Atheist experience

[northape]

I love reading a thread like this and realizing its like 15 years old. My slide into atheism happened at the same time in my life when I was I most into dmt. Honestly dmt was so powerful that I thought if your brain can do this it means all religious or spiritual experiences are just hallucinations like near death experiences etc. Im not sure if I still think this. But yea Im a materialist despite my best efforts not to be!

Atheism is just one more belief system. Does it even matter what we believe in? This whole life project is about investigating reality yourself, imo.
As they say in Dzogchen and the Middle Way - any view is the wrong view. It is better just to be open to everything. Who knows what is what?
Anyhow, Jesus will save us all

 

[Varallo]

Atheism is just one more belief system. Does it even matter what we believe in? This whole life project is about investigating reality yourself, imo.
As they say in Dzogchen and the Middle Way - any view is the wrong view. It is better just to be open to everything. Who knows what is what?
Anyhow, Jesus will save us all

I would say it’s a position regarding one specific claim, the existence of deities, rather than one more belief system. The funny thing however, is that when discussing this in the context of doctrines, it has the habit of becoming one itself

 

[northape]

I would say it’s a position regarding one specific claim, the existence of deities, rather than one more belief system. The funny thing however, is that when discussing this in the context of doctrines, it has the habit of becoming one itself

Aren't deities real? If you have pictures of them, descriptions, and stories, they are alive in your mind. Why should they be stand-alone conscious entities to be real?
I see deities as representations of the mind. We just have no idea how vast our mind is. And even if they were independent, you only work with their mirror image inside yourself. Atheism has its own deities. They just use different terms. I-World-God come into existence simultaneously. They are part of one package and are ultimately One and the same.
The Moon got to me, so don't take it all very seriously

 

[Voidmatrix]

Does it even matter what we believe in?

Beliefs are just poor maps.

This whole life project is about investigating reality yourself, imo.

We can never escape our own phenomenology, such that, when we study something it's virtually impossible to tell if we've truly studied something outside our perspective or if we've just shifted our phenomenology.

As they say in Dzogchen and the Middle Way - any view is the wrong view.

Yeah I look at this as balance. Balance in all things, even in imbalancing balance.

It is better just to be open to everything.

Don't be so open-minded you brain falls out

Who knows what is what?

Probably no one. Any appearance of such is likely an act, whether conscious or not.

I would say it’s a position regarding one specific claim, the existence of deities, rather than one more belief system.

is that when discussing this in the context of doctrines, it has the habit of becoming one itself

That claim is going to reflect whatever system generates it, similar to how a fact is only a fact in a paradigm that generates and substantiates it. It's hard to get out of that net

Aren't deities real? If you have pictures of them, descriptions, and stories, they are alive in your mind. Why should they be stand-alone conscious entities to be real?

Now we're talking more about a kind of ontological qualia: are deities real in the same way Santa Clause is real (I doubt there's a fat dude at the North Pole, that flies around the world to give all the kids toys on Christmas, especially in places that don't celebrate Christmas, in 24 hours ) or like in the way that you, or @Varallo, or myself seem to be real?

Problem of other minds is real

And even if they were independent, you only work with their mirror image inside yourself.

Why? When interacting with you, I am not just interacting with a mirror image of myself.

Atheism has its own deities. They just use different terms. I-World-God come into existence simultaneously. They are part of one package and are ultimately One and the same.

Maybe I am too far down the left-hand path, but this is similar to the idea that all paradigms are pointing to the same truth. I think this is a mistake. Talking about the same thing is not the same as pointing at the same truth.

The Moon got to me, so don't take it all very seriously

I'm dead

One love

 

[northape]

In my Amanita-fueled lunacy, I almost believed in Northapeism.
Thank God that disorder disappeared after a good night's rest

 

[Here&Now]

I would say it’s a position regarding one specific claim, the existence of deities, rather than one more belief system. The funny thing however, is that when discussing this in the context of doctrines, it has the habit of becoming one itself

In that sense, would it be the case that atheists don't believe even in the possibility of alternate dimensions; other planes of existence that are populated by conscious intelligences? I'm talking about in a scientific context rather than a mythological one.

I may be wrong, but when I see an atheist deny the standard Christian model of reality, I feel like they're simply rejecting the childish notions of the mythology (rightfully so imo). If you were to re-frame it scientifically, I think they'd lean much more agnostic on the question rather than a staunch denial of the possibility.

 

[burnt]

When I say atheist I mean a rejection of the monotheistic god (christian, islam, jewish etc). I see no reason to believe in such a concept of god. The same goes for most other polytheistic religions. I can accept the caveat that in some cases maybe gods was a metaphor for a concept or whatever. But thats bending words too much. What I really mean is I dont believe conciousness beings control the universe / reality outside of our minds.

When I say I am a materialist I mean I do not believe in anything supernatural. I mean this at a fundamental level. Now do I claim that we have all the answers? No absolutely not. We dont understand dark matter, dark energy, what happened before the big bang (if anything), is there a universe or multiverswle, what the observer effects mean in quantum mechanics, or what conciousness really is. I dont believe in panpsychism because I dont think its necessary and the only evidence for it is essentially absence of understanding of those things I mentioned.

Usually if we make it this far I am ready to talk to someone about what god might mean.

 

[Voidmatrix]

If "God" exists and was dead set on us being aware of it, incontrovertibly, then we would.

One love

 

[Here&Now]

When I say atheist I mean a rejection of the monotheistic god (christian, islam, jewish etc). I see no reason to believe in such a concept of god. The same goes for most other polytheistic religions. I can accept the caveat that in some cases maybe gods was a metaphor for a concept or whatever. But thats bending words too much. What I really mean is I dont believe conciousness beings control the universe / reality outside of our minds.

Definitely. Like I was saying in my previous post, I think you're in the right to reject those mythology-based stories about a monotheistic god. To those with some education and critical-thinking skills (as atheists often have), Western religion in its current form is obviously a farce.

Do you have knowledge of the esoteric aspects of the Eastern religions? As a long-time psychedelic user, I imagine you might find a few parallels between your own direct experience and the consciousness-based claims that they make regarding reality. When you add in the fact that humans are able to perform sober practices in awareness that produce astonishing states of consciousness (often psychedelic-like), I think it at least opens the door for further questions as to what's really going on.

When I say I am a materialist I mean I do not believe in anything supernatural. I mean this at a fundamental level. Now do I claim that we have all the answers? No absolutely not. We dont understand dark matter, dark energy, what happened before the big bang (if anything), is there a universe or multiverswle, what the observer effects mean in quantum mechanics, or what conciousness really is. I dont believe in panpsychism because I dont think its necessary and the only evidence for it is essentially absence of understanding of those things I mentioned.

I've always found the word "supernatural" to be strange. What does it really mean? To a person living hundreds of years ago, would they consider our modern technology to be supernatural? They probably would, but they'd be incorrect to think so. It's just an extension of the natural world beyond what they were able to comprehend.

I'd wager the natural world extends even further than our current comprehension, and based on your openness and the mysteries you listed, it seems like you do as well. In my opinion, the distinction between supernatural and natural is essentially meaningless, and the world would be better off if the additional category disappeared altogether.

I don't say any of the above in trying to argue or change your mind. This is just for the sake of friendly banter and tepid pushback.

 

[Voidmatrix]

It's just an extension of the natural world beyond what they were able to comprehend.

Henceforth if we could comprehend the God's they wouldn't seem so special

One love

 

[Here&Now]

Henceforth if we could comprehend the God's they wouldn't seem so special

One love

Right, as wild as that would be from our current perspective, I believe an ongoing existence in higher consciousness would take on the characteristic of being relatively ordinary.

I guess you could sort of make the comparison to strong psychedelic trips here. An absolute beginner with no context usually has their mind blown beyond what they could have imagined. But a seasoned psychonaut, despite still being impressed, has at least settled into the wonder of it all, and the experience no longer falls into the category of being impossible.

 

[Voidmatrix]

Right, as wild as that would be from our current perspective, I believe an ongoing existence in higher consciousness would take on the characteristic of being relatively ordinary.

I guess you could sort of make the comparison to strong psychedelic trips here. An absolute beginner with no context usually has their mind blown beyond what they could have imagined. But a seasoned psychonaut, despite still being impressed, has at least settled into the wonder of it all, and the experience no longer falls into the category of being impossible.

Yeah... this is kind of why I have no pressing questions for entities. I tend to just want to hang out and bond. Why should I think they have the answers to my questions just because I don't have a cohesive and reliable explanation for them?

One love

 

[Here&Now]

Yeah... this is kind of why I have no pressing questions for entities. I tend to just want to hang out and bond. Why should I think they have the answers to my questions just because I don't have a cohesive and reliable explanation for them?

That's a good attitude to take with the bizarre phenomenon of entities. In my limited experience with them, they seem to react with a mirror-like quality to our present state, so the urgency of trying to question it produces erratic behavior. It seems like in these more refined states, it's all about being.

 

[Voidmatrix]

That's a good attitude to take with the bizarre phenomenon of entities. In my limited experience with them, they seem to react with a mirror-like quality to our present state, so the urgency of trying to question it produces erratic behavior. It seems like in these more refined states, it's all about being.

Yeah, they don't necessarily mirror my state... they show up how their going to show up. But why? You're not the only person that has mentioned them showing up mirror us in some way, but I don't see that in many of my experiences.

But being was what I truly and deeply discovered the first time I did changa. And often, that's the only intent behind getting into the space.

One love

 

[Varallo]

In that sense, would it be the case that atheists don't believe even in the possibility of alternate dimensions; other planes of existence that are populated by conscious intelligences? I'm talking about in a scientific context rather than a mythological one.

I may be wrong, but when I see an atheist deny the standard Christian model of reality, I feel like they're simply rejecting the childish notions of the mythology (rightfully so imo). If you were to re-frame it scientifically, I think they'd lean much more agnostic on the question rather than a staunch denial of the possibility.

Definitely. Like I was saying in my previous post, I think you're in the right to reject those mythology-based stories about a monotheistic god. To those with some education and critical-thinking skills (as atheists often have), Western religion in its current form is obviously a farce.

Do you have knowledge of the esoteric aspects of the Eastern religions? As a long-time psychedelic user, I imagine you might find a few parallels between your own direct experience and the consciousness-based claims that they make regarding reality. When you add in the fact that humans are able to perform sober practices in awareness that produce astonishing states of consciousness (often psychedelic-like), I think it at least opens the door for further questions as to what's really going on.


I've always found the word "supernatural" to be strange. What does it really mean? To a person living hundreds of years ago, would they consider our modern technology to be supernatural? They probably would, but they'd be incorrect to think so. It's just an extension of the natural world beyond what they were able to comprehend.

I'd wager the natural world extends even further than our current comprehension, and based on your openness and the mysteries you listed, it seems like you do as well. In my opinion, the distinction between supernatural and natural is essentially meaningless, and the world would be better off if the additional category disappeared altogether.

I don't say any of the above in trying to argue or change your mind. This is just for the sake of friendly banter and tepid pushback.

I wouldn’t call atheism a belief. Atheists don’t “believe” in the same sense that religious people do, Imo it’s more of a position, a stance that one takes toward claims about religious beliefs in gods (including those Eastern ones). From that stance, it’s not a denial of reality itself but a refusal to affirm something without sufficient ground or sufficient evidence.

Even from a constructivist point of view, where truth is seen as something we construct rather than discover, and knowledge arises from how we interpret experience, ideas like other dimensions or religious worlds are still epistemic positions. They’re frameworks humans use to create meaning, not reflections of any objective reality, in which I mean the shared reality.

If you approach it scientifically, from a Popperian perspective, you’d say that such claims aren’t science. They lack falsifiability or empirical grounding. So disbelief in gods isn’t the same as disbelief in other dimensions, where the lather could be an hypothesis, it’s simply disbelief in claims that are either non-falsifiable or contradicted by evidence. In that sense, there’s “nothing there” scientifically, not because it’s impossible, but because there’s no testable model connecting those ideas to observable data.

Of course when taking an more positive atheist view, you could say that there’s no proof so therefore no god, I personally are more an negative atheist, as in no proof no belief.

 

[northape]

I dont believe in panpsychism because I dont think its necessary and the only evidence for it is essentially absence of understanding of those things I mentioned.

Have you read anything by Bernardo Kastrup? I like his take on the problem of consciousness and how easily he addresses it.

I wouldn’t call atheism a belief. Atheists don’t “believe” in the same sense that religious people do, Imo it’s more of a position, a stance that one takes toward claims about religious beliefs in gods ( including those Easter ones). From that stance, it’s not a denial of reality itself but a refusal to affirm something without sufficient ground or sufficient evidence.

This God in the sky idea is a very surface-level understanding. Any religion has a mystic part, and that is the true core of the tradition. God is consciousness in many of them, including Christianity. Atheism, just like any other -ism, is a system of belief. You can disagree and argue about it. That would not be far from a fundamental Islamism in my eyes then

Even from a constructivist point of view, where truth is seen as something we construct rather than discover, and knowledge arises from how we interpret experience, ideas like other dimensions or religious worlds are still epistemic positions. They’re frameworks humans use to create meaning, not reflections of any objective reality, in which I mean the shared reality.

All these systems of belief are like apps on a phone. You can run a number of them on your device, but the question is: what is running them? Who is looking? Who is thinking?
That is my issue with atheism and its focus on objectivity. Who said that there is any objective world at all, when you can only know anything subjectively? And do not start with instruments and such. In the end, it is a subject that evaluates the data. I feel that true discovery is possible only through introspection.

We are storytelling creatures, and our story of God is a myth to represent what cannot be put into words or logic. We use that concept as a place-holder to touch what cannot be touched. There are a number of similar cases in science, where we create a concept pointing at a higher level of complexity that we cannot yet reach. Sure, being fundamental about God is short-sighted, but writing it all off as superstition is just ignorance.

 

[Varallo]

This God in the sky idea is a very surface-level understanding. Any religion has a mystic part, and that is the true core of the tradition. God is consciousness in many of them, including Christianity. Atheism, just like any other -ism, is a system of belief. You can disagree and argue about it. That would not be far from a fundamental Islamism in my eyes then

I think you’re misunderstanding what I was saying . This isn’t about whether religion has a mystical or traditional core or not. It’s about the difference between believing something and not accepting a claim as true.

Saying “atheism is a belief system” is like saying that not believing in fairies is also a belief system. It isn’t. It’s just the absence of belief when there’s no evidence for the claim. Denying the truth of a statement isn’t the same as believing the opposite.

So when I say atheism isn’t a belief, I mean exactly that, it’s not a counter-religion or another metaphysical framework. It’s a position that withholds belief until there’s something to base it on.

All these systems of belief are like apps on a phone. You can run a number of them on your device, but the question is: what is running them? Who is looking? Who is thinking?
That is my issue with atheism and its focus on objectivity. Who said that there is any objective world at all, when you can only know anything subjectively? And do not start with instruments and such. In the end, it is a subject that evaluates the data. I feel that true discovery is possible only through introspection.

It’s an epistemological issue. The subjectivity of knowledge doesn’t validate an ontological claim, even if truth is constructed, it doesn’t follow that gods therefore exist. Subjective experience isn’t automatic evidence of the reality of what’s experienced, and whether you take a materialist or a positivist view, neither changes that for the atheist.

When you say everything is subjective, that claim applies to itself too. If no objective standard exists, then your own statement can’t claim any more truth than anyone else’s perception. A worldview that denies objectivity can’t coherently assert universal truths about consciousness or divinity in that way it collapses under its own premise.

 

[northape]

So when I say atheism isn’t a belief, I mean exactly that, it’s not a counter-religion or another metaphysical framework. It’s a position that withholds belief until there’s something to base it on.

It’s an epistemological issue. The subjectivity of knowledge doesn’t validate an ontological claim, even if truth is constructed, it doesn’t follow that gods therefore exist. Subjective experience isn’t automatic evidence of the reality of what’s experienced, and whether you take a materialist or a positivist view, neither changes that for the atheist.

Thanks for this. I can more easily understand your point of view now.

I hope no one gets offended by my posts at this point. I am quite often talking way over my head and doing it in a dogmatic manner. Just take it all with a big pinch of salt and use it as an exercise in patience. I am open to all views if you can show me their validity from your side. Maybe I am an atheist myself, according to your definition. Honestly, I am not a believer in God as an entity. My God is the force that knows the way: what makes flowers bloom and children grow. If you name it Nature, I will agree with you on the spot, too.

When you say everything is subjective, that claim applies to itself too. If no objective standard exists, then your own statement can’t claim any more truth than anyone else’s perception. A worldview that denies objectivity can’t coherently assert universal truths about consciousness or divinity in that way it collapses under its own premise.

I am not 100% sure, but maybe I meant to do just that - collapse even my own worldview. That would be akin to a koan, where subjectivity collapses, leaving you with what lies underneath, or reality. Lots of my writing is kind of intuitive. I can ponder for days later on about what I meant.

 

[Varallo]

Thanks for this. I can more easily understand your point of view now.

I hope no one gets offended by my posts at this point. I am quite often talking way over my head and doing it in a dogmatic manner. Just take it all with a big pinch of salt and use it as an exercise in patience. I am open to all views if you can show me their validity from your side. Maybe I am an atheist myself, according to your definition. Honestly, I am not a believer in God as an entity. My God is the force that knows the way: what makes flowers bloom and children grow. If you name it Nature, I will agree with you on the spot, too.


I am not 100% sure, but maybe I meant to do just that - collapse even my own worldview. That would be akin to a koan, where subjectivity collapses, leaving you with what lies underneath, or reality. Lots of my writing is kind of intuitive. I can ponder for days later on about what I meant.

I think what’s happening in this discussion is that you’re speaking more from a poetic and philosophical stream of thought, while I’m responding from a more logic-driven and analytical angle shaped by my background. Both have value, and I don’t think we’re actually opposing each other that much, it’s more that we’re approaching the same question from a different direction.

I don’t think anyone, let alone me be offended by your point of view, thanks for sharing, and my apologies if I came across as rhetorical.

 

[Here&Now]

@Varallo Northape already made most of the points I would have (more eloquently than I could), so I'll just follow up from there.

It’s an epistemological issue. The subjectivity of knowledge doesn’t validate an ontological claim, even if truth is constructed, it doesn’t follow that gods therefore exist. Subjective experience isn’t automatic evidence of the reality of what’s experienced, and whether you take a materialist or a positivist view, neither changes that for the atheist.

This line is a bit of a showstopper, but I think it's overall fair. It's difficult to argue against the logic of it, and I have nothing I can offer to fulfill the requirement you're proposing.

An important distinction between the exoteric and esoteric aspects of religions is that the esoteric does depend on evidence for their claims, but that evidence is itself the natural human capacity for the initiation of profoundly elevated states of consciousness, as well as the subjective and historically consistent contents of those states. In our modern age, using EEGs and other scanning tools, there's no longer a question of whether these states can be genuinely induced. Now it's more of a question of what they are and what they mean. In my opinion, further research involving genuinely capable candidates is needed. I wholeheartedly believe the evidence needed to convince a scientific skeptic exists, should the appropriate amount of effort and skill be expended to uncover it.

I won't push further though, because you've already made an excellent case for why you think about it the way you do, and we're all entitled to our chosen frameworks. Thanks for offering your perspective.