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"Atheists are mentally incapable of handing psychedelics" is certainly a take.
by feoren 2mo ago
"Atheists are mentally incapable of handing psychedelics" is certainly a take.
- carljungslabtek 2mo agoI really don’t think the word spiritual precludes atheists, you could even read it as “the human spirit”. The point is just that you need some framework to ground yourself. Plenty of people have “spiritual” beliefs based purely around the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics or even simulation theory.
- crent 2mo agoEquating a belief in gods with spiritual discovery is also a take.
- t-3 2mo agoBelief in spirits is just as absurd as belief in deities, which are just a specialized category of spirit as far as these things are usually classified anyway.
- crent 2mo agospirituality doesn’t have to mean you believe in spirits in the sense of ghosts etc. I believe that if that’s where the definition of exploring one’s own inner world ends, then that person has missed the point.
- t-3 2mo agoIf you don't mean to suggest you believe in some strange metaphysics without any grounding in reality, why do you call it spirituality? What "inner world" are you "exploring"? Can that be done in plain language without any mysticism? Why or why not?
- LocalH 2mo agoMilitant atheists like you are almost as insufferable as militant theists
- dubbie99 2mo agoOr you could you know, answer the question…
- LocalH 2mo agoI don't believe in any "God". I believe that only the universe is any "supreme being". Is that woo? Maybe. But it helps me be kinder than any religion seems to teach others.
- psd1 2mo agoThat raises an interesting point. The big religions of the world all explicitly teach kindness - personal and concrete kindness practiced by you, the follower. Is that what they effectively teach? Or is it just window dressing on top of underlying hegemonisation? A/B testing is likely impossible and i can't see how you would measure kindness. Nonetheless, my conjecture is that religion likely shifts people in the direction of kindness. I suspect that believers who are cruel would typically also be cruel without the religion. I assert that there are more direct and effective waits of developing compassion, but that they require a base level of self-awareness higher than the median found in neoliberal nations. Perhaps religion is close to optimal for those who need extrinsic motivation to develop any self-government. Furthermore, it looks to me like neoliberalism leaves a philosophical vacuum which demands filling with something, and that something is all too eagerly supplied by charlatans. We should evaluate religion relative to whatever philosophy would take its place. Tribalism, fascism, supremacy: these are perennially seductive. Religion is not incompatible with these, but it might crowd them out.
- robobro 2mo agoThere's an XKCD for that! https://xkcd.com/774/ https://xkcd.com/774/
- nathan_compton 2mo agoI'm an absolute atheist and philosophical nihilist and I have done psychedelics and I've never had a problem with them. Typically find the experiences positive. So we have at least one counter-example.