Atheists can have a spiritual experience too!

[Martha Farka]

Well known YouTube atheist, Dusty Smith demonstrates that even a complete sceptic can have a spiritual experience (with the help of DMT). Basically, his point is that anyone can have what feels like a very spiritual experience but it's all just in your brain.

[groovelick]

Atheists have been having spiritual experinces for millenia just ask a buddhist

[forest dog]

I'll get as close to a spiritual vibe as possible for me when I'm out in the forest at dawn having just bonged one up. Getting up on the hill side with my dogs and a joint, watching the sun set as the full moon rises on the opposite horizon does it for me too. Maybe I'm a naturist?

[Fingermouse]

@@forest dog I think you'v got it bang on mate, iv recently got into biking out in the woods and after a few vapes in the sun it's perfect

[Sasquatch]

I'm an atheist, inasmuch as i don't think we are ruled by some guy with a beard wearing a dress sat on a loud holding philosophically indefensible power over us all. That doesn't mean I think there is no more to life than what our senses tell us nor that we cease to exist when we die.

Hopefully one day science will be able to answer all the questions posed by religion believers, anyhow I think that for now if you want answers those religions are the last places you should look for them. DMT isn't the answer to anything either, like the man says it's just another chemical produced by the brain.

[Sp1n]

I'll get as close to a spiritual vibe as possible for me when I'm out in the forest at dawn having just bonged one up. Getting up on the hill side with my dogs and a joint, watching the sun set as the full moon rises on the opposite horizon does it for me too. Maybe I'm a naturist?

That sounds like the perfect 'Church' I worship nature in the mountains with my dog too - it reinvigorates the spirit and bolsters my resolve.

[sam-i-am]

That sounds like the perfect 'Church' I worship nature in the mountains with my dog too - it reinvigorates the spirit and bolsters my resolve.

The sea really does it for me, too

[Wiggiz]

I'm not completely sure whether I'm an atheist or an agnostic, either way I'm of the opinion that whether there is/isn't a god, there's not a lot we can do about it. I'm certainly not going to be bowing and scraping before any one god or not. However I've had numerous spiritual experiences on psychedelics but I've also had them without. None of these 'experiences' have made me believe in god or an afterlife, but they have made me feel a connection to everything else.

I don't know whether it's because my brain is wired differently because I'm on the spectrum or because I've always been fascinated by the fact that nothing ever really dies on a particle level, but I find it truly mind boggling that all the teeny tiny bits that make us have all been something else and that since time began we've all been stars, oceans, trees, goats, dandelions, etc. Just knowing that fact and really thinking deeply about it, can bring on such feelings of joy, love and belonging that I can fully understand why people in the past, who knew very little about science, would think they were being touched by god.

[I-KUE]

I'm not completely sure whether I'm an atheist or an agnostic

There is only one option, every human is agnostic, whether they like it or not.

[Wiggiz]

There is only one option, every human is agnostic, whether they like it or not.

Sorry you missed my point. What I meant was it doesn't really matter what I (or anyone else) label myself - believer, agnostic, atheist, enlightened or whatever. There's fuck all I can do about it, so it doesn't matter.

[troy]

Sam Harris : 'Waking up, a guide to Spirituality without religion'

[Guest bazzad9]

@@Wiggiz

an apatheist my be a label for you if you wanted one

1. "An apatheist is also someone who is not interested in accepting or denying any claims that gods exist or do not exist. In other words, anapatheist is someone who considers the question of the existence of gods as neither meaningful nor relevant to their life."

[Guest bazzad9]

i think the whole spiritual thing is meaningless nonsense

i think we replace words like "awe,inspiring etc" with spiritual when we could use the words awe inspiring etc instead ,spiritual carries a lot of unnecessary baggage

finding some kind of awe or inspiration or whatever from the sea as sam says (and i also get ) if a very different thing from the spiritual of an all knowing god ,or healing crystals

for example i could ask "are you very spiritual ?"

you could answer "yes i am "

it hasnt told me anything about you ,you could mean sparkle ponies exist and rule the world or you could mean that you find great inspiration from nature are two very different things

im drawn to the sea myself .i dont know if its the sheer power of it ,the expanse ,the deadly nature of it or what but that doesnt say anything about gods or sparkle ponies etc

so to me the word has become used for so many contradictory things it gives no information and is therefore a useless word

if we are using spiritual in the awe amazement sense as it often seems to be then atheists have been having it for as long as theists if not longer

Edited October 11, 2014 by bazzad9

[troy]

I agree it can be a confusing word. In his book Sam Harris defines it extensively as a way of exploring the possibilities of your mind through drugs or mediation. Mind expanding we used to call it in the old days. Or possibly altered states of consciousness. Letting go of the self and staying in the moment.

It seems clear that religious people can attain a state sometimes where they feel connected to the universe and feel at one with it. Sam argues this can be done without religion.

[Guest bazzad9]

I agree it can be a confusing word. In his book Sam Harris defines it extensively as a way of exploring the possibilities of your mind through drugs or mediation. Mind expanding we used to call it in the old days. Or possibly altered states of consciousness. Letting go of the self and staying in the moment.

It seems clear that religious people can attain a state sometimes where they feel connected to the universe and feel at one with it. Sam argues this can be done without religion.

ive not read that one of his

everytime i look through my telescope say i get that feeling ,at one with but at the same time insignificant in the universe ,as i said before the sea holds something for me .and thats just going about my normal day so to speak ,no meditation required

not that meditation is a bad thing by any stretch

i guess what im saying is that sam harris is correct but my version if you like is far simpler ,watching the swans when i walk the dog amazes me everytime ,swans in the flesh are new to me when i see them i am in awe ,the world is a better place just because swans are swans and i get to see them

yes meditation etc might work as well but you dont need it for any of those feelings ,the moon to this day at 43 years old still fascinates me and i get those feelings simply from looking at the moon

sam is correct but his argument went deeper than it really needed to ,in my opinion of course