Dear Atheists

[ParagonLost]

Hey Rob.

There is one reason that you might be interested in it; that neuroscience is engrossed in. That various mystics try to explain but fail. And the general public are so confused that they mistake it for a faith, a dogmatic principle, or an unreasonable assumption. In fact they don't understand it in so much as even Daniel Dennet the philosopher, thought of it as something without evidence.

Here's the catch. You have to be born with it or try to develop it through meditation or prayer. After you experience it, that divine reality is what mystics call God. So it's more of a attitude you develop or a temperment. William James, the great psychologist talks about it in his book: The Varieties of Religious Experience. In it he describes ineffability, something that defies expression or explanation of the contents. Undefinable. A subjective experience but based on evidential insight. The next reason is a ideational quality or conceptive. It's a feeling but it's so much more beyond. It turns the experience into a state of knowledge, a kind of comprehension. It does this because your mystical experience is receiving revelation, presage, but whats strange is this experience has a hold of you it has authority. Power and control. But mystical states have impermanence. They don't last long, this is why i believe the Lord Jesus Christ appears to the disciples but the next instant he disappears!

If the fruits of meditation and prayer are subjective experiences that defy expression or explanation (which I don't doubt), then how can any mystic justify adopting any label -- Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Taoist, etc. -- rather than simply adopting Wittgenstein's maxim: Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. It seems like the only truly honest approach.

It seems to me that you are arbitrarily shoe-horning Jesus into a situation that doesn't require him at all.

I practice Theistic Mysticism, I see and imagine Jesus as imagery and he is incarnate in my mind and experience. You might see this as communication not meant to be literary taken or a stylistic device. The experience is so strong that one walks away taking it literally and not for granted. Not unless of course you are aware that's it's not literal. (Some people don't know the difference or make a distinction.)

In Theistic mysticism God is not creation, he is the opposite. He is not created , this is why Christians believe there is no infinite regress, ergo; who created God.
This is why experience is so important it has the power to convert. And i don't mean convert your religion, I mean just change your mind about experience and what you used to think it was is now radically different. There's different kinds of mysticism and you can be creative and see which one works for you.