Logic tells me God doesn't exist but my heart says otherwise.

[bennyboy]

A qualitative experience common to many is what the maori would have felt when they were -really- into gnawing on their enemies bones. The initiating event is different, the framework is different, the experience - likely- the same as communion, or drawing down the goddess.

Yes, this may be the case.

I suspect that those who have a religious experience centered around the notion of total interconnectedness (or anything) do a fair amount of mythicizing. Honestly, the minute we say "religious experience" we're beyond the point of strongly held philosophical opinions, aren't we?

Maybe the word has more baggage for some than it does for me. When I talk about religious experiences, I'm speaking qualitatively. I think you could have a philosophical religious experience-- in fact, when I first started learning about QM and entanglement, I did have a strong experience that I'd describe as such.

It can also yield control and coercion on others. What do you think honor killings are about (it's not just the girl who's honor is in danger, we're all connected, especially family)? Hamingja, largely the same. It doesn't have to, obviously. But that strong emotional connection is a motivator, as you've said, and I'd have to call it a neutral motivator.

That's right. Religious experiences can lead to behaviors that most people consider deleterious. But in history, I think it's the misinterpretations of OTHERS about one's experiences that are usually the killers. I don't think Jesus (if he existed) would have condoned the Crusades, for example.

Far better, I think, to accept these experiences for what they are and acknowledge that they impart no added significance to the concept/object in reality, and no knowledge to the participant either. The ability of those experiences to alter our worldview is -precisely why- we ought to take them with a grain (or truckload) of salt, don't you think?

I don't think it's possible to take a religious experience with a grain (or truckload) of salt. That someone has had an experience so powerful probably means that a central conflict in the person's subconscious has finally been resolved. Whatever the objective truth is, the religious experience has revealed to the person's conscious mind something that has been hiding at the core-- i.e. the truth about who/what that person is.

(I've had an experience like this, btw, big - knock you on your ass, new eyes, never happen again one - but I'd never tie it to any truth I'd like to hold or use it as a support for the same. Wouldn't do me any good....but that might just be me.)

Yeah, it depends what the experience is, and what you take from it. I've had powerful experiences that changed me forever; I've also had some that seemed to reveal a deep truth but over the years I've let go as connected to juvenile development rather than any issue that is important to me now that I'm more mature.

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Hehehehe, yeah of course. Bennys angle though is that a person can have a "religious experience" without said experience somehow rubbing up against reality. I don't think that's true. I think the the "religious experience" is subversive on many levels (so I layed out a few). To have a religious experience that didn;t rub up against reality you'd have to have a religious experience akin to "ham sandwiches are made with ham"

-not exactly a common religious experience.

Personally, I think that religious experiences seem to be much more commonly associated with things I'd call a-factual - and that the nature of a religious experiences is as far from factual in it's mechanism and effect as could be imagined. Take some fact, then have a "religious experience" about it...I bet it's just a smidge less factual in your mind than it was beforehand. Even if all that smidge amounted to was a stronger connection to the idea or the truth of the matter based upon an "emotional connection" gained (assuming it wasn't already there as a causative influence for the experience in the first place).

Ironically, I think that many atheists have an experience I'd describe as of a religious quality when they finally and completely let go of their religious baggage. In some cases, this is a really powerful emotional and mental experience, and might even involve a personality crisis or a mini-nervous breakdown.