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I have a number of atheist friends. We sometimes discuss spirituality and their arguments are always targeted at the low hanging "fruits" (haha). They rightfully point out the absurdity of mind control religions and fundamentalism and all the headaches they cause in our society.
But, so focused on standing against extremist religion, they never have a response to the people from all spiritual sects - be they Islamic Sufis or Christian mystics or Native American shamans or Bodhisatvas - who have evolved their practices beyond converting others and shifted to harnessing a deeper wisdom within. They have been able to manifest experiences and powers that have not yet been explained by science and are often disparaged as the likes of witchcraft by religions.
I, personally, have had a great many very visceral experiences with the mystical realm interplaying readily with the conventional physical realm - even through perfect strangers. One or two I could write off, but I have been guided through extraordinary experiences and developed mental powers that simply cannot be explained away.
I have come to the conclusion that such powers reside on the frontiers of science. Our primitive society senses these on a basic level and uses the structures of religion and spirituality to explain them until science gets around to it. At that point, it won't matter whether or not there is a God. Powers far beyond those attributed to "God" will be accessible to all through science.
So, I'm just curious, how do you personally reconcile the existence of these powers with atheism?
I think this question is in the domain of scepticism, which not necessarily (though often) coincides with atheism. You can be an atheist and believe in telepathy...
Personally, the reason I do not believe in supernatural powers of any kind is that they never stand the test of scientific experiment - and, very often, "wizards" refuse to be tested at all. If you do have mental powers, whatever they are, you could become very famous, revolutionize science and win a million dollars with little efforts. When you do that, I will start taking your claims seriously.
Edit: if the subject interests you, I can recommend the documentary The enemies of reason by Richard Dawkins. It's available on YouTube too.
Last edited by Roxolan; 02-01-2009 at 10:06 AM..
Reason: added video
I think this question is in the domain of scepticism, which not necessarily (though often) coincides with atheism. You can be an atheist and believe in telepathy...
Personally, the reason I do not believe in supernatural powers of any kind is that they never stand the test of scientific experiment - and, very often, "wizards" refuse to be tested at all. If you do have mental powers, whatever they are, you could become very famous, revolutionize science and win a million dollars with little efforts. When you do that, I will start taking your claims seriously.
Watch out - some real wise polititians in the EU have got the notion ... amidst all the sadness our history is still promoting!!!
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People...the human brain...can do many amazing things. Not sure if it's just the electricity that makes us "tick" or if it's something more, but we as humans can accomplish a lot of "magical" things if we believe it hard enough. This is why "prayer" sometimes seems to work. Shamans and mystics probably rely more on that sort of "hypnosis" than anything else. It is found that an positive attitude can heal a sick person, whereas a depressed and negative person can "will" themselves to die. It's a physical thing and a part of the whole mystery of being human.
People...the human brain...can do many amazing things. Not sure if it's just the electricity that makes us "tick" or if it's something more, but we as humans can accomplish a lot of "magical" things if we believe it hard enough. This is why "prayer" sometimes seems to work. Shamans and mystics probably rely more on that sort of "hypnosis" than anything else. It is found that an positive attitude can heal a sick person, whereas a depressed and negative person can "will" themselves to die. It's a physical thing and a part of the whole mystery of being human.
I think this question is in the domain of scepticism, which not necessarily (though often) coincides with atheism. You can be an atheist and believe in telepathy...
Personally, the reason I do not believe in supernatural powers of any kind is that they never stand the test of scientific experiment - and, very often, "wizards" refuse to be tested at all. If you do have mental powers, whatever they are, you could become very famous, revolutionize science and win a million dollars with little efforts. When you do that, I will start taking your claims seriously.
Edit: if the subject interests you, I can recommend the documentary The enemies of reason by Richard Dawkins. It's available on YouTube too.
Well, my experiences go far beyond telepathy, though that's in there. I've been engaged by many beings in many different contexts.
I used to agree with you about the proof idea. What I have, unfortunately, learned is that this wisdom is revealed only to those ready for it. Incredibly, life altering experiences have happened to me in such a way that anyone could easily write them off.
Whatever forces are working through me are very careful not to infringe upon others' journeys. Sounds like a cop out, but that's just been my experience. It's very likely that the million dollars will not go for a long time.
We also face a scientific community rather deeply rooted in dogma. Neuroscience, for example, is heavily materialist. The few neurosciences attempting to understand mysticism (usually ones who have had experiences in that realm) face major hurdles for funding and credibility. But, some research from notable institutions has been done in this realm. The book "The Field" discusses some of it.
Are those "parallel" universes not outside the "material world"?
How about love? I have never experienced it from a person, and even if I had, it might just be something I had mistaken for love, like a reaction to pheromones in the air, much the same way a mystic mistakes hypnosis for a mystic state. So, is there no valid evidence love exist outside the material world? No. Throughout history there has never been any evidence that love exist.
So, the question is, why don't the "rationalists" on this board speak against love with the same enthusiasm that they speak against mysticism? The only conclusion I can come to is that they have no consistency.
There's never been any valid evidence that proves something exists beyond the material world and it is unlikely that there ever will be.
Do you not see the dogmatic fundamentalism in your statement?
You are predicting an unknown future and ignoring a great deal of scientific evidence (as referenced in the above post).
Rather than taking a scientific approach of testing all hyptheses, you have closed your mind and are taking a religious approach of assuming you have all the answers and there is no need to continue searching because no one has yet proven you wrong (though they have, you're just ignoring that evidence. For example, telepathic experiments between people on earth and astronauts proved positive.). This is at the root of the dogmatic materialism crippling scientific advancement today.
A lack of evidence is not a refutation of a hypothesis.
I can assure you, though, for a society as primitive as ours, no one should be making any claims as to what will or will not be known in the future. We close ourselves off to human advancement.
Do you not see the dogmatic fundamentalism in your statement?
You are predicting an unknown future and ignoring a great deal of scientific evidence (as referenced in the above post).
Rather than taking a scientific approach of testing all hyptheses, you have closed your mind and are taking a religious approach of assuming you have all the answers and there is no need to continue searching because no one has yet proven you wrong (though they have, you're just ignoring that evidence. For example, telepathic experiments between people on earth and astronauts proved positive.). This is at the root of the dogmatic materialism crippling scientific advancement today.
A lack of evidence is not a refutation of a hypothesis.
I can assure you, though, for a society as primitive as ours, no one should be making any claims as to what will or will not be known in the future. We close ourselves off to human advancement.
You mean this "experiment" by Edgar Mitchell?
A telepathic experiment conducted during the Apollo 14 mission in 1971 proved distance is not a barrier. The experiment was not authorized by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), nor was it announced until the mission was completed. Astronaut Edgar D. Mitchell conducted the experiment with four recipients on Earth, 150,000 miles below. Mitchell concentrated on sequences of twenty-five random numbers. He completed 200 sequences. Guessing 40 correctly was the mean chance. Two of the recipients guessed 51 correctly.
I wouldn't call 51 hits out of 200 positive.
His other views..
Remote healing
Mitchell says that a teenage remote healer who lives in Vancouver and uses the pseudonym Adam Dreamhealer, helped him heal of kidney cancer at a distance. Mitchell said that while he never had a biopsy (the definitive test for cancer), "I had a sonogram and MRI that was consistent with renal carcinoma." Adam worked (distantly) on Mitchell from December of 2003 until June of 2004, when the "irregularity was gone and we haven't seen it since"
Views on UFOs
Mitchell has publicly expressed his opinions that he is "90 percent sure that many of the thousands of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, recorded since the 1940s, belong to visitors from other planets"
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Explaining mystics and shamans
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