Forgive me, what I meant to say, and I got sidetracked is this, I believe you are correct in being an atheist. You are being honest to yourself and to others.
To me I cannot be an Atheist, not because of any moral or intellectual belief, but because I have Experienced, for lack of a better word, God Experience. So to me God exists only because I have been able to experience something many atheist have not experienced.
It is nothing I can bring back and prove here without a proper DMT study. I never believed in ESP from 18 all the ways to my 40's, then I started having spiritual experiences and premonitions that came to happen.
I do not take any unprescribed medicine and I take no hallucinogens, but I feel that my body was producing it's own natural DMT allowing me to experience another reality, I don't mean hallucination, but a reality I cannot fully bring into words, “experience” for lack of a better word.
Here is a post on this forum from where I am coming from. http://www.politicalfray.com/showthread.php?p=28846#post28846
I feel you are being honest to yourself and are correct in saying your an atheist and correct in saying there is no god. Just as I am correct in saying I am a Believer and sometimes Believe (experience) a Higher Power. No one can argue you or me for our experience or lack of experience, were both on the same side of a different fence. Experience is real, even if it is not real to others.
Please will you tell us more of the premonitions that came true? Are they in dreams or do they happen at a particular time as opposed to suddenly?
I used to be an atheist. As a kid, I always read well above my grade level and was deep into Heinlein, Asimov and Clark (among a few others) by 7th grade. Balancing the mind expansion given me by science fiction against the dogma of the Christian church in which I was raised led me to become an atheist for a few years. Then, when I was a junior in HS, I had a sledding accident with a Near Death Experience. Was it just brain trauma? I don't know but it certainly seemed very real to me. I've had dreams, experimented with a variety of chemically-induced altered states and other forms of consciousness raising. Nothing has come close to that experience I had almost 40 years ago.
Since then, I've been on a spiritual quest. I don't buy the dogma of religion, but I do accept that they can be paths to God. Where people go wrong is when they put the dogma above or ahead of seeking a better understanding of God and themselves.
Since then, I've been on a spiritual quest. I don't buy the dogma of religion, but I do accept that they can be paths to God. Where people go wrong is when they put the dogma above or ahead of seeking a better understanding of God and themselves.
Well put. I consider myself to be an agnostic, but I am inclined to believe there is no God that cares about the actions of humans but instead that the laws of the universe are basically a higher form in and of themselves. Spinoza's God in a way, for those familiar with that.
Many of the Founding Fathers were Deists. I'm inclined to believe that way myself.
FWIW, I don't believe any good parent hands out red bicycles just because their child asks for it. It spoils the child. Better to help the child learn how to earn that red bicycle itself. They become better people for the experience and will appreciate something they had to work hard to acquire better than if it was just handed to them on a platter.
If God is the ultimate parent, why would the logic be any different?
Very eloquently stated. I get so wrapped up in dogma that I do loose the real intention sometimes. But when the Christian church batters me for who I am, things I have little control over, I tend to take a defensive approach. Your statement reminded me what it was about
Understandable to become defensive when someone is trying to shove their version of beliefs down a person's throat.
As it is, I tend to like this bumper sticker:
As it is, I tend to like this bumper sticker:
