Somethings I Still Struggle With.

[jackbauer]

I think I have finally accepted that Christianity as it's taught makes very little sense and that it's highly unlikely that it's true. I'm also slowly coming to the realization that if God exists (and that's a big if), it's not how theologians make it out to be. God is such a broad term that it could just as well mean the universe in itself. Personally, I'm happy that Christianity is not true, especially the fundamentalist variety. I could not fathem the idea such a monsterous god as depicted in the Bible existing, especially if it means that most of us are on our way to eternal torture after we die. Even if I do accept the possibility of it being true, what it means to be saved or a true Christian is so vague and confusing that I might as well just enjoy the one life I have on earth as it's the only life I know I have.

 

With that said, there are some things that I think about from time to time that make me think "what if?" or worse. A lot of these go well beyond the scope of Christianity and more just cosmic horrors and "what ifs". Keep in mind, these ideas are pretty scary and you may not want to read if cosmic horror stories possibly scarier than anything in Christianity.

 

1. NDEs. I'm sure we've all heard of them. Someone "dies", sees a bright light. They are told to go back because it's not their time yet. Now those ones are actually pretty comforting and give me some hope in a merciful god. But then there are others which aren't. For instance, Doctor Maurice Rawlings wrote a book titled "To Hell And Back" in which some patients he ressurected had described hellish encounters. I'd normally not take anyone's word for it, but this guy is a doctor and seems to know his stuff. I'm on the fence with NDEs since first person testimonies aren't the most reliable (and there could be other explainations), but some of what I read on that doctor terrified me.

 

2. Calvinism and beyond: I hate Calvinism, it's a depressing, sick, abusive theology. I also hate Calvinists, they are illogical, won't listen to reason, act holier than thou, and are sociopathic monsters (just like their god). At one point, my hatred of this theology was so strong that I was wishing the participants harm.

 

However, I also see that it's the most consistent theology with the Bible and is the one way in which Christian fundamentalism can make sense. It raised a terrifying thought; what if Calvinism is true and the reason why none of us could be saved was because we weren't the "elect". As unlikely as it is that the Bible is literally true, I still have that fear that there is something to it I'm not getting. Calvinism is the only Christian faith that outright admit that god gets his jollies off tormenting people so any arguement against a god of love is defeated. Then there's other horrific possibilities in which God actually is evil and is playing games with us (or what if Satan is actually in control?). Fortunately, these thoughts help to reinforce the idea of forgetting about religion, but I find that the uncertainty about death still holds me back, even after all these years of rational thought!

 

3. Lastly, death itself: I am both conforted and horrified at the thought of simply not existing after I die. Comforted since I won't be around to know it, but also horrified at the thought that I will cease to be. My mind CANNOT comprehend such an idea and I think that's what terrifies me the most (and probably the appeal of religion).

 

Then there's also the fact that it's the unknown. I like certainty about things, especially when it comes to death and beyond. The fact that death is unavoidable, yet unknown keeps me wanting to live life to the fullest, but also holds me back in a way. I fear making long term plans our of fear that I will lose everything so I find myself living for the moment all too often. Especially since the planet seems so unstable, unpredictable, and unsafe.

 

Has anyone else had these thoughts after deconverting?

[par4dcourse]

From a skeptical old fart's point of view:

 

1. NDE's always emphasize the N, as in NEAR death. No one has ever had a DE and reported on it. It's just the brain being starved for oxygen and hallucinating.

2. That would make god even more evil and perverted than even the KJV presents. Makes him even less deserving of worship.

3. Fear of death is what keeps christianity alive. It's built into our DNA. But death is just a fact of life, and dwelling on it makes Jack a dull boy. Just have to "cowboy up" on this one.

 

It does get better with time, as many of our senior members will attest. Try not to dwell on the unknowable.

Peace.

~~Larry

[Akheia]

"I don't know" can be the scariest phrase in the English language. It's so comforting to know something like what happens after death. Michel de Montaigne, the famous Renaissance French essayist, had a similar period where he was terrified of death and behaved in very similar ways to what you describe above. In the end, though, he figured it out, and so will you. Every person alive who breaks free of Christianity has to eventually make peace with death in some way. There's a book called "No Death, No Fear" by a Buddhist monk that really helped me work through my grieving process and come to grips with death; I'd recommend it.

 

About NDEs, I've seen some extremely effective debunk studies done on them. Probably the most potent of them was a survey of NDEs from non-Christian cultures. Many cultures have NDE myths, and weirdly, they all look like that particular culture's take on death. You can imagine their NDEs were sometimes diametrically opposed to what Christians imagine. They can't all be right. Also, in every study I've ever seen that tried to "prove" NDEs were real, the revived person failed objective tests like "what did the sign say on the tall cabinet in the ER?" I concur that the best evidence about NDEs just supports that they are hallucinations. It can be very seductive to imagine that NDEs prove a life after death, but watch out--you don't want to exchange one wishful thought for another on such scanty evidence.

 

As to Calvinism, if that's what Christianity is supposed to be like, sign me up for Lucifer. Even if Calvinism proved a God (which it doesn't; it is afflicted by the same total lack of evidence and error-ridden source book that every other branch of Christianity is), that doesn't make that God worthy of respect, let alone love and mindless worship. Maybe the problem is that you don't know enough about the Bible's errors? Your call there, but that's what I'd do in your position: educate myself.

 

Good luck. I know this isn't an easy path to be on, and I encourage you to keep learning and growing.

[♦ ficino ♦]

I think I have finally accepted that Christianity as it's taught makes very little sense and that it's highly unlikely that it's true. I'm also slowly coming to the realization that if God exists (and that's a big if), it's not how theologians make it out to be. God is such a broad term that it could just as well mean the universe in itself. Personally, I'm happy that Christianity is not true, especially the fundamentalist variety. I could not fathem the idea such a monsterous god as depicted in the Bible existing, especially if it means that most of us are on our way to eternal torture after we die. Even if I do accept the possibility of it being true, what it means to be saved or a true Christian is so vague and confusing that I might as well just enjoy the one life I have on earth as it's the only life I know I have.

 

With that said, there are some things that I think about from time to time that make me think "what if?" or worse. A lot of these go well beyond the scope of Christianity and more just cosmic horrors and "what ifs". Keep in mind, these ideas are pretty scary and you may not want to read if cosmic horror stories possibly scarier than anything in Christianity.

 

1. NDEs. I'm sure we've all heard of them. Someone "dies", sees a bright light. They are told to go back because it's not their time yet. Now those ones are actually pretty comforting and give me some hope in a merciful god. But then there are others which aren't. For instance, Doctor Maurice Rawlings wrote a book titled "To Hell And Back" in which some patients he ressurected had described hellish encounters. I'd normally not take anyone's word for it, but this guy is a doctor and seems to know his stuff. I'm on the fence with NDEs since first person testimonies aren't the most reliable (and there could be other explainations), but some of what I read on that doctor terrified me.

 

2. Calvinism and beyond: I hate Calvinism, it's a depressing, sick, abusive theology. I also hate Calvinists, they are illogical, won't listen to reason, act holier than thou, and are sociopathic monsters (just like their god). At one point, my hatred of this theology was so strong that I was wishing the participants harm.

 

However, I also see that it's the most consistent theology with the Bible and is the one way in which Christian fundamentalism can make sense. It raised a terrifying thought; what if Calvinism is true and the reason why none of us could be saved was because we weren't the "elect". As unlikely as it is that the Bible is literally true, I still have that fear that there is something to it I'm not getting. Calvinism is the only Christian faith that outright admit that god gets his jollies off tormenting people so any arguement against a god of love is defeated. Then there's other horrific possibilities in which God actually is evil and is playing games with us (or what if Satan is actually in control?). Fortunately, these thoughts help to reinforce the idea of forgetting about religion, but I find that the uncertainty about death still holds me back, even after all these years of rational thought!

 

3. Lastly, death itself: I am both conforted and horrified at the thought of simply not existing after I die. Comforted since I won't be around to know it, but also horrified at the thought that I will cease to be. My mind CANNOT comprehend such an idea and I think that's what terrifies me the most (and probably the appeal of religion).

 

Then there's also the fact that it's the unknown. I like certainty about things, especially when it comes to death and beyond. The fact that death is unavoidable, yet unknown keeps me wanting to live life to the fullest, but also holds me back in a way. I fear making long term plans our of fear that I will lose everything so I find myself living for the moment all too often. Especially since the planet seems so unstable, unpredictable, and unsafe.

 

Has anyone else had these thoughts after deconverting?

 

Hello Jack, yes, I think lots of us on here have had them, and surely I have had. I think it takes a while to get used to your new inner self when it's emerged from the old programmed self. Your doubts are absolutely common, so I think you're on a course that lots of others have gone.

 

As someone who's farther from deconversion, I'll chip in...

 

1. near death experiences I classify with other interior, mystical phenomena. I think they are explained by stuff happening in the brain. It's interesting how the content of the experience usually is consistent with what is provided by the person's culture. What would a Sioux's NDE in, say, 1800 look like? A buffalo god or...? You get the idea.

 

2. I was a Calvinist. I became one from logic and because it didn't whitewash certain Bible verses that my Arminian church (Assemblies of God) sort of smoothed over. Eventually I ditched it for Catholicism after reflecting for some years on the implications of the fact that the Protestant principle of "by scripture alone" itself was not asserted in scripture. The NT talks about tradition as well as scripture. Then there's the formation of the canon. That was done by the church. Was the church already "catholic" and corrupt at the point when it formed the canon? Without a canon there can be no bible and no Reformation, but the canon presupposes a divinely guided church deciding which books to include. And so on. The clincher was to study justification and discover that the Lutheran and Calvinist doctrines of justification by the imputation of Christ's righteousness alone is unbiblical.

After I became Catholic, I still believed in predestination because Aquinas comes close on that front. After Christianity as a whole came to be shown up as contradictory, though, then I was able to see predestination of some people to eternal torment as the horror it is. Go back and reread books like Judges. The whole religion comes out of the concept of a tribal god of warfare. Yahweh pulls a lot of heavy shit. I think people's natural moral sentiments are right to reject predestination and much else in Christianity.

 

3. Did you ever read Lucretius' De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things)? He was a Roman poet who lived around 80 BCE. His poem popularizes the philosophy of Epicurus. The Epicureans denied that death is to be feared, because while you are alive, your death is not, and after you are dead, there is no "you" to experience anything. Recognizing that we fear to lose the precious life we have, though, Lucretius gives this argument: you do not grieve because you were not alive in the days of Carthage, so why grieve that you will not be alive a hundred years from now? The horror that you will cease to be should be the mirror of the horror you feel at not having existed before you were born, but wait... you don't experience that second horror. So what is the basis for the first horror? That's how Lucretius tries to help people look at a future in which they will not exist.

I also like to remember the scene in Gladiator. Do you remember, after Maximus has died, that the African digs up Maximus' family god image from the sand of the arena? He says something like, "We will meet again on the other side, gladiator... but not yet." I like the "but not yet." Everything in life is a risk, so I try to take the risk of accomplishing things and living for the future, not merely for today, because when I look back, I want to see my life as something I can be satisfied with - as having accomplished and contributed things.

 

Every so often I think, oh shit, what if it's all true anyway, despite all the contradictions? Then I'm totally fucked. But I go back to stuff like, who bought the Field of Blood (contradicts between Matthew and Acts) and work back from there.

 

A good topic and a worthy one, Jackbauer. Till later

[Overcame Faith]

Hi, Jackbauer. You have already gotten some very well done replies. I'll try not to plow over the ground the others have covered.

 

1. NDEs. What I want to point out to you is the mindset you have in looking at NDEs. You said, "...Doctor Maurice Rawlings wrote a book titled "To Hell And Back" in which some patients he ressurected...." You used the word "resurrected." He resurrected no one because before there can be a resurrection, there must first be a true and full death. As has already been pointed out, no person who experienced an NDE was ever truly dead. But beyond that, since the NDEs appear to have theological implications to you, let's look at it from a theological point of view. Theologically speaking, no one is resurrected except by the direct power of god. Theological resurrections do not happen because of medical science. Since these people were revived through medical science, there is no theological significance to their being revived nor to the stories they tell. Both heaven and hell are allegedly reserved for the dead, not for the near dead.

 

2. Calvinism. The doctrine of Calvinism creates what I consider to be the most damaging contradiction in all of Christianity. It's because of this damaging contradiction, that so many denominations completely reject the doctrine. If Calvinism is true and god decided who would go to heaven and hell from the beginning of time and those he chose for heaven are the "elect," then there was no point for Jesus' crucifixion and alleged atonement for sin. Since, according to Calvinism, god has already chosen the elect, there was no need for a sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin. Rather, god had already forgiven the sins of the "elect" from the very beginning and required no atoning sacrifice. The doctrine makes Jesus pointless!!! Therefore, I strongly disagree with your assessment that Calvinism is "...the most consistent theology with the Bible...." Rather, it is the least consistent given that Jesus' alleged atoning death is the central theological point of Christianity.

 

3. Fear of Death. Others have given you some very good thoughts and references for this point you make and I will not belabor my post by bringing all of that up again. What I will do is to point something else out to you. By coming to terms with the falsity of the Christian religion, while there is no promise of eternal life, there is one thing you gain that is invaluable. What you gain is the sure knowledge that neither you nor anyone else has to worry about spending an eternity in the torment of hell. That fear is eliminated and that is worth a lot.

[JoeCoastie]

This helped me overcome my fear of death. The known universe has existed for over 13 billion years. You didn't exist then, and that didn't hurt you any. It'll continue to exist billions of years after you exist, and it shouldn't hurt any more than when you didn't exist before.

[Margee]

This helped me overcome my fear of death. The known universe has existed for over 13 billion years. You didn't exist then, and that didn't hurt you any. It'll continue to exist billions of years after you exist, and it shouldn't hurt any more than when you didn't exist before.

 

Hi Jack...just wanted to add my 2 cents. I want to share my experiences with you. I can't advise you, so I'll just share me.

 

First of all, to thank you Joe - I think I may have heard this from you before and I found comfort in that about death. I wasn't here for millions of years and when I die I go back to nothingness again and I won't even know I was here on earth!!

 

That is the very reason we must live...NOW! I wrote a 16 chapter book Jack, that is still under my bed collecting dust. Doesn't matter - I wrote it for me.The whole book is based on my life that has been ruled by fear. I called it, ''Born To Be Alive'' after the song. I have allowed fear to rule me my whole life. It's probably why I accepted jesus in the first place. They did a lovely sermon on hell that night and I went down to that alter...not thanking jesus, not really loving him...but to save my ass from going to hell.

 

That's been the story of my whole life. Afraid of someone leaving me, afraid of the dark, afraid of skating on a frozen pond, afraid to tell people what I really felt, afraid of a car accident, afraid to fly, afraid of change, afraid to be a freethinker, afraid of my own shadow............you name it, I was afraid of it. I still fight that fear everyday!! I want to live. I'm tired of being afraid. I force myself to live now. I go out in that traffic, I fly in airplanes and all the rest.

 

I studied a little on how the brain would react just before death. It automatically goes into shock most of the time and prevents us from really 'feeling''.You've heard of people who were stabbed several times? They will tell you that after the first stab.....they never felt a thing . I watched a show one time about this and one fellow said he fell off a real high balcony and does not remember hitting the ground. I am suspecting that the people aboard an aircraft going down are probably screaming from the bottom of their lungs, but may be in enough shock to make that death a little easier. None of this is easy for me to talk about. I don't like it any better than you....but I know I will have to face it, dead on one day. I am just trying to make myself a little more comfortable while I am here on earth. That's why I like to investagate. I hope I haven't depressed you...that was not my intent.

 

I was going to say the same thing Overcame said about the doctrine of Calvinism. If you're already 'chosen' by the 'picky' god, then what is the point of jesus death? According to scripture, he died to save the whole world???? All these different doctrines just piss me off. A 'kind hearted' god surely would NOT have written a book where a million, thousand people decipher it differently!!!

 

 

I think the NDE are much like when you sleep. Most of the time...we sleep peacefully with a weird dream, nice dream, funny dream....and every now and again, we have a nightmare. Whatever state we are in when we are close to death will not last long because once the brain is starved of oxegen, it will be over pretty quickly.

 

If there is a god, I always.......even to this day, I ask him, her, it...... to have mercy on me..... for being a 'questioner' and doubter. I am still the atheist in the foxhole and I'm O.K. with that.

[asanerman]

I agree with par except where he says he's a frat!

 

I had to unlearn the "what-if" game!

 

I replaced the "what-if and if only" games with a contemplative practice that I could live with. With a still mind I can allow "present" issue to simmer.

 

I work with--my anger, my endless desire, my obsessions, my fear and anxiety etc. I "sit" with rather than "play games" with what I feel. The ways in which I emote season with time and awareness. My reactions turn into responses, my fear into confidence, my anxiety into dance.

 

I'm flesh and blood with a past, a history. A history which adds content, depth and direction to my experience in the present (now). If I am to respectfully honor the gift of my being alive, it is imperative that I allow for a future (planing just in case I live), at least until I die. I would think that to be a functional definition of self respect--what Nathaniel Branden called "honoring the self."

 

I picked this next statement up from Sam Keen:

 

The contemporary ideal of living completely within the present moment, no less that the classical mystical notion

of living totally within the eternal now of the divine presence, is as impossible as it is inhuman.

It results in a dis-eased rather than a graceful present.

 

"Virgin-born present"--sounds almost biblical!

 

So much for what-if!

[Antlerman]

1. NDEs. I'm sure we've all heard of them. Someone "dies", sees a bright light. They are told to go back because it's not their time yet. Now those ones are actually pretty comforting and give me some hope in a merciful god. But then there are others which aren't. For instance, Doctor Maurice Rawlings wrote a book titled "To Hell And Back" in which some patients he ressurected had described hellish encounters. I'd normally not take anyone's word for it, but this guy is a doctor and seems to know his stuff. I'm on the fence with NDEs since first person testimonies aren't the most reliable (and there could be other explainations), but some of what I read on that doctor terrified me.

NDE's do not prove anyone's religious theology is factual, as people the world over have NDE's, and if the Muslim sees God, then the Christian doctrine of exclusive membership in heaven via themselves is sort of laid waste, don't you think? I've had an NDE myself so I can speak with some authority on the nature of its content. It is a profound, life-changing experience. It's what sent me down the path of looking to the Christian religion (the religion of my culture) to gain an understanding and reconnection with that transcendent experience. I too saw bright white light, time stood still, my life was recounted before my eyes, I experienced infinite mind, infinite love, infinite bliss, compassion, knowledge, understanding, etc. The effect profoundly changed my life to this day, some 30 some odd years later.

 

Now here's the catch. It was in fact because of that direct, transcendent experience, that ultimately Christian theology and its doctrines had to be rejected by me. How they boxed "God" into their narrow little ideas that placed them as the doorkeepers of heaven, having this God send humans to hell for disbelief, damning everyone who wasn't them, jarred against the profound nature of my direct experience. I thought I just didn't understand something since they after all were the supposed experts on this. It was the fact I experienced what I did that forced me ultimately to be true to that which was within me and reject them. But it's not so simple as saying "who's right", when it comes to something like this.

 

There's a Bible verse that still speaks to me which says, "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I thought as a child.... now we know in part, but then face to face." They think as children. To me it is not a question of whether or not God exists, but really more a matter of how we understand the nature and significance of that in ourselves, or how on earth we try to talk about that experience. For me, I see their way of talking about it to be comparable to a child who imagines that adults control everything in the world, "Daddy, make it stop raining!". It's pretty much that except they see God in the sky as the ultimate "Daddy". It's just mythological thinking.

 

Is an NDE "just the brain"? Well, sure, but then so is every experience of life. Nothing we experience happens independently from that. Is it "just in your head"? Yes and no. Every thought you have in is your head too, and every thought is symbolic in nature - a real tree does not exist inside our skulls as we think about it, but the symbol "t-r-e-e" does; the word sign, a mental image, a memory, etc. But our experience of t-r-e-e is in fact really, real. It is a real mental experience. So when you come to an NDE, what the hell is that? It is in fact what is part of nature's death-process. It typically follows terror, a loss of all connection to our sense of self that we normally have embedded in our linguistic centers, our "ego", located in the left hippocampus in the brain. The right hippocampus holds our 'shadow' self, the non-linguist self that we may sometimes experience as a 'presence' in the room.

 

In facing death, terror takes hold filling up the right amydala above the hippocampus, speech centers drop and the non-verbal rises. As the right amydala fills to the brim and you are frozen in terror facing a perceived impending death, suddenly it all flows over the the left amydala and terror turns to bliss, light, knowing, peace, etc. So no, it is not due to some imagined 'oxygen-fucking deprivation'. It is not a "hallucination" because your brain is starved for air. It is a state of conscious mind that blows the roof right off all our normal ways of framing so-called reality in our puny little linguistic or sensory-based worlds that exist "only in our minds", which are themselves an illusion of reality.

 

Now I could go on at length, but the real salient point to you is that yes, people do experience these states of consciousness. It is real, as sure as anything else is real, if not even more so. And the Christian who believes in a volcano-like deity can and do experience this as well. But here's the catch. Understanding it. Again, they 'think like a child'. But, there are those in Christianity who in fact 'blow the roof off' consciousness themselves in mystical experience, and you typically will not see them imagining God as that hell-damming volcano deity of the Old Testament. In fact they themselves because they have a higher understanding through direct experience, often run the risk of being burned at the stake alive for understanding God differently than your hard-core so-called 'believer'. The only advice I can give is listen to your heart. Look within and what you'll find is not fear.

 

As for the rest about their theologies, see above. Not a concern.

[owen652]

I love Dusty Smith's comment on NDE's:

 

"The only thing less reliable than eyewitness testimony is the eyewitness testimony from a dying, oxygen-starved brain."

[♦ ficino ♦]

If Calvinism is true and god decided who would go to heaven and hell from the beginning of time and those he chose for heaven are the "elect," then there was no point for Jesus' crucifixion and alleged atonement for sin. Since, according to Calvinism, god has already chosen the elect, there was no need for a sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin. Rather, god had already forgiven the sins of the "elect" from the very beginning and required no atoning sacrifice. The doctrine makes Jesus pointless!!!

 

Hi OF, for what it's worth, I don't think the above conclusion follows, because Calvinists can say that God in his sovereignty can choose the mechanism by which he'll enact forgiveness and bind the forgiven people to himself. But I agree that Calvinism is screwed up!

[♦ ficino ♦]

Every thought you have in is your head too, and every thought is symbolic in nature - a real tree does not exist inside our skulls as we think about it, but the symbol "t-r-e-e" does; the word sign, a mental image, a memory, etc. But our experience of t-r-e-e is in fact really, real. It is a real mental experience. ... It is a state of conscious mind that blows the roof right off all our normal ways of framing so-called reality in our puny little linguistic or sensory-based worlds that exist "only in our minds", which are themselves an illusion of reality.

 

 

 

Hello Antlerman, your post and many others like it that you've written are very heavy. My father had a mystical experience that led him to some similar perspectives. What I don't get has to do with your analogy to the tree. We can give some account of why, when we experience a tree through our senses, we conclude that there is a tree independent of us and of our experience. Are you saying that in your NDE you experienced an entity other than you, whose existence is independent of you and your experience? Or are you saying that aspects of yourself manifested themselves in ways that they had not done before? I'm not sure whether you maintain that all things are at bottom one thing, or that all minds ultimately are one mind, or...? Sorry, I have not read enough of your posts.

 

If this question is going to derail the thread, then I withdraw it or else maybe you could answer elsewhere.

 

Cheers, F

[Deva]

Lastly, death itself: I am both conforted and horrified at the thought of simply not existing after I die. Comforted since I won't be around to know it, but also horrified at the thought that I will cease to be. My mind CANNOT comprehend such an idea and I think that's what terrifies me the most (and probably the appeal of religion).

 

Then there's also the fact that it's the unknown. I like certainty about things, especially when it comes to death and beyond. The fact that death is unavoidable, yet unknown keeps me wanting to live life to the fullest, but also holds me back in a way. I fear making long term plans our of fear that I will lose everything so I find myself living for the moment all too often. Especially since the planet seems so unstable, unpredictable, and unsafe.

 

Has anyone else had these thoughts after deconverting?

 

Yes. I think we have to accept that we are not going to have absolute certainty as to what happens after death. But I cannot accept that there is just nothing- that it all just ceases.

 

I read "20 Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation" by Ian Stevenson. I know this is not scientific evidence, but I am persuaded there is something going on that science can't explain.

 

As far as Calvinism goes, I explored it as part of my deconversion process. I felt I could not leave any stone unturned as far as Christian doctrine went. At one time it seemed more logical than the other doctrines, but it was soulless, full of despair, and as bleak as anything I have ever heard. Imagine a God that would allow some being to be born and knowing that this being was going to eternal torture. And this God is good as well?? I think not. I couldn't get past it. They talk a lot about the "sovereignty of God" that God has the right to do what he pleases. Well maybe, but he's still not good and not worthy of worship.

[JadedAtheist]

I use to be a Calvinist, so thinking that I was a reprobate destined for hell and couldn't be saved even if I wanted to was a reoccurring thought. Maybe God was doing this to me? Maybe he didn't want to save me? Maybe he wants me to reject him so he can send me to hell? I was fearful of hell for a while, then all of a sudden a few months after I left I noticed that it no longer bothered me. It just slowly crept away. There are times where I am struck by "am I wrong?" but they're fewer and far between now. In fact, I don't think I've had any for a while now (at least that I can recall).

 

As for death, I no longer fear it. Though, I did for a long time. We only fear death while we're alive, obviously. When it sunk in that any emotion or fear I experience now is over the instant I die, it stopped bothering me. Does that mean I don't want an afterlife? Nope. I wouldn't mind one, I just don't expect one.

[mcdaddy]

1. NDEs. I'm sure we've all heard of them. Someone "dies", sees a bright light. They are told to go back because it's not their time yet. Now those ones are actually pretty comforting and give me some hope in a merciful god. But then there are others which aren't. For instance, Doctor Maurice Rawlings wrote a book titled "To Hell And Back" in which some patients he ressurected had described hellish encounters. I'd normally not take anyone's word for it, but this guy is a doctor and seems to know his stuff. I'm on the fence with NDEs since first person testimonies aren't the most reliable (and there could be other explainations), but some of what I read on that doctor terrified me.

NDE's do not prove anyone's religious theology is factual, as people the world over have NDE's, and if the Muslim sees God, then the Christian doctrine of exclusive membership in heaven via themselves is sort of laid waste, don't you think? I've had an NDE myself so I can speak with some authority on the nature of its content. It is a profound, life-changing experience. It's what sent me down the path of looking to the Christian religion (the religion of my culture) to gain an understanding and reconnection with that transcendent experience. I too saw bright white light, time stood still, my life was recounted before my eyes, I experienced infinite mind, infinite love, infinite bliss, compassion, knowledge, understanding, etc. The effect profoundly changed my life to this day, some 30 some odd years later.

 

Now here's the catch. It was in fact because of that direct, transcendent experience, that ultimately Christian theology and its doctrines had to be rejected by me. How they boxed "God" into their narrow little ideas that placed them as the doorkeepers of heaven, having this God send humans to hell for disbelief, damning everyone who wasn't them, jarred against the profound nature of my direct experience. I thought I just didn't understand something since they after all were the supposed experts on this. It was the fact I experienced what I did that forced me ultimately to be true to that which was within me and reject them. But it's not so simple as saying "who's right", when it comes to something like this.

 

There's a Bible verse that still speaks to me which says, "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I thought as a child.... now we know in part, but then face to face." They think as children. To me it is not a question of whether or not God exists, but really more a matter of how we understand the nature and significance of that in ourselves, or how on earth we try to talk about that experience. For me, I see their way of talking about it to be comparable to a child who imagines that adults control everything in the world, "Daddy, make it stop raining!". It's pretty much that except they see God in the sky as the ultimate "Daddy". It's just mythological thinking.

 

Is an NDE "just the brain"? Well, sure, but then so is every experience of life. Nothing we experience happens independently from that. Is it "just in your head"? Yes and no. Every thought you have in is your head too, and every thought is symbolic in nature - a real tree does not exist inside our skulls as we think about it, but the symbol "t-r-e-e" does; the word sign, a mental image, a memory, etc. But our experience of t-r-e-e is in fact really, real. It is a real mental experience. So when you come to an NDE, what the hell is that? It is in fact what is part of nature's death-process. It typically follows terror, a loss of all connection to our sense of self that we normally have embedded in our linguistic centers, our "ego", located in the left hippocampus in the brain. The right hippocampus holds our 'shadow' self, the non-linguist self that we may sometimes experience as a 'presence' in the room.

 

In facing death, terror takes hold filling up the right amydala above the hippocampus, speech centers drop and the non-verbal rises. As the right amydala fills to the brim and you are frozen in terror facing a perceived impending death, suddenly it all flows over the the left amydala and terror turns to bliss, light, knowing, peace, etc. So no, it is not due to some imagined 'oxygen-fucking deprivation'. It is not a "hallucination" because your brain is starved for air. It is a state of conscious mind that blows the roof right off all our normal ways of framing so-called reality in our puny little linguistic or sensory-based worlds that exist "only in our minds", which are themselves an illusion of reality.

 

Now I could go on at length, but the real salient point to you is that yes, people do experience these states of consciousness. It is real, as sure as anything else is real, if not even more so. And the Christian who believes in a volcano-like deity can and do experience this as well. But here's the catch. Understanding it. Again, they 'think like a child'. But, there are those in Christianity who in fact 'blow the roof off' consciousness themselves in mystical experience, and you typically will not see them imagining God as that hell-damming volcano deity of the Old Testament. In fact they themselves because they have a higher understanding through direct experience, often run the risk of being burned at the stake alive for understanding God differently than your hard-core so-called 'believer'. The only advice I can give is listen to your heart. Look within and what you'll find is not fear.

 

As for the rest about their theologies, see above. Not a concern.

 

Do you know of any books that have more information on this brain chemistry part of death? Ive read qute a bit about nde's but havent seen this yet.

[Antlerman]

Every thought you have in is your head too, and every thought is symbolic in nature - a real tree does not exist inside our skulls as we think about it, but the symbol "t-r-e-e" does; the word sign, a mental image, a memory, etc. But our experience of t-r-e-e is in fact really, real. It is a real mental experience. ... It is a state of conscious mind that blows the roof right off all our normal ways of framing so-called reality in our puny little linguistic or sensory-based worlds that exist "only in our minds", which are themselves an illusion of reality.

 

 

 

Hello Antlerman, your post and many others like it that you've written are very heavy. My father had a mystical experience that led him to some similar perspectives. What I don't get has to do with your analogy to the tree. We can give some account of why, when we experience a tree through our senses, we conclude that there is a tree independent of us and of our experience.

I'm happy to try to answer without losing focus on the thread. I think it's valuable to understand this so that to the OP's point that when considering valid experience such as NDE's or other spiritual experiences people claim, that we don't mistake what is valid on one hand, with an invalid conclusion on the other, namely that their religion's mythic symbols are literal, factual entities to the exclusion of all other religious systems views. The end conclusion is that they are all symbolic, and this leads to your question about the t-r-e-e.

 

Yes, a t-r-e-e in the mental domain represents a physical object that we can otherwise validate via our physical sensory inputs, touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste. But the five senses are not the only experiences of reality. We have mental truths about things like values, meaning, ideals, hopes, and love, for simple examples. Those are also understood by the mind through symbolic representation. And none of those representations exist in the physical world as a t-r-e-e has a physical object that the physical body can experience with the five senses. Show me an 'ideals bush' growing naturally in the desert and touch that with your body, if you can. Yet we treat these as objective truths outside ourselves through symbolic interaction. They are typical shared experiences and a shared space that is between minds in symbolic interaction with each other. Culture is a great example of this.

 

Does culture have an objective component to it that the five senses can interface with? Yes. Society. Each of the mental realities, though they do not all have physical correlates such as a mental t-r-e-e has a physical tree in the material world it represents, mental domain, internal realities and their corresponding mental symbols, can have material expression. Culture is the internal shared mental reality, society is the material structures that are created by the mental to support the 'immaterial reality'. Mind literally shapes and molds the world from its own domain. It is not a mere slave to the physical as in a reductionistic determinism, but it interacts and interpenetrates with the sensory domain. Society is a material manifestation of a non-material mental reality. Without the non-material, that example of the sensory, material would simply not exist. Think of it in terms of direction, cause and effect.

 

Now on to the good stuff....

 

Are you saying that in your NDE you experienced an entity other than you, whose existence is independent of you and your experience? Or are you saying that aspects of yourself manifested themselves in ways that they had not done before? I'm not sure whether you maintain that all things are at bottom one thing, or that all minds ultimately are one mind, or...?

Both, all, and neither. How's that for vague. It's not one or the other, all material or all mental (or all spiritual). It all of those interacting and interpenetrating the other domains to one degree or another. But to the core question of, do I see "God" as an entity outside myself? That is hard to put in simple terms. No, not in the sense that you and I look at each other as a person out there and another 'in here'. Yes in the sense that God is a mental symbol of higher mind of something yet unrealized within our conscious minds, and that the higher Self is in fact 'outside' the narrow mental symbolic 'me' I hold in my mind as "me here, and you there". I am God. So are you. I am you, and you are me. You are 'outside me' because I see your attributes as 'not mine'.

 

The best analogy I have is that of a seamless cloth. On that seamless fabric there are embroidered unique stitching patterns on its surface. You are one of those patterns looking across the surface of it at my patterns and we see each other and say "Hi" to each other as little island universes, separate from each other. We identify ourselves with those patterns and say, "I am an X!", even though over time that X changes and becomes a T as we mature and evolve in our individual lifetimes and we then say "I am a T", never quite fathoming that there was some "I" who is the one making those identifications based on the internal symbolic structures we use in every experience of the world - be that the material or the mental domains. Yet in reality, we are more than those patterns. We are that fabric itself.

 

So now to NDE's and transcendent experiences. What is transcendent is going beyond that mental structure of ego identification using the symbols of those patterns we embed our conscious minds into, to the point we simply don't recognize them as they are. They are reality to us. In mystical experience, which an NDE definitely is, those structures of identification are broken down and transcended into some awareness beyond that average-mode awareness of self and other. Yet, we still use symbols. We always build on what tools evolution has handed us. We do not reinvent the wheel, so to speak. We transcend and included. That defines evolution. Transcend and include into the next level. So now to God.

 

In the experience of God, specifically in this example in an NDE, the mind uses that inherited use of symbolic representation which we use to speak of the material sensory world, and the mental worlds of intelligibilia, ideas, values, etc, and we apply them to transcendent experience. We experience ourselves beyond 'our little self', the ego, created in the mental symbolic structures of the mind. We experience that fabric directly, that seamless cloth, beyond those surface patterns we call 'me'. Yet the conscious mind is still working, trying to process the experience and understand it. Enter here the symbols of ones own culture, now in transcendent form. You see "God". You literal encounter the Christ, Krishna, Shiva, the Buddha, a Bodhisattva, the Holy Spirit, Jesus, Mother Mary, Kuan Yin, Tara, God the Father, etc, with the mind. They are the faces we put upon the infinite Self, that seamless fabric that is you and me.

 

But the mind has not fully transcended and is still functioning in a dualistic reality of 'me and other'. God becomes the transcendent 'other' to the mind. It is in reality the experience of "Spirit" in the 2nd person, a 2nd person perspective. It is not the 'other' as in you and me as equal humans, but 'other' in the sense of seeing that fabric directly and identifying it as other; it is the Holy Other. Spirit in 1st person is identifying directly as That. You recognize your true Self as that fabric. That is the nondual experience. So in a sense, yes you are correct, the god symbols are expression of myself. Every religion in speaking of God, in however they express that symbolically, are expressing something within themselves, something which is within themselves - and outside themselves. It is the symbolic mind itself, which creates that separation. It is the transcendent, higher mind which dissolves that. So God is in fact both me, and outside me, depending how I am perceiving "Reality".

 

I'm going to quote someone whom I greatly admire intellectually:

 

"But this is not God as an ontological other, set apart from the cosmos, from humans, and from creation at large. Rather, it is God as an archetypal summit of one's own Consciousness. ... By visualizing that identification 'we actually do become the deity. The subject is identified with the object of faith. The worship, the worshiper, and the worshiped, those three are not separate'. At its peak, the soul becomes one, literally one, with the deity-form, with the dhyani-buddha, with (choose whatever term one prefers) God. One dissolves into Deity, as Deity - that Deity which, from the beginning, has been one's own Self or highest Archetype."

 

~Ken Wilber, Eye to Eye, pg 86

 

You can follow this up reading this I just posted this morning regarding the practice of meditation. I think it will help your understanding of what I'm trying to express. Sorry it's not so simple to explain in few words. Link: http://www.ex-christ...post__p__735734

[Antlerman]

Do you know of any books that have more information on this brain chemistry part of death? Ive read qute a bit about nde's but havent seen this yet.

 

I find this a very well presented study, and appreciate the fact he does not see it validating either an atheist or religious perspective. It's over an hour but well worth the viewing for both a "believer" and skeptic alike, as well as those on the mystical path. IMHO. I would also highly recommend the OP watch this as well to put what NDEs are into perspective for him.

 

[♦ ficino ♦]

Dear Antlerman, I am in awe of the care and thought that you put into your answer above. I want to read it over a few more times before saying anything, and if I do, I think it needs to be elsewhere so as not to hijack this thread.

 

Best, F

[jackbauer]

If Calvinism is true and god decided who would go to heaven and hell from the beginning of time and those he chose for heaven are the "elect," then there was no point for Jesus' crucifixion and alleged atonement for sin. Since, according to Calvinism, god has already chosen the elect, there was no need for a sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin. Rather, god had already forgiven the sins of the "elect" from the very beginning and required no atoning sacrifice. The doctrine makes Jesus pointless!!!

 

Hi OF, for what it's worth, I don't think the above conclusion follows, because Calvinists can say that God in his sovereignty can choose the mechanism by which he'll enact forgiveness and bind the forgiven people to himself. But I agree that Calvinism is screwed up!

 

Yeah, something along those lines. I've heard some say that the sacrifice covered the elect of even before it happened. Ultimately, a lot of apologists are Calvinists to varying degrees so I've heard a lot of justifications for why the theology makes sense. I think I even heard one say that the reason Jesus spoke in parables is so that only the elect can understand it. It's such a sickening theology, but it's not one I can completely debunk, which is why I still have that "what if" fear.

 

As far as NDE's, I've heard something similar. Different people see different god figures so either there's a god which encompasses all theologies or it's their brain going haywire. Antlerman's example did give me some hope, but unfortunately, there are also the hellish ones.

[♦ ficino ♦]

Ultimately, a lot of apologists are Calvinists to varying degrees so I've heard a lot of justifications for why the theology makes sense. I think I even heard one say that the reason Jesus spoke in parables is so that only the elect can understand it. It's such a sickening theology, but it's not one I can completely debunk, which is why I still have that "what if" fear.

 

 

I agree that Calvinism does a better job of integrating everything in the Bible than do many other forms of Christianity. I think it, like them, is debunked by the many contradictions in the Bible, which have been discussed on here and in other forums. From those follows the falsity of the inerrancy assumption, and with that falls the whole system.

 

Like other inerrantists, Calvinists try to spin the contradictions to make them go away. Along the lines of the dictum that "deconstruction has shown that I can read a text any way I want," I grant that spin doctors can come up with SOMETHING. Many attempts at resolving contradictions are not plausible because they rely on assumptions that are not in the text, even on making up things. For example, to try to resolve the contradiction between Matthew and Acts about who bought the Field of Blood, apologists say things like Judas bought it (Acts) through the agency of the priests (Matt.), which goes against the clear meaning of the text. Or, as with certain numerical contradictions in the OT, they rely on asserting that the manuscripts contain errors - but that means that the Bible as we have it has errors, so it's not inerrant and God did a bad job of preserving his Word. Then there are errors of fact in the Bible. Then there is the number of inconsistencies and contradictions. It strains credibility that a book that is supposed to be the ground of truth for all human knowledge should require so many interventions of spin doctors to take away its inconsistencies. A presupposition (Calvinists like presuppositions) that entails so much verbal dancing, with such unconvincing results, collapses because it fails to support the explanatory job it is supposed to support.

 

I can't prove that there does not exist a cosmic deceiving Joseph Stalin type god who will get off on tormenting many of his rational creatures forever, but I see no reason to be convinced by Calvinists that their conception is true.

[Antlerman]

As far as NDE's, I've heard something similar. Different people see different god figures so either there's a god which encompasses all theologies or it's their brain going haywire. Antlerman's example did give me some hope, but unfortunately, there are also the hellish ones.

From what I understand of the hellish ones, they are more what people supposedly see. In none of them from my understanding, do any of the people actually experience hell first hand. I don't know that there are any that say, 'Oh my God!! My flesh my flesh was being burned and burned and burned and the devil was laughing at me an jabbing knives into my skull. The pain was beyond any description!! Ahhh....." No, instead what they describe is 'seeing it', being witness to it, but never experiencing it. They were outside it, not experiencing pain. That would then be itself a symbol from the mind. It's like the life-review in NDE. Hell can symbolically represent something from their own subconscious mind to their conscious minds not meant as some promise of damnation, but as some message to them about choices for themselves in life. The mind supplies the imagery. And again, they did not experience it, but only witnessed it. With 'God' on the other hand, that is experienced as bliss, knowledge, truth, understanding, etc.

[Mike D]

what if Calvinism is true and the reason why none of us could be saved was because we weren't the "elect".

 

No matter what denomination of Christianity someone may think is true, the one thing all denominations have in common and must concede is that the entire Bible, as well as Christianity itself, all rests upon the belief that it was "god inspired". If it wasn't, then you have nothing.

 

So I ask, why would any reasonable, rational person believe this? Does anyone know what the state of being "god inspired" actually even is? Does it mean "god" came to the writers in a dream and told them what to write? Or does it mean that he put them in a trance and they started writing? Or perhaps he came to them in physical form and told them to sit down, shut the fuck up and write down everything he said? Why would "god" even need to inspire anyone to begin with? If he had a critically important message to convey to all of humanity and he wanted it in writing, why not just write it himself, in all languages so that the original source was preserved? If the message was really that important wouldn't that make more sense?

 

The bottom line is this: Unless someone can answer these very basic questions and prove "god inspiration", which is crucial to the very foundation of Christianity, then as far as I am concerned it is about as "god inspired" as the angel Gabriel coming to Muhammad in a dream and "inspiring" him to write the Quran, which is the "god inspired" foundation for Islam. Are we starting to see a pattern here?

[Akheia]

I can see why Calvinism has so many believers nowadays. Talk about a religion of guilt and fear. Jack, I'm so sorry you've been torturing yourself with such garbage. I really do encourage you to educate yourself about the Bible's numerous problems. But that really does bring up Calvinism's major issue: it may be taking the Bible very literally, but it's still the Bible, which is to say it's flawed and so sick and twisted that nobody sane should be putting stock in anything it says about morality or the afterlife.

 

If life after death were certain, then everybody would know about it. All we have is a few thousand subjective impressions that add up to vague, diametrically-opposed pictures. If the Bible were true, it'd be filled with immutable wisdom, and it isn't. If Christians had it right, they'd be paragons of Biblical virtue, and they're the most immoral people around.

 

It makes me sad that you're beating yourself up over something so abusive and emotionally blackmailing, but there's certainly a way out for you: educate yourself. The more you learn about the Bible and about so-called Christian "virtues," the better off you're going to be. Good luck

[Antlerman]

Dear Antlerman, I am in awe of the care and thought that you put into your answer above. I want to read it over a few more times before saying anything, and if I do, I think it needs to be elsewhere so as not to hijack this thread.

 

Best, F

Let me know if you wish to start a separate thread on NDEs so I know where it is. I'd enjoy a discussion with you. We can copy some of the posts out of here to kick start it if you wish.

[♦ ficino ♦]

Dear Antlerman, after more reading and thought, I have regretfully come to the conclusion that I cannot advance the ball any further at this point on the topics we started to discuss. Again, I appreciate your input and insight. As I intimated above, i have very deep reactions to the notions of mystical experience and self-realization, going back into my family history as well as my own life, and it would take a lot of time to untangle them and try to carry on dialogue that would benefit you and other readers. It might also be beyond me to respond lucidly and helpfully to what I perceive as layers of personal experience and layers of metaphysical positions in what you write. So, maybe at some future time... Anyway, I know where to find you!

 

All best, and with respect, F