Even though I disbelieve in the God of theism, I still feel that I have had two or three numinous or transcendent "experiences" that have enriched my life, even given me purpose and direction at times.

I don't claim these experiences are divine, from a God or gods. Maybe they come from within my own psyche, and that is a possibility I am fine with. Maybe they were emotions, but they had a content that was not just feelings.

The point is that I cherish these experiences, especially since they have helped show me the difference between the constructs of God in LDS and judeo-christian scriptures and what I would consider moral, ethical, and worthy of reverence.

Does anyone else here who can not believe in the God of theism have any sort of spiritual experience, practice or belief? If so, what do you call it?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/2015 09:31PM by generationofvipers.

Believe nothing,
No matter where you read it,
Or who has said it,
Not even if I have said it,
Unless it agrees with your own reason
And your own common sense. -- Buddha

Funny, it seems to me that Buddha argues against making him or what he says into a higher power.

I agree..one reason I respect the Buddha. This "Be a lamp unto yourselves" you quote from was his final teaching.

If you meet Buddah on the road, kill him!
- Buddah

I call it the government.

The universe has a great deal more power over my life than I. In reality, I have little power over my life. I base this on my ability, or rather my inability, to control the people around me, gravity, the orbit of the planet, the sun, etc.. I do not call it anything like a "higher power" in the way people try to use it.

Just about what I was going to say!

I call it ME.

If, during orgasm, I were to call out, "Oh (insert name of girl friend)", I worry that she would stop what she was doing to ask, "What?" So that's why, as an atheist, I still 'believe' in ghawd.

The reason why most guys yell out "Oh, god" is because they don't want to call out the wrong girlfriend's name by mistake.

elderolddog Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If, during orgasm, I were to call out, "Oh (insert
> name of girl friend)", I worry that she would stop
> what she was doing to ask, "What?" So that's why,
> as an atheist, I still 'believe' in ghawd.



The Ghawd of sex , right?

Common sense and education.

Hot coffee. Black.

As does Logos
or Genius,
All ancient words with a lot of meaning to me personally

Logos.

That would be my choice of terms.

Art thee an acolyte of Philip K Dick, perchance?

I like the Ancient Greek and Roman Stoics, although I'm more of an Epicurean, than a Stoic.

This guy tells all about Aurelius in the 2nd Half of this podcast.

http://www.cbc.ca/tapestry/episode/2009/02/01/ariane-sherine-russell-mcneil/

He was one of my favorite philosophers.
Epicurus was my favorite philosopher.
He not only came up with non deterministic atomic theory (quantum theory) he came up with a 4 part cure for what ailes us and an ethic of reciprocity (Golden Rule) 300 years before Christ, 2,300 years before we proved him right.

THis podcast talks alot about Epicurus.
http://www.onbeing.org/program/history-doubt/51



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/2015 09:48PM by koriwhore.

No, I don't have anything that I would call my higher power. I have human traits such as instinct. I have things that I hope for. I have teaching experiences, meaning that my experiences have taught me when to be cautious, when to be friendly, etc.

I think Logos is a good term. I personally was most moved by the Hindi idea that God cannot be defined. If God exists it would be unlikely that I could ascribe any meaningful definition to it.

What can be named is not the Tao.

Mmmm-raoww ... rrr

That must be the name of my higher power, because that’s what I say when I reach rutabaga during sex. It’s kind of cat-like. Here kitty, kitty…

No, seriously generationofvipers, I have had similar transcendent "experiences" that have enriched my life, too. I just assumed I was temporarily achieving some sort of heightened state of conscious awareness. Whether it came from within me, or if I was tapping into some universal or collective consciousness, I don’t really know. But something was certainly going on; so I just went with it because I couldn’t really define it, being an atheist and all. So I’ll stab at calling it heightened awareness.

Could you be more specific, so we could all have a laugh at your expense please.
My soccer team have just dumped man city out the cup, this will be the icing on the cake.

I assume maybe you were asking me, so ok, sure.

I had this girlfriend once who was very adept at reaching multiple orgasms. So, often when we were finished she would say, ‘Wow, you’ve completely turned me into a rutabaga’. Over time, this became a joke between us, and we could publicly say, ‘let’s go home, and you can turn me into a turnip’. ‘I’m totally turnip’ed’ … or, ‘I’m completely rutabaga now’ were also after sex terms we would murmur to each other as we lay there in post-coital bliss.

Is that specific enough?

I wouldn't call myself a believer, but I'm not prepared to go full-on athiest. I tend to follow the teachings of Star Trek - being that humanity is capable of astonishing good if we would put our differences aside and focus on how we can better our world and each other. Since Jean-Luc Picard never wrote a book, my Scriptures would probably be The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo and the works of Tolkien.

The second law of thermodynamics.

I might call it any of:

Wonder
Mystery
Emotion

I feel an awe toward the universe but I wouldn't describe it as a higher power.

There's a new book out on Amazon called From Mormon to Mystic that talks of the transcendent experience in a secular sense.

James Bond
Sushi, Tempura
"Nuculer" physics
Google
My dog

Why does there have to be a "higher power"? I get the feeling that most people need a leader who they perceive as being better than them.

Brain chemistry.

If we can accept the phenomenon of deja vu as something that just happens within the brain, what is privileged about a transcendental experience?

If mental illness, sleep deprivation, stress, alcohol and certain other drugs can cause a dysfunction in the chemical reactions within the brain, which result in hallucination, why would the assumption be that some god or gods are responsible for other seemingly unusual experiences?

The sciences of physics, biology and chemistry.

Aitor Karanka

My universe functions just the same without one.

I don't believe in a "higher" power as you put it, when I have a big decision to make, I gather as much info as I can, seek out family, friends, colleagues that have made similar decisions, make the best decision possible and accept the possible consequences good and/or bad. Seems to work just as well and often better than praying to a higher power did

One of the things that made me question the idea of God in the first place was realizing how little God had to do with my life on a day to day basis, as someone else said, not much has changed

a surge of dopamine

Absolutely! We have a winner.

Peer-Reviewed Science

The thing that radically changed my life for the better was the realization that I'm not doomed to failure without a "higher power" propping me up. Surprise, I'm competent on my own without begging help from the mystical invisible forces somewhere out there.

Yes it's called 240, I also have 110. Also have gas.

What? That went into the wrong post. LOL

Deleted.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/25/2015 12:40PM by Greyfort.

I felt silly praying to God after witnessing 3,000 people die after praying fervently to an interventionist God, who did not intervene.
"Nietzsche was right. God is dead."
A stayed there awhile.
While I was there, in that smoldering hellscape of disillusionment, betrayal of faith, I read a famous quote by Gandhi, "be the change you want to see in the world." And it struck me he was right.
I read The End of Faith by Harris and it seemed to make sense. Yes it is possible to lose your faith and not lose hope for humanity or in our innate goodness or in the benevolent nature of the cosmos, which has conspired here, now, to give us life, after a billion years of life Earth.

The Mrs.

Eric Clapton