The value of atheists

[RedDragon2]

This is a continuation of a previous topic from a few months ago, found here: http://www.spiritplants.org/long-house- ... c3208.html

Us psychedelics-users are a strange bunch. We are simultaneously adepts (or roller-coaster riders) of some of the MOST intense spiritual experiences available to man, and yet we are most often at odds with "conformist culture" and conformist ways of thinking.  These two characteristics are in no way contradictory, in fact they are rather complementary. However, possessing these two characteristics puts us in a strange position when it comes to discussing these things with people who have no experience with psychedelics.

On the one hand, we have the atheist who seems to ridicule the depth of meaning we attribute to our cosmic experiences, who always answers "it was all in your mind", "you were on a mind-bending drug", "how can you trust your experiences to be true to fact", etc. These are the typical atheist responses to these things.

Then we have the devout christian, muslim or other religious person who may equally brush aside our experiences as not truly religious, "merely drug-induced". However, the religious person CANNOT deny that the things we are saying about our experiences are IDENTICAL to the classical ecstatic experience, i.e. "i felt universal love", "i felt one with all things" etc. They will come up with other reasons to invalidate the experience, mostly with false or no logic, such as saying that "the experience did not come from God", "the feelings you had were not real",...

The funny thing is, if i'm truly honest, i personally cannot prove EITHER one wrong!  :lol:   Instead, i have my own ways of seeing things. The fact that an experience was GENUINELY god-granted or not, or adversely that it was "all in my mind", doesn't change what i may take back from the experience. For example the bird outside chirping at me, chastising me from my general bad behaviour, may be a paranoid delusion, but am still coming back from the trip knowing that i have some guilt issues about my behaviour that need to be looked at.

cheers!
RD

[Anonymous]

Looks good!

I'll comment later!

 :tea:

[JRL]

I work with some devout athietists and I find their arguments as specious as any fundmentalist. They think proving the fallacies of christianity proves there is no god. I tell 'em "don't blame g-d for religon."

[fuzz]

First, I agree with good old JRL. Athiests can be as closed minded as any fundamentals, ie, they know whats going on and everyone else is a moron.

second: reddragon concerning your text.
You write about "us psychedelic users" as if all users can be put in the same bag. I think this generalization points to something vague and idealized.
If you speak about those using entheogens in order to work on their psyche, those that use entheogens for spiritual purposes, then do mention so.
There are plenty of psychedelic users who just want a good time, get fucked up and see pretty colors, and basically use psychedelics for mere fun. Fun which of course is aaallllll right.
I've met too many kids who use psychedelics and have "become one with the universe blahblah" and still have absolutely no spiritual insight. To put those who just want to have fun and those who do serious work on themselves together in the same bag would be a mistake.

Of course as you say, the psychedelic experience and the mystical one can have many points in common. And of course such experiences remain souly personal and extremely hard to share with those that have not had such experiences. Yet, perhaps it is more about the way we share our experiences rather than our experiences in themselves. If I "become one with the universe" but can not convey this truth to another in simple words, what good is it to get such inisghts? Ie, the experience in itself is not much compared to what we gain from it, and what we apply from the exeprience in our daily life.
It is good to adapt our language to who we are speaking. Ie, if i speak with a convinced atheist I will not use the same vocabulary than if i speak with a dharma follower for exemple.

good work reddragon, keep on sharing:)