An Atheist's Experience Of God

[R. S. Martin]

Originally posted here.

 

Finally I found an atheist's experience of God as described by Rudolph Otto in Idea of the Holy. It is Confessions of a Former Mystic.

 

Christians might argue that this is not their God because Tabash used the wrong belief system. This is their God alright. Read up on what "God" constitutes. Otto was a Christian. William James was a Christian. They describe the same thing this author describes.

 

This author speaks about a peak experience. That is a technical word with a clear meaning. Abraham H. Maslow describes it in The Psychology of Being, and perhaps also in other places. Peak experience is another term for the same thing Otto and James describe. All of them talk about the thing that has from antiquity been known as god in many different religions. Christianity is one of the newer religions; it borrowed the term and concept from older religions.

 

Not that fundamentalist Christians will believe this but their unbelief does not make it less true.

 

I have never formally practiced mysticism but I had lots of the experiences and can still bring them on if I want to. (Somehow, since my deconversion I don't feel the need to anymore.) Tabash arrived at the same conclusion I do--that it begins and ends in the human brain.

[Astreja]

Great little article. Peak experience as a natural brain function makes sense to me.

 

It was mildly distressing to read of the depression that followed the high, though. I'm wondering if one training method is better than another for dealing with that "down" cycle.

[R. S. Martin]

Great little article. Peak experience as a natural brain function makes sense to me.

 

Thank you. That was the second article I've found that suggests that it is a natural brain function.

 

It was mildly distressing to read of the depression that followed the high, though. I'm wondering if one training method is better than another for dealing with that "down" cycle.

 

I don't remember reading about a low. Let's see. Yes, I was impressed that he found the high so difficult to acheive, and that he had to "live off" the one high for so long. I have a theory that some people have more direct will power over this part of the brain than others do. I think this would fit in with there normally being only one medicine man for an entire tribe of Natives. Or one Jesus for a whole batch of disciples. Or one wise man/woman in an entire village.

 

Maybe I'm seeing dots and drawing lines where there aren't any but this pattern is consistent across time, geography, culture, and religion. I am not sure that in our western society we have a distinct role for these people so I can't draw examples from it. The "one wise man/woman for a village" idea comes primarily from Medieval European society. So I guess it is part of the Caucasian heritage, but not honoured or given a special role in society anymore.