Spiritual development within the context of a-theism (confess, religions, conscious)
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I thought we might be working around to the Mystical Experience. 'Spiritual' is indeed a broad term, but when efforts are made to separate it from just normal achievement and doing culturally uplifting stuff, we get this Experience wheeled out. Now, I'm going to separate it right away from Religion, since it isn't always associated with a religion, but is experienced as a divine experience. While those who have done it within religion or who have got religion through it will reject it out of hand as 'not real' some weed smokers have had an experience that sounds just like it.
So what it looks like is a particularly high release of feelgood emotion (Dopamine). We also have reason to see the god in the head as the self, seen as something different. I have reason to believe that Faith in God is indistinguishable in faith in one'sown rightness.
So what I'm wondering is, whether atheists at times have this Experience at times of particular success or self - justification, and the feelgood is released in heaps. But, being atheists, we don't tell ourselves that it's "God".
I thought we might be working around to the Mystical Experience. 'Spiritual' is indeed a broad term, but when efforts are made to separate it from just normal achievement and doing culturally uplifting stuff, we get this Experience wheeled out. Now, I'm going to separate it right away from Religion, since it isn't always associated with a religion, but is experienced as a divine experience. While those who have done it within religion or who have got religion through it will reject it out of hand as 'not real' some weed smokers have had an experience that sounds just like it.
So what it looks like is a particularly high release of feelgood emotion (Dopamine). We also have reason to see the god in the head as the self, seen as something different. I have reason to believe that Faith in God is indistinguishable in faith in one'sown rightness.
So what I'm wondering is, whether atheists at times have this Experience at times of particular success or self - justification, and the feelgood is released in heaps. But, being atheists, we don't tell ourselves that it's "God".
I think dopamine belongs in this discussion.
I'll add a data point (for Arch) to that. It was just the opposite; it was in a time of extreme stress and self loathing. I thought I was experiencing some type of dissociative episode but I took one of those online test (I know, I know but that was my only resource) and scored really low for a actual disorder plus is was positive so it wasn't a problem just unnerving a bit. My mind filtered it through the Jesus narrative just like Harris said on the video I linked. It was the liberal in me that got curious and the skeptic in me that knew better than to rely my personal experiences to validate. I do have to say that Science does have a way of explaining this phenom, it's just that a lot of people have been trained to see it one way so I think they stop looking for any alternate explanations when it happens to them.
Interesting. I'm not ruling out that a Mystical Experience is something else altogether and, maybe, if it happened to me, I'd be utterly convinced and smile at the idea that I could have mistaken that 'feeling good about getting something 'Really Right' as being it. But I've has some intense releases of feelgood at times, and also - once - what seemed like a conversion - experience (even with the classic 'One really rather irrelevant line that wouldn't convert anyone else, converted me'), but in the form of deconversion - but when I was already a non-believer. I have always wondered about that.
So what I'm wondering is, whether atheists at times have this Experience at times of particular success or self - justification, and the feelgood is released in heaps. But, being atheists, we don't tell ourselves that it's "God".
The purpose of spirituality is to heal the spirit, soul, psyche, whatever you want to call it.
It's not much different than healing the physical body. Sometimes the mind -- your spirit, soul, psyche, whatever you want to call it -- needs to be healed, and that's what spirituality is about, in part.
Even when the physical body doesn't need to be healed, it needs to be maintained, and you do that through nourishment, hydration and some physical regimen tantamount to "exercise."
Likewise, the mind -- your spirit, soul, psyche, whatever you want to call it -- needs to be maintained, too.
Your mind needs nourishment and exercise, and that's what spirituality is about, in part, too.
One way to go about that is connecting to something, but it's not the only way, and different things work for different people, so they will go about it in a way that best suits them.
I listened to this and that's what Harris was talking about. People who haven't had these types of experiences tend to be secular and people who have tend to be believers. So there is a gap when it comes to those who have and who are also secular. It's long but if anyone is interested I enjoyed it.
Sam Harris makes many strong points that resonate with my views but his willingness to accept his own lack of existence (Self) as an illusion is simply unacceptable. It is the very real DISCONNECT between the cognitive aspects of the "Thinker or Knower" and the physical components that seem the most difficult for neuroscientists to get their heads around. Sam admits that we cannot determine the locus of the "Thinker or Knower" anywhere in the physical brain because the ENTIRE brain is committed to producing this phenomenon. Mere chemical reactions producing neuronal "firings" are NOT doing any thinking. A composite of whatever those reactions are producing is doing the thinking and reasoning and it is not located in the physical brain. That means it only manifests in the unified field that establishes our Reality. We interact with it and detect its effects only through the "transceiver" of the brain using recordings of its creation as a delayed playback of the Self and a retransmit (recreation or addition to the Self). Because our true Self does not reside in the physical matter that comprises our body and brain, we are actually a Spirit and resonate with the spiritual things that comprise the Spirit (God consciousness) that establishes the field that contains our Spirits (consciousnesses).
The purpose of spirituality is to heal the spirit, soul, psyche, whatever you want to call it.
I suppose that if we are to invent a disease, it makes some sense to invent the cure along with it. One's soul does not develop tumors, your psyche doesn't bleed internally.
How is any of this not already covered by the term "mental health?" What distinguishes spiritual healing from putting you in a better frame of mind?
Spirituality strikes me as this unnecessary tax on a few ordinary concepts. If we're striving for a secular society, we should shed our fondness for such residual mysticism.
I suppose that if we are to invent a disease, it makes some sense to invent the cure along with it. One's soul does not develop tumors, your psyche doesn't bleed internally.
How is any of this not already covered by the term "mental health?" What distinguishes spiritual healing from putting you in a better frame of mind?
Spirituality strikes me as this unnecessary tax on a few ordinary concepts. If we're striving for a secular society, we should shed our fondness for such residual mysticism.
I find your a-mysticism quite off-putting. You clearly don't know what you are missing.
Sam Harris makes many strong points that resonate with my views but his willingness to accept his own lack of existence (Self) as an illusion is simply unacceptable.
Isn't Harris saying that the concept we have of ourselves is an illusion not that we are an illusion? I don't understand him to be going any further than that here. That's one of the things I like about Harris and other skeptics; they don't seem to take information and run with it.
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It is the very real DISCONNECT between the cognitive aspects of the "Thinker or Knower" and the physical components that seem the most difficult for neuroscientists to get their heads around.
Agreed.
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Sam admits that we cannot determine the locus of the "Thinker or Knower" anywhere in the physical brain because the ENTIRE brain is committed to producing this phenomenon.
That is pretty close to what I understood him to say. I don't know that he set any parameters on it though. I don't know science stuff but to me it's possible that other parts besides the brain can aid in consciousness such as "the gut". I don't think they brain stem has anything to do with consciousness other than keeping the systems running. IDK
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Mere chemical reactions producing neuronal "firings" are NOT doing any thinking. A composite of whatever those reactions are producing is doing the thinking and reasoning and it is not located in the physical brain.
I think located is a very bizarre word to use here.
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That means it only manifests in the unified field that establishes our Reality. We interact with it and detect its effects only through the "transceiver" of the brain using recordings of its creation as a delayed playback of the Self and a retransmit (recreation or addition to the Self). Because our true Self does not reside in the physical matter that comprises our body and brain, we are actually a Spirit and resonate with the spiritual things that comprise the Spirit (God consciousness) that establishes the field that contains our Spirits (consciousnesses).
I don't think you've established that. What do you have that points to consciousness being independent of the body? You say the brain is a receiver and even if I grant you that one (which I disagree with I think it just feels that way from a subjective experience) that in no way suggests that the receiver is actually part of the thing it receives. Like your radio analogy. A radio isn't part of the waves it picks up.
Isn't Harris saying that the concept we have of ourselves is an illusion not that we are an illusion? I don't understand him to be going any further than that here. That's one of the things I like about Harris and other skeptics; they don't seem to take information and run with it.
Agreed.
That is pretty close to what I understood him to say. I don't know that he set any parameters on it though. I don't know science stuff but to me it's possible that other parts besides the brain can aid in consciousness such as "the gut". I don't think they brain stem has anything to do with consciousness other than keeping the systems running. IDK
I think located is a very bizarre word to use here.
I don't think you've established that. What do you have that points to consciousness being independent of the body? You say the brain is a receiver and even if I grant you that one (which I disagree with I think it just feels that way from a subjective experience) that in no way suggests that the receiver is actually part of the thing it receives. Like your radio analogy. A radio isn't part of the waves it picks up.
The locus (location) of the "Knower or Thinker" is a central question in neuroscience. The field theories of consciousness are the only ones that seem to offer an answer since the physical brain offers no locus for it nor is it likely that physical matter can contain it in the form it is likely in.
The brain is actually a TRANSceiver, NOT just a receiver. That means the brain is BOTH a transmitter and a receiver of consciousness. It actually produces (Transmits) our conscious True Self into the unified field while recording it and then receives it back as a delayed playback of the recordings while simultaneously producing (Transmitting) additions to our True Self as long as we are awake. It is not an intuitively obvious process for sure.
Of course, I haven't established it because we do not yet have the science measures that would be needed to do so. But I do have plausible hypotheses extrapolated from what we DO know that suggest it explains what is going on better than other extant theories.
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You clearly don't know what you are missing.
