Atheist, but seeking a more "spiritual" life?

Discussion in 'Agnosticism and Atheism' started by Trixie92, May 15, 2013.

  1. guerillabedlam

    guerillabedlam _|=|-|=|_

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    The thing about NDE experiences is they can't really be measured at this point and likely won't be anytime soon, due to ethical issues of trying to keep a person alive. So this does open up the floodgates for a variety of alternative explanations, however I doubt most materialist and rationalist will turn their back on the whole paradigm they hold due to a present uncertainity.

    The way I have tenatively hypothesized the phenomena runs somewhat parallel to psychedelic experiences in many ways. As I'm sure you know from psychedelics, there is time distortion and it's a possibility that people experiencing NDE's are experiencing a similar type of time distortion to go along with their NDE experiences, and their experiences occur admist losing consciousness and upon regaining consciousness. Not to mention the perceptions of intelligent forces, white lights, etc. that we can see as a parallel with a heavy psychedelic experience. I've read briefly in an article, Oliver Sacks a neurologist positing a similar hypothesis.
     
  2. Cherea

    Cherea Senior Member

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    This2.
     
  3. inthydreams911

    inthydreams911 Senior Member

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    Also another big part of that book was the guy was aware of the fact consciousness lives on after death and through other lives. Their is a whole hierarchy of beings and planes of existence. From a single alone point of consciousness with no form or identity, all the way into extremely complex beings far beyond human beings. Our body is only a filter to our overwhelming consciousness in order to experience things a more individual level. In order to feel comfort.

    This reminds me of many threads on HF where people have explained the psychedelic experience a filter being removed into a more expanded consciousness. I defiantly think parts of the psychedelic experience cross over from one reality frame to another. I have heard of those who can consciously switch reality frames (dimensions/universes in the multiverse) and time frames that are aware of the process consciousness after death.

    This is the only thing which would suggest that what these experiences are more than just a physical process in the brain. Yes there could be an instant at death where dmt is shot through your brain, and you live those last few seconds in as an eternity in the final land of your dreams. And is this to say that anyone who has a NDE only had a purely chemical experience.. Something permeates the experience, which says its from another place, something lives beyond the experience, something which is coordinated with the chemical experience but is separate and beyond it, yet leads it and brings it to be.

    The experience I have had is the experience of pure awareness, that you are the awareness, and it is the primal thing, everything else is just the dream of awareness.
     
  4. RooRshack

    RooRshack On Sabbatical

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    Take three hits and call me in the morning.
     
  5. Okiefreak

    Okiefreak Senior Member

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    Even neuroscientists can have hallucinations, and can also succumb to the temptations of the profit motive. This guy was obviously neither dead nor near death, but had suffered massive brain trauma. His account of the hereafter is exceptionally childlike, trippy, and hokey. If that's what it's like give me oblivion!
     
  6. relaxxx

    relaxxx Senior Member

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    Yeah, the thing about Near Death Experiences is...







    THEY'RE NOT DEATH EXPERIENCES !!!!
     
  7. Fran Man

    Fran Man Guest

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    I recently recieved a dent in my atheism whilst sitting in a field and inhaling some of mother nature. :hippy:

    I don't believe in a God, I'm definitely not a theist. I don't believe in ghosts, spirits, souls, the afterlife, or the supernatural. But I do believe that there is something that links all of us and all of the things on earth, I don't think we can ever explain it, but I'm pretty sure it's there. We are all brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers and we need to coexist peacefully to keep the connections strong, because that connection is all that matters. Maybe that connection is just conciousness? I don't know. All I know is that it needs nurturing and it needs to be tended to.

    I really like the Rastafarion ideology of how everything is one yet independant. I just doubt I'll ever follow a religion, unless it's one I make for myself that I choose to call a religion.
     
  8. AquaLight

    AquaLight Senior Member

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    Do something nice for someone and help fellow humans who are in need.
     
  9. Manservant Hecubus

    Manservant Hecubus Master of Funk and Evil

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    I find some nice ritual habits in zen. Some would argue that secular zen doesn't exist but semantics are what they are.

    I enjoy it because it can let me cast out the reincarnation that comes with most of Buddhism. Reincarnation could be true or not, it doesn't matter because zen is about the moment.
     
  10. themnax

    themnax Senior Member

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    neat fun invisible things don't have to be gods to give great hugs or for us to be nice to them.
     
  11. Cherea

    Cherea Senior Member

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    Classic example of atheist date rape.
     
  12. Grainpsilo

    Grainpsilo Member

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    I am an atheist and find my spiritual wellspring in nature and learning all I can about ecology ( how things ina ecosystem are connected).... Also I somewhat worship magic mushrooms.

    Eastern religions also have a lot of wisdom but I would never become a devotee of any of them. I do have a lot of Buddha wood carving in my home though because I like the symbolism.
     

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