Is that surprising? … Don’t people on this site rail against how low the sanity waterline is? I mean, you don’t disagree that I’m more rational than most Christians and Muslims, right?
No, I suppose it’s not surprising. I guess I misread the connotations of your claim. Although I am still not certain I agree: I know some very rational and intelligent Christians, and some very rational and intelligent atheists (I don’t really know many Muslims, so I can’t say anything about them). At some point I guess this statement is true by definition, since we can define open-minded as “open-minded enough to convert religion if you have good enough evidence to do so.” But I can’t remember where we were going with this one so I’ll shut up about it.
Do they do this by using tricks like Multiheaded described? Or by using mystical plants or meditation? (I know there are Christians who think repeating a certain prayer as a mantra and meditating on it for a long time is supposed to work… and isn’t there, or wasn’t there, some Islamic sect where people try to find God by spinning around?) If so, that really doesn’t count. Is there another study where that question was asked? Because if you’re asserting that mystical experiences can be artificially induced by such means in most if not all people, then we’re in agreement.
I was unable to find numerical data on this. I did find some assertions in the surveys that some of the mystical experience was untriggered, I found one study comparing 31 people with triggered mystical experience to 31 people with untriggered mystical experience (suggesting it’s not too hard to get a sample of the latter), and I have heard anecdotes from people I know about having untriggered mystical experience.
Honestly I had never really thought of that as an important difference. Keep in mind that it’s really weird that the brain responds to relatively normal stressors, like fasting or twirling or staying still for two long, by producing this incredible feeling of union with God. Think of how surprising this would be if you weren’t previously aware of it, how complex a behavior this is, as opposed to something simpler like falling unconscious. The brain seems to have this built-in, surprising tendency to have mystical experiences, which can be triggered by a lot of different things.
As someone in the field of medicine, this calls to mind the case of seizures, another unusual mental event which can be triggered in similar conditions. Doctors have this concept called the “seizure threshold”. Some people have low seizure thresholds, other people high seizure thresholds. Various events—taking certain drugs, getting certain diseases, being very stressed, even seeing flashing lights in certain patterns—increases your chance of having a seizure, until it passes your personal seizure threshold and you have one. And then there are some people—your epileptics—who can just have seizures seemingly out of nowhere in the course of everyday life (another example is that some lucky people can induce orgasm at will, whereas most of us only achieve orgasm after certain triggers).
I see mystical experiences as working a lot like seizures—anyone can have one if they experience enough triggers, and some people experience them without any triggers at all. It wouldn’t be at all parsimonous to say that some people have this reaction when they skip a few meals, or stay in the dark, or sit very still, and other people have this reaction when they haven’t done any of these things, but these are caused by two completely different processes.
I mean, if we already know that dreaming up mystical experiences is the sort of thing the brain does in some conditions, it’s a lot easier to expand that to “and it also does that in other conditions” than to say “but if it happens in other conditions, it is proof of God and angels and demons and an entire structure of supernatural entities.”
I was thinking more along the lines of “going to hell is a natural consequence of worshiping Astarte”, analogous to “if I listen to my peers and smoke pot, I won’t be able to sing, whereas if I listen to my mother and drink lots of water, I will; therefore, my mother is right and listening to my peers is bad”. I hadn’t even considered it from that point of view before.
The (relatively sparse) Biblical evidence suggests an active role of God in creating Hell and damning people to it. For example:
“This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 13:49)
“Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire that has been prepared for the devil and his angels!” (Matthew 25:41)
“If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, that person was thrown into the lake of fire.” (Revelations 20:15)
“God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment” (2 Peter 2:4)
“Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.” (Luke 12:5)
That last one is particularly, um, pleasant. And it’s part of why it is difficult for me to see a moral superiority of Jehovah over Astarte: of the one who’s torturing people eternally, over the one who fails to inform you that her rival is torturing people eternally.
No, I suppose it’s not surprising. I guess I misread the connotations of your claim. Although I am still not certain I agree: I know some very rational and intelligent Christians, and some very rational and intelligent atheists (I don’t really know many Muslims, so I can’t say anything about them). At some point I guess this statement is true by definition, since we can define open-minded as “open-minded enough to convert religion if you have good enough evidence to do so.” But I can’t remember where we were going with this one so I’ll shut up about it.
I was unable to find numerical data on this. I did find some assertions in the surveys that some of the mystical experience was untriggered, I found one study comparing 31 people with triggered mystical experience to 31 people with untriggered mystical experience (suggesting it’s not too hard to get a sample of the latter), and I have heard anecdotes from people I know about having untriggered mystical experience.
Honestly I had never really thought of that as an important difference. Keep in mind that it’s really weird that the brain responds to relatively normal stressors, like fasting or twirling or staying still for two long, by producing this incredible feeling of union with God. Think of how surprising this would be if you weren’t previously aware of it, how complex a behavior this is, as opposed to something simpler like falling unconscious. The brain seems to have this built-in, surprising tendency to have mystical experiences, which can be triggered by a lot of different things.
As someone in the field of medicine, this calls to mind the case of seizures, another unusual mental event which can be triggered in similar conditions. Doctors have this concept called the “seizure threshold”. Some people have low seizure thresholds, other people high seizure thresholds. Various events—taking certain drugs, getting certain diseases, being very stressed, even seeing flashing lights in certain patterns—increases your chance of having a seizure, until it passes your personal seizure threshold and you have one. And then there are some people—your epileptics—who can just have seizures seemingly out of nowhere in the course of everyday life (another example is that some lucky people can induce orgasm at will, whereas most of us only achieve orgasm after certain triggers).
I see mystical experiences as working a lot like seizures—anyone can have one if they experience enough triggers, and some people experience them without any triggers at all. It wouldn’t be at all parsimonous to say that some people have this reaction when they skip a few meals, or stay in the dark, or sit very still, and other people have this reaction when they haven’t done any of these things, but these are caused by two completely different processes.
I mean, if we already know that dreaming up mystical experiences is the sort of thing the brain does in some conditions, it’s a lot easier to expand that to “and it also does that in other conditions” than to say “but if it happens in other conditions, it is proof of God and angels and demons and an entire structure of supernatural entities.”
The (relatively sparse) Biblical evidence suggests an active role of God in creating Hell and damning people to it. For example:
“This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 13:49)
“Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire that has been prepared for the devil and his angels!” (Matthew 25:41)
“If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, that person was thrown into the lake of fire.” (Revelations 20:15)
“God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment” (2 Peter 2:4)
“Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.” (Luke 12:5)
That last one is particularly, um, pleasant. And it’s part of why it is difficult for me to see a moral superiority of Jehovah over Astarte: of the one who’s torturing people eternally, over the one who fails to inform you that her rival is torturing people eternally.