I worked in a somewhat radical, punk rock art department once. We all listened to music all day, speakers, headphones, whatever. There was a guy that worked next to me that was always blaring Mckenna fused with techno. I hated it. I still do not like McKenna mixed with music. I thought McKenna was insane. And he was to a degree, haha.

Somehow I got into to him on my own time, specifically for his DMT talks and branched out. Without the techno he is very soothing to listen to. I often put on the cassette tape series he made "True Hallucinations" just to go to sleep. Those ultimately become some very adventurous times in sleepy land.

The thing that put me off was suddenly being a floating head in front of the sun, all i could guess is that it was a bit like hallucinations hence mania. The rest of it works for depression i think - if you imagine that the "happy" bits are non-depressed and the "unhappy" bits are depressed. The artist perhaps had to over exaggerate both sides a touch because it's hard to describe feelings in words. In the non-depressed bit, life looks like it should; birds sing, leaves fall, you don't feel at odds with the world (1st bit), things seem alive for a change, the world spins and there are things to enjoy (the town scene). In the depressed bits everything feels uncomfortable and unsatisfying and generally grim (1st bit), constant reminder of there being no real purpose, no reason to do anything before you die, the world spins on, your life and death were irrelevant (grave surrounded by planet earth bit).

I don't think these hallucinations are exclusive to those going through physiological trauma. I know people that have experienced some of these things hours and days after they've lost a really close loved one (brother, mother, etc). I would hypothesize that this would be related to the abnormal dopamine function noted in the essay. Death is such a heavy and permanent thing that it has a very real physiological effect(for those of you that have experienced this can attest to it being akin to being "hit in the gut").

>> ^lantern53:

There is far more evidence that God exists than that God does not exist.
Study near-death experiences.


We've covered this before lantern... which is more probable: a person hallucinates when their brain is deprived of oxygen ooooor, magic sky-daddy controls the universe, but forsakes millions of people who don't know him just because of where they were born (say in the middle of the Amazon before the conquistadors showed up).

Study Occam's Razor

Yup, you're wasting your time. You will propose rational arguments and reason... Shiny will respond with religious dogma. Rinse, repeat, bang head on desk.

You cannot reason with blind faith.

But as you are blind, Shiny, others will continue to look and poke in those dark places you claim your god exists. The light of our inquiry and skepticism will illuminate that which is hidden in your god's domain. We will take it from your god and convert it to science. You will be painted ever further into the corner of your own ignorance until such a point that you have no ground upon which to stand. While you remain rigid in your unquestioning belief, we will seek understanding and truth and know them by their ability to stand up to scientific inquiry.

No god can hide from science. And someday we will place those that are left, like toys long outgrown, on a shelf... along with those gods from the past which you yourself do not believe in.

In all seriousness though, if you've heard or are hearing the voice(s) of your god, you might want to look into the possibility that you have schizophrenia, Shiny. This is not a jab or an attempt to imply that you are mentally unstable, but actual concern. The reality is that there are numerous sufferers of schizophrenia who hear auditory hallucinations, some of these take the form of "God". Something to consider.

>> ^EMPIRE:

Guys... seriously? You're still responding to Shiny Blurry?. You're wasting your time trying to stuff some knowledge into a black hole of ignorance.

>> ^garmachi:

What's the one with the bear cub at 1:01?


The Bear

@berticus Thank You for the link. I've read the article and it was very enlightening.

SUMMARY:
Reactions to claims of near-death experiences (NDE) range from the popular view that this must be evidence for life after death, to outright rejection of the experiences as, at best, drug induced hallucinations or, at worse, pure invention. Twenty years, and much research, later, it is clear that neither extreme is correct.

I think you are commenting on this part of mine,

"Science suggests it could be the result of a series of biological reactions that help the body cope." (1:42) Can you show me the studies that suggest this--No, there are none. That is an incorrect use of the word "science".

I was commenting on the part, "...that help the body to cope." This is the bad science I was referring to. There is no doubt that a series of biological reactions take place.

As the summary shows the article doesn't conclude that science proves that the near death experience is only the result of dying neurons.

I would like to hear your evaluation of the article and your thoughts on this subject.

Feelings come and go..if it was just feelings I wouldn't have the faith in God that I do..there were many times it would have been much easier not to believe..and many feelings that came along that were powerful and should have swept my belief in God away if that's all my faith was about..but God has always been there, eternal and unchanging..providing stability in the midst of the chaos..providing truth that is real and tangibly useful in life.

It depends on what you think the nature of truth is..whether it is relative or absolute to you..because in the relative truth world, feelings are king..you are always running a race you can never win. in the world of absolute truth, feelings are like shifting sand..they aren't a foundation for what is real..you must plant yourself on a rock to be well grounded

In reply to this comment by Crunchy:
>> ^shinyblurry:

Well, if I am psychotic I don't have any symptoms. I don't have hallucinations or hear voices, nor am I at all paranoid. My thoughts and feelings are organized and stable. I obey all laws, those of society and those from God. I have empathy for others, compassion for their plights, and generally love and care for my fellow man. I am emotionally stable and can relate to others and form relationships. If I am psychotic, I am the rare well adjusted empathetic type.
My initial experience opened me to an awareness of the spiritual. It started out as an awareness of energy. That in the moment, one could perceive the energy which was flowing through all things. Through other people, through objects, through the room or space you are in..that there was a tangible vibrational signature to everything. This is somewhat described in much of the new age literature.
After getting used to this, God unequivicably showed me He was there. He did this by instructing me in the Spirit about who He is. He showed me how He had always been there my entire life, and that He loved me. He showed me His omnipresence in the moment, that He was always working behind the scenes to bring all things together to His will..and by all things I mean everything, everywhere. He showed me He was the unifying principle underlying reality.
He also taught me He is the God of the bible. He taught me He is a triune God. He taught me there is a messiash, ie, someone whose job it is to save the world. He taught me about good and evil. He showed me that Satan is real and that he has a host of demons which suborindate people to his will and can even possess them utterly. That and many other things before I even knew anything about Christianity.
I couldn't ignore God if I tried..it would be a joke. I would have to pretend He didn't exist. Even still, all I would have to do is look outside and the illusion would be shattered. It is true what this scripture says:
Romans 1:20
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
So that's a little bit about it. The most important thing I learned is that God loves us and wants to give us a real future, ie eternal life. All he requires is that we turn from our evil and acknowledge our responsibility to Him to live a moral life. Two things make someone a Christian and saves you..believing in your heart that Jesus rose from the dead, and confessing that He is your Lord and Savior. He died for our sins so that we could be redeemed, and because of that, is worthy of all praise.

<em>>> <a rel="nofollow" href='http://videosift.com/member/shinyblurry#comment-1231303'>^Crunchy</a>:<br />Hi, big fan... Ive seen your comments on some sifts and well... they've been interesting and when reading your profile i came across this <BR><BR>"10 years ago I was where you are now. I've was agnostic for the majority of my life. I thought truth was relative, humanism was superior, and was a strict materialist who saw no evidence for spirit or God. Then God woke me up and showed me He is there. God is more real to me than my own reflection in a mirror. I'm here because God commanded me to preach the gospel, and because I care about my fellow man. I am here out of love for God and love for people, and that alone. "<BR><BR>What scared me is that you say that you've been "one of us" and then god appeared and gave commands directly to you, point being you experienced something supernatural.<BR><BR>Now my first reaction was, oh god i hope i dont become bat shit and experience "supernatural" things one day, which seemd plausible since you said you've been one of us.<BR><BR>But then i remembered what i know about the human mind and psychosis. When a person is in a psychosis he/she is deemd mentally insane and has lost contact with reality. "Funny" thing is though, that the person is not aware of it, and so does not feel that there is anything wrong with him/her and might get frustrated about why people think he/she is insane.<BR><BR>Now there are alot of things that can create a psychosis but im not gonna start listing, if youre interested you can google it.<BR><BR>There are no hard lines when it comes to the human mind, theres no 100% insane or 100% sane, everyone have most of the mental illneses to some small extent. And we can witness symptoms of these diseases in most people to some extent. (Denial<BR><BR>The mind is a tricky thing, it has lots of funny defence mechanisms (you guessed it, psychosis), and if you dont know enough of your brain and how it functions, it can royally screw you over one day.<BR><BR>So... to me it sounds like you've experienced something traumatic and suffer from a psychosis, I am however interested in hearing about what turned you religious, how did god wake you up and show you that he is there, and i notice you write he with a capital H so why is he a he <IMG class=smiley src="http://cdn.videosift.com/cdm/emoticon/tongue.gif"><BR><BR>Im sorry to say but if you dont tell me more about your experience, in other words convince me that what you experienced wasnt a mental brakedown, im gonna continue believing that youre bat shit and ignore you<BR><BR>You can always argue that im the one who is psychotic, but then you cant convince my because im in denial<BR></em>


The thing is that emotions are much stronger in controlling trains of thought than logic, why is why depressesion is so common and when in a depression you think of only sad things, which is why medication is prescribed, its not to make people numb (which alot of people seem to think) but to ease the pain temporarily so the person can think logically and not in the same trains of thoughts. And from my point of view it seems like you've confused emotions and mechanisms of your brain with the presence of a god (stephen fry talked a bit about this in the infamous stephen fry on god and gods video didn't he ?)

Now that is my opinion, ive created that from the experience and "knowledge" ive gathered in my lifetime regarding the human mind, philosophy and religion etc. Its gonna take alot to change my view on this, and I think it might be even harder to change your view of what really happend and what is going on, with the god and what not.

So, I guess we can just agree to disagree?

>> ^Psychologic:

I don't think that was a rage-quit. Idra rarely ever says "gg" if he thinks the loss was BS. He thought MMA was ahead and called the game.

Huk's hallucinated Voidrays... that was an Idra rage-quit.


But it was also right after he lost all his banelings, and he always seems to rage right after he loses banelings. Regardless, I hate that prick, so this outcome was pretty glorious.

I don't think that was a rage-quit. Idra rarely ever says "gg" if he thinks the loss was BS. He thought MMA was ahead and called the game.


Huk's hallucinated Voidrays... that was an Idra rage-quit.

It amazes me how some people think that conversions under extreme circumstances supports their position!

Show me an atheist who converts to Christianity, not because of a hallucination or wonderful boon or imminent death, but because he studied the religion and it all started to make sense. That's something worth talking about, and a person worth talking to.

Because the truth is, for a person who isn't suffering from confirmation bias, the more you study religion, the more you realize it's fake.

>> ^shinyblurry:

What I mean is that I don't really believe you. I've spoken to many atheists who claimed to be ex christians but then myteriously didn't seem to know anything about it, like you. I've had atheists tell me they were ex pastors but didn't know any verses. It's a common trick from dishonest people to have that talking point. My point still stands.

So you won't take me seriously until I've passed some sort of Bible quiz?

Well, then, we're even. Because there is no way in hell I'm going to believe you really talked to Jesus and he told you all the secrets of the universe in person.

And I simply will never understand why you encourage people to believe without a shred of evidence the exact thing that you didn't believe until it was "proven" to you by the man Himself! If God wants me to believe, He can show me the same way He showed you. Until then, you are nothing to me but a hallucinating, logic-defying, Bible-thumping nutjob.

Glad we got that cleared up.

1. The logic is simple; The only true God could be the being that no one else created. If a God was created by something else, then he wouldnt be a God. This points to one true God.

The Universe had an absolute beginning, including all matter energy time and space. Therefore this points to a reality beyond the Universe, a transcendent non physical immaterial reality beyond space and time. This points to a supernatural cause.

How could something come from nothing? Only nothing can come from nothing. Therefore there had always had to have been something for there to be anything. This points to an eternal cause.

The Universe appears to be designed. The are dozens of physical constants which, if altered even slighty, would result in a lifeless Universe.

Two good examples:

Imagine a ruler 14 billion light years wide, which is the length of the Universe. It's divided into one inch increments, which is the range of settings for the strength of gravity. It just happens to be set in just the right place for life. If you move the setting one inch life to any other setting as compared to the length of the ruler, life becomes basically impossible.

The cosmological constant is finetuned to 1:1 with 53 zeros behind it. It has been compared to throwing a dart at the earth from orbit and hitting a bullseyes 1 trillion trillionth of an inch.

Taken together, their level of fine tuning is to a precision of 1 in one hundred million trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion. Which is like one atom out of the entire universe.

That's just the periphery of it..

2. Sounds like you were a pretty terrible Christian..you did as you were told and prayed a lot. lol. This a Christian does not make. The total actual knowledge you seem to have about Gods will, or what is in the bible, could probably fit on the head of a pin with room to spare. You ever stop to think that you never saw God because didn't have any real faith to begin with? Sounds like your parents didn't understand their own faith, therefore raised you in ignorance..you became worldly..and tada, you're an atheist. For the record, every ex-christian atheist I meet never knows shit about the bible..they're also usually ex-catholic.

3. It's not really your fault..you're just totally disillusioned. I wasn't raised Christian so I was never disappointed by it. I made an informed decision to become a Christian after God showed me definitively He is the God of the bible. Otherwise I would just be a theist.
Because you used to be a Christian, it's in Gods hands if He wants you back. Nothing I say to you is going to make any difference what so ever. All I can tell you is that I'll pray that God has mercy on you, though with comments like "non-existant facist dictator" I can tell you you aren't helping your case.


>> ^MaxWilder:
1. You have "stated" that there can be only one God, but you have not put any logic into it. Things are created by individuals, by teams of individuals, and by natural forces without any outside assistance. There is no reason to believe that the universe could only have been created by a single force, much less a single conscious entity. It is an unknown, and you don't have a shred of evidence or logic to indicate otherwise.
2. As I have already explained here and here, I was raised a Christian. I went to church. I did as I was told. I prayed for strength and guidance. And when my natural curiosity began to reveal the flaws in Christianity and the Bible, I prayed about it quite a bit. Over the course of many years. I got no response. God never revealed himself to me. So you can shove that "God will reveal Himself to you if you seek Him out" crap. It simply isn't true. You may think that God has revealed himself to you, but as far as I know that was a total hallucination brought on by some sort of temporary brain trauma. Unless the same thing happens to me, there is absolutely no reason for me to trust your word on the matter.
3. As far as spirituality in atheists goes, there is a huge spectrum. I can only speak for myself. I often find myself wishing for some sort of insight or revelation about the nature of the universe. But for the most part I am ok with not knowing. I understand that nobody really knows, and that comforts me a little. I still hope that there is something more to life after we die, but there's no way of knowing until after it's over, and I'm not going to waste my life hoping that there's something better afterward. So yeah, occasionally I still find myself in a "prayer-like" moment, hoping that there is some force out there that may help me solve a problem I'm facing. Then I get over it and start working on the task myself. Even if there was some sort of "miracle" that fixed what I was thinking about, that wouldn't mean it was Jesus! Again, there would still be no link between what I experience and the Bible, unless like you I had a hallucination about Jesus revealing the secrets behind the curtain. Heck, even if that happened I'd probably assume I had a brain injury and go see a doctor about it as soon as possible.
By the way, your little jabs like "It's obvious you don't really know anything about the bible, or even comparative religion." and "your viewpoint is not very sophisticated" are called Ad Hominem attacks. They fail to make any point. I know I occasionally will throw in an insult when I'm feeling weak, so I don't take it personally. Just be clear that you are dodging my points without answering them whenever you dismiss them like that. To quote you, "you're just making yourself look foolish", "childish at best", and "not very sophisticated". Sheesh, this coming from a guy who seriously thinks satanists on a website are throwing spells around. Holy crap. Keep it up man, you are making my case for me.

1. You have "stated" that there can be only one God, but you have not put any logic into it. Things are created by individuals, by teams of individuals, and by natural forces without any outside assistance. There is no reason to believe that the universe could only have been created by a single force, much less a single conscious entity. It is an unknown, and you don't have a shred of evidence or logic to indicate otherwise.

2. As I have already explained here and here, I was raised a Christian. I went to church. I did as I was told. I prayed for strength and guidance. And when my natural curiosity began to reveal the flaws in Christianity and the Bible, I prayed about it quite a bit. Over the course of many years. I got no response. God never revealed himself to me. So you can shove that "God will reveal Himself to you if you seek Him out" crap. It simply isn't true. You may think that God has revealed himself to you, but as far as I know that was a total hallucination brought on by some sort of temporary brain trauma. Unless the same thing happens to me, there is absolutely no reason for me to trust your word on the matter.

3. As far as spirituality in atheists goes, there is a huge spectrum. I can only speak for myself. I often find myself wishing for some sort of insight or revelation about the nature of the universe. But for the most part I am ok with not knowing. I understand that nobody really knows, and that comforts me a little. I still hope that there is something more to life after we die, but there's no way of knowing until after it's over, and I'm not going to waste my life hoping that there's something better afterward. So yeah, occasionally I still find myself in a "prayer-like" moment, hoping that there is some force out there that may help me solve a problem I'm facing. Then I get over it and start working on the task myself. Even if there was some sort of "miracle" that fixed what I was thinking about, that wouldn't mean it was Jesus! Again, there would still be no link between what I experience and the Bible, unless like you I had a hallucination about Jesus revealing the secrets behind the curtain. Heck, even if that happened I'd probably assume I had a brain injury and go see a doctor about it as soon as possible.

By the way, your little jabs like "It's obvious you don't really know anything about the bible, or even comparative religion." and "your viewpoint is not very sophisticated" are called Ad Hominem attacks. They fail to make any point. I know I occasionally will throw in an insult when I'm feeling weak, so I don't take it personally. Just be clear that you are dodging my points without answering them whenever you dismiss them like that. To quote you, "you're just making yourself look foolish", "childish at best", and "not very sophisticated". Sheesh, this coming from a guy who seriously thinks satanists on a website are throwing spells around. Holy crap. Keep it up man, you are making my case for me.

"I cannot afford to build my life on hallucination."

Agreed. Even though this feels like a dupe.