Atheists: have you ever had a religious experience and what did you make of it?

[h4ym4n]

I'd love to try out the God helmet to see what Drich an Lec's world is like.





Maybe thru evolution, temporal lobe epilepsy is the norm and people without that trait are known as atheist?

[Pizza]

I wanted to be open minded and prove to myself that wasn't being dogmatic by praying to a hypothetical gawd to make me a believer if he/her/it existed. I got on my knees and prayed, felt emotional, and said ""oh jeeessussss, your real," I shook a little bit, and then a half of a hour later was like, "that was dumb." So it didn't work. I guess the old holy spirit isn't what it use to be.

The closest I've ever had to a religious experience would be a feeling of purification after having a confession. (Do non-Catholics do those?) And then several years later I got an even stronger feeling of purification when playing Final Fantasy IV and Cecil became a paladin, so...

Protestants mostly just confess to gawd in their minds instead of to a priest.
That was an awesome part of FFIV. I remember I had a friend in high school who didn't know you had to not fight the dark Cecil to win.

[robvalue]

Actually, the nearest thing I've had to a religious experience was a nightmare. In short, I was trapped in a weird scenario that I could never get out of. Whatever was running the show kept making me think I had escaped, then put me right back in. It was soul destroying, and it felt like it went on for years. I've never been so happy to wake up, it felt like I was in "hell", ie some sort of eternal torment.

[Strider]

I had an experience, but I was in a situation tailor-made to elicit an emotional response. During my teenage years when I sometimes felt like something was wrong with me because I couldn't believe like the people around me, I went to a Christian concert with the youth group of the church I attended. At the end of the concert, I felt something like jubilation and excitement during the last segment. Afterwards, I felt strangely hollow, similar to how I always felt regarding religion and the presence of a supposed god, and quite confused about my out-of-character behavior. In reality, I had been subject to an experience designed to provoke a response. Everything had been orchestrated to create an emotionally charged environment: the lighting, the choice of music during that last segment, the words spoken, and everything else. Of course, a large crowd contributed to this feeling; the mob mentality definitely played an important role.

tl;dr:

I had an experience, but it was bullshit.

[KevinM1]

I had an experience, but I was in a situation tailor-made to elicit an emotional response. During my teenage years when I sometimes felt like something was wrong with me because I couldn't believe like the people around me, I went to a Christian concert with the youth group of the church I attended. At the end of the concert, I felt something like jubilation and excitement during the last segment. Afterwards, I felt strangely hollow, similar to how I always felt regarding religion and the presence of a supposed god, and quite confused about my out-of-character behavior. In reality, I had been subject to an experience designed to provoke a response. Everything had been orchestrated to create an emotionally charged environment: the lighting, the choice of music during that last segment, the words spoken, and everything else. Of course, a large crowd contributed to this feeling; the mob mentality definitely played an important role.

tl;dr:

I had an experience, but it was bullshit.

Yeah, that's how a lot of churches operate. They understand basic psychology and physiology, and create environments designed to make people more susceptible to suggestion.

It's why megachurches pack in so many people, as an example.

[JuliaL]

I'd love to try out the God helmet to see what Drich an Lec's world is like.

I'd want to see what animal studies they did to make sure that the helmet isn't tearing things up in there. To get the brain to misbehave via abnormal stimuli generally takes amplitudes greater than what physiology provides under more normal circumstances. Might not be damaging, but this is the only brain I'm likely to get, it'd be a shame if something happened to it particularly in pursuit of folly. At least we have post-mortem evidence that pursuit of transcendence via drug use can be structurally destructive. The Neurobiology of Ecstasy (MDMA)

[watchamadoodle]

I don't think anybody has mentioned meditation yet. A year ago I was trying very hard to learn to meditate, so I would sit and stare at a candle for an hour every day. A couple of times it began to get very interesting, blissful, and disturbing all at the same time. I need to meditate regularly, but it is harder for me than most people. It takes me about an hour instead of 20 minutes, and that is exhausting.

[Pizza]

I don't think anybody has mentioned meditation yet. A year ago I was trying very hard to learn to meditate, so I would sit and stare at a candle for an hour every day. A couple of times it began to get very interesting, blissful, and disturbing all at the same time. I need to meditate regularly, but it is harder for me than most people. It takes me about an hour instead of 20 minutes, and that is exhausting.

Here are some guided meditations if that helps. http://secularbuddhism.org/category/guided-meditations/

I used to mediation but I stopped because I didn't agree with the assumptions being made by buddhists about the nature of the self and the assumptions mediation is based. All that and I have ADHD.

[Mister Agenda]

I 'spoke in tongues' when I was a teenager, after having it explained to me that I need to just let the sounds come out. It turns out I can do that at will, atheist or no. It felt fake.

There were certainly times when I felt fervor while praying in a group, especially at 'altar calls'.

In retropsect, there doesn't seem to be anything supernatural about it, just psychology and peer pressure.

I can see that if I hadn't been separated from it, I might still believe it. Joining the military and getting out of that bubble was part of my 'process'.

[Tonus]

I'd love to try out the God helmet to see what Drich an Lec's world is like.

I don't think it's that difficult to imagine, but maybe it's because I was a fundamentalist Christian (who was quite sure that he was not a fundie).

Our minds use biases and other cognitive tricks to help us to function from day-to-day, but some of those can hinder our ability to view important topics critically. You can see the same from rabid sports fanatics or people with a very black/white political orientation. Some religions add a factor that has a very big effect: the infallibility of god and his book(s). You cannot simply change your mind about such things just because they don't make sense or seem suspicious; you will first try your damnedest to make it fit the beliefs, even to the extent of contorting logic until it is unrecognizable. As long as the core belief isn't upset, you'd be amazed at what you would be willing to accept.

Once you are free of it, you might feel bewildered that you ever expressed such ideas because now they seem outrageous.