I know exactly what he means and have the same thought.. unconditional love for all after having a spiritual 'awakening'. Mine however wasn't born of psychodelic use but rather spiritual pursuits such as meditation during the most stressful time of my life. It was like my mind broke and a new me was born. It utterly changed how I think and feel. If I were religious at the time I'm sure I would have taken it as a sign some god had chosen me and for this reason I don't consider people who 'find god' or are 'born again' to be bat-shit crazy. They've simply had a similar experience.

I never understood exactly what happened to me physiologically to cause such a radical shift in the way I think and feel so I'm glad science is researching this phenomenon. That 'event' happened 20+ years ago but it still affects me every day.

Ooh! New 'hope!

Having just listened to the entire thing, I got curious about the ubiquitous "12 Step Programs" and I realized I'd never known what the actual 12 steps were. And since we have this worldwide repository of knowledge humankind has never known before at our fingertips, I found the following official 12 steps (emphasis mine):

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10.Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
11.Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12.Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Wow. Douggie wasn't kidding, was he? So apparently, foxholes and alcoholism have something else in common!

>> ^shinyblurry:

Since you asked, I'll tell you why I believe in God. Up until 8 years ago I was agnostic. I was raised agnostic, without any religion. We celebrated Christmas and Easter, but that was about it. I wasn't raised to like or dislike religion, I was simply left free to decide what I believed.
At the time I became a theist, I didn't believe in a spiritual reality, or any God I had ever heard of, because like most of the people here I saw no evidence for it at all. I actually used to go into christian chat rooms and debate christians on what I saw to be inconsistances in the bible. A lot of what people have said in this thread are thoughts that I once had and arguments I used to use myself.
Then one day it all changed. I guess you could say my third eye was opened. I had something akin to a kundalini awakening, spontaneously out of nowhere. When it was over, I could suddenly perceive the spiritual reality. I didn't quite know what I was looking at, at the time..didn't truly understand what had happened to me (though through intuition i understood the great potential of it). It was only after researching it online and finding out about the chakras did I start to understand.
It's an amazing, truly truly amazing thing to find out everything you know is wrong. It is really utterly mind blowing. This however, was the conclusion I was forced to immediately reach however, because the evidence for it was right in front of my face. Everything that I had known up until the point I could perceive the spiritual was missing so many essential elements that I may as well have been just born.
I started to receive signs..little miracles, I would call them..like stepping in front of a vast panarama of nature and suddenly seeing it at an angle impossible to human sight, where everything is in focus at the same time, that produced such startling beauty it filled me to overflowing with estatic joy. I started to perceive there was a higher beauty, a higher love that had always been there but I had somehow missed it. I started to get the point, that there was something more. That there was a God.
When I conceded it was possible, to myself, it was then that I started to hear from Him directly. He let me know a couple of things, and proved to me that I wasn't just imagining Him. He showed me that He had been there my entire life, teaching me and guiding me as a child on, only I had been totally unaware of it. He showed me how we "shared space", and that not only could He read my mind, but in some essential way that He was what my mind is. That He is mind itself. He showed me how my thought process was more of a cooperative than a solitary thing.
Now before you say I just jumped at all of this because everyone wants to imagine a loving God, etc etc..untrue in my case. When I first found out He was definitely real, i was scared shitless. Up until that point, my thoughts about God were all negative. I figured if He did exist He probably hated me. You see, that is what I had gleaned growing up in a Christian society without actually knowing anything about it.
At this point I became a theist. I thought of God as a He because He seemed masculine rather than feminine, and also I thought of Him as the Creator. I didn't know anything about the bible, or the Holy Trinity, or what a messiah was, or any of that. I thought the God I knew must not be generally known because I had never seen anything out there that pointed to a loving God.
For the next 6 yeears I was on a spiritual journey. I studied all the various belief systems, spiritual or otherwise, all the religious history..east and west, north and south. I studied philosophy and esoteric wisdom, gurus and prophets. The one I really hadn't studied though, was Christianity. The reason being I didn't believe Jesus actually ever existed so I dismissed it out of hand.
Before I knew anything about Christianity, God taught me three important things about who He is. One, He taught me His nature is triune, that God is three. I didn't understand what that meant precisely, I just knew that was His nature. He also taught me that there was a Messiah. He taught me that there was someone whose job it was to save the world. The third thing and most important thing He taught me was about His love. That He loved everyone, and that He secretly took care of them whether they believed in Him or not. He showed me His perfect heart.
What led me to the bible was this: I asked Him who the Messiah was and He told me to look in a mirror. At the time I had been away from civilization for a few months and my beard had grown out for the first time in my life. I hadn't seen a mirror since I was clean shaven. I sought one out and when I saw my reflection I couldn't believe my eyes. I looked exactly like Jesus Christ. I mean to a T.
It was then I was forced to accept the possibility that Jesus was real. To be honest, I really didn't want to. I felt like I had a really special relationship with the Father and that Jesus could only get in the way of that. I didn't even feel like I could pay Him any real respect, because I knew the Father was greater than He was. But, I couldn't ignore what He was showing me, so I started to read the bible. To my surprise, I found out it was about the God I already knew.
Everything I read in the bible matched what I already knew about God . The Holy Trinity matched His triune nature. That there was a Messiah and Jesus was it. And most of all His love, His great and majestic love, for all people, was perfectly laid out in ways I had never before comprehended. The bible was the only information on Earth that accurately described what I already knew about God. That is how I knew it was true from the outset.
So that's when I became a Christian. I couldn't ignore the evidence. My journey to Christianity was based on rationality and logic, believe it or not, albiet with miracles and spirituality mixed in. Even the miracles themselves were logical, as God showed me how He worked from a meta-perspective, and that time and space didn't restrict Him at all. So there you have it..an interesting testimony to be sure.
I am unusual in that I didn't come to God on my own. God chose me, I didn't choose Him. I might never have come to God if He hadn't. I found out later that this means I was elected..in that, before God made the world He had already planned to create me to do His will. After He woke me up it never really took much faith to believe in God because He demonstrated to me His amazing power and ASTONISHING intellect in ways that were impossible to refute. Whatever brick wall I would put up, He would smash it down into oblivion. He favored me because I stayed hungry. I knew the truth was knowable, and I gunned for it 200 percent. I would have died for it.
So I empathize with the people here. Some of you might actually be elected too, it just is not your time to know. Some are probably angry/scared/rebelliious, while still others are intellectually incurious and swayed by hyperbole. I'm pretty sure not many people here have actually read the bible. I hadn't either..I was simply arrogant at the time.
So what I would say to people here is..there is far more going on than seems apparent..if you don't believe at least that there is a spiritual reality, you're practically rubbing two sticks together. God definitely exists and will prove it to you if you humble yourself, come to Him in sincerity, with your total heart and pray. Admit you're a sinner, and ask Him to be your Lord and Savior. Anyone can know God is real. I wish I had read it earlier..would have saved me a hardship. Save yourself the trouble and find out the truth for yourself, that God is real He loves you. God bless..


Wow, thanks for that detailed reply. Forgive me, but I've broken it down to basics here. Can you confirm that I've understood you correctly?:

OK, so in short:

- You were an atheist from birth.

- You had a dramatic and sudden spiritual awakening and began to perceive an extra spiritual dimension in the material world around you.

- You began to have visions that were akin to out of body experiences or remote viewing, but with an extra dimension of spiritual perception. You interpreted these experiences as little miracles, and that they were provided by a higher being: a god.

- At this point god spoke you directly and explicitly, and proved to you that you were not imagining him. He explained that he permeated *everything*, including your being, and that in many respects he *was* you.

- Over the next 6 years you studied, and were guided and tutored directly by god who explained to you more specifically about his nature, and what the bible was all about.

Or to break this down even further!:

You believe there is a god because, after a sudden spiritual awakening he spoke to you directly and proved to you that he exists.

Have I got the basics correct here? Just the very basics?

>> ^smooman:

>> ^Ti_Moth:
>> ^shinyblurry:
I mean without faith what do you have?
>> ^smooman:
ps: shinyblurry, science has, quite conclusively, proven that the earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old....but thats neither here nor there. You at least recognize that it doesnt matter (as do i), as it pertains ones personal relationship with god.
The bible wasnt written to tell me how old the earth is =)



Err... Evidence and critical thinking?

while that may be true, they are not mutually exclusive.
faith is the evidence of things unseen (i know thats gonna mean zilch to you so take that with a grain of salt) and i very seriously doubt you could convincingly question the critical thinking skills of persons such as CS Lewis
i dont think atheists (or non christians for that matter) are godless sinners, devoid of any morality, any more than i would hope that you not think me an ignorant, bumbling, neanderthal because im religious
we have different religious views, however this does not make either of us smarter, more critical, or better than the other because of that fact


My apologies if you thought I was refering to you, my flippant comment was directed at shinyblury and his young earth antics. And I understand faith in principle it just seems that people have faith in whatever is the nearest religion at the time of their spiritual awakening, I mean if you were living a few thousand years ago you may well have had faith in Thor or Zeus and thats all well and good but what if Mighty Ra and his family of gods are the correct thing to have faith in? You would be missing out on Vallhalla...

He sounds like he had a bad dream in his semi-unconscious state.
I had Nightmares/terrors every night for the first half of my life.

These types of visions during sleep/unconscious are not uncommon - If fact everyone dream so I find this hard to attribute to a real God. I can however understand how a person can see dreams as something akin to interacting with the supernatural.

In my dreams Ive witnessed horrors beyond belief and immense spiritual awakenings - I've made connections with people I haven't seen in years. I've had dreams so real, I didn't know the difference between sleep and awake even once I was awake.

I do however understand that what ever I was experiencing was a manifestation of my mind sorting and placing facts during the active healing process that our bodies go through when we sleep.

And yes, some of those experiences, I'm still not sure whether they were real or not real, but using reason and reality, I'm able to overcome any sort of waking dilutions. Dilutions which religion uses to exploit and convince us of something miraculous.

You have been awarded 1 Power Point for fixing the embed code for Dead Pool video is Bi-polar really a spiritual awakening?. Thank you for helping maintain VideoSift's reliability.

this was just A.W.E.S.O.M.E,thanks for contributing to this thread my friend.
and remind me never to engage you in an argument.
till next time..
namaste

In reply to this comment by dannym3141:
>> ^mentality:

Sure we don't know exactly how the bain is intended to work, but we can still know that smashing in your skull with an icepick will damage your brain. Similarly, we know that certain drugs like meth will damage your brain.

Of course, stopping something from functioning is obviously a worse state than having something functioning, but this example is obviously flawed - and in two ways.

Way the first:
If you beat a brain with an icepick until it stops functioning, that is obviously a worse state of affairs than when you began - but we are referring to percieved 'damage' rather than a cessation of function, so either this isn't your point, or it's an invalid point

Way the second:
There are of course cases of head trauma leading to an IMPROVEMENT of brain function - such as a return of senses (hearing, sight). Also operations on the brain resulting in a businessman becoming an accomplished painter virtually overnight. Just because all icepick-head collisions we've ever seen have never resulted in a brain enhancement doesn't mean that it can't occur, as we can see in these examples that the possibility is there. It just takes the RIGHT KIND of icepick blow.

Science gives us accurate models of how things work. Maybe reality is a lie that God crafted to fool our senses, but that kind of metaphysical argument is the realm useless and neverending bullshit.

No, i think you misunderstood my point. My point is nothing to do with God. It's a scientific idea and i know scientists that agree with me. In fact, i don't think there's a scientist that would disagree because .. well, because it's true. I will have to drastically simplify the idea in order to explain it well here.

If we see a sequence of numbers 3 5 7 - and we think they are a series of odd numbers increasing. We can see that there may be numbers beyond 7, but at the moment we are incapable of identifying it. Time passes, technology improves, then we get the next number in the sequence and it's an 11 and we realise that it's a sequence of prime numbers. Although our system accurately described what we could observe to begin with, the system failed when we discovered something new.

That's all there is to it. As a practitioner of science, you MUST perform experiments with an open mind. To do otherwise is to taint your observations with your own bias and is poor science. Tomorrow, we may find that all our theories are not necessarily the most accurate theories. Continued below...

Pssst: science never claimed that the earth was the center. We know better now because our claims are based on actual fact and observation. Science: 1, Philosophy: 0.

To carry on from above, this has proven true in the past. Theories that were raised showed us accurate results. Then we found a case where they DID NOT accurately predict the results, and we had to throw the theory away and adopt a new one. If you would like to nitpick examples then i will give you a better one - that of the classical view of atomic structure vs. the modern view.

We used to think that the nucleus of an atom was solid, and now we think that it is made up of protons and neutrons. But wait, those again are made up of quarks. Wait, are the quarks made up of strings!?

It is not the goal of science to look into the nature of being. That is the job for religion and philosophy. Stop dismissing science because it cannot answer the unanswerable.

Firstly, i have never dismissed science for not being able to answer the unanswerable. I think you have an idea in your head that i somehow approached this from a religious standpoint and that is your downfall in your 'debunk'.

Secondly, semantics aside, i think science has a duty to look into the nature of being whenever possible. Check out the anthropic principle - i think that's a little bit to do with the nature of being. You could argue it, and i'll accept that, but i still think it does. If it's possible for science to shed any light on the nature of being, then it will, people won't go "THAT'S NOT OUR REALM BOYS LEAVE IT ALONE!" Philosophy is philosophy, and science is science. If the two can help each other out, of course they will, and of course we don't know that the answers won't be helpful to each other

But, of course, that was never my point, i simply reply to it as you raise it

--- Please don't ask me to cite examples, you can find them for yourself ---

I replied to your 'debunk' on that thread I think you approached my post from the understanding that i held myth, religion, soul, philosophy whatever, higher than science. And i think this was your error

Not being funny, but you were way off the mark.. please read the reply in an open frame of mind.. it really is sound science that i'm talking

In reply to this comment by mentality:
>> ^dannym3141:

All we have is AN understanding of how the brain works. It may not be definitive, we never made it to claim that we know exactly how it is intended to work.
Therefore how can we know that something damages it rather than enhances it?

Sure we don't know exactly how the bain is intended to work, but we can still know that smashing in your skull with an icepick will damage your brain. Similarly, we know that certain drugs like meth will damage your brain.

That doesn't mean we know how it works. It means we've identified a pattern and a system in place that seems to accurately describe and predict how the thing works.

Science gives us accurate models of how things work. Maybe reality is a lie that God crafted to fool our senses, but that kind of metaphysical argument is the realm useless and neverending bullshit.

How long ago did we think that we KNEW that the earth was the centre of the universe? Is anyone so arrogant as to claim that we know better NOW?

Pssst: science never claimed that the earth was the center. We know better now because our claims are based on actual fact and observation. Science: 1, Philosophy: 0.

How do we know that what we think is true is true?

It is not the goal of science to look into the nature of being. That is the job for religion and philosophy. Stop dismissing science because it cannot answer the unanswerable.

>> ^mentality:

Sure we don't know exactly how the bain is intended to work, but we can still know that smashing in your skull with an icepick will damage your brain. Similarly, we know that certain drugs like meth will damage your brain.

Of course, stopping something from functioning is obviously a worse state than having something functioning, but this example is obviously flawed - and in two ways.

Way the first:
If you beat a brain with an icepick until it stops functioning, that is obviously a worse state of affairs than when you began - but we are referring to percieved 'damage' rather than a cessation of function, so either this isn't your point, or it's an invalid point

Way the second:
There are of course cases of head trauma leading to an IMPROVEMENT of brain function - such as a return of senses (hearing, sight). Also operations on the brain resulting in a businessman becoming an accomplished painter virtually overnight. Just because all icepick-head collisions we've ever seen have never resulted in a brain enhancement doesn't mean that it can't occur, as we can see in these examples that the possibility is there. It just takes the RIGHT KIND of icepick blow.

Science gives us accurate models of how things work. Maybe reality is a lie that God crafted to fool our senses, but that kind of metaphysical argument is the realm useless and neverending bullshit.

No, i think you misunderstood my point. My point is nothing to do with God. It's a scientific idea and i know scientists that agree with me. In fact, i don't think there's a scientist that would disagree because .. well, because it's true. I will have to drastically simplify the idea in order to explain it well here.

If we see a sequence of numbers 3 5 7 - and we think they are a series of odd numbers increasing. We can see that there may be numbers beyond 7, but at the moment we are incapable of identifying it. Time passes, technology improves, then we get the next number in the sequence and it's an 11 and we realise that it's a sequence of prime numbers. Although our system accurately described what we could observe to begin with, the system failed when we discovered something new.

That's all there is to it. As a practitioner of science, you MUST perform experiments with an open mind. To do otherwise is to taint your observations with your own bias and is poor science. Tomorrow, we may find that all our theories are not necessarily the most accurate theories. Continued below...

Pssst: science never claimed that the earth was the center. We know better now because our claims are based on actual fact and observation. Science: 1, Philosophy: 0.

To carry on from above, this has proven true in the past. Theories that were raised showed us accurate results. Then we found a case where they DID NOT accurately predict the results, and we had to throw the theory away and adopt a new one. If you would like to nitpick examples then i will give you a better one - that of the classical view of atomic structure vs. the modern view.

We used to think that the nucleus of an atom was solid, and now we think that it is made up of protons and neutrons. But wait, those again are made up of quarks. Wait, are the quarks made up of strings!?

It is not the goal of science to look into the nature of being. That is the job for religion and philosophy. Stop dismissing science because it cannot answer the unanswerable.

Firstly, i have never dismissed science for not being able to answer the unanswerable. I think you have an idea in your head that i somehow approached this from a religious standpoint and that is your downfall in your 'debunk'.

Secondly, semantics aside, i think science has a duty to look into the nature of being whenever possible. Check out the anthropic principle - i think that's a little bit to do with the nature of being. You could argue it, and i'll accept that, but i still think it does. If it's possible for science to shed any light on the nature of being, then it will, people won't go "THAT'S NOT OUR REALM BOYS LEAVE IT ALONE!" Philosophy is philosophy, and science is science. If the two can help each other out, of course they will, and of course we don't know that the answers won't be helpful to each other

But, of course, that was never my point, i simply reply to it as you raise it

--- Please don't ask me to cite examples, you can find them for yourself ---

>> ^enoch:
prove that the soul does not exist.
cant?
then chalk it up to the "i dont know" factor,and dont even try the "prove it DOES exist" because i cant either.to even attempt that futile argument is an exercise in wasted time.
i will suggest reading about the father of "humanism" the collective unconcious,carl jung.if you have taken any psychology courses you have heard of him.

prove that the invisible pink unicorn does not exist.
prove that the flying spaghetti monster does not exist.
prove that the orbiting teacup does not exist.
prove that god does not exist.

prove, prove, prove.

i've taken plenty of psychology courses, actually, and if you had too, you would know that you learn very early on that jung (and freud) had some fun ideas... but they were just that. they are not science. they are ideas, and unfortunately some of them have been quite damaging. they are outdated and the fact that people still give credit to either freud or jung's untestable unprovable psychobabble is scary.

how you came to the conclusion that jung of all people was the founder of humanism boggles the mind. if you take 2 minutes to look at what jung espoused and then compare that to what humanism is... quite different.

>> ^berticus:
WTF.... WTF IS GOING ON
VIDEOSIFT?
HELLO?
>> ^rougy:
The scientists will never explain the soul.


prove that the soul does not exist.
cant?
then chalk it up to the "i dont know" factor,and dont even try the "prove it DOES exist" because i cant either.to even attempt that futile argument is an exercise in wasted time.
i will suggest reading about the father of "humanism" the collective unconcious,carl jung.if you have taken any psychology courses you have heard of him.
http://www.nndb.com/people/910/000031817/

well well well,i really didnt think this vid would get sifted,not only DID it get sifted,but seems we have a discussion going.
good.
every person is in part a product of their enviroment and experiences,and each is different in their own right,people who purport to be of a spiritual nature are dismissed by both religious AND atheist as being weak-minded and wrong.
yet neither side can prove or disprove.
and that suits me just fine.
a religious person will use dogma and doctrine to make their point,oddly enough,so will the atheist.doctrine and dogma are based on tangible text,i can come up with a counter argument everytime using the VERY same doctrine.
but to disprove someones experience?
thats far trickier,and i am not so arrogant to believe i know everything.
i cannot discount this mans experience,and honestly,would drugging him up into a medicated zombie be prefferable to his way of dealing with his perceived existence?
just a thought.

>> ^dannym3141:

All we have is AN understanding of how the brain works. It may not be definitive, we never made it to claim that we know exactly how it is intended to work.
Therefore how can we know that something damages it rather than enhances it?

Sure we don't know exactly how the bain is intended to work, but we can still know that smashing in your skull with an icepick will damage your brain. Similarly, we know that certain drugs like meth will damage your brain.

That doesn't mean we know how it works. It means we've identified a pattern and a system in place that seems to accurately describe and predict how the thing works.

Science gives us accurate models of how things work. Maybe reality is a lie that God crafted to fool our senses, but that kind of metaphysical argument is the realm useless and neverending bullshit.

How long ago did we think that we KNEW that the earth was the centre of the universe? Is anyone so arrogant as to claim that we know better NOW?

Pssst: science never claimed that the earth was the center. We know better now because our claims are based on actual fact and observation. Science: 1, Philosophy: 0.

How do we know that what we think is true is true?

It is not the goal of science to look into the nature of being. That is the job for religion and philosophy. Stop dismissing science because it cannot answer the unanswerable.

>> ^Doc_M:
the fact is that they biologically work by damaging the brain's cognitive functions.


All we have is AN understanding of how the brain works. It may not be definitive, we never made it to claim that we know exactly how it is intended to work.

Therefore how can we know that something damages it rather than enhances it? Perhaps we were supposed to take these drugs in order to develop our brain correctly?

We don't and perhaps can't! Everything we know thanks to science is an interpretation of what we observe that is convenient to us to identify a pattern in nature. That doesn't mean we know how it works. It means we've identified a pattern and a system in place that seems to accurately describe and predict how the thing works. And we accept that theory until it fails us and we adopt a better one that doesn't fail us. How long ago did we think that we KNEW that the earth was the centre of the universe? Is anyone so arrogant as to claim that we know better NOW? We have to hope that we know better (else why try?), but accept that we might not

I know i'm getting a little bit philosophical, but i think that's the underlying point of the video. How do we know that what we think is true is true? Maybe bipolar is just an alternate state of being, or maybe an evolutionary step. And the same for many other things which we percieve. Or maybe not.

I will say that i think people with bipolar (and in fact depression) are more prone to the kind of introspection that might lead to the belief that they're not broken, they're just different.

WTF.... WTF IS GOING ON

VIDEOSIFT?

HELLO?

>> ^rougy:
The scientists will never explain the soul.

WHAT?

Fucking hell... you're a DOCTOR?


>> ^Doc_M:
OK, I will grant that some psychedelics have a tendency to "open minds" but the fact is that they biologically work by damaging the brain's cognitive functions. They take one the single most amazing machine in the known universe and put holes in it like swiss cheese. This is not a good thing, but no one can deny that those holes have a way of letting unique thoughts in. I've experienced it and I'll admit it.
>> ^EndAll:
"Drugs have their advantages, but understanding reality is not one of them."
I didn't watch the video but I wanted to respond to this ^
I actually think certain drugs are very instrumental in helping to understand the true nature of reality. Many, many people have had mind opening experiences on certain psychedelic drugs that have changed their lives completely. I think some drugs can take us beyond the five-sense reality into what lies behind it. Reality is subjective. My reality is mine, yours is yours - what's true for me might not be true for you. But I have found certain drugs to make me much more in tune to what's going on around me; my reality.