Atheism, Theism, Science & Philosophy

[Love]

But, earlier, you were saying that the only way to experience God is to transcend our sensory perceptions, but don't psychedelic drugs actually increase your sensory perception, i.e. to such an extent that it even distorts them? And do you suggest that people should take those drugs?

In my life, I have experimented with several psychdelic drugs including LSD, psilocybin (mushrooms), DMT and MDMA. I have yet to experiment with mescaline although it is certainly on my list of "things to do" before I die. At present, I am actually 100% tee-total and have been for the past six years; I am not interested in taking any other drugs (including alcohol) apart from mescaline and, perhaps, LSD and DMT again. My experimentation with these substances profoundly altered my perceptions of reality; LSD in particular. I was actually profoundly shocked by what I discovered on LSD, and really was not prepared for this kind of radical transformation in terms of the way I viewed external reality.

What I felt whilst under the influece of these substances is that they, as Huxley would put it, open your "Doors of Perception" and seem to transcend consciousness beyond normal five sense perception into some kind of profound spirit realm. Dr. Rick Strassman wrote the book "DMT: The Spirit Molecule", which I found to be very intriguing.

[Joel]

My experimentation with these substances profoundly altered my perceptions of reality; LSD in particular.

That is what happens when you take hallucinogenic drugs...

[Love]

I just want to clarify a few points regarding my view of rationalism. I do not have a problem with this mode of thinking; it is obviously very useful in many areas of life and I need this mode of thinking for my professional work and, indeed, many other areas of my life. The problem I have is with what I like to call "dogmatic rationalists". An example: if a fundamentalist Christian comes along and starts to quote scripture to you, stating that you need to confess your sins in order to be saved; this would obviously irritate many people, including myself. If somebody comes along and states "rationalism is the only way to see things", I find this to be just as dogmatic as the fundamentalist Christian, although rationalism certainly is more helpful to humanity than fundamentalist dogma. However, rationalism has a tendency to grossly overstate. A good example: shamans in South America consume ayahuasca (DMT + an MAOI inhibitor) as a religious sacrement in order to communicate with "the spirits". These people firmly believe that plants, trees et cetera have a spirit. A rationalist would instantly dismiss it, ridicule it and say: "they are hallucinating and delusional", and the case is closed. It is this kind of arrogance that I find extremely unfair.

In Western culture, we have been very heavily indoctrinated into the rationalist framework of thinking, which has its roots from the secular enlightenment in the 17th century. Rationalism is great, I am all for it, but it really does limit the richness of the human subjective experience.

I will endeavour to reply to all the points and/or questions shortly.

[thesummerqueen]

I don't see why recognizing something is a delusion or a hallucination limits a subjective experience except to say that ultimately it's not real. Dreams and fantasies are powerful - but dangerous if you let them control your waking life.

[FallentoReason]

I just want to clarify a few points regarding my view of rationalism. I do not have a problem with this mode of thinking.

shamans in South America consume ayahuasca (DMT + an MAOI inhibitor) as a religious sacrement in order to communicate with "the spirits". These people firmly believe that plants, trees et cetera have a spirit. A rationalist would instantly dismiss it, ridicule it and say: "they are hallucinating and delusional", and the case is closed. It is this kind of arrogance that I find extremely unfair.

rationalism certainly is more helpful to humanity than fundamentalist dogma.

Rationalism is great, I am all for it, but it really does limit the richness of the human subjective experience.

There is only so much cognitive dissonance one mind can handle.

The bar has been raised.

[Love]

I don't see why recognizing something is a delusion or a hallucination limits a subjective experience except to say that ultimately it's not real. Dreams and fantasies are powerful - but dangerous if you let them control your waking life.

As a former atheist, I used to engage in this kind of thinking. I would be a strident rationalist and instantly dismiss any proposition that seemed to be remotely illogical. Then I started to think abstractly about it and analyse if logic/reason actually has limits; that is, can reason step outside of reason to validate whether or not it actually leads to truth? It became clear that reason should not be used to validate reason because this leads to a circular argument. This led to me reading about the philosophy of logic/reason, history of rationalism and so forth. I just no longer hold the view that reason can account for everything.

[pocaracas]

[Love]

Ah, to be ignored... such a liberating feeling!

About your latest statement about validating reason with reason, leading to circular reasoning.... So, if you can't validate reason with reason, you have to validate it with...... a god?! actually, the christian god??! How did you get there?!

Sorry I did not mean to ignore. I have just been struggling to answer all of the questions.

You've asked a very good question, and I have yet to find an answer to this problem. It did, however, cause a big problem for me as it knocked my confidence in the power of logic and reason.

[davidMC1982]

Science works because we specifically don't trust our minds and our perceived logic and reason. But anyway....

Raising morality and love above any other instinctive and learned behaviour is really just emotive wishful thinking driven by a desire for purpose in life. The fact that most but not all humans feel discomfort when faced with the death of another shows this instinctive morality. The fact that societies build their own varied collective "moral code" shows this learned morality. The fact that people's sense of morality can be altered by mental illnesses, drugs, psychological manipulation, collective pressure etc etc, shows that morality is entirely routed within our own minds.

Love is no different in this way. We have no evidence to suggest that people with severe brain damage experience the feeling of love. Children that have suffered systematic abuse often grow up with severe problems forming normal relationships and are in many ways incapable of love. They have to relearn the behaviours of normal relationships during a long period of recovery.

We may never have a complete understanding of how our instinctive and learned behaviours and our emotional feelings manifest themselves within our consciousness, nor how our consciousness itself arises, but we have no reason to believe they are anything but the consequences of natural processes.

[A_Nony_Mouse]

...
My experimentation with these substances profoundly altered my perceptions of reality; LSD in particular.
...

But you are not supposed to take it seriously. You are supposed to know the sensation of "profound experience" is also drug induced.