A Question From Atheists

[nosferatu323]

So, I've always found this particular area of magical thinking fascinating -as a sideline.

Don't you think it might be deleterious for an organism to be able to exert the kind of control over it's most vital functions that is being described as a result of meditation?  If we could, for example..."turn off our I"...what would turn it back on again?  What keeps it from happening on accident?  Why don't people just stop where they are, and for no discernible reason......stare blankly into space never moving again until the day they die?  What other things can we control?  Could I stop my heart, for example?

Say I'm driving a bus, and my nirvana switch malfunctions?  What happens to the people on the bus?  What happens to me?  If I were quietly contemplating self on the savannah...and I entered yogic beastmode, level ten.......does the lion eat me, or avoid me for the immense auric brilliance raditiating outward from my recently enlightened non-self?

Don't you think it might be deleterious for an organism to be able to exert the kind of control over it's most vital functions that is being described as a result of meditation? 

There are some rather serious studies about physiological transformations of practitioners of meditation. You can check the out. I have very little knowledge about biology so I do not talk about it.

If we could, for example..."turn off our I"...what would turn it back on again?  What keeps it from happening on accident?

Once it turns off there is no agency, once it's turned on you will perceive the agency to turn it off again if you want. 

Why don't people just stop where they are, and for no discernible reason......stare blankly into space never moving again until the day they die?

Because that's not natural?

What other things can we control?  Could I stop my heart, for example?

It seems with prolonged meditation many things is possible. But once the "I" is removed there is no agency and all this stuff will be irrelevant. 

Say I'm driving a bus, and my nirvana switch malfunctions?  What happens to the people on the bus?  What happens to me?  If I were quietly contemplating self on the savannah...and I entered yogic beastmode, level ten.......does the lion eat me, or avoid me for the immense auric brilliance raditiating outward from my recently enlightened non-self?

Lol... I don't know we should try and see. The experiment is pretty hard to produce though...btw, people who attain to remove the "I" are identified by "good" characteristics. whatever that means. That's just the natural consequence of the shift in consciousness.

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nosferatu323
You don't recall offering the gem...that an atheist couldn't coherently say that he doesn't believe in any god, in the face of the pantheist god?  You absolutely have come to a conclusion.  The conclusion....at the very least that the pantheists god is cogent enough to provide some sort of logical problem for an atheist.  How could you have reached -that- conclusion..not knowing what a god is?

Ok I'm sorry, I was playing just some language games. I was never THAT serious. 

That's not what makes me perceive the universe as a collection of objects...at all.  It doesn't prevent me  from seeing that the universe is one, at all, either...particularly if all of these shamans with intact "I"s keep seeing "the real nature of the universe"......  

If your get shot, do you still perceive the universe as one as you are bleeding to death?

-by sitting on the ground cross legged and quiet..let's make sure that we don't forget what we're talking about...as though it weren't patently ridiculous on it's face.......

You don't really have to sit on the ground. Really. And you don't need to be quiet either. That's just easier that way. And they sit on the ground because they don't have chair. What are you doing now? Aren't you sitting? It's just about keeping the awareness.