Does God Exist?

I'm making more of an agnostic contemplation, rather than a deist assertion. Directed towards ASMO, this is kind of an example why I don't find agnosticism a very practical position to take for discussion.

The mystical experiences or peak experiences I've had via psychedelics are quite varied in nature. Some can be like you describe in being like an enhanced spring day, others can be more like the life flash before your eyes, some are so alien in the sensorium they elicit, that they don't really have much precedent in other descriptions, I would say Near Death and abduction accounts would probably be the closest.

Contrary to thedope, (although he may be talking about a slightly different respect than me) I view heavy psychedelic experiences like Terence Mckenna in that they cannot be replicated by any other self induced manner, so these experiences can not truly persist past the pharmacological effects of the substance. I think some can integrate their psychedelic experiences and utilize certain aspects from the psychedelics in other ways such as to inform meditation or art however, So I do see persisting benefits from such experiences.

Many psychedelics can produce profoundly ineffable experiences but I'm going to mention 2 which, for me, inform my assertions here the most consistently... DMT and Salvia Divinorum are fully consuming the entire mind and body of the individual on what is referred to as a 'breakthrough experience.' There is no room to 'focus' like meditation and any ideas of orienting your body posture once the effects have manifested is a pipe dream.

Salvia is a psychedelic where the notion of "insight" is hard to be found by many, even those who find it via other psychedelics. At it's weirdest, Salvia so thoroughly fragments the sense of identity, that there is not really a cohesive person or even 'spirit' to receive "insight." On my first breakthrough, I basically got the impression that whatever 'I' was was being integrated into some type of complex machinery effectively as an inanimate object in a alien dimension.

DMT is a bit more accessible, it just 'moves' at an unfathomably quick pace. There is a lot of geometrical patterns, that seem extremely structured, structured to a point that it makes me feel I couldn't be forming these patterns at my own cognitive will. Really it puts the patterns that have been on display in the videos on the last couple pages to shame. Again with DMT, I have got the perception of being integrated into some dimension, one that is quite distinct from the Salvia dimension. I have also discovered entities there which seem to elicit emotions in a sense which vary from my current state, It's usually slightly more coherent than Salvia in the sense that I can "think" in some sense but still can be a powerfully identity dissolving experience.

So I bring these up because I think also admist the chaos, confusion and alien we can also discover a lot about ourselves, perhaps more in regards, particularly to consciousness and how we arrive at perceptions. A fascinating thing about DMT, is that it is not orally active, it gets broken down in the gut before reaching the blood brain barrier. This is another reason I don't view the experience as being replicable, our bodies has formed a method to not allow this molecule via oral use. However, in the Amazon they use a plant which has an inhibiting effect on this process and they take DMT in plants and form the brew ayahuasca. It's fascinating that 'primitive' people figured this out at a time before even some of the religions we have been discussing we're established. They too, have myths on how they discovered ayahuasca.

Salvia has also been used as entheogen, while it is orally active, the smoking/vaporizing of it is pretty much a modern technique in using it and it is often used in extract leaves to make it potent in a manner vastly beyond the traditional methods.

I bring this up because the common notion of these drugs who support them, are that they are tools. Perhaps some of them, and this may be an aspect where thedope's and my views overlap, could be considered more of technologies.

 

Unfortunately "religion" is a term like "sports", that's why we have things like Christianity and Islam grouped with things like Zen Buddhism and Taoism, when they have only the merest fringes in common. I don't know what that list you pasted is supposed to explain . . . also even within what we would consider the most honest and empirical religions, there has been quite a lot of confabulation in order to make them fit within other cultural norms; witness the worshipping of Buddha as literal God in many sects.

 

I

I have no experience with drug or substance-induced phenomena, so it's difficult for me to comment. My point was that something experienced as a moment of clarity is, like the rest of reality, ambiguous but can be interpreted as a life-changing insight--or not. I had a friend who, during an LSD trip, thought he had discovered a profound insight into the meaning of life, and wrote it all down. After the drug wore off he read it and it seemed to be gibberish. But my experience hasn't seemed like gibberish, and actually gave me a new way of thinking about reality that made better sense than the previous way. It works, in the sense of giving me a positive outlook and providing a set of principles that I think have the potential for making a better world.

 

The reference to "sentience' was really a response to Guerillabedlam's previous post, which used that term. The point which I thought was made is that the integrated complexity of the universe is difficult to explain without attributing "sentience" to it. I said I'd use the term "intelligence" or "design", because as you say sentience conveys subjective feeling. I mentioned a couple of eminent scientists who came to the same conclusion, and there are lots more. I don't think they're necessarily right. My point was that they could be right, and I've made an existential choice to proceed as though they are.

I've interpreted my "peak experience" in a way that seems most plausible to me, who after all, had it. Bur again, I allow for the possibility that it could be influenced by cultural bias, although it was a remarkably multicultural trip, incorporating elements from Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism, as well as Christianity. The experience enabled me to bring these traditions to the surface and to integrate them in a way I hadn't previously been aware of. In any case, I submit that everyone, even atheists, even you, is to some extent a prisoner of cultural and other kinds of bias. given the experience, I had the choice of dismissing it or acting on it in a manner that seemed most plausible to me. I chose the latter.

As for establishing a duality by separating myself from "Something Big", the separation is purely analytical. For example, you and I are part of "humanity", but analytically it is often useful to separate us into two individuals for purposes of discussion. I think of God as being both immanent (an integral part of everything and everyone), as well as transcendent (distinct from and apart from the rest of creation). When having a peak experience involving the divine, there is an intimacy and oneness which some mystics have compared to sex. In a sense the partners at that moment are one. God, as we've mentioned, is also "ineffable"--always mysterious, elusive. That's what keeps it interesting, I find women that way too.

 

Those mystics are just too lonesome and theatrical at the same time .

 

http://youtu.be/n7V0FDsB2Ow

One other tidbit about DMT, it's produced in parts of the human body. That's right Okiefreak, you're illegal!

 

agreed, why I always state "religion/politics" because they are essentially the same thing as political ideologies are born of religious ones.
if you separate "religion" from the quest for God's existence, you will have a better chance of arriving at an answer.

GB made some mention of either aliens or a deity, but for all intents and purposes, God, by definition, is transcendent to all else in the universe, including any aliens that may have done whatever in our evolutionary past.

in order to consider "God" any conception must take all things into account, much the same as the quest for a Grand Unified Theory needs to address everything in order to meet the criteria of being the grand unified theory.

so are a GUT and a GOD essentially the same thing?
are theologians and physicists looking for the exact same thing but from differing perspectives?


only the hairdresser knows for sure......

 

Interesting. I'm sure entheogens have played their part in the development of religion, including Christianity, if truth be known. I'm a big fan of the music and art of Saint Hildegaard of Bingen, whose paintings look like psychedelic art from the sixties and whose music sounds like something from another world, which is where she said it came from. She was also one of the great scientists of the Middle Ages--an herbalist. Hmmmmmmmmmm.
https://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play;_ylt=A2KIo9dQ0BZVn0AA6sP7w8QF;_ylu=X3oDMTEwYjljbnFmBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDdmlkBHZ0aWQDVklEMDIEZ3BvcwM0?p=Hildegard+of+Bingen+Music&vid=a38f6ec9194cf5
http://www.last.fm/music/Hildegard+von+Bingen

 

Yes, I meant "out there" in non-spatial terms. In what realm do the laws of science reside? We were talking about whatever is responsible for them, and the idea that the integrated complexity of the universe may suggest something 'behind" it (again not a spatial concept). As for "something more to life", there is always something more. Life is an ever-unfolding adventure full of never-ending mystery, and I agree with you that the statement that "there must be something more" is ignorant if it implies deficiency. As Jesus said (Thomas, Log. 113) "The Kingdom of the Father is spread out everywhere upon the earth, and people do not see it." But while I respect your powerful faith, I think your notion of the incredible shrinking domain of god might be a bit over-stated. I share Isaac Asimov's view: "I believe that scientific knowledge has fractal properties; that no matter how much we learn,whatever is left, however small it may seem, is just as infinitely complex as the whole was to start with." Many distinguished scientists , like Freeman Dyson, Eugene Wigner, David Bohm, and A.S. Eddington, seem to agree. Often the more we know, the more we know we don't know, and if the history of science is any indication, just when we think we have it about figured out, somebody comes along to change the paradigm. General relativity and quantum physics have made the universe a much less comprehensible place than our granddaddies thought it was. As Godel taught us, every mathematical system contains theorems that can't be verified within the system. At the present time, cosmologists don't know the nature of "dark matter" that holds galaxies together, or how fast the universe is expanding. Like any good scientific theory, the Big Bang is not unassailable . http://www.nature.com/news/higgs-data-could-spell-trouble-for-leading-big-bang-theory-1.12804 http://science.howstuffworks.com/dictionary/astronomy-terms/big-bang-theory7.htm Biologists don't know how life arose on earth, whether life or intelligent life is a fluke, or whether it exists elsewhere in the universe. Sam Harris, neuroscientist and one of your favorite atheists tells us that "the idea that brains produce consciousness is little more than an article of faith', that "we simply do not know what happens after death" and that "nothing about a brain, when surveyed as a physical system declares it to be a bearer of that peculiar interior dimension that each of us experiences as consciousness in his own case." Many scientists are giddy about the prospects of a Theory of Everything (TOE) in our lifetimes, but does anyone think that if and when such a theory is developed we'll know, or come close to knowing, everything? M-theory, the leading cosmological alternative to "fine-tuning" is, so far, devoid of empirical confirmation, nor does there appear any way in which such evidence could be obtained. So I wouldn't get too cocky. As for what religion will look like in the next 500 years, we could only speculate. I hope it will be more enlightened than what we have today, but who knows?

 

I find this necessary condition of the concept of God problematic in regards to being a concept that we should worship or even something we can assert the existence of. What makes the concept of aliens appealing and preferable in some regards, is that (aside from our planet not being the only one to house intelligent lifeforms) it suggest there are things within the reach of human endeavors and possibility which we can continue to strive and gain knowledge from.

Of course the idea of aliens leads to a regress of where did the aliens come from? in the way a regress leads skeptics to question where God came from?

But if aliens were privvy to some kind of 'purpose' or order in the universe, which made them influence the trajectory of human evolution, it may be useful in learning what we can from them before overlooking aliens and just saying "Yah well they are not transcending the universe, so I shouldn't be concerned about it."

Now I am not saying I believe in aliens, but there are a fair amount of people who have these alien abduction or encounter experiences, if we want to take these claims seriously, as religious experiences want to be taken seriously and suggest perhap there is something genuine beyond abberrant brain processing, then we're back to how much weight do we put into the subjective experience... Perhaps even some of these relgious experiencs could even be associated with alien abductions but some people are too 'blinded by the light' of incredulity that they don't notice anything else surrounding the experience.. Just a thought.

 

What it is is foundation for challenging the statement that religions were created to fill the void of utter perplexity and meaninglessness which comprised human life.

There is nothing unfortunate that religion is a term like sports. It just means the subjects are difficult to detail to a profound extent because there are so many aspects. That sports are varied like religion means that a thorough accounting need be made of the subject before you make all encompassing statements. Disregarding my apparently weak effort at explaining my position I will point out that religions prescribe actions. Actions are not explanations but efforts to achieve an estate. Admittedly religions develop cosmological descriptions. Their vagueness is a product of a difficulty in translating transcendent information so it comes out symbolically. I will also point out that language has developed over time and with experience. We have a multitude of medical and scientific terms that describe things with greater accuracy than the impressionistic terms used previously. Religions at their foundation form around venerated individuals. Why are they venerated, because they have a profound effect on the disposition of others. It is a mistake to regard this as primitive accounting. Those venerated individuals, sages, rishis, saints, were serious investigators of the human condition via the only technologies available at the time which is observation. In fact the practice of observation as a way of being was the only way to approach this information first hand until the advent of the tweaking of neuro chemicals. I do not know if psycho active substances were used by them but they have been used by me and I found them adjunct to an already blossoming experience.

Any way the point of my previous post was that the distorted cultural institution called religion has it's foundation in the teachings of these individuals who devoted their lives not to careers or families but into investigation of their own condition and how it relates to the environment. They exposed themselves along the route to all manner of asceticisms to probe the limits of creaturehood. Much like putting astronauts in a centrifuge. In the case of the rigvedas the rishis were not just an individual but a whole community involved in the same pursuit. From them came the practice of yoga and the technical sanskrit terms. This is in the hindu environment of a pantheon of gods and folklore.

Another example of this kind of illumination arising from knowing thyself are the great greek philosophers and mathematicians who were informed by the logos or the voice. From them we get the western world and again coming from a contemporary background or history of mythological representations.

I could find room for your statement if we regard that the disciplines of science and those of these venerated individuals use the same observational skills to address the same issues. The institutions of religion are extraneous representations of a core rooted in substantial human experience. Now the number of religious people who take their religion seriously are about the same as those who take their lives seriously in general and the proportion is much greater for those who are just along for the ride.
There is a core of scientists who do the science for everyone else to see and perhaps benefit from.

 

LOL, "It's a window into another dimension" he says.

It's simple wave physics and interference patterns. Nothing supernatural or sacred or divine. It's funny how so many people would rather remain ignorant of the true nature of things. Fact is all kinds of frequencies will make all kinds of different patterns dependant upon the resonance of the substrates you are vibrating. Sure it's fascinating but that "ohm' is some kind of divine frequency is just fantasy and superstition.

It's actually kind of ironic that this phenomenon is used to falsely affirm superstitious and spiritual beliefs when really it demonstrates how matter is formed from the nothingness of random space-time-energy flux. Matter IS just an interference pattern in space-time. Not of divine will and supreme consciousness, Just simple intrinsic wave physics of space-time.

 

On the subject of sustaining the psychedelic or mystical ecstatic experience I said that developing emotional resonance, (large oscillation,) induces the chemical set, if not from the release of endogenous dmt then from an analogue, I add now possibly associated with melatonin. The reason I can make this comparison whereas GB hasn't is that I have 40 years of yogic discipline to back me up. Yoga postures and pranayama, (breathing,) are a type of physiological introspection whereby you gain much greater control of supposedly autonomous nervous functions.

 

You are interfering with my time and space. What is the Matter with you! Do you have a will or do you find justice as an interference pattern?

 

I agree with all the above, except I never proposed "God" as a necessary condition, but this topic is about God's existence and God by most definitions would supersede any other life forms in the universe, therefore any questions or speculations concerning "aliens" is secondary to the topic at hand.

 

This is a qualification that obscures the true nature of primary, secondary, tertiary, or arm pit hairy.

 

That is precisely a key difference though between psychedelics and most spiritual practice, you are attempting to control factors of your own internal sensorium with spiritual practice, there is a conscious focus. With the psychedelics, there is an interaction with foreign molecules and/or exogenous floods of chemicals that are for lack of a better description, stripping the ability to control your brain/mind.

This is not to say that they both cannot be equally revealing of aspects of consciousness, just that they are different.

 

Well I don't have a dmt experience to compare to but I have spoken to persons who do not reside in our everyday world and have been in luminous spaces without the use of any substance. My suggestion is that it could be an endogenous release of dmt and in the case of dmt we are not talking about a foreign molecule. One of the things the serious minded asks is what is the practical application of such experiences. I used psycho actives, mainly mushrooms, to train myself to emulate the space, just like using weights to build muscle. Start meditating on the stuff and continue meditating after the stuff or extend the comedown.

In analogy i have great skill with the spin top.
"Fixed tip tops are featured in National Championships in Chico, California and in the World Championships in Orlando, Florida."
To start you throw the top and impart gyroscopic rotation by rolling it off a string that is wrapped around it's curved circumference. To have the top spin right side up you begin your throw with the tip side up as it inverts itself as it rolls off the string. You can manipulate the top in various ways as long as it is spinning with sufficient velocity.
I learned to maintain the spin indefinitely on one throw by engaging the surfaces of the top with the detached string. So play with it to keep it spinning. Then I learned to impart spin to the top by snapping my fingers around the circumference of the top and catching it while spinning on my palm and then increasing the rate of spin through manipulation with the detached string. Because of this I didn't have to wind the top any more. Now I can snap my fingers around the circumference of the top to impart spin and catch it directly with the detached string without the step through the palm. So spin with a snap and catch directly on the string like a flying trapeze, increase velocity by pumping it up, repeatedly catching and tossing up again with the string while imparting unidirectional friction. From there you can preform tricks until the top slows down and then you repeat the pumping up action which is a maneuver called drum beat and do more tricks...

This is the kind of stuff here although I don't know of anyone else that generates initial spin the way I do. So less winding of the top.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdTC4dNVayg

 

Well this topic certainly has a lot of replies... probably because it's the quintessential mental masturbation question.

I would say that anyone who claims to know that God does or doesn't exist is probably kidding themselves. I'm not even sure how a single human being could ever verify whether or not a being that claimed to be God actually was what it claims to be. I highly doubt that doing LSD or whatever is going to produce indisputable evidence of the existence of God, and there are absolutely no instruments that currently exist that are capable of contacting or identifying God, or of verifying God's identity.

And this is of course assuming you're not talking about the God described in dogmatic belief systems, in which case I would say the likelihood of God being exactly as described and responsible for the acts that He/She/It is supposedly responsible for is so low that I can safely say that no, that particular version of God does not exist.