Atheism, Theism, Science & Philosophy

[Love]

Hello,

This is the new thread (from HERE). I will go ahead and answer all of the questions that were asked of me.

Cheers.

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As an Atheist, how did you know which god to ascribe causality to and how did you eliminate all possible natural explanations for your 'experiences', please?

What specific piece of evidence convinced you a priori that your chosen god actually existed so you could justify including it in the explanation, please?

Very good questions. When I was an atheist, I attributed the totality of mystical experience (for everybody) to the dopamine system in the brain. There is scientific evidence in the field of cognitive neuroscience that suggests mystical experience has correlates in this particular part of the brain (as part of the monoamine system). I am still very keen on the sciences such as physics, chemistry and biology (and all of the subdisciplines), but I now have a different view about mystical experience. Although I do not disagree with the neural correlations associated with mystical experience, I think extreme reductionism of this nature actually undermines the mystical experience itself. I now view this from the perspective of Aristotle: "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” That is, the experience is vastly more important than the biological mechanism from which it derives. We postulate that mystical experience does have a material cause, but this does not explain why the experience exists in the first place, hence my reason for attributing it to an external agency.

As for applying my experiences to the God of Christ. I would like to make it clear that I did not experience a momentary sacred vision in an instant, it was a gradual process and I found myself feeling beckoned by the history of Christianity and the impact Jesus has had on history and culture; I cannot explain why I felt those desires to read about Christianity and Jesus. There is also something deep inside my consciousness about Christianity that feels "right" and "true" at the same time, which is significant to me. In essence, it was a gradual process after that horrific experience on December 24th 2012.

Cheers.

[Faith No More]

There is also something deep inside my consciousness about Christianity that feels "right" and "true" at the same time, which is significant to me.

What reason do you have to trust these feelings? The history of the human race is littered with people that were led astray by such feelings, which is why there is emphasis put upon repeatable, verifiable evidence. Our brains are capable of all kinds of strange trickery, which I readily admit isn't proof that your experience isn't real. We do know, however, that our brains are far from fool-proof, and coming to the conclusion that there is anything beyond the material brain must be understood that that conclusion itself is being filtered by that less than fool-proof brain.

With all that we know about the fallibility of the brain, what makes you trust it when you come to an unverifiable conclusion?

[thesummerqueen]

We postulate that mystical experience does have a material cause, but this does not explain why the experience exists in the first place, hence my reason for attributing it to an external agency.

Again, I say, just because we haven't found the answer YET, why does this necessarily mean there has to be an external agent?

[Angrboda]

As an Atheist, how did you know which god to ascribe causality to and how did you eliminate all possible natural explanations for your 'experiences', please?

What specific piece of evidence convinced you a priori that your chosen god actually existed so you could justify including it in the explanation, please?

Very good questions. When I was an atheist, I attributed the totality of mystical experience (for everybody) to the dopamine system in the brain. There is scientific evidence in the field of cognitive neuroscience that suggests mystical experience has correlates in this particular part of the brain (as part of the monoamine system). I am still very keen on the sciences such as physics, chemistry and biology (and all of the subdisciplines), but I now have a different view about mystical experience. Although I do not disagree with the neural correlations associated with mystical experience, I think extreme reductionism of this nature actually undermines the mystical experience itself. I now view this from the perspective of Aristotle: "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” That is, the experience is vastly more important than the biological mechanism from which it derives. We postulate that mystical experience does have a material cause, but this does not explain why the experience exists in the first place, hence my reason for attributing it to an external agency.

As someone who has studied philosophy and epistemology, you should know that what you have presented is a classic argument from ignorance and is thus logically invalid, and its conclusions are therefore not reliably true.

For what it's worth, I've gone through several periods in my life, lasting several weeks to a few months, in which religion and questions of religious import took on a greatly amplified urgency. I became an ardent Buddhist several times under the influence of such episodes. However, these episodes all ended the same way, with a sudden "turning off" of whatever had turned on, with my realizing in hindsight that my religious fervor was the result of a change in the way my brain was functioning. It's been very easy for me to recognize it as such and accept it as that because I have been troubled by severe mental illness from a very young age, and so I have developed the skills necessary to monitor my thoughts and behavior and detect when "all is not right with the world." I doubt that you, personally, are either mentally ill or even abnormal. What happens in me in the large, to an extent, happens to ordinary people in the small. So I neither suspect that you are ill or abnormal, but at the same time I see nothing remarkable or exceptional about your experience that requires the explanations you have developed for them. This is unlikely to deter you from continuing on in your current trajectory, but perhaps it may be useful to you to realize that there are people who have also had exceptional experiences that could readily lead them to similar religious explanations, and they have come to less sensational understandings, and also, they have been quite happy with the ability of their answers to explain their experience. That you had an experience, remarkable though it may have been, neither leads you or anyone else to necessarily embrace the conclusions that you have drawn.

Enjoy the forum.

[Love]

Welcome.

Hume would of course agree with you that the emotion of love doesn't require reason, as would Schopenhauer. Passion and compassion are at least ultimately separate from reason, in their opinions.

That is also my current opinion.

I must admit that I did wonder if you were a Poe when I saw your name and how everything you posted seemed rational to me, until you mentioned how you used to believe you "knew the truth" about religion when you were an atheist, and how when you became christian you felt the sense of an "evil presence" leaving you. Although I could imagine an overly rationalistic view of the world leading to nihilistic beliefs (or lack thereof) that lead you to believing - incorrectly in my current opinion - that this must be the case without embracing theism.

I can imagine that because I've experienced that myself. But I simply focus more on empiricism now, although I of course still don't reject rationalistic completely, I am not rationalistic or overly reductionistic about matters of feelings, emotions, passions, moods and the personality as a whole. I am now far more empirical, phenomenological and experience-based regarding those subjects.

You have raised some excellent points. I do, indeed, feel that atheism has the potential to lead to existential nihilism. I feel that the atheistic worldview is actually very bleak, although my new found belief in Christianity is in no way a reaction to my perceived hoplessness of atheism.

I also subscribe to empiricism in several areas, such as my love for the scientific method. I do, however, believe empircism has limits in terms of its scope of application. As you're aware, empricism posits that true knowledge is experienced via the senses. However, I believe that sensory experience of each human being is entirely subjective and that we need to transcend beyond our sensory system in order to experience what I call God.

I postulate that almost all atheists are rationalists, and some of them often use the word "rational" without actually having the slightlest idea about the philosophy behind it or its origins. Because Richard Dawkins says rationalism leads to truth, the case is closed. Rationalists often believe that they can instantly and simplistically dismiss a proposition without engaging in any real thought on the matter. A good example of a rationalist: Jesus' resurrection is scientifically impossible, therefore, it must be logically false. This is why rationalists (with no prior knowledge of philosophy or history) annoy me.

[Faith No More]

I doubt that you, personally, are either mentally ill or even abnormal. What happens in me in the large, to an extent, happens to ordinary people in the small.

I think this is something that bears repeating. Many people seem to be under the impression that only the mentally ill can be tricked by their brains in such ways, and experiencing any such trick means that person is mentally ill. Thus, they conclude that not having any history of mental health problems means they can trust that this experience was valid. The fact is that everyone is prone to delusional experiences, but the mentally ill are simply people that experience them at such a frequency that it interferes with their daily lives.

Everyone can and will be fooled by their brains.

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I feel that the atheistic worldview is actually very bleak, although my new found belief in Christianity is in no way a reaction to my perceived hoplessness of atheism.

The extreme level of skepticism I hold towards this comment cannot be adequately described in words.

[Joel]

atheistic worldview

This is a nonsensical statement. There isn't a worldview of atheism... Only a theistic one.
Each atheist's worldview is different in ways that range from minute to astronomical.

One's worldview should not be linked to their atheism.

[Love]

There is also something deep inside my consciousness about Christianity that feels "right" and "true" at the same time, which is significant to me.

What reason do you have to trust these feelings? The history of the human race is littered with people that were led astray by such feelings, which is why there is emphasis put upon repeatable, verifiable evidence. Our brains are capable of all kinds of strange trickery, which I readily admit isn't proof that your experience isn't real. We do know, however, that our brains are far from fool-proof, and coming to the conclusion that there is anything beyond the material brain must be understood that that conclusion itself is being filtered by that less than fool-proof brain.

With all that we know about the fallibility of the brain, what makes you trust it when you come to an unverifiable conclusion?

Do you need repeatable scientific evidence that you love your parent, partner or child? How do you know that you love them (if you do, of course)? How can you prove these actual subjective feelings mathematically? I would assume that you just "know" that you love them by intuition alone. That is, you cannot determine this by inference, observation or reason. My conclusion about God is the same.

[thesummerqueen]

atheistic worldview

This is a nonsensical statement. There isn't a worldview of atheism... Only a theistic one.
Each atheist's worldview is different in ways that range from minute to astronomical.

One's worldview should not be linked to their atheism.

Atheistic is a describer - those worldviews do not believe in divinity.

There is no atheis't' worldview. There are atheis'tic' ones.

Personal opinion.

[Joel]

This is a nonsensical statement. There isn't a worldview of atheism... Only a theistic one.
Each atheist's worldview is different in ways that range from minute to astronomical.

One's worldview should not be linked to their atheism.

Atheistic is a describer - those worldviews do not believe in divinity.

There is no atheis't' worldview. There are atheis'tic' ones.

Personal opinion.

The more I read what you said, the more it makes sense...