What it does is what it Is

Check out the effects psilocybin has on death anxiety. scientificamerican.com/arti … -of-death/

Possibly my favourite drug alongside MDMA. But I’d not base a divine ontological theory on their effects.
In fact I’ve probably taken as many or more different drugs than most; my only serious exception being heroin.
Have you tasted the delights of mushies?

I have experienced the sacred mushrooms and LSD.

The objection to Huxley’s peyote experiment was that ‘the results should not be conflated with objective religious mysticism"-- whatever that might mean.
There is no good reason to believe these experiments cannot reveal, in the “hinterlands” of the mind’, something of spiritual value. If it can do so, it is an indication that religion might not be only subjective forays into the supernatural, but may reveal natural phenomena. Psychedelics can transport the mind to surreal experiences and to heaven and hell. See John Lilly’s experiments of taking LSD in a sensory deprivation tank.
There is the belief that taking psychedelic drugs caused the evolution of an ape-like creature into homo sapiens. McKenna argues that use of mushrooms caused humans to develop language.
Who is to decide what the human mind contains?

We seem to need to know that the things we perceive are real in the sense that they are what we expect them to be. It would be difficult to walk down a road that is moving. Apparently, taking mescaline, psilocybin or LSD can distort the need for bearings. So perception is locked generally in a survival mode. OBEs and NDEs are due to chemical changes in the brain that, like hallucinogens, bypass what we consider to be normal perception. This is not to say that these conditions do not offer insights into experiences considered spiritual. It’s all a matter of personal interpretation of the experience. I’ve had spiritual experiences and have never taken any of the above mentioned drugs or any mind altering substance.

The ultimate mystery is not the cause of slaughter and war; these are crimes coming from people who worship an anthropomorphized god, one that is all too human. The ultimate mystery is the ground of all Being, both personal and universal. There is, within you, the door to the mystery as experience. There is the possibility of sanity if one seeks, not worships, divine inclusion in all that exists. Silence, music and meditation are ways of sensing the inexpressible, of contact with the ultimate mystery.

“Science is not only compatible with spirituality: it is a profound source of spirituality.”–Carl Sagan

A true atheist

It looks like if Sagan were a true atheist, he would not acknowledge that science is “a profound source of spirituality”. I can’t imagine Dawkins saying anything like that. Aren’t spirituality and science at odds in a true atheist’s mindset? What sort of spirituality would an atheist espouse? In other words, what would an atheist think it is like to be spiritual and still be a “true” atheist?

Deepak Chopra says that religion is being told while spirituality is experiencing. I’ve tried to make that distinction clear here only to be told that science opposes both claims. Now, all of the sudden, Cart Sagan is a true atheist?!!
“I am not an atheist.”–Carl Sagan
Sagan was an agnostic whose spiritual beliefs may be described as pantheistic.

In the dialogues concerning natural religion, Hume has Demea say "we must therefore have recourse to a necessarily existent being who carries the reason of his existence in himself and who cannot be supposed not to exist without an express contradiction. There is consequently such a being that is there is a deity. Philo refutes the argument by saying that any matter of fact synthetic truth cannot be proved by any a priori arguments that is deductive proofs such as the one finds in mathematics and logic. Whatever can be conceived as existent can also be conceived of as non-existent. e.g. the sun may not rise tomorrow. There is no being who’s non-existence implies a contradiction. Hence there are no analytic proofs for establishing the existence of God. To establish such existence would have to turn to the evidence of the senses but in the case of a supreme Being the senses are dumb.

But what of being itself? Why is there anything and not nothing? The ontic–beings emerge from and return to X. The ancient Chinese called it the Tao the mother of us all. Wisdom was found in its contemplation. Aldous Huxley called this activity “The Perennial Philosophy”. But alas not everyone sees what he saw when his doors of perception were cleansed.

Ierrellus,

Hi Ierrellus,

I do not think that buddhists/buddhist monks go shouting to the world that they are “true atheists” but they are since they have no belief in god.


“There are so many ways of making the approach to meditation as joyful as possible. You can find the music that most exalts you and use it to open your heart and mind. You can collect pieces of poetry, or quotations of lines of teachings that over the years have moved you, and keep them always at hand to elevate your spirit.” ~ Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

The above speaks to me as at least one way a Buddhist would consider him/her-self to be spiritual or being part of the spiritual life although I doubt that they would shout out to the world that they are spiritual.

One does not have to have a belief in God in order to have a spiritual life. Attending to and enlarging one’s spiritual life would involve doing whatever makes that person feel that they are contributing to the world, whatever makes them feel whole, joyful, at one with the Universe, ad continuum.

Looking up at the stars, worshipping nature, reading a wonderful book that turns one on to life and spirit, listening to wonderful music, taking a walk out in a heavy rain, walking into the wind and so loving it - all of those things could contribute to the spiritual life of an atheist and make him feel Whole spiritually.

An atheist is just as human as a believer. Who knows? Perhaps an atheist needs more of a spiritual life than does a believer.
Spiritual and religious do not necessarily mean the same thing.

“Spiritual” too is a metaphor. Spirits are invisible agents. Much like covid-19. If intelligence is defined as the ability to process information, then covid-19 is intelligent. It processed the information necessary to evolve into the Delta variant which is more deadly and more contagious than the earlier species of the virus. Now the panpsychists would also say that covid-19 is conscious. What do you suppose the pragmatic implications of that proposition are?

You have absolutely no understanding of the process of viral variation.
The virus cannot process information.
Variants are not the result of intelligent design since a virus has no machanism for doing that.
Here’s what ACTAULLY happens.
Trillions of viruses replicate in host cells, in millions of people all over the world
This is subject to RANDOM errors in transcription.
Mostly these errors cause the failure of the virus, in the millions
Occaisionally these errors lead to a slightly different strain which persists.
Science has already identified thousands of such variations.
Once in while a variant is slightly better suited to survive in its host.
The so-called “delta” variant is a little better at infecting the host.
Because delta is slightly better it makes better headway in the infections than the older variant.
It then becomes the most common type of covid.

The virus knows nothing. It does not know what a host is. it does not know how, or why, or with what it infects. It does not understand infection, or disease. It just exists, and reproduces.

This is not “intelligent” in any meaningful way. It is not what we mean by “spirit”.

Your post is childish nonsense that ought not to appear on a forum claiming to be a philosophy one.

The Delta is very much LESS deadly than the original. Variants become wiser toward their own proliferation - * spread faster,

  • more stealthy, and
  • less likely to kill the host.

That is what is meant by “intelligent design”.

You have just described some of the spiritual experiences claimed by those who say they have experienced contact with God. What’s in a name? A rose by any other would smell as sweet. I think Buddhists are God’s special people.
I thought I gave a decent description of the difference between religion and spirituality.
All I want is for a devout atheist to describe what a spiritual experience is like. The agnostics, Einstein and Sagan, seem to believe it entails awe and wonder at the operative complexity of the natural world and the vastness of the universe. A spiritual person would agree.

One early study assessing the risk of hospital admission in Scotland reported that hospitalization is twice as likely in unvaccinated individuals with Delta than in unvaccinated individuals with Alpha. If the Delta variant is less deadly it is because the vaccines are effective. This is not to say that you’re wrong about the likelihood of less lethal viruses to survive. I’m thinking in terms of natural selection not intelligent design. Sculptor nicely summarized how it works.

You could write to the administrators and see if you can get me banned from ILP. It’s not likely to work though. Meanwhile, I applaud your verbal battle on behalf your point of view. It’s almost heroic. I rate it right up there with Iambiguous’. Maybe even higher.

Dawkins should be banned too. After all calling a gene "selfish"was anthropomorphic. Or as you would say “childish”.

Still more he called the whole process of evolution a “blind watchmaker”. That’s a far more vivid personification then “spirit”. So Paley’s watchmaker was blind? A blind person would be an intelligent designer. No? Like the Gnostic demiurge or the deity of deism. I’m glad Dawkins cleared that up!

Dawkins would be 100% behind everything I said. You are just too dumb to understand how he is using the word.
You are totally clueless.
Paley is as dead as a dodo. No one takes him seriously except damn fools desperate to hang on to the vestige of god.
Get serious!

I suggest you actually read my description of how a new variant virus emerges, because there is no one in biological science that would disagree with me. Not Dawkins, not Gould.

So does Sculptor decide what is appropriate in the Sandbox or what philosophy should be under any condition? At least Iambiguous was civil, although redundant.