I didn't have an immediate de-conversion. When I left the ministry, which upset my parents and grandmother, I felt loads of guilt and shame. My wife was quite unhappy with my decision. I became a blue collar worker which was good for me. In time my wife became acquainted with a couple who felt god was leading them and basically them alone. The guy thought God has specially blessed him as a teacher of the Word with right understanding. My wife started saying I need to meet them and do bible studies. I did and started to feel I had gotten back to the gospel and was once again in gOD's favor (just screwing with all the caps for holy words). Things seemed right again. I liked what Ktulu wrote above

It was at an emotional level that I became satisfied that I had re-found goD or as a Christian would say gOd had re-found me. One of the things this teacher told me is I have to separate from my parents because of their false cHristian beliefs and so I did.  They really were quite upset, but I stuck to it. I was "happy" now. However, I couldn't sustain it. Emotions go up and they go down. If I am a tad crazy (yes) I would hunt for the highs to feel right then I will naturally hit just as strong an opposing low. When you get the high you say oh no here comes the check that I must pay. There is an addictive quality to being a fundie. Well, time went on and my new found teacher talked about what happened when you died. Here is where I hit a major wall. I could not agree with him. We went round and round. Eventually he told me "Look I cannot stand with you as a brother anymore", which was a biblical reference to Paul who told the church (I think Corinth) to cast out a man that was sleeping with his mother. I was floored. I wasn't doing anything as vile I just could not agree on theology with him on this one point. He could have given me time and put it aside, but doG was speaking in his ear and he knew and I had to submit. I actually broke down in tears and begged him to not do this, we had work to do, Christ needed us to spread the gospel so He could return and I wanted to be apart of that. He stoically said he washed his hands of me and I was essentially excommunicated. (Holy Je-Zeus this is embarrassing now). My wife then sided with him and I was told to leave our apartment. I had two young kids, two and six. This was so incredibly painful. I would go to work, close the door and stair out my window for hours. My spirit was entirely crushed. I did move out and then worked even harder on myself-suppressing all doubts. I lost a ton of weight. Hours of lost sleep and much wailing and praying to this god who apparently had rejected me through his f*cking servant. At one point I went to the leaders apartment. There was an open field near it and I felt to the ground crying and praying to God to save me from my sin (read the book of Psalms in the bible. It was a lot like that).  In about 3 or 4 months, I had learn to entirely suppress the "EVIL" part of me. I painted a wonderful face and lo and behold I was accepted back into the fold. I moved to a new place with my wife and kids and ALL WAS RIGHT once again. But you know what I could not kill my spirit (sin-stubborn sinner I was), the thing that longed to be itself and free of the shackles of others. If there was a god surely he didn't intend for me to be this miserable and self-hating, but that I didn't believe. Anyway the walls came crashing down and I was once again on the outs. I was so damned depressed, but my wife wanted nothing to do with me because I was bound for hell. She greatly feared my influence on our children. So, she told me to take her 4 states away to be with her parents. I obliged and drove her there with the dearest things to me and that was my kids. All the stuff was packed in a U-haul and we went. I was so out of touch with who I was I had a smile on my face and was joking and laughing. Psychotic. After 18 hours of driving we arrived and unpacked. Her parents said go lay down and take a nap with the intention of me spending the night. I laid down and stared at the ceiling. Reality hit. In 1/2 hour I was maniac and said I had to leave. Said goodbye and drove straight back another 18 hours. I developed a blister on my heel. No cruise control. I made frequent stops and ran around the car to wake myself up. Finally when I entered the house, now empty, I fell to the floor wailing so strong I thought I was going to burst. I began speaking in tongues. I was desperate. Seeing my children's empty room is the most painful thing I have ever experienced. I get choked up even now after all these years.  My life was at the bottom all because I believe in a one doctrine different than our 'great leader'. Honestly, I didn't want to live anymore. I had a few Non-Christian (a buddhist, a couple of atheist) friends at work who helped me not go there. One day I plopped open a phone book on the therapist page and found a remarkable woman who helped me through all the bullshit of my life.  One of the things she said I could do was to envision me going and shooting the leader which I had been fighting. Thoughts are not sin, they are allowed. I was blown away by such a permission. I came to accept that it was OK and processed the feeling and it went away on its own. I was sick emotionally and first had to get that addressed. She said I would some day be better. I said I didn't believe her but for the moment would trust her for that. This was like 20 years ago. Free thought. It took me forever, but it was so worth it. I honor everything I think and feel now and savor it actually. It teaches me so much. 

Today if the leader had tried all that shit I will tell him he is simply another man just like me, entitled to his opinion, but not allowed to hang hell over me. I gave my power to him. Not anymore.

So how is that for some road-blocks? How's that for affecting family members? And I know I am not alone.

I have some Christian friends and I see the pattern repeating. It blows my mind to watch it over and over. I had one Christian friend who told me more than once I was going to hell. Of course he was not saying that, but God was, you know, take it up with Him. I really hate that. Well, I lost contact with him but through a common Christian friend I found out he was fired from work for looking at porn on work computers and his wife left him. I told our common friend "Hey remember he used to tell me I was going to hell? Well, it looks like he is in hell now" and laughed. Of course this guy didn't like that and told me the guy has changed. I like having contact with some Christians just to see all the shit that happens. Meanwhile they have a happy face plastered on and are being persecuted for Jesus' sake.

Religion kills!

 Wow, ex-minister that was some experience you had...  I have a young family and I feel for you.  I'm glad you're better now, how is your relationship with your kids?  If I'm prying you don't have to answer, just curious.

I can't believe religion can do that to people.  I can't believe that people actually alienate family members and behave so hatefully in the name of wishful thinking.  I feel even luckier that I was born in a time when there were books and resources and that I wasn't indoctrinated heavily.

What a journey.

Thanks for sharing that ex-minister.

I had thought that I had gone through some really tough times with my deconversion from Catholicism and the loss of family and friends as a result.

You walked a harder path than I did.

It took a hell of a lot of courage to go through all of that and a whole lot more to share it.

I got a whole lot out of reading it.

 

That makes sense.  The more I read about evolution, the suckier Adam+Eve sounds, when I read about the rainbow, thinking that a deity put it up to remind us that he'd never commit genocide again isn't quite as beautiful as the tiny droplets reflecting a prism of colors.

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

For the first weekend in months, I am anxiety free, thank God for atheism!

I'm reading through the Koran and Bible at the same time and realize that they share a lot in common.  Christians like to call Islam violent and their deity a sociopath (both are true), but their holy book is just as violent and hateful, its just been watered down. 
 
Its strange how I'm having to deprogram my mind when reading the Bible.  I've actually bought a notebook and am taking notes when reading the good book.  I could see how a naive and uneducated person could take it literally and think of God as good because the "Bible says so", but you have to really think deeply.  I think a lot of people shut down their morality during reading the Bible.  It seems as though the Bible induces some sort of faith based trance.

Some times, I'll fall back into it, then I'll wake my mind up. 

Anyway, I'm slowly undoing the programming.  I'll write down any criticisms I have of the Bible or a certain character's behavior and ponder their motives.  So far, I am to Genesis 4 (what a shitty book) and have three pages of notes.  So far, Yahweh seems to be very unintelligent and resembles a deity who is NOT omniscient.

Reading this actually is doing me good.  I feel like I am establishing my own morals and exercising true critical thought for the very first time. 

 

Socrates, Plato or Aristotle, one of them mentioned the quote, which I think is the basis for atheistic spirituality.

"...for wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder."

Someone here (Natural?) called it 'inspirituality,' from the word of inspiration, not spirit. That's fine too. It seems to me that atheistic spirituality is rather based on outrospection and intellectual commentary on what is seen. They seem to be explorers of the outer universe, not inner except of the rational mind. All that is of course on top of common human joys. They score low readings on hippie detector, they seem to be very westernized anyway. No neo-hippie global brotha rasta dub synth culture. I haven't ever seen an atheist to like anything ethnic, their favorite culture seems to be the age of enlightenment or something like that, like golden age of philosophy. That is notable, I think.
Their music is with lyrics. Melody is not so important, but these lyrics are preferably telling a rational message. For that purpose there's, rap, hip-hop, rock, heavy metal, or anything with a man or woman singing something. Says disguised neo-hippie.

Sure, I think he had a negative prejudices against women. But I very much appreciate some his chapters in Bible. He gives a lot of esoteric messages. Jesus maybe says that babies in Christ may enter kingdom of heaven, but Paul says that only mature heirs can inherit it. Paul tells Christians to grow up, otherwise they're no good for their heavenly father.
If only Christians would understand what Paul means. I got a lot of that on one or two Christian sermons by a famous preacher that I came to admire. He's really living the spiritual life, with minimum worship and mentioned fire and brimstone briefly only once or twice. If all Christians would be like that, there would be no problem with them. But nobody in whole local congregation understood, just me and him.
He told them basically to stop being sheep in Jesus' flock...

I agree strongly with you when you say that humans are moral apes, lazy apes, but moral apes. 

I'll really have to look into philosophy.

Reading the Bible, I can't help but wonder why more believers are not in a constant paranoid state.  I'd go mad if the God of the Bible were real and I had to step on eggshells my entire life.

 

I don't think I've actually ever seen a devout believer who wasn't doing one of the three.

Also, to a previous poster, I liked the book link you posted about the mind of a believer.  The concept of the Bible evolving and winning in the survival of the fittest due to its poetic nature and strict monotheism is fascinating.  Its like the most volitale book survived.  I can literally feel a trance when I read KJV because it sounds like Shakespeare with its "thous and thees" and it makes sure to through in a Psalm or hymn every now and then to wake the reader up from the begat, stone, begat sequence.

Funny thing about where I live is that even though we are in the Bible Belt, we have a small influx of "Mormons".  Mormonism seems to be a sort of hybrid of Christianity, but I really have no idea about it other than that.  Has anyone had an experience with this religion (cult?)  Is it just as much bunk as Christianity?

And, I've read of former believers still having some of the programming caught in their system, how long does this last?  You know, the guilt?  The instinctual belief?  Mine's gone away significantly just in the last two weeks.

Don't know a whole lot about Mormonism, but like any other religion, it is safe to say it is bunk like all of the rest of it.

I do know that many mainstream sects of Christianity label Mormonism as a cult. ( Same old thinking of, my way to god and the way I interpret the bible is the only way or else, hehehe).

The christian feelings of guilt and the inherent belief that human beings were lost without a god took a little bit of time to get over.

However, once I totally put belief in god on the shelf, it did not take me a long time to overcome it at all . 

I was raised in a very strict Catholic home. I used to arise early in the morning to pray, I would head down to the local church and light candles to the virgin mary and jesus almost every day and would spend hours in front of them, kneeling and praying. I would offer up all sorts of sacrifices in the hope of gaining some sort of promise. ( for instance, I always loved playing the guitar, I was just learning when my grandfather with whom I was very close, was stricken with a painful cancer. I gave my guitar away and promised god that I would never play another note again if he would spare his life and of course, my grandfather died and I promised god that I would never play any more music if I was so unworthy that my sacrifice could not save my grandfather).

These same prayers and similiar sacrifices were not answered when my father died. My father and I were on bad terms at that time, I was beginning to hit a somewhat rebellious stage and I somehow decided that it was my behavior that ultimately lead to his death.

My prayers were not answered nor were my sacrifices heard when my closest sister died either.

This all happened during a real bad period in my life. I began to question my faith. I was not an Atheist at that time. But for the first time in my life, I began to ask questions about everything that I had been taught. The responses from most of my family were horror and outrage. They told me that I was arrogant and evil to question something that had given me the gift of life. They told me that I had been a liar all of those years when I prayed to god. They told me that I was disgracing the memory of those that I had loved that had passed away. They told me that those that I had lost were looking down on me in judgement.

They made my life so much hell that I finally moved out. It was a day in and day out thing with them. Nothing I would do at that time was good enough. I had dropped out of high school at that time and started working. All they would tell me is that I wanted to throw away the life that god gave me and that I would be horrifically punished. I even offered them almost all of my paychecks to help around the houses and that was not good enough.

I was constantly told that god was going to punish me severely if I did not COME TO MY SENSES (Their words) .

Well, a whole series of unfortunate things fell onto me right around that time again. My questioning stopped. For the first time in my life, I began to get very angry at god and the church. What had they done for me ? Why was I being punished all of the time ? Had I not suffered enough for my sins ? How much more pain was to be required of me ?

That is when some changes began to take place :

 

 

Hehehehe, here I was, practically a grown man finally experiencing a sort of teenage rebellion. I began growing my hair long. For no real reason, I just wanted to. I looked in the mirror one morning and on a whim, I said to hell with it. I am growing a beard.

I had gone all of my teenage years without being allowed to date. I was not allowed to wear any clothes of my own choosing. I had had to hide the music I listened to for years. I also had prayed to god about that. I actually asked god to remove the desire to keep listening to heavy metal in secret, and felt that I was a terrible sinner for doing so.

I ended up spending a whole paycheck from the dead end job I had to buy black jeans and a Slayer T-shirt. I started to look alot different and started to act a whole lot different. I was told that I would punished for this, but in my anger, I thought "I get punished and punished and punished all of the time anyway. to hell with it,".

I ended up renting an upstairs room from one of the toughest, hard core biker dudes that you would ever want to meet. He sort of took me under his wing.

Earrings and tattoos followed the clothing shortly thereafter for my attire .

Life became one wild, crazy and partying ride. Chicks, beer, bikes and everything else.

I still had that inherent feeling of guilt and that idea of "ultmate purpose ' to life. I did not discuss it with anyone. I still believed in god, but I felt that the church had distorted it.

I flirted around with New Age stuff for a little while, fooled around with Buddhism, fooled around with supernatural ghost chaser types. At the bottom of all of it, I found nothing.

I finally came to the conclusion that god did not exist. When I did, any time I heard someone mention the word god, I would get very angry and very ugly at them. I went through a bit of a dark period at that point.

I've always loved to read and one of my all time favorite authors was Harlan Ellison. I read the introductories to one of his stories one night and he wrote that he was an Atheist. I had never really thought about what sort of world view that an Atheist might have. I had never thought about anything other than the fact that I hated words like god and religion and that was the end of it.  But it got me curious enough to look into more.

I had never really studied science or thought deeply about our natures. But that put me on the right track. I started looking up Atheist websites and authors like Dawkins and Stenger. It lead me on a whole new path. Atheist organizations were pointing out all the things that were wrong with religion and Atheist writers had counter-arguments to so-called "truths" that had been shoved down my throat my whole life. THESE were people that said all of the things that I wanted to say, but never knew how to voice them. These were people that lead me onto a new journey.

The Christian guilt and the feelings of worthlessness evaporated very quickly after that.

So here I am, still enjoying a wild ride through a wild world, but I no longer look at the world the same. Not in any way. shape, form or fashion.

Your on the right track. Those psychological feelings of guilt will pass. If the god of the bible was really real, he would fired a lightening bolt at me a long time ago.

 

 

 

Now CJ I followed your comments on how to embedded the video on another thread. I can clearly see the video in the window before I hit preview. When I hit preview it goes away. I am using Safari.  Hit source, copy embedded code from you tube, paste at botom of source, hit source again, preview.

If you read this, please embedded it and tell if I did anything wrong. TIA. Here is the link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7q6brMrFw0E

Flubber,

Please watch the video when you get a chance. 

 

I see Butter has taken care of it.  I don't have permissions to change another person's post, only my own.  My instructions work for me pretty consistently.  I use Firefox version 3.6.13.

And I couldn't watch more than about 1/3 of the video - what a bunch of hooey.

 

Flubber, Mormonism was made up by a couple of guys - Joseph Smith, Jr followed by Brigham Young - in the 1830s and 1840s.  The wiki article has all this but it is obviously edited to be "neutral" - that is, the article tries to not make the mormons look like a bunch of idiots.  Joseph liked lots of young girls - and so he put polygamy in his book.  He said it was dictated by an angel or some such but he went off and wrote it without any witnesses - uh-huh. 

The Mormons have become a very large church for that reason - some guys just like to have all their nooky at home.  To be fair, most Mormons do not practice polygamy now and the main church frowns on it - but not hard enough to discourage all the hard core fundamentalist Mormons.  And the church is large for other reasons - you are encouraged to have as many children as possible.  Families may still have 10-15 kids and if mom can't have more than a half dozen, she may feel very bad about not producing litters of children.  (Octomom?)  Also, everyone is required to tithe 10% of their income, so the church is very wealthy.  (See the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City for example.) 

The fundamentalists that practice polygamy have been prosecuted in several states for illegal marriages to minors that may have been officiated by a church official, but the girls in the marriage were only 13-14 years old.  One case in Arizona, the guy was in his forties and marrying another 13 year old when the previous "wife" was pushing 20.  These were not legal marriages in the state as AZ law clearly reads that a woman must be 18 to marry without the consent of her parents.  With her parents' consent, she may marry at age 16.  A girl may marry at age 15 if her doctor signs an affidavit that she is pregnant.  I know all this because I grew up in Arizona.  Some 40 year old guy and 13 year old girls - gag.

But as I said earlier, most Mormons are legally adult when they marry and most men marry only one wife.  They are not supposed to smoke, drink any kind of alcohol or do drugs.  Their body is a "temple to the lord".  It used to be they couldn't drink soft drinks or sodas, but since Pepsi built a plant site in Utah, they can now drink Pepsi.  See how flexible they are.  </sarcasm>

Back to my starting point.  Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon without any witnesses then claimed it was dictated to him by an angel.  And we are supposed to believe this?

 

I think he dictated behind a curtain supposedly reading the golden plates with a Urim and Thummin or some device. Somebody else wrote it down. 

The best thing to come out of Mormonism was the TV show Big Love on HBO, at least the first season.

 

My question is - where did he get the golden plates?  And who paid for the gold? 

 

 

Geronimo, yeah? 

I think some of the faith trance from which you are referring to also comes from what exposure your environment gave you originally. For instance, even now, I feel some sort of weird connection when I see stained glass windows and cathedrals with medieval architecture, hear Gregorian chants on television movies, etc.

I realize that is nothing more than the fact that the Catholic Church was the first exposure that was given to me during my childhood.

If I had been born in Iran, I would probably have that feeling about the Koran and such.

If I had been born in India, I would probably feel that connection in front of statues of Shiva and such.

If I had been born in China , I might feel that connection when seeing Buddhist Temples and such.

The faith trance feeling is perfectly explainable by science and psychology. I know no longer believe or accept any of my original faith, but I distinctly remember what it was once like to be a part of it for instance. If I had been raised in a militaristic Communist Country, those feelings might manifest during say, a patriotic rally or in a military march.

I understand where your coming from about that particular feeling, but we have perfectly logical explanations for those feelings.

I think your right about the ignorance factor. Alot of Christians and other theists mistake those feelings as being supernatural in nature, when in fact, those feelings could not exist outside of the faculties of the human mind.

 Also agree with Harley.

AtheistExtremeist said in one thread recently that in a real sense he still is a Christian because he can feel all those things that it meant to be one. I was grateful to read that. I thought my goal was to remove every vestige but if I did that I would not be me anymore. I had many challenges in my past as you have read and I wouldn't throw any of them out because it defines me and because I stood up to and processed them I am a better person today. It is my story plan and simple.  My ex-wife getting an Roman Catholic annulment of our marriage really brought this home. We were divorced with two kids. I didn't want to wipe that out at all. It was all quite silly and can cost $$$$ to get it done thru the church.

I actually like looking at church structures. Had the pleasure of being in Europe and saw many of them including Notre Dame. I stopped at a smaller church in Austria and walked around. I came upon their cemetery. They had statues of WWII german soldiers near a collection of graves. It was creepy for me, but here in the south we got all kinds of monuments to confederate soldiers so it really isn't any different (Heritage Not Hate-LOL). But going into those church and looking at what man did to honor his mythical god is very interesting to me. It is the same as ruminating around man's sacred scriptures. The flash backs for me come when I go to small fundie church and the smells are similar to my past. That is more visceral. 

 

 

 

What about all these electronic musicians who love to play Buddhist, Hinduistic, Arabian or even african tribal music? They're all white Americans, Canadians, Englishmen, Frenchmen, Dutchmen, Germans... I understand them, there's something stirring in me, when I hear Indiand or Arabian chant in just right musical key. And I'm also chalk-white european guy born and raised in post-communistic evangelical Christian place. Maybe it was the incense sticks smoke that I accidentally breathed in as a baby. Or maybe fumes from homa agnihotra ritual. But where did the other guys get their style? They quote vedas and recite mantras, not Testaments and psalms. Some of them started setting their mixes on the beach of Goa state and suddenly all Yahweh-influenced upbringing and western traditions lost their power. Similar effect occured, when the Beatles used sitar on their famous album.

There must be also a psychological phenomenon of people who mentally never quite fit into their culture, but subconsciously choose to associate with another cultures halfway across the globe. That's not just India, I've seen a local guy much into Balcan traditional music. Those who know me, surely know what's on my mind right now: people of other cultures reincarnated into our culture are longing for their exotic homeland

Btw, from what I observed, communistic people were not necessarily entusiastic about marches (much less military) or putting flags into windows and other rituals. They liked it for a few years after WW2, but that was just after-war "we survived it" endorphine rush and also 300 000 most intelligent people of the nation just died in concentration camps. A survey on popularity of communism was definitely made impossible in 1968, when Soviet Union stopped Dubcek's attempt to make the politics more sane and filled the country with Soviet soldiers and  tanks which remained there for 21 years.
The popularity of communism basically depended on whether you wanted to use your brain or not. Thinkers were persecuted all the time, and non-thinkers were satisfied with the simple ideology which they didn't understand anyway and social benefits, like miners having much bigger salary than university professors.

You're right here, of course. It's the most straightforward way of achieving mystical feelings, for now I'd call it mystical emotional attachment.

Let me ask something more. A believer will be used to regular doses of mystical feelings. Where does he get these feelings after deconversion? Does he stop having them, has less of them, just the same, or more, since there is no fear from Hell? What are the new sources of mystical feelings? I guess, astronomy videos on Youtube for some.

Obviously, our brain is capable of generating these mystical feelings and we enjoy them a lot. It would be very desirable to generate them more easily than through reading a book. I wonder where they come from, when there is no possible source in sight, not a single Youtube astronomy video. I wonder what is happening, when someone lives like that semi-permanently. It would surely create a lot of Christian legends of how Jesus sits in our hearts and loves us. I would describe that as mystical emotional detachment, when there is no necessary source of "mystical" feelings. No holy book, building or person in sight, and yet there is this overwhelming warm and fuzzy feeling of love in cordial area. Surprisingly often, anyway.
I wonder if we should be glad for religion for granting this feeling to some people at least on some ocassions, or angry at religion, because it restricts people from loving everything and everyone. Did I re-wire my brain to squeeze out happy hormones as I want? Am I a junkie with no dealer, is spirituality sort of an immaculate intoxication?
If that is so, religion should let people develop a non-specific (therefore non-organized) spirituality, just like parents teach kids to ride the bicycle with still less support and balance aid.

Well, you see, whether the transcendence is supernatural or not, it is indivisible part of our inner workings. Therefore it works whether we're interested in the supernatural or not. Of course, a direct interest and endeavour to uncover these feelings can really help.

As for me personally, I found a plenty of supernatural experiences all the years. I assure you, they are not quite about feelings. A spirit may not be more awe-inspiring than a guy next doors who sneaks into your home. Those who work with such things hopefully get over the glamour and realize, that most of the supernatural is just work like any other. These are perhaps supernatural experiences, but certainly not necessarily transcendental, not bliss-inducing, understand? To find something truly enlightening, you must look inside yourself or get to know for inspiration someone who already found it within himself. 

Yes, I went through a similar process of finding nothing, painfully giving things up completely, it just wasn't about anything supernatural. It was about giving up lots of bad habits, serious ignorance and unawareness, and lots of bad emotions from resulting conflicts. Now I hardly have any decent emotions left. To give up old parts of personality is one problem, to acquire new, better ones is another problem.

Interesting. What about a lack of sights of sunset? Would it decrease your mystical feelings? Let's say that you get a job in the winter, you come to work in the morning when it's dark, work indoors, and then go home when it's already getting dark in the evening. The sky is clouded. No sunsets, no skylines.

Some people say, that "when body suffers, soul rejoices," they say it when they need to beat their children for something. But I found out, that the feelings of bliss can indeed manifest even if there is no sight of the sky, the work is hard and dirty, and the employer rips you off on overtime money. Perhaps it's a defensive reaction.

Exactly. Spirituality, not religion increases the quality of life. Some people can be very religious, very immersed in worship, ritual, organization, ideals and dogma, but not a bit spiritual. Spirituality surprisingly always has an element of progressiveness. It may historically create religions around itself, so that people can have at least something tangible to catch on, but it leaves the shells of religion once they grow too big, old and rigid.

I don't say you should join anything. Quite oppositely, today our thinking capacity and education allows us to become our own teachers, and seek and catch the element of progressive spirituality for ourselves. Then it's up to us personally to unconditioned and always self-developing, so we will keep up the tempo with progressive spirituality. That will make sure we will not get cut off from it, because there will be no organized religion to keep us in the fold.

Correct. I felt and feel all the love, bliss and divine presence that religions promise, but I'm not even baptisted. (thanks mom and dad for keeping me a proud pagan!) I wonder what would fundies say on that, perhaps Satan's work?

But I wonder what exactly causes these feelings. I recently posted a small thread about it... I don't just feel mystical emotions but also a wide range of very strange, downright supernatural perceptions. Many of them seem to be attached to areas of body, which are associated with endocrine glands. Typically, hypophysis and thymus. I have studied some esoteric literature and these processes are described there as natural for a small part of humanity. That group of people, the writings say, works quite differently than other people and none of psychologists or psychiatrists can understand any of that. There is a great emphasis on how various endocrine glands and brain centers learn to work harmoniously in unison. Until they learn it, there is a certain imbalance and discomfort. (and danger of special defects and diseases) So I guess I am a neurologist's and endocrinologists' ticket for Nobel prize. Most of people's systems work on a nature's autopilot. It is safe and relatively healthy, but very inefficient.

I would like to understand more about how brain centers and glands change our consciousness. Perhaps I can find out what feelings are caused by overflow of serotonin, dopamin or acetylcholin. Or if one of these is too low. There are certain "normal" states of consciousness that I'm missing, so I'd like to find out why. Does that book write anything about it?

LOL I do the same thing with my favorite music. It gets really trippy sometimes.

 

 

If you click "login/register" you can see a link to request a new password to be sent to your email address.

Something like this takes time. 

Here's another way to think about it that might help. All of the most basic assumptions in Pascal's Wager are unjustified, right? So, we don't even know that Christians will float up to eternal bliss while everyone else burns. Maybe there is a God that actually likes skeptics and hates religious people, so he's going to send all the Christians to hell and send us up to heaven. Of course, I would not like that either. Any God that tortures so many people for an eternity for something like that does not appeal to me, but that's a digression. Point is, if there is a horrible afterlife, you're not any more likely to go there now than you were before.

Depending on how you define "order," there is already plenty of "order" in the universe. Look at snowflakes.

Anyways, there's nothing wrong with wanting there to be a God. I want there to be a nice God too, so this universe wouldn't be so cold and hostile. I find it kind of ironic that so many atheists would prefer that there was a God, considering how often the religious assert that we're just rebelling because we don't want an authority.