> well as some nicely chosen rest stops.

Airports are always a hassle. It seems that the lower cost option has
worked very nicely for you. Three cheers for management?

--

Fidem Turbare, the non-existent atheist goddess

"Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm
and constant."
-- Socrates of Athens

[Fidem Turbare, the non-existent atheist goddess]

On Fri, 11 May 2012 20:43:05 +0100

"Giga" <"Giga" <just(removetheseandaddmatthe end)ho...@yahoo.co> wrote:

The common causes of hallucinations include:

* Drug/alcohol overuse
* Mental/neurological problems (epilepsy, dementia, schizophrenia,
psychotic depression, delirium, blindness, deafness, etc.)
* Health problems (fever, high blood pressure, liver failure, kidney
failure, brain cancer, certain severe learning disabilities, etc.)
* Ethics (lying to people about the hallucination)
* Dreaming (while sleeping or dozing)
* Psychosomatic effects

All of these causes seem to provide reasonable explanations for
hallucinations that people have otherwise claimed as real experiences.

Those people very likely have competent psychiatric help as a normal
part of their lives. Unfortunately there are many people suffering
from mental illnesses who don't realize it, and then it also comes in
degrees of seriousness in which the mental illnesses can make it even
more difficult to detect.

> >>>>>>> What are some other aspects of religious feeling?
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> It changes a persons view of life and what may be beyond it.
> >>>>>> IOW it has profound affects on them just like other intense
> >>>>>> life experiences (this doesn't happen with dreams, fantasies
> >>>>>> or halucinations normally).
> >>>>>
> >>>>> It doesn't? Because you say so?
> >>>>
> >>>> At least not for me AFAIK.
> >>>
> >>> What does that mean? Have you had both halucinations and real
> >>> religious experiences and had some objective way to judge between
> >>> them?
> >>
> >> Obviously I have had dreams and daydreams. Also I have experienced
> >> very mild visual illusions before from smoking. In those cases I
> >> was fully aware at the time or shortly afterwards that they were
> >> probably self-generated. As opposed to everyday experience or
> >> occasional 'spiritual' experiences I have had. There is nothing
> >> objective here. We are talking about personal subjective
> >> experiences.
> >
> > And obviously you know that people have delusions that they
> > completely believe in. People who think they are Napoleon for
> > example or people who think they have magical powers. Why pretend
> > that you do not?
>
> I must admit I'm not entirely sure whether these are myths. I have no
> information on this. Is it a very unusual phenomenon?

This is not mythology, for there are people who really believe they are
living someone else's life. If you visit the local insame asylum you'll
probably see many people coping with these delusions.

> >>> In any event delusional people are ususally very convinced that
> >>> their experiences are real, and such experiences have had
> >>> profound consequences on their lives.
> >>
> >> The former is true, not sure about the later. If you are making
> >> the point that whatever experiences I have had could be mental
> >> aberations or chemical induced etc of course you are right. On the
> >> other they may not have been, and the weight of evidence IMO is
> >> that they were not.
> >
> > You have yet to provide any objective evidence. Saying that they
> > were not the same as delusions is not evidence, and many delusional
> > people have said exactly the same thing.
>
> Quite right. I'm not attempting to offer any evidence. I hope my
> posts are evidence enough that I am lucid. However I could be lying!
> There is no way for me to show the actual experiences. All I can do
> is assure you I often doubt what they really were, so there would be
> ample room for scepticism even if I could share them.

This is Usenet -- it doesn't matter whether people are mentally ill so
long as they can engage in social intercourse. People suffering from a
mental illness(es) can still be brilliant.

> >> Also they may not have been what they appeared to be. This is even
> >> a better objection to any conclusions from their content I would
> >> say. Then they are open to interpretation and false memory as
> >> well. So for myself they are not great evidence for anything but
> >> more of starting point, like a glimpse of what might be true. For
> >> anyone else they would present very little evidence if any even if
> >> they believed me and thought I was not halucinating etc.
> >
> > There are literally millions of people (probably many more) who
> > have exactly the same conviction that you have. They are
> > subjective feelings, and subjective feelings are notoriously
> > unreliable.
>
> Of course.

These wise words further exemplify this:

"Science does not rely on the highly unreliable eyewitness accounts, it
relies on testable evidence."
-- Free Lunch (April 7, 2012)

> > The one objective claim that you have made is clearly not true;
> > such feelings, even when obviously delusional, have produced
> > profound changes in people's lives. There simply is nothing unique
> > about what you claim.
>
> I can well imagine that is true. I was not claiming that this is
> *only* true of spiritual expriences but that it *is* often a feature.
> And for most normal people is a difference between experience and
> fantasy.

How does one determine that their experiences are "spiritual?"

[snip]

> >>>>>>> Can a religious experience ever
> >>>>>>> contradict previously held religious beliefs rather than be
> >>>>>>> interpreted in terms of those beliefs?
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> I suspect that religious ideas that do not have a foundation
> >>>>>> in personal mystic experiences are probably quite shallow and
> >>>>>> would be severly challenged by any such experience even if it
> >>>>>> were compatible with them. This is because these ideas would
> >>>>>> only be accepted on a very shallow basis and not really
> >>>>>> believed fully. A kind of cheap beleif, that is just there and
> >>>>>> convenient and comforting etc.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I suspect that one can say or suspect many things without any
> >>>>> objective basis in reality.
> >>>>
> >>>> For sure.
> >>>
> >>> And, no doubt, you will continue to play your silly, dishonest
> >>> game.
> >>
> >> Believe whatever suits you, however I suspect the truth would be
> >> that in the long run.
> >
> > I am not the one who believes what suits me. I am looking at the
> > objective evidence. You are denying it.
>
> Not at all, but I have access to subjective evidence you do not.

We all have access to subjective evidence, even if it must be fabricated
independently on-the-fly.

> And you deny that it seems to me. BTW nearly everyone believes what
> suits them, just some have already realised the truth is the most
> suitable in the long-run.

Actually, many people believe what doesn't suit them (often because
they were coerced or indoctrinated into it).

One of the key aspects of being an atheist is that there's no shame in
not having an explanation for something. Instead of resorting to a
fallacy, using tools like scientific methodologies to discover objective
truth, then progressing from there, has proven to be wildly successful
despite best efforts from religious authorities to interfere.

--
Fidem Turbare, the non-existent atheist goddess

"When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When
many people suffer from a delusion, it is called Religion."
-- Robert M. Pirsig

[Smiler]

How, exactly, are they distinct? You have no more evidence for any 'holy'
books than there is for Lord of the Rings or King Kong.

>
> Your understanding of religion betrays a lack of appreciation for the
> variety of religious expression out there. Sure, there are fairy tales
> and made up stories to convey profound ideas to less sophisticated types
> of people; but there are also lengthy theological tracts, impressive
> poems and prayers, some of the greatest literature ever written,
> magnificent hymns, communities, public works, etc. The list of religious
> expressions is practically endless.

All expressions of the deluded. Some (music, for example) may be worthy
efforts, but would they have not been produced, maybe in a different form,
if there was no religion?

> To dismiss it all with one stroke seems to me unjust.

Awwwww, the truth makes diddums sad.

>
>> So why should we trust the modern Christianity to be any different from
>> the old in its ability to get things right?
>
> Well, each manifestation of faith is appropriate to the age in which it
> occurs. That is because religion is people centered - it is performed
> primarily for an audience, and that audience is always a contemporary
> audience.

The shaman, priest, rabbi, imam is only acting a part in a performance
for an audience. Many shamans don't believe a word of what they're
preaching.

>
> That is why interpreting the Bible without understanding the historical,
> religious, cultural and literary contexts that surround it leads to
> ludicrous results.

The bible _is_ ludicrous. Do you _really_ believe in a talking snake?

>
> So, the short answer is that we should trust modern Christianity more
> than ancient Christianity

We should trust paedophile priests and their enablers?

> because it is to the modern man that it is
> addressed. That means you and I. And you shouldn't 'trust' it; you
> should investigate it with an open mind, like you would any other deep,
> thoughtful, intellectual thing. HTH. :)
>

Until you provide evidence for this supposed god character of yours,
there's _nothing_ to investigate. Beliefs, opinions and 'holy' books are
NOT evidence.

--
Smiler,

The godless one. a.a.# 2279

All gods are tailored to order. They're made to

exactly fit the prejudices of their believers.

[Giga]

"Fidem Turbare, the non-existent atheist goddess" <god...@fidemturbare.com>

wrote in message news:20120511172925....@fidemturbare.com...

Of course you would like to believe that is an exhaustive list.

I suspect there are few people that *don't* have some minor symptoms that in
a more extreme form could be classified as mental illness. Certainly these
people were aware they had problems and were receiving some treatment
(mainly pills I'm afraid) but other than some study of psychology this is
the only evidence I can draw on here. In my experience this idea of mental
illness being there permanently is wrong. It tends to come and go I think
with periods of greater severity and relative normality. The human condition
is like that isn't it?

'Probably', put up some evidence for these claims if there is any. Why rely
on prejudice and assumption when you have the internet at your fingertips?

>
>> >>> In any event delusional people are ususally very convinced that
>> >>> their experiences are real, and such experiences have had
>> >>> profound consequences on their lives.
>> >>
>> >> The former is true, not sure about the later. If you are making
>> >> the point that whatever experiences I have had could be mental
>> >> aberations or chemical induced etc of course you are right. On the
>> >> other they may not have been, and the weight of evidence IMO is
>> >> that they were not.
>> >
>> > You have yet to provide any objective evidence. Saying that they
>> > were not the same as delusions is not evidence, and many delusional
>> > people have said exactly the same thing.
>>
>> Quite right. I'm not attempting to offer any evidence. I hope my
>> posts are evidence enough that I am lucid. However I could be lying!
>> There is no way for me to show the actual experiences. All I can do
>> is assure you I often doubt what they really were, so there would be
>> ample room for scepticism even if I could share them.
>
> This is Usenet -- it doesn't matter whether people are mentally ill so
> long as they can engage in social intercourse. People suffering from a
> mental illness(es) can still be brilliant.

I think I'll take that as a compliment : ). And of course it is possible
that I am suffering from some kind of mental illness and not aware of it, as
it is for anyone (except those who are aware of it, in which case they may
be saner than they think :)).

>
>> >> Also they may not have been what they appeared to be. This is even
>> >> a better objection to any conclusions from their content I would
>> >> say. Then they are open to interpretation and false memory as
>> >> well. So for myself they are not great evidence for anything but
>> >> more of starting point, like a glimpse of what might be true. For
>> >> anyone else they would present very little evidence if any even if
>> >> they believed me and thought I was not halucinating etc.
>> >
>> > There are literally millions of people (probably many more) who
>> > have exactly the same conviction that you have. They are
>> > subjective feelings, and subjective feelings are notoriously
>> > unreliable.
>>
>> Of course.
>
> These wise words further exemplify this:
>
> "Science does not rely on the highly unreliable eyewitness accounts, it
> relies on testable evidence."
> -- Free Lunch (April 7, 2012)
>

Hume wrote a book on this called On Miracles I think which argues against
supernatural testimony better than most people could. I tend to agree. Why
should anyone else believe me? I hardly believe myself and I experienced it.
Also I find the miracles of Jesus, say, very hard to believe. Walking on
water, turning water to wine, healing leprosy instantly, bringing someone
back from the dead? Surely, as I'm sure Hume would argue, the more rational
explanation is that people have exaggerated or there has been a kind of
'Chinese Whisper' effect etc.

>> > The one objective claim that you have made is clearly not true;
>> > such feelings, even when obviously delusional, have produced
>> > profound changes in people's lives. There simply is nothing unique
>> > about what you claim.
>>
>> I can well imagine that is true. I was not claiming that this is
>> *only* true of spiritual expriences but that it *is* often a feature.
>> And for most normal people is a difference between experience and
>> fantasy.
>
> How does one determine that their experiences are "spiritual?"

Personal for me it is the emotional content that I find very 'real'. In a
way more 'real' than much of life generally. Say if you experience an
intense feeling of being loved unconditionally it is difficult to dismiss
that as unreal.

>
> [snip]
>> >>>>>>> Can a religious experience ever
>> >>>>>>> contradict previously held religious beliefs rather than be
>> >>>>>>> interpreted in terms of those beliefs?
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>> I suspect that religious ideas that do not have a foundation
>> >>>>>> in personal mystic experiences are probably quite shallow and
>> >>>>>> would be severly challenged by any such experience even if it
>> >>>>>> were compatible with them. This is because these ideas would
>> >>>>>> only be accepted on a very shallow basis and not really
>> >>>>>> believed fully. A kind of cheap beleif, that is just there and
>> >>>>>> convenient and comforting etc.
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> I suspect that one can say or suspect many things without any
>> >>>>> objective basis in reality.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> For sure.
>> >>>
>> >>> And, no doubt, you will continue to play your silly, dishonest
>> >>> game.
>> >>
>> >> Believe whatever suits you, however I suspect the truth would be
>> >> that in the long run.
>> >
>> > I am not the one who believes what suits me. I am looking at the
>> > objective evidence. You are denying it.
>>
>> Not at all, but I have access to subjective evidence you do not.
>
> We all have access to subjective evidence, even if it must be fabricated
> independently on-the-fly.

Lie to ourselves?

>
>> And you deny that it seems to me. BTW nearly everyone believes what
>> suits them, just some have already realised the truth is the most
>> suitable in the long-run.
>
> Actually, many people believe what doesn't suit them (often because
> they were coerced or indoctrinated into it).

Then it does suit them because they have been taught to fear challenging it
or leaving it behind.

>
> One of the key aspects of being an atheist is that there's no shame in
> not having an explanation for something.

Agnostics also don't need an explanation.

> Instead of resorting to a
> fallacy, using tools like scientific methodologies to discover objective
> truth, then progressing from there, has proven to be wildly successful
> despite best efforts from religious authorities to interfere.
>

How you can claim objectivity....hahahaha

[thomas p.]

"Rockinghorse Winner" <badass....@gmx.com> skrev i meddelelsen

news:slrnjqqpge.goa....@badass.edu...

In other words you admit that you are assuming your conclusion, and no they
do not both have to be mentally ill; it is not only the mentally ill who
experience delusions including strong ones.

Now, you're not claiming that
> everyone who has a religious experience is mentally ill, are you? Of
> course
> not; that would be absurd. So, while there are similarities, there are
> also
> important differences. What those are would depend on the exact
> circumstances.

Your entire argument depends on the existence of those differences, but,
instead, you assume those differences. And no I am not saying that everyone
who has had such an experience is mentally ill; the question is what
evidence do you have that any particular experience is not a delusion.

>
>
> Terry
> --
> "There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats."
> -Albert Schweitzer
>
> badass linux - 3.2.12-gentoo

[thomas p.]

"Giga" <"Giga" <just(removetheseandaddmatthe end)ho...@yahoo.co> skrev i

meddelelsen news:jojq56$eij$1...@news.albasani.net...

So you do not think that people have delusions.

>
>>Do you think you have scored a point?
>
> Did not realise we were playing darts!?
>
>>You do not even need to ask a psychologist, a general practitioner would
>>be able to tell you if you are seriously in doubt (which, by the way, is
>>hard to believe).
>>
>
> No link then?

No honesty then? I would not waste my time or insult my opponent by
providing links to document the existence of such a common experience as
being deluded. You, as a matter of fact, have already indicated that you
know delusions exist, since you have claimed experiences that are like them
but somehow unique. You are playing very silly and obviously evasive games.


snip

>>> Believe whatever suits you, however I suspect the truth would be that in
>>> the long run.
>>>
>>
>> I am not the one who believes what suits me. I am looking at the
>> objective evidence. You are denying it.
>>

> Not at all, but I have access to subjective evidence you do not. And you
> deny that it seems to me. BTW nearly everyone believes what suits them,
> just some have already realised the truth is the most suitable in the
> long-run.
>

There is no such thing as subjective evidence. Evidence is something that
can be demonstrated and tested, and believing what suits you is a very silly
thing to do; no matter how many people do it. It is a very common human
characteristic, but that does not make it reasonable.

[thomas p.]

"Giga" <"Giga" <just(removetheseandaddmatthe end)ho...@yahoo.co> skrev i

meddelelsen news:jol7ht$oul$1...@news.albasani.net...

Agnostics can be theists or atheists. I know atheists who are agnostic; I
also know atheists who are not. If belief in god is based on the gift of
faith (as traditional doctrine says) Christians would be agnostic.

>
>> Instead of resorting to a
>> fallacy, using tools like scientific methodologies to discover objective
>> truth, then progressing from there, has proven to be wildly successful
>> despite best efforts from religious authorities to interfere.
>>
>
> How you can claim objectivity....hahahaha
>

How you evade points.

[thomas p.]

"Rockinghorse Winner" <badass....@gmx.com> skrev i meddelelsen

news:slrnjqqlo4.dhi....@badass.edu...

I think many would love to see you do such a thing, unexpected as it is.

>
> I agree that fear of the unknown is one of the greatest fears. However I
> disagree with your assessment of religion as 'little stories and fairy
> tails.' We have stories, fables, and fairy tales; they are distinct from
> religion.

So you assert. That is all you do.

>
> Your understanding of religion betrays a lack of appreciation for the
> variety of religious expression out there. Sure, there are fairy tales and
> made up stories to convey profound ideas to less sophisticated types of
> people; but there are also lengthy theological tracts, impressive poems
> and
> prayers, some of the greatest literature ever written, magnificent hymns,
> communities, public works, etc. The list of religious expressions is
> practically endless. To dismiss it all with one stroke seems to me unjust.

Their possible literary beauty or their length has never been disputed.
That does not mean they are any more than stories, fables and fairy tales.

>
>
>> So why should we trust the modern Christianity to be any different
>> from the old in its ability to get things right?
>
> Well, each manifestation of faith is appropriate to the age in which it
> occurs. That is because religion is people centered - it is performed
> primarily for an audience, and that audience is always a contemporary
> audience.
>
> That is why interpreting the Bible without understanding the historical,
> religious, cultural and literary contexts that surround it leads to
> ludicrous results.
>
> So, the short answer is that we should trust modern Christianity more than
> ancient Christianity because it is to the modern man that it is addressed.
> That means you and I. And you shouldn't 'trust' it; you should investigate
> it with an open mind, like you would any other deep, thoughtful,
> intellectual thing. HTH. :)

I agree. We should conside the evidence. Give us some to consider.

>
>>
>> --
>> Ferrit
>>
>> ()'.'.'()
>> ( (T) )
>> ( ) . ( )
>> (")_(")
>
> Terry
> --
> "There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats."
> -Albert Schweitzer
>
> badass linux - 3.2.12-gentoo

[thomas p.]

"Giga" <"Giga" <just(removetheseandaddmatthe end)ho...@yahoo.co> skrev i

meddelelsen news:jojqm7$fhp$1...@news.albasani.net...

Is their a rule against answering questions in a discussion you are
voluntarily taking part in?

[thomas p.]

"Rockinghorse Winner" <badass....@gmx.com> skrev i meddelelsen

news:slrnjqqtll.ifq....@badass.edu...

I am afraid that you are totally incapable of honesty.

>
> Terry
> --
> "There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats."
> -Albert Schweitzer
>
> badass linux - 3.2.12-gentoo

[thomas p.]

"Giga" <"Giga" <just(removetheseandaddmatthe end)ho...@yahoo.co> skrev i

meddelelsen news:jojqkh$fg1$1...@news.albasani.net...

I am just wondering why you misrepresent what he wrote. It sounds like
evasion to me.

[Petra]

On May 10, 5:55 am, Rockinghorse Winner <badass.super...@gmx.com>
wrote:
> It is a fact of human experience that most people experience something that
> they recognize at the time or in hindsight as a religious feeling or
> experience.  Those who have these experiences are often not religious.
> William James in his classic study, Varieties of Religious Experience
> <http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/Jamvari.html>, includes
> numerous anecdotes of nonbelievers, even atheists, having had experiences of
> this type.
>
> What is it about these experiences that set them apart, and make them
> identifiable as religious, even by people who have no or very limited
> knowledge of religion?  One of the elements that distinguish a religious
> experience from a 'fantasy' or a 'daydream,' is the uncanny feeling that one
> am not completely in control of the experience.
>
> With a fantasy or daydream, I am all the time aware that I am the author of
> the images or ideas that flit before my mind's eye. With experiences of a
> religious type, I have the uncomfortable feeling that the ideas and images
> are at least partially outside of my control. IOW, they seem to come from
> someplace 'outside' me.

>
> I am not interested in whether the experiences do ultimately issue from an
> exterior source, even if it were possible to determine. I am interested in
> what makes them unique. One of these marks as I've said is a sense of having
> come to us in spite of ourselves - that is, without a conscious intention to
> have such an experience.
>

> What are some other hallmarks of religious feelings? Another element of all
> religious feeling is it's captivating aspect.  It for a moment at least is
> transfixing, and we are struck by it, by it's uniqueness from all other
> types of experience we may have had.  It may not be interpreted in religious
> terms, but there is no denying the powerful pull it exerts on the person who
> has it, such that he is able to recall it even many years later.
>

> What are some other aspects of religious feeling? What are some of the

> differences between the religious experiences of people already steeped in
> religion and those of people without the terminology or schema to wrap their
> experience in?
>

> Does religious feeling have to include an experience of 'God?' Is religious
> feeling incompatible with atheism?  Can a religious experience ever
> contradict previously held religious beliefs rather than be interpreted in
> terms of those beliefs?  Thoughts?  Ideas?
>

> Terry
> --
> "There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats."
> -Albert Schweitzer
>
> badass linux - 3.2.12-gentoo

Can you separate the human feelings from the experiences? what
experiences have caused the effect then to be described as
'religious'? or are all human emotions minus the events that lead up
to the description, either via observation of behaviours by others, or
by the individuals own description (self expression) caused by the
devils work?

It is as easy to dismiss all the events that culminate as an emotional
event and then describe that feeling or expression as work of 'the
devil' or 'one of our angels', as telling people that they have good
or bad chemicals that cause good behaviour or, worse, bad genes.

[Jack McKinney]

Let's see if I can kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. If all of
reality is some kind of faked computer simulation (another thread), then
why can't a person have a delusional religious experience?

Are you people being too serious? Are you insisting that even your
delusional fantasies be based on proven scientific facts? Are you
saying, or even just implying, that fantasies would not be acceptable
phenomena in a make-believe world?

If it's all make-believe, and some very smart people think that it might
be, then anything, even religious feelings become possible! And if it's
all make-believe, then any given experience, is just as legitimate as
any other experience, after all ...IT'S ALL MAKE-BELIEVE...

On the one hand you take life too seriously, but on the other hand you
don't take playful existence seriously enough... Seth material

[Giga]

"thomas p." <gud...@yahoo.com> wrote in message

news:4fae288f$0$279$edfa...@dtext01.news.tele.dk...

>>> One of the key aspects of being an atheist is that there's no shame in
>>> not having an explanation for something.
>>
>> Agnostics also don't need an explanation.
>
> Agnostics can be theists or atheists.

That is untrue. They may have leanings to one side or the other but they
certainly cannot be an atheist or a theist IMO.

> I know atheists who are agnostic; I also know atheists who are not. If
> belief in god is based on the gift of faith (as traditional doctrine says)
> Christians would be agnostic.

So you are into this twisting the meanings of words thing.

>
>>
>>> Instead of resorting to a
>>> fallacy, using tools like scientific methodologies to discover objective
>>> truth, then progressing from there, has proven to be wildly successful
>>> despite best efforts from religious authorities to interfere.
>>>
>>
>> How you can claim objectivity....hahahaha
>>
>
> How you evade points.
>

What are all these 'points' you seem to think are being scored or missed!?