Equivalent to Religion Feeling

T

toltec

Registered Senior Member
I'm a born non-believer, raised in an non-believing family. I've never been to church, never prayed, never had a religious feeling.

So when people say to me they have a religious/spirital (or whatever you care to call it) feeling/experience (again whatever you care to call it) when in church, in life, in prayer or wherever. Simply explaining a sensation to someone who has never had it doesn't work so I was wondering if either atheists who were formally religious or religious people could explain this to me by providing an equivalent example

For example sensations I feel are like awe when I saw the pyramids or the view from the top of a mountain. The emotion from music or death scenes in movies. The feeling of mystery wandering through stonehenge or the primeval sensation of walking through a graveyard at midnight after watching a horror movie.

The strange etherial feeling I get when I watch this has always been what I most imagine religion to be, perhaps I'm wrong?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZvBOnoNQzQ

I'm non-religious, but actually I don't know what I'm non. So I'm non-? And if someone can convince me the sensation I'm missing is akin to sex, you never know I may convert............

Question, is there something non-religious by which you could use to explain to me the sensation by?
 
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toltec said:
I'm a born non-believer, raised in an non-believing family. I've never been to church, never prayed, never had a religious feeling.

So when people say to me they have a religious/spirital (or whatever you care to call it) feeling/experience (again whatever you care to call it) when in church, in life, in pray or wherever. Simply explaining a sensation to someone who has never had it doesn't work so I was wondering if either atheists who were formally religious or religious people could explain this to me by providing an equivalent example

For example sensations I feel are like awe when I saw the pyramids or the view from the top of a mountain. The emotion from music or death scenes in movies. The feeling of mystery wandering through stonehenge or the primeval sensation of walking through a graveyard at midnight after watching a horror movie. Even the stange etherial sensation I get watching this, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZvBOnoNQzQ

Question, is there something non-religious by which you could use to explain to me the sensation by?
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being a non-religious "believer" i guess you could say (look at my thread What Am I?) i can understand this feeling. At times, i look back and see that some of the experiences were simply me convincing myself i was having these experiences, when in reality nothing was happening. Ive had drug-related experiences, so thats of course always an outside stimulant causing such spiritual experiences. Im not sure if ive truly felt god, but i may of. Of course, it may of been a delusional thing caused by my faith driven brain.
 
Reverence

Start with reverence as an anchor point, and work your way outward from there.
 
toltec said:
I'm a born non-believer, raised in an non-believing family. I've never been to church, never prayed, never had a religious feeling.

So when people say to me they have a religious/spirital (or whatever you care to call it) feeling/experience (again whatever you care to call it) when in church, in life, in prayer or wherever. Simply explaining a sensation to someone who has never had it doesn't work so I was wondering if either atheists who were formally religious or religious people could explain this to me by providing an equivalent example.
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Forget religion and praying and the Bible and angels and all that stuff. You never contemplated there being more to reality or existence then the Universe as shown? You never asked yourself if there is a God? Never??
 
jmpet said:
You never asked yourself if there is a God? Never??
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Certainly not, why on earth would I? If you are brought up in a religious environment I can understand that. But it's a totally absurd thing for someone in a religious vacuum to do.
 
toltec said:
Certainly not, why on earth would I? If you are brought up in a religious environment I can understand that. But it's a totally absurd thing for someone in a religious vacuum to do.
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Even being as anti-religion as I am, even i encourage you to do an inner search. God can be more than just a big dude sitting on a throne telling us what to do. Even I, who believe in God, offen question if there is or is not a god, and if the one i believe in even exsists. Its a healthy thing for human beings to do. Just, no church. Fuck church. haha
 
toltec said:
Certainly not, why on earth would I? If you are brought up in a religious environment I can understand that. But it's a totally absurd thing for someone in a religious vacuum to do.
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perhaps i'm wrong, but i find it extremely hard to believe that you and your family have existed in a vacuum.

certainly you haven't existed in a location so remote and isolated that you had never heard of the idea of god.
 
Lori_7 said:
perhaps i'm wrong, but i find it extremely hard to believe that you and your family have existed in a vacuum.

certainly you haven't existed in a location so remote and isolated that you had never heard of the idea of god.
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Lori for example, would be someone good to talk about that believes in God, but isnt a fucking idiot. Yay intelligence!
 
Lori_7 said:
perhaps i'm wrong, but i find it extremely hard to believe that you and your family have existed in a vacuum.

certainly you haven't existed in a location so remote and isolated that you had never heard of the idea of god.
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Nope in a country so irreligious we never get to see the thing, people that do have a god keep quiet out of embarrassment for mentioning their belief out loud as it would encourage mockery and derision from those around.
 
Psycho Bound said:
Even being as anti-religion as I am, even i encourage you to do an inner search. God can be more than just a big dude sitting on a throne telling us what to do. Even I, who believe in God, offen question if there is or is not a god, and if the one i believe in even exsists. Its a healthy thing for human beings to do. Just, no church. Fuck church. haha
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If you live in a world without god, it is absurd to start contemplating one. Should I contemplate pink fairies? pink fairies with one red leg? pink fairies with one green leg that a moody on a sunday afternoon? pink faires with one blue leg that are moody on a sunday afternoon and vote conservative? I

The amount of random things I can comtemplate are far too enourmous to begin a speculative journey without some basis of reality to begin with.
 
toltec said:
If you live in a world without god, it is absurd to start contemplaiting one. Should I contemplate pink fairies? pink fairies with one green leg? pink fairies with one green leg that a moody on a sunday afternoon? pink faires with one blue leg that are moody on a sunday afternoon and vote conservative?

The amount of random things I can comtemplate are far too enourmous to begin a speculative journey without some basis of reality to begin with.
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Hey, maybe they are such things. I live, most importantly, with an open mind. Now, these pink faires outta rethink voting conservative, they right seems to be quite afraid of anything that may be homosexual. goddamn biggots.
Anywho, just a suggestion. I think its a healthy thing for every person to ask him or herself. Personaly, i plan on letting DMT open my mind just a little more to the spirtual world :D
 
toltec said:
Nope in a country so irreligious we never get to see the thing, people that do have a god keep quiet out of embarrassment for mentioning their belief out loud as it would encourage mockery and derision from those around.
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well that's not very nice...conformity and oppression. :(

would it kill you to think outside the box? are you afraid to because of the conformity and oppression? if it helps any, god has never given me the impression that it's a pink fairy, or a fairy of any color or kind.
 
Psycho Bound said:
Hey, maybe they are such things. I live, most importantly, with an open mind. Now, these pink faires outta rethink voting conservative, they right seems to be quite afraid of anything that may be homosexual. goddamn biggots.
Anywho, just a suggestion. I think its a healthy thing for every person to ask him or herself. Personaly, i plan on letting DMT open my mind just a little more to the spirtual world :D
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just so you know, i didn't need any drugs to invite god into my life, and god is trippier than any drug out there i assure you.

be careful about what you invite into your life. the holy spirit isn't the only spirit out there. ;)
 
Lori_7 said:
well that's not very nice...conformity and oppression. :(

would it kill you to think outside the box? are you afraid to because of the conformity and oppression? if it helps any, god has never given me the impression that it's a pink fairy, or a fairy of any color or kind.
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I think out of the box all of the time but my life is finite and of the billion, trillion, gazillion fanciful ideas out there I can potentially think of, I will in my lifetime only be able to think of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a trillionth of a percent of them. So why would I want to think of one pretty uncreative version of the god botherer one amongst the plenitude?
 
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Lori_7 said:
just so you know, i didn't need any drugs to invite god into my life, and god is trippier than any drug out there i assure you.

be careful about what you invite into your life. the holy spirit isn't the only spirit out there. ;)
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haha i know i know. But hey, why not give it a wing :p

And trust me, i know o.0
 
toltec said:
I think out of the box all of the time but my life is finite and of the billion, trillion, gazillion fanciful ideas out there I can potentially think of, I will in my lifetime only be able to think of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a trillionth of a percent of them. So why would I want to think of one pretty uncreative version of the god botherer one amongst the plenitude?
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what does "god botherer" mean?

what if you get to live forever? what if you're not just physical? what if you were to commune with the creator of the universe and everyone around you? with nature?

would that change your fraction?
 
What if!!!!!

What if you're the imagination of the imagination of the imagination of a pink fairy?

Would that change your above question


You can go down the road of fanciful statements, but you'll only end up in ridiculousville. Which is why speculation has to be based on some kind of reasonable grounding. :m:
 
toltec said:
What if!!!!!

What if you're the imagination of the imagination of the imagination of a pink fairy?

Would that change your above question


You can go down the road of fanciful statements, but you'll only end up in ridiculousville. Which is why speculation has to be based on some kind of reasonable grounding. :m:
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hehe pot leaf... i want some pot...
 
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