First let me just be clear I am not an expert on history, sociology, theology or even science. So what I've written here are only my opinions backed with what knowledge I have. I can't guarantee they are accurate in the real world or the answers to your questions. For starters I'm not 100% sure that number is accurate. Most people seem to think that being an atheist means strictly having no spiritual or supernatural beliefs at all. But as an atheist born and raised in a family of atheists, I can tell you that's not it. What it really means is no belief in any particular god, anything else is permissible for an atheist. Including spirts, ghosts, astral projection, chakras, cosmic energy, astrology, reincarnation even the afterlife. Buddhists are atheists too, along with any religion that doesn't worship a defined deity. So if that 16% is only people with zero spiritual or supernatural beliefs then it's not the correct percentage of atheists in the world. Perhaps one reason is that religion has been a part of every human civilization since before recorded history. In 1600s Britain, church and state were interwoven until you couldn't tell where one ended and the other began. Clergymen made up part of parliament, walk into a church and you'd see not a cross but the royal crest above the altar. Throughout Europe, the church was interwoven into everyone's life. With baptism the church brought you into this world, guided you through it and sent you into the next. And it was more involved with your life along the way as it also ran schools, libraries and even early banks. And that's just Christianity, which didn't really take off until the 400s. Relatively speaking our age of secularism and separation of church and state only just got started. Another reason might be that science can't give people what religion does. Inspiration, morality, guidance, hope, comfort in dire times. When people need these things they may turn to a book. But I doubt that book was called A Brief History of Time. And I think that if we turned to science to tell us what we should do it would be a disaster. Science is the pursuit of knowledge and truth but it can't tell us what is acceptable in pursuit of it or what we should do with it. Science told us how to build nuclear weapons but not if we should press the button. Myself I've wondered how in this day and age anyone can believe in God or any god. But I've come to realise that science doesn't necessarily dispel religious, spiritual or supernatural beliefs. For a time I thought the religious in this day and age were stupid or from backwards countries where people didn't know better. But then I heard that theologians are among the smartest and best educated people around, studying their discipline for years. And there are such people as Vatican scientists. People seem to think that the discovery of evolution and dinosaur bones is proof of the non-existence of God. Why? Because it goes against the bible's explanation of the origin of the universe and therefore everything in the bible is wrong. But doesn't that just mean the bible's first bit is wrong? Why should evolution and dinosaurs invalidate everything in it? And even if the bible is all wrong, why should that mean there is no God? As a man once said "The bible did not arrive by fax," it was written by flawed man and not a perfect god. If in a thousand years someone wrote a fictious book about my life and one day someone else proved it wasn't accurate, does that mean I never existed or that this account of me was wrong? The same could apply to God. Throughout history science has actually dispelled science over and over. Up till the late 1800s, medical experts had all kinds of strange, literally medieval, ideas about disease. That it was caused by bad smells or an imbalance of humours. Until people like Louis Pasteur discovered the existence of microbes. And then there are the revelations in physics caused by Planck and Einstein, who himself was later corrected by others. Did people think science was all wrong when these revelations happened? Or did they just think scientific beliefs needed to be modified and adapted? Maybe science doesn't mean God and the supernatural don't exist but just not in they way we previously thought? As they once said on South Park "Couldn't evolution be the answer to how instead of why?" There are some people who think that science actually increases the validity of God's existence. Scottish engineer Robert Stevenson used his scientific knowledge to design lighthouses that would withstand harsh weather. But he was a big believer in God. To him, science didn't wipe away God's existence but the fog around his workings. Things like gravity, genetics and chemical reactions were how God performed miracles, not things that explained them away. I used to know a man, not even a Christian, who thought that scientific investigation into the origin of life on Earth actually pointed towards an intelligence at work. That since science revealed how unlikely it was that our planet had all the perfect conditions for life, it seemed to him we shouldn't be so quick to think this was all a happy accident. And these musings are mostly on the Christian God. They don't even cover all the other religions out there and throughout history. And then there are all the spiritual and supernatural beliefs that aren't necessarily affiliated with an organised religion. For almost my whole life I thought science was a kind of force. It was chemical reactions, gravity, mathematics, atomic forces and interactions. Science was the thing that made everything happen. Science was devoid of anything even remotely magical. I was genially shocked to learn just a few years ago that science was defined as a collection of knowledge that had been observed and tested. Not only was science not a force itself but if the supernatural was ever found to be real, it would become part of science! I'm not saying I believe in God, the spiritual and the supernatural. What I am saying is that the idea science should mean we should stop believing in gods, spirits or anything supernatural is (ironically) unscientific.
Yah. The average buff who regards science as a prescription for metaphysics, ethics, politics, life or personal outlook, etc -- is mistaking science as a philosophy (scientism). It's a multidisciplinary effort that employs methodological naturalism as its regulating guide. (Albeit, as you say, in theory even that operative supposition could be dethroned by proof of the supernatural.) Science (especially the physical sciences category) neither outputs what absolutely IS nor what we OUGHT to do (morally, socially, goal-wise, etc). But instead delivers effective and practical knowledge that is open to future revision. The sociological and psychological "soft sciences" are historically rife with replication problems and a repertoire of other invalid science vulnerabilities. In addition to subtly catering to changing political and social trends and "just-so theories" and ideologies exported by the humanities. _
Very good post. And I particularly like your observation that if the supernatural were ever found to be real it would become part of science. By "found to be real", that would have to mean real by scientific criteria, viz. reproducible observation. Which would mean that this supernatural phenomenon would become regarded as part of nature and thus would cease - poof! - to be supernatural. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I did a search and it seems that no one has mentioned panpsychism as a potential explanation. Panpsychism does have an academic following. If it exists, it could certainly explain why humans are seemingly predisposed to beliefs in some kind of super consciousness. A few years ago I was dating a young lady who was working on her Ph.D, in neurobiology. I asked what she thought about this idea and I thought her head was going to explode. LOL! She didn't like that AT ALL!!! However the idea was formerly introduced to me in a lecture by Fred Alan Wolf - a physicist. There are claims that Penrose dances around the subject. We are the universe becoming aware of itself. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I met Paul Davies that same year. That was a fun year of physics woo.
Most of them, it's upbringing. The inertia of tradition and education. Culture. For others, such as myself, it's deeply personal spiritual experiences. Theophanies and epiphanies. Visions and altered states of consciousness.
Hapsburg: How are your deeply personal spiritual experiences tied to God? You mentioned theophany. Are you telling us that God has appeared to you, in person?
Gods, plural. And no, not necessarily. I've had personal experiences with spirits of place, ancestral spirits, not just gods. Though some of the most vivid are ones that involve deities, especially Dionysos. Depends on how you define or think of "appeared", I guess. Made manifest in their own physical form in front of me? No, at least I don't think so. But there are other kinds of epiphaneia than such things. One might encounter spiritual beings in dreams, or sense them through clairaudience/clairvoyance. One might channel, or be possessed by, a spirit or a divinity-- to feel their essence suffused through your body. One might use divination to allow their presence to be known, such as through automatic writing, pendulum or medium boards, etc. Or one may simply feel their numinous presence around oneself, or in a given space.
I've never done psychedelics, no. Though I don't think that they would invalidate a spiritual experience.
I don't think you were hasty and rereading my post it did kind of sound like I was saying, "are you on drugs are something?" You seem to have had some profound spiritual experiences that I have not experienced without the 'assistance' of psychedelics. Those experiences were when I was much younger and even dumber than I am now. IMO any use of psychedelics should be administered by a clinician under controlled conditions. I don't mean this to be a hijack...
Hapsburg: As you might know, I'm an atheist and a skeptic. I won't deny that you've had "personal experiences". What I'm not convinced about is whether any of those personal experiences actually involved any kind of supernatural being that exists independently from you. So, I'm wondering: what was that convinced you that those things are real and not just in your head? You list of different ways you have had these experiences. Here are my brief thoughts on those: We have dreams about all kinds of things that aren't real. Some dreams can feel very real to us while we're having them. One useful test of whether a dream comes from inside or outside is to ask yourself: did I learn any new, verifiable information in the dream that I did not know before? By what means can you tell that you're possessed by a being outside yourself? You mentioned "feeling their essence". How can you be sure that whatever you felt wasn't self-generated, but came from "outside"? It has been shown that automatic writing, oracle pendulums and Ouija boards can all be operated subconsciously by the user(s). You might like to google the "ideomotor effect" for more information. Are feelings a good way to obtain reliable information about the external world?
Good thing I'm not trying to convince you. If you want answers to your questions, I can try my best. But do keep in mind, I have no interest in proselytizing or convincing you that I'm right. It makes no difference to me whether or not you are polytheistic. All I ask is that you respect the sincerity of my beliefs, and not be unduly uncharitable. This is true. I personally have only rarely had dreams that contain some revelatory or epiphanic aspect. I would say that, qualitatively, they feel completely different from an ordinary dream, even This I can confirm has happened. As well as with non-dream medium experiences, wherein the thoughts and memory of the other being perceptible. Twofold: 1) seeing others have similar mediumship practices, and report virtually the same subjective experience, thus providing Shared Personal Gnosis. 2) subjective feelings and knowledge that would not make sense coming from me. Practicing discernment is a big part of those engaging in mysticism. That's why I don't rely only on myself when doing so, I have others I'm doing rituals with perform the same action and see if the results are the same. And when I use a pendulum, I am often trying to jiggle it in a way I'm expecting, and witness results contrary to my expectations. That one is easily the most subjective. The only counter I'd have is that, all sensory experience is subjective to some extent. But that's solipsistic in a way I don't really agree with.
Hapsburg, have you ever checked out the writings of Jungian analyst James Hillman? He had a whole psychology based on the existence of various polytheistic archetypes and the human psyche.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hillman
Hapsburg: I'd say your chances of convincing me would be very low. But I'm nevertheless interested in having a discussion with you about these things, if you're happy to have one. And you never know. I'm always open to changing my mind. Do you care whether what you believe is true? Unless you tell me otherwise, I'll assume you do. Some things clearly convinced you. I'm interested to hear about those things, even if you're not directly trying to convince me. You never know what might happen. I have no reason to doubt that you're sincere. What qualities make them feel different to ordinary dreams? And again, I'm wondering: to what extent are feelings about them a good guide to whether they actually are different from "ordinary" dreams? You can confirm learning new information from a dream? How? Can you give me an example? You mean, you've had experiences in which you could read the mind of somebody else, or they could read yours? What was that experience like? How could you be sure you were actually mind reading? Also: have you ever set out to test this in a rigorous way (e.g. writing down the results of the mind reading before checking the accuracy, so you can compare objectively, after the fact)? I don't find it especially surprising that a number of people can all report similar subjective experiences with mediums. After all, most people are primed to expect certain kinds of things when they interact with a medium. The practice itself is often highly ritualised, so people know what to expect, and what is expected of them. Can you give me some examples of (2)? What do you mean when you say they wouldn't make sense? Potentially, that's explicit confirmation bias, though - right? You record the "hits" and forget the "misses". For instance, anything you feel that the medium got right about your inner thoughts you credit to the psychic powers or the spirits or whatever, while anything he got wrong you put down to a failure to accurately differentiate (or discern) what came from outside from what came from inside. If two people - or seven or ten - use a Ouija board and get the same sorts of movement and messages out of it, that could be simply due to all of those people experiencing the same kinds of subconscious effects - e.g. the aforementioned ideomotor effect. The similiarity of the experiences that people report for such things does not necessarily point to the presence of any supernatural source underlying them. The ideomotor effect operates subconsciously, though. Obviously, your pendulum will be useless for the purpose of divination (or whatever) if you're deliberately making large conscious movements with it all the time. It's supposed to work when you don't try to move it yourself. But that's also exactly the condition under which the ideomotor effect will have the largest possible influence on the motion. It's almost as if the conditions under which the Ouija board or the pendulum are supposed to be most effective are designed to be the conditions under which the operation of the ideomotor effect can work most effectively. Either that is a coincidence, or it's not a coincidence at all, if you think about it. Most people are completely unaware of the ideomotor effect, so when it is observed it often feels otherworldly - even scary - and definitely unexpected. When I was a teenager, I had the experience of having a drinking glass that had just been used as a Ouija planchette apparently fly off the table after I barely touched it (with just one finger). Nobody else was in the room. I was the only person who touched it, and I certainly did not consciously intend in any way to push it. In fact, my intention was explicitly to demonstrate that the glass would not move if I was the only person who touched it. It freaked me out for a short time when it did what it did - or, rather, when I did what I did to it. A little later on, though, I learned that this sort of experience is actually not that uncommon - and it doesn't demand a supernatural explanation.
A Mafia hit man proclaiming during an interview that he "still considers himself to be Catholic" is good enough for me to consider it might be cultural loyalty. Diane Keaton's "never-miss-a-Mass" mother, while more or less on her deathbed, expressing scorn at the idea of Heaven being real, is good enough for me to consider it might have been cultural loyalty (during all those decades). A left-wing professor and author who is all gung-ho about climate change catastrophe looming ahead, but still never misses a chance to express pessimism about capitalism saving us (i.e, our reliance upon the private sector to fulfill its "green energy" transition) is good enough for me to consider it might be cultural loyalty and ideological reflex at work. _
Hi Hapsburg, How do you distinguish between spirits and gods if you haven't seen them? Have you been possessed? I've been possessed at least once. EDIT: What makes you conclude that it is Dionysos you have been experiencing?
