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I've never taken either and at my age, probably not a good idea. I tried to like Harris--he's a famous atheist, and I relate to the Aikido study and like that he has a doctorate in neuroscience. But I find his distaste for Muslims distasteful, and his podcasts boring.
Last edited by KaraZetterberg153; 05-19-2020 at 08:43 AM..
This represents a very rigid view of Reality that dismisses the idea that there is an aspect of Reality that is not accessible through our sensory system. An aspect that is only accessible through the brain directly when it is not overwhelmed by sensory stimuli. Drugs are one way to interrupt the sensory pathways, as is a disease, trauma, NDE, TLE seizure, etc. The best way is through disciplined meditation under sober conscious control, IMO. We know the brain can respond to EM directly (God Helmet) so it is not inconceivable that it is directly responding to other EM-like stimuli residing within our Reality whether or not they are measurable.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Grandstander
The same argument could be advanced to justify one's alcoholism. The drugs do not take you to any place at all, they merely make you believe for a time that a journey is underway. Attaching real-life consequences to drug-induced hallucinations is one more example of you trying to fuse science and nonsense. As I have informed you numerous times, I reject such methodology and will treat all which flows from it as unavoidably tainted.
I am not the one disingenuously misrepresenting my views. I experienced the state WITHOUT any substance and I advocate repeatedly to not use any substance because it would undermine your sober understanding of the experience. The science I use reveals the existence of natural brain responses that do not use the usual sensory system. The implications of these have alternative interpretations. In fact, studies reveal that Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) is naturally occurring during brain function involving higher-order processing. I interpret these facts about natural brain function to suggest that a natural consequence of meditation (disciplined mental control) is the achievement of altered states that can reveal aspects of our Reality that are not usually accessible through our sensory system. Clearly, YMMV.
Belief is cemented by experience. You may believe a person who has had a paranormal experience, but when it happens to you, you know it's true.
Not necessarily. Since I know something about how human minds work, I might think "that's interesting, I wonder what brought that on".
Wise advice - Don't believe everything you think.
Our minds are pretty good at dealing with the aspects of our world that we need to deal with. But they're not infallible, and you can't always take your mind at face value. That's why we talk about corroboration under controlled conditions.
I will say that I think that psychedelics can show you things about how your mind works, as can many forms of mediation, and this IS useful knowledge to have.
I also think that those transcendent, oceanic, ecstatic feelings are a birthright of all humans, and that we have ALWAYS had them, and they are independent of any particular belief systems. No need to read anything about the existence of nonhuman entities into them.
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I will say that I think that psychedelics can show you things about how your mind works, as can many forms of mediation, and this IS useful knowledge to have.
I also think that those transcendent, oceanic, ecstatic feelings are a birthright of all humans and that we have ALWAYS had them, and they are independent of any particular belief systems. No need to read anything about the existence of nonhuman entities into them.
Why would you presume it involves any non-human entity?
Yup, that was what I wrote. Any other outcome would be undesirable, don't you think?
Suppose you were offered a drug from which there was no recovery ever, call it Permaflip or something. You know in advance that it is going to place you in a state of distorted reality, and you know that you will never escape this state of distorted perceptions.
Would you take the drug? Assuming that the answer is no, then why would you be finding any virtue or reality or anything worthwhile in permanent alterations brought about by DMT? If you review your reasons for refusing to take such a drug, you will find my basic argument validated.
Fundamentally changing someone’s concept of reality can be undesirable because of the realization this whole world is not real. Something that often not achieved with Psilocybin alone.
How is it possible that something can profoundly change belief in such a short amount of time?
Perhaps one of the most intriguing findings in the study is that more than half of those subjects identifying as atheist or agnostic before the DMT experience, no longer identified as such after the entity encounter. This type of decrease in atheistic self-identification following psychedelic experiences is not a particularly novel finding. Prior research into psychedelic-induced spiritual experiences has seen similar results. However, Davis suggests it is remarkable that such a single, short experience, lasting no more than half an hour in most instances, can generate such powerful changes in subjective belief.
“What’s fascinating to us is that people are describing themselves and their religious, or belief orientation, in one way, and there is a fundamental difference after the experience in terms of how they view the universe. And that’s pretty remarkable to us that an experience can have that kind of profound shift and change.”
“They went from a firm belief in nothing, to potentially a belief in something,” says Davis describing many of the reports from former atheists. “And their experiences were so visceral and real that it couldn’t not change their understanding of their place in the universe.”
In the conclusion to the study, Davis and his team point out the vast majority of the 2,500 reports classified the DMT-induced entity encounter as one of their, “most meaningful, spiritual, and psychologically insightful lifetime experiences, with persisting positive changes in life satisfaction, purpose and meaning attributed to the experiences.”
I think something happens to a brain. I think many people grab onto a statement of belief about god after a traumatic event. Where I differ from other atheist here is that I apply that notion to atheism also.
What type of brain impact (literally or figuratively) would change a person's statement of belief about god so fast and completely that they would ignore any common sense to the contrary?
But you are not using science, you are relying on a blend of actual science and an unproven reality. That is not science, it is Mystic.
thats only true when we look at the word god like "oxygen to a flame". If we need to avoid god claims like the plague, you have a valid point. If we look at what he is actually calling god, your stance begins to break down.
It really comes down to semantics, not science. The real fact is that's why some atheist have to leave science out of their god claims. Its not about science, its about the explosive nature of the word god.
to most atheist thats not the major concern. It about how the universe works first. Then a distant second, is how theist misuse the science so be careful what we say. If we even by into that crap that is.
I would not take drugs just to change my belief. That seems a little extreme.
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