Sacred Reading/Beyond Belief PART 1

thirteenaudrey Mar.9,2010 1:53 am

I really enjoyed reading When Scholars Study the Sacred by Andrea Diem-Lane.
Having a religious background,and having been apart of what some consider a
cult, to claiming I'm agnostic, I was able to relate to many of the evolutionary
cycles of religion. Reading When Scholars Study the Sacred I was able to see
where I was then and why or how I ended up where I am now. The way Diem-Lane
breaks the many theories on the origin/development of religions/cults has made
it simple and clear to understand religion from an entirely fresh unbias
viewpoint. The only topic, within religion that was slightly touched on, that I
wanted to hear more about was spiritual experiences or happenings.

Diem-Lane mentions animism displayed in many different religions but I'm still
left with questions about how real these happenings are.

As I was spending time at a friend's house they had the series Beyond Belief
on and I would tune in and out of listening to the different stories that were
being played out. One of the stories was of some young guy and his girlfriend
coming across an abandoned motorcycle. The young man decided to take it for a
joy ride and as he came across a bridge he saw a young girl appear in the middle
of the road which caused him to crash. The girlfriend saw the same little girl
as well which was believed to be a ghost from some terrible accident years
before involving that very motorcycle that was never found at the initial scene
of the accident.

What I'm trying to get at is is it possible for two people to see the same
spiritual happening and does it make it real? Or is it that these two people
start putting ideas in the others head that they both start believing in
something that really isn't right in front of them?

I've also noticed that many spiritual occurences tend to happen in small rural
towns or somewhat desolated areas. The population of these areas are usually
highly superstitious if not religious. I would like to say that because of their
cultural demographic these people are just making these occurences up for their
own entertainment but there is something that still has me wanting to believe it
is possible that maybe ghosts/spirits do exist.


How can someone see/experience something spiritual...

...without having to get high?

...without having the desire to make such nonsensical things up?

Cleo Mar. 9,2010 1:37pm

To me, it depends. If they both saw the spiritual happening on their own, then
I think it would make it real. Not necessarily "real" as in tangible, but "real"
as in something is there. Now if the first person sees something and tells the
second, then I would say it was just the mind of the second seeing what it wants
to.

I also think that 2 people can see the same thing and interpret it in their own
way. I believe being able to do this is all part of one's freewill. (Some
philosophers would like to argue that there is no such thing as freewill, but I
don't feel like going into that). Anyway, I also believe that everyone's
imagination is just that: their own imagination. Everyone has the ability to
twist what they see into what they WANT to see with the help of the
subconscious. This also adds to my previous post about the complexity of the
mind. It acts without us knowing. An example would be the classic use of the ink
spots on a piece of paper. If any number of people were asked what the same
random spots looked like, they would all see something that their mind WANTS
them to see. For example, if you think your spouse is cheating on you, you will
see your spouse having sex with another person in the picture.

Also, I believe it is more than possible for a person to see/experience
something spiritual without having to get high. I hate to keep repeating, but
the mind sees what it wants to. It doesn't always need an additional substance
to aid what it is seeing. Just think about your dreams. People usually aren't
high when they sleep, therefore, the crazy things you see are there as a
combination of recent experiences, past experiences, past dreams, random
encounters, and anything else that you may have every thought of. That's why
you'll dream about the steak you had for dinner served to you by a man that held
the door open for you at the office of your elementary school. Also, if there is
something on your mind, it usually tends to pop up as well. I know I've had
plenty of "night before class registration" dreams.

As for trying to withhold making nonsensical things up, I don't know if the
mind can. With the example of the game of telephone brought up in, "When
Scholars Study the Sacred", I don't think that something can be passed on
without adding our own little twist to it. Think about it, a story always sounds
better if something more interesting than what actually happened is told.
Saying, "Jimmy got into a fight last night," is far more interesting than,
"Jimmy bummed into some guy last night and then apologized for it". I think this
falls under the want to impress, which I believe is also part of human nature.

Thirteenaudrey Mar. 9,2010 3:43 pm

So you are still sticking with spiritual visions being a figment of our
imagination?

Is it only real if more than one person sees/experiences a spiritual vision
then?

I know people don't need to be under some sort of influence to see things.

Yes I agree the mind sees what it wants to see and we are embellishers by nature
but does that make our spiritual experiences any less relevant or void even?

I have had many vivid dreams that I thought were very real until I woke up and
realized I was dreaming. But who is to say what I experienced within my dream
wasn't real?


Basically in conjunction with what you are saying how the mind sees what it
wants but how do explain a non-believer(of any religion) who has a vision of
"God(s)" or spiritual entities? How is it possible for this non-believer to make
a vision up, very much like those visions of "believers", without any previous
knowledge of such things?

These questions will bring me to another topic but I will leave it at that for
now.

Cleo Mar.10, 2010 9:58pm

I think that it needs to be seen by more than one person to declare it "real".
So if the spirit was only seen by one person, then I would call that a figment
of their imagination.

As for the dreams being real part, I'm not exactly sure what to say. There have
been many philosophers that questioned whether our dreams were real or not but I
truly don't believe there is any way of confirming or denying either side. I
have never thought of dreams as reality even though I'm sure everyone could say
they have experienced a number of extremely vivid dreams. I believe that only
because that is what I have always thought of my dreams. I have never
experienced anything that has made me think that perhaps our dreams our the
actual reality. And seeing as how our dreams are made up of events and
encounters that have happened in our known reality, I have never seen a reason
to question it.

What I have always wondered was how déjà vu worked. How is it that we are able
to have a dream about something that hasn't happened yet and the only way we
know it was a real event was when it actually did happen? Is it all a part of a
"past life" sort of thing?

But back to what you were asking about the "non-believers" seeing "God" or
something like it. The I way I see it is, since they are "non-believers" I
wouldn't expect them to think anything of the event. I assume they would merely
think it was a ghost. But also, saying they are "non-believer" merely means that
they don't believe in any religion out there (that they know of anyway). So
couldn't they see the a spiritual whatever and create something out of it? Isn't
that how most religions started?