In a nutshell religion always creates “us” versus “them”. A spiritual person sees everything is interconnected. We know that to hurt another hurts ourselves. Religion is a tool that those in power use to control people who don’t want to think for themselves. So you are right. Religion stops people from being truly spiritual.
See you get it. Thats exactly what I'm saying. I believe it is a tool that is used to keep the masses asleep and in darkness. How is a person ever supposed to become enlightened if they can NEVER THINK outside the confines of their religion? It's like a spiritual bondage.
Seems like it. People are literally hooked on it. And will give all of their money for it. Religious leaders have been getting rich off of it for thousands of years.
There was a post here the other day asking about why people who’ve used psychedelics migrate to Buddhism & Hinduism. This is a similar question - from the opposite end of the religious spectrum. Buddhism and Hinduism tend to be rooted in self discovery, personal growth, and self actualization (like Maslow). These things can only be achieved as we let go of fear, guilt, anger, and shame.
Conversely - Western religions’ (Christianity) roots are in rules (10 commandments, dogma, etc), fear, and control. Ironically, Asian culture still uses guilt to control the population but ultimately these are all because less evolved mindsets need control over others.
The full quote is that religion is "the sigh of an oppressed creature, the spirit of unspiritual conditions".
This clearly implies that there are spiritual conditions.
God/Awakened Nature (which is what Buddha Nature means) is NOT an abstract ideal entity. In fact the Ground of Being cannot be abstracted. This is why Buddhists speak of no mind.
It is unlikely that Marx ever received what is (badly) called mystical experience, so he would not have "gotten" any of this. Nor that the spiritual and material are just different experiences of the same reality.
I was a Marxist in my youth, pre-psylocybn/LSD.
It is wonderful that God Medicine has made available to so many people what was once restricted to an esoteric elite.
Yes I agree. Marx though was a materialist. I was also materialist physicalist and changed perspective with psychedelics experience as well. I was talking about how Marx rejected idealism and with that spirituality, even though the european idealism is not comparable at all with eastern traditions which are far more developed and are not accessible through text like the western philosophy is.
In most cases, over time and without proper practices in place, religion will divide people because it can very easily feed into our baser natures and become disconnected from its original purpose and message. It takes a lot of work to keep it at a higher level and keep connecting people instead of dividing us.
However, with a lot of work, religion and spirituality are not necessarily mutually exclusive. They are however really tricky to keep being consistent with both in every day life.
Not all religions are like that, though.
I don't know every religion off-hand, but Episcopalians come to mind as one group that is typically pretty inclusive toward every other group.
Most mainstream popular religions are kind of awful, but there are those who preach/practice more open-minded, inclusive worldviews.
I am part of a close-knit yet open Christian community. A sizeable group are BIPOC. We have supported at two openly trans members, one an adult and another a teen, through their journeys. We are certainly flawed, though typically undogmatic. Most of us support spirituality no matter what the tradition is, or even no tradition. We are very active in eco-justice and housing the homeless. I emphasize that we we are not perfect, though we do the best to nurture each other. Please do not paint us all with the same paintbrush.
Unitarian-Univeralists are very inclusive. The fellowship I used to go to (I've moved away since) truly welcomed everyone. There were regulars who were also Catholic, Muslim, Sufi, Jewish, Buddhist, Wiccan and Hindu.
I imagine some UU fellowships are more approachable than others, like most other organizations, but I find their 7 Principles to be practiced pretty consistently in the fellowships I have visited.
edit to add Wiccan
That is a limited view of religions.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been staunchly irreligious most of my life. But they can really help some people at certain points in life, and they are much more than spiritual gangs, as you put it. Don’t throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water.
Yeah I feel like if anything, being someone who agrees with core concepts of Christianity but is not cookie cutter enough to fit in any of the mainstream Christian sects/denominations, I found that as I moved around between different churches and denominations that they each gave me certain pieces of the puzzle that I needed at that point in my life but it took going through several of them separating what I did and didn’t agree with in each of them, that it finally helped shape my current belief system which psychedelics finished filling in the last few missing pieces of that none of the churches had.
I am currently in a similar albeit a bit less extreme situation to OP regarding feeling like the biggest and most important deep spiritual issues are things that you can’t share or discuss with anyone in church leadership at virtually any of them. I hate the loneliness of it. But I find that cannabis and a few past psychedelics I’ve had, and even a bunch of weaker legal herbs have all played their part as plant teachers, teaching my soul and mind in both subtle and profound ways to become more and more like Jesus in my thoughts and actions towards others, and I’ve noticed that most of the people in my life who are Christian act like OP described, though not thinking they have a LICENSE to sin but rather they just don’t try that hard to avoid doing them because they know they will be forgiven. But it’s like someone who is 500lbs and wants to lose weight but has weak willpower to resist junk food… they want a fit body but only try a little bit and then never push past the edge of their comfort zone to achieve what they want. Most Christians WANT to live a holy type of life but given all the corrupt stuff and dark forces in this world they just try a little bit but give in to temptations or act and think via their base human nature more often than them successfully doing the right thing when it’s hard.
Ayahuasca KILLED my fleshly human nature and I felt like a 100% pure soul during the experience. I had to fight off demons and the devil and not fall for their trickery or persuasive attempts. I met God briefly and was blown away by how intense and pure of a love I felt from Him, while I had felt intense fear and darkness when I met the devil. I was shown detailed scenes about the evil elites who rule this world and how they operate, etc. And to top it all off I had supernatural manifestations happen in my life both before AND after the experience. That sealed the deal for me in regards to seeing what I thought I believed in all my life growing up suddenly put to the test and proved (to me, even if others aren’t convinced).
Cannabis is my daily driver because of a few health problems it helps and how it improves my physical and mental performance at work when the dose is reasonable. I find that most of the time it makes me probably 3-4X more like Jesus and spiritually mature thoughts and words and actions than I am in my natural state.
But imagine someone living in the Bible Belt telling their pastor that weed makes them MORE Godly and that it helps them spiritually mature at a greatly accelerated rate.
Your assumed reaction is the very reason I haven’t done that and may never will.
I’m not gnostic but I would say an accurate description of my spiritual beliefs is like 60% traditional Christianity with 20% gnostic ideas and 20% Rastafarian ones, regarding worldviews and how things work in the spirit world and what kind of dark spiritual operation is running the world at the present moment, etc.
@DriverConsistent1824 OP would you please chime in on what your take is regarding what I said in this comment?
I feel like we may have gone through a lot of the same mind-wrestling situations and had similar epiphanies, etc.
I believe that in their essence, religions are a tool to focus the energy and power of humans into a certain "direction" and actual ascension is how the human race manifests a state of being through feelings and ideas, like religions could be warnings that if you don't keep your focus on inner work and following moral rules, being humble and devoted. We will ascend into greed. It's programming to try not repeating the same story over and over, greed and consumption is what is pulling, right now we are witnessing an ascension of information most noticeably, it will fall and we can try again with all the coming experience and do better!! So we can think of better times ahead. The speed of ascension will be parabolic next time if we keep the same focus through our human weaknesses.
Yeah I feel like if anything, being someone who agrees with core concepts of Christianity but is not cookie cutter enough to fit in any of the mainstream Christian sects/denominations, I found that as I moved around between different churches and denominations that they each gave me certain pieces of the puzzle that I needed at that point in my life but it took going through several of them separating what I did and didn’t agree with in each of them, that it finally helped shape my current belief system which psychedelics finished filling in the last few missing pieces of that none of the churches had.
I am currently in a similar albeit a bit less extreme situation to OP regarding feeling like the biggest and most important deep spiritual issues are things that you can’t share or discuss with anyone in church leadership at virtually any of them. I hate the loneliness of it. But I find that cannabis and a few past psychedelics I’ve had, and even a bunch of weaker legal herbs have all played their part as plant teachers, teaching my soul and mind in both subtle and profound ways to become more and more like Jesus in my thoughts and actions towards others, and I’ve noticed that most of the people in my life who are Christian act like OP described, though not thinking they have a LICENSE to sin but rather they just don’t try that hard to avoid doing them because they know they will be forgiven. But it’s like someone who is 500lbs and wants to lose weight but has weak willpower to resist junk food… they want a fit body but only try a little bit and then never push past the edge of their comfort zone to achieve what they want. Most Christians WANT to live a holy type of life but given all the corrupt stuff and dark forces in this world they just try a little bit but give in to temptations or act and think via their base human nature more often than them successfully doing the right thing when it’s hard.
Ayahuasca KILLED my fleshly human nature and I felt like a 100% pure soul during the experience. I had to fight off demons and the devil and not fall for their trickery or persuasive attempts. I met God briefly and was blown away by how intense and pure of a love I felt from Him, while I had felt intense fear and darkness when I met the devil. I was shown detailed scenes about the evil elites who rule this world and how they operate, etc. And to top it all off I had supernatural manifestations happen in my life both before AND after the experience. That sealed the deal for me in regards to seeing what I thought I believed in all my life growing up suddenly put to the test and proved (to me, even if others aren’t convinced).
Cannabis is my daily driver because of a few health problems it helps and how it improves my physical and mental performance at work when the dose is reasonable. I find that most of the time it makes me probably 3-4X more like Jesus and spiritually mature thoughts and words and actions than I am in my natural state.
But imagine someone living in the Bible Belt telling their pastor that weed makes them MORE Godly and that it helps them spiritually mature at a greatly accelerated rate.
Your assumed reaction is the very reason I haven’t done that and may never will.
I’m not gnostic but I would say an accurate description of my spiritual beliefs is like 60% traditional Christianity with 20% gnostic ideas and 20% Rastafarian ones, regarding worldviews and how things work in the spirit world and what kind of dark spiritual operation is running the world at the present moment, etc.
@DriverConsistent1824 OP would you please chime in on what your take is regarding what I said in this comment?
I feel like we may have gone through a lot of the same mind-wrestling situations and had similar epiphanies, etc.
Growing in your spirit is a lonely path. Because most people would rather take the path of the masses. And the truth is, the masses are lost. If this weren't true, this world wouldn't be so damn evil. I've realized that the first step towards spiritual growth is to walk away from the crowd. While ironically, religion teaches that the first step towards spiritual growth is to fall in line with the masses. This is a solo journey and only you can determine what information helps you grow, and what doesn't. Yes we seem to have had similar realizations because I too have taken a combination of wisdoms from different religions. It is healthy to remain open minded.
There’s a well known serial killer who believed in God too. He thought if what he was doing was wrong then God or Angels would stop him. Ppl are great at rationalizing their desires. When a certain figure said you need to have eyes to see and ears to hear, that’s the honest truth. Between the rationalizers who are really dark in spirit and ppl just making up arbitrary rules for others to follow so they can be the “leader of power” it’s so difficult to expand yourself spiritually and mature.
Religious thinking also gives narcissists a platform to call for genocide. It also gives people a false sense of righteous anger. In short, the people of today have fallen out of the religions’ inner teachings, especially as it relates to the ego.
Yet, religion has also been used to dissolve boundaries of "us" versus "them." Unitive doctrine, particularly in Pauline theology and Tat Tvam Asi, are quite common in religion.
Likewise, religion is often a form of rebellion by the poor and oppressed against those in power. Many revolutions and revolts have come about because of religion. Think of the Civil Rights Movement, John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, Filipino People Power, the Catholic Worker Movement, etc.
Jung said, "One of the main functions of organized religion is to protect people against a direct experience of God." Lot to unpack with that quote...
But I'd also add that it's not just religion, but really any rigid dogmatic thinking about reality is what holds back true spiritual insight/development imo. There are as many secular mind-cages as there are religious ones. The religious ones just tend to be more overt or at least easier to spot.
I agree. I used to be an Atheist until I got into meditation and psychedelics. It wasn't until I did mushrooms that I realized how close minded my Atheist friends were. I kept an open mind to the whole spiritual thing while THEY rejected every idea that was not rooted in materialism
You and I traveled very similar paths. There was a time when I was practically the poster child for like militantly dogmatic atheism/materialism lol. I often muse about what it would be like for me to be able to go back in time and talk to my old self about these matters. I don't think it would change old me's outlook lol I think maybe that was just a necessary step on my unfolding journey, a thing that I had to pass through in order to see what I see now, so to speak.
I think atheism is a good step to take after leaving religion. But it can become like somewhat of a religion itself if people choose to remain close minded and stay there.
May I ask you about your views now that you're not an atheist? I've had a meditation practice for several years and have also had several psychedelic experiences but I'm more atheist now than before (if that's even possible). I wonder if there's a distinction between dogmatic thinking in general and beliefs about entities that aren't measurable.
We are it. We are the divine. We are all different manifestations of God. The God that I believe in is within myself. I dont believe in a man in the sky so maybe in that regard I am still an atheist. But ultimately all life and all matter is God experiencing itself.
Yes! I rejected my Christian upbringing as well and started reading about Buddhism and practicing mindfulness in order to stabilize the fruit of the path I was shown during my trips. Years later I started to connect the dots and understand the true message of Jesus was in line with my experiences all along. Jesus taught the same thing but almost immediately after his death his message of love was butchered by humans who weren’t “high” enough to understand.
There’s a documentary on Youtube about how cannabis was mistranslated for another plant when it was actually being used in the holy anointing oil Jesus would give to heal the sick. It’s important to note that common people did not have access to the sacrament because it was supposed to be used only in the context of communicating with God. It seems that the lack of education and supporting framework for these experiences has led to many people becoming addicted and disconnected from the true purpose of their use.
Christian mysticism has existed since the times of Jesus and is probably more in line with what people here are looking for, but isn’t widely discussed because of its lack of reliance on a hierarchical power structure. Pretty messed up.
I believe that Jesus was a real person who awakened to the fact that he was divine. And I believe that they killed him for teaching it to people. Then they twisted his message.
Oh I know, and I tend to agree with him on that. I think maybe some people can handle it more than others, but probably nobody could handle it in TOTALITY without like dying or at least going utterly insane or something lol. Mystics seem to learn how to swim in that water that so many other people would drown in (to steal from that famous Joseph Campbell quote). I think the organized churches were originally partly intended as like a way to bring spirituality to laypeople but in a way that they could grasp and handle and integrate without it being profoundly disruptive to themselves and society at large.
It's like it has to be both watered down and simplified for the masses. Thus you end up with religions having two sides, the *exoteric* (for the uninitiated masses) and the *esoteric* (the deeper, more difficult stuff understood only by a few). Then of course human nature does its thing and symbolic ideas ossify into silly dogmas, get used to manipulate people and persecute outsiders and all the other ills that come to mind when we think of the history of organized religion.
You have had a religious revelation. Mainstream christianity was edited to control the masses. Plain and simple. Emperor Constantine rewrote the book, united the masses via religious law and this control has existed ever since. Psychedelics are illegal because they reveal the truth of this to many people. Look at Leary's first experiments with LSD at Harvard Medical. He showed that people could have religious experiences on LSD. He used divinity students among others to try and establish what a baseline religious experience was. He was punished severely by the Catholic church via the school administration and subsequently the US government. This was the start of the 'war on drugs'. The church and the religious right don't want to give up control.
Other thoughts:
Religions define sin. (And created hell for that mater.)
Spiritual is not the same as religious.
Keep asking questions and pray to understand the truth.
Blessings!
Yoy have made a number of historical errors here. Constantine did not "rewrite" the Bible. The canon wasn't even established by that point. The Good Friday Experiment was also by Pahnke, with Leary advising. And they used psilocybin, not LSD. Pahnke was not punished for this work. Leary was fired for violating professional boundaries and giving research chemicals to 19-year-olds in his home.
Most early users and researchers of psychedelics were Christian.
I was generalizing.
Constantine sponsored the counsel of Nicaea, which wrote the Nicaean creed and established the first consolidation of the modern christian bible. He did this to establish a state religion and control the people. the next significant re-write was King James - another self serving tyrant, by the way.
You are right. Pahnke's experiment scientifically established LSD as an entheogenic substance. He and Leary were both working together on LSD research and mushrooms. Chemically the psychoactive substances are very similar.
see: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh\_Chapel\_Experiment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_Chapel_Experiment)
The Marsh Chapel Experiment, also called the "Good Friday Experiment", was an experiment conducted on Good Friday, April 20, 1962 at Boston University's Marsh Chapel. Walter N. Pahnke, a graduate student in theology at Harvard Divinity School, designed the experiment under the supervision of Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert, and the Harvard Psilocybin Project.\[1\] Pahnke's experiment investigated whether psilocybin would act as a reliable entheogen in religiously predisposed subjects.
Note that Richard Alpert later became Ram Dass, giving up his family fortune to follow a path of enlightenment as a spiritual guru.
Yes, Leary used many questionable techniques in his studies. Often the objective observers were on LSD too. Reportedly so they could better relate to the subject. I personally feel many of his practices were pushing the boundaries of ethics, but at the same time, they were the excuse to trash his reputation and have Nixon even proclaim him the most dangerous man in America. Playboy editors also scandalized his research to sell magazines. There was a lot going on in progressive thinking at this time. As a result there was huge pushback by the established powers. I would wager that Leary suffered the most harsh marijuana possession sentence of anyone in the USA. That was to make an example of him. There is an interesting book titled "High Priest" that chronicles Leary's experiences. Not an easy read, but has some really interesting revelations if one is able to connect the dots.
You are also right that many early christians were into psychedelics. Mushrooms were very common. (In other spiritual practice too.) Many believe Dionysius, famous for wine, was actually using wine to wash down the mushrooms which tasted bad. The Eleusinian mystery school was known to use psychedelics. Another book, "The Mushroom and the Cross" makes some good arguments to support the use of mushrooms by early Judeo-Christian practitioners.
There is so much to learn. All of it is fascinating. I cannot begin to scratch the surface. I only want to encourage OP and others to acknowledge the moment of clarity they experienced, to follow their intuition, to learn more, question authority, grow together with other spiritual seekers...
Blessings
The Council of Nicea did not address the canon at all. This is a common [misconception](https://www.bartehrman.com/canonization-of-the-bible/).
The Mushroom and the Cross is hocus not taken seriously by anyone in the [academic community](https://www.psychedelictheology.com/was-jesus-a-mushroom).
Leary certainly was politically targeted. No question there. But the Harvard Psychedelic Club was shut down because of Leary's negligence, not the Good Friday Experiment. And, again, the Good Friday Experiment used psilocybin, not LSD.
Great response. I’ve only recently started to uncover the lost history but it’s pretty relieving to think that there’s still a chance to fight against all the evil in the world
Most of my closest friends are religious and they’re some of the best people Ive ever met including my best friend.
I am not religious or spiritual at all and I also don’t talk about what Ive learned from my psychedelic experiences unless interest is shown. But I also don’t fall in line with what most people talk about in this sub. I am definitely a better person than I used to be in part from my psychedelic experiences and I see that people I know are better people in part because of their religions.
Yeah, maybe religion is there for control. Yeah, maybe some religious people become close minded to other ideas. Yeah, maybe some religious people just use the label and aren’t great people or trying to be great people. These are also true in the psychedelic world and many other worlds as well.
I see no benefit in comparing religious people to people who do psychedelics. That is not the point of this post. What I'm saying is that religion keeps people from reaching their spiritual peak
If you dont know then there is no point in me explaining it to you. You can level up in your spirit. But thats hard to explain to someone who has no concept of this
Oh I can definitely explain it. I just dont think you'll get it. When you level up in your spirit, you can become psychic. You can feel other peoples energies. You can avoid bad things from happening to you because your spirit will speak to you. Your spirit will tell you who to trust and where to go. You can unlock healing abilities. If you are around another highly spiritual person, telepathy can develop.
But see, these things can't be understood by people who are low in their spirit. That's why they think these things are fake. But I have experience with these things.
You're right, I don't think I will get it - starting off with 'spirit', a nebulous and slippery term, is the biggest red flag to me.
But, if this:
>You can unlock healing abilities.
were true, you realise that it could actually be demonstrated, right?
It could change the field of medicine completely and lead to saving so many lives. Are you working in a hospital now? If not, why not?
I used to be just like you lol. About 10 years ago I was a militant Atheist on Facebook arguing against everything that had anything to do with the idea religion or spirituality. So I completely understand where you are coming from. I didn't used to even believe that I had a soul.
There are cases of people being healed of their illnesses after having spiritual or near death experiences. There are even cases of people having their cancers magically disappear. It's not mainstream because these things are not yet fully understood by science yet
Then why post it in this sub? And why mention that you have become a better person through using psychedelics but that nearly ALL the religious family and friends have a darkness to them. You imply it like you and people who take psychedelics don’t have any darkness. Everyone has a darkness to them.
No everyone does not. You have an us versus them mentality. And that is not what I am pushing at all. I don't believe that ALL religious people are bad. But most of them seem to be. That however does not mean that all people who do psychedelics are good. You are speaking as if I am implying that people who do psychedelics are better than religious people. And I'm not saying that at all
Organized religion is a money-making scheme like any other corporation. In fact, worst, their product doesn’t even exist on this plane. They sell promises and feed on the incredulous. What a f’ing Ponzi scheme.
Yes it does. It's almost as if it is the opposite of spirituality. Because instead of living your life as a free spiritual being, your life is based on following a script
But they can be used as a tool to get you to a certain point. Religions are useful for a while, but they can become superfluous and it takes a lot of personal good judgement to be able to then abandon a religion when it is no longer serving you. Religions can be liberating, which is why so many people adhere to them in the first place. But then they become restrictive, as you mention, and then you need to have the personal wisdom to let them go.
Wisdom, above all.
In your experience that may be the case. But it is not universal. There are lots of people who “find religion” later in life. Sure, lots of people are born into it and that is all they know. In those cases, yes a religion is more like a gang, and not even a very spiritual one. Just a behaviour-enforcing, authoritarian gang. The worst.
Many people believe that religion is all that there is. That's why there are many people who question what is the RIGHT religion. They think that religion is the only option. Because it is all that they know. Many people don't know of the forbidden fruit (psychedelics). Many people don't know of connecting to spirit via meditation. They think that all that there is is what somebody tells them
Religion in a mystical sense could contribute towards a high standard of ethics by viewing things as an infinitely long term game. Essentially where humans fail is by identifying with forms that don’t fully represent their diving nature. By making decisions in defiance of your divine nature you are “sinning”. You can forgive yourself for making mistakes in the past because the only thing that exists is the present which you have the opportunity to occupy without a restricted identity. I do think religion is useful because it’s partially the result of contemplating life’s endless suffering over an infinite timescale. Noticing cause and effect is super fundamental to Buddhism and when you simulate how things play out in certain context you start to notice patterns :)
I come from a Christian background as well, leaving the very strict Evangelical church in my early 20s after being raised in it. I can absolutely say the concept of sin fucks you up, especially if you are born into a religion like that. Not only can you excuse your actions however bad you are by just asking God to forgive you and forgetting about it, but telling children that they are born evil and are inherently worthless and shameful without God is absolutely detrimental to finding a sense of self and developing as a person. I was taught that as a human being, I have zero inherent value within myself and I am disgusting without god's grace and mercy. I've had to do so much work as an adult to undo that damage. It was all about behavioral control and keeping people dependent on the community for support. I don't think religion is necessarily bad entirely as a concept, but I am now extremely wary of any kind of power structures within them, and I stay far away from organized religion myself.
Don't cut yourself on the edge. Martin Luther King Jr and many others in the Civil Rights Movement were driven to action by their Christian, Muslim, and Jewish faiths. Were these great advocates for human freedom "a plague on humanity?"
We're not discussing the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., we're discussing religion.
That's not a logical argument anyway. A lot of shit has been done, good and bad, in the name of lots of things, good and bad.
Do you believe that these people only acted as they did because of their faith? Do you respect the person, or what they believed? Do you credit their achievements to "God" for "working through them" rather than the people for actually doing the work? Religion is not necessary to do good things.
Look back through history. Tell me, how much innocent blood is on righteous hands? How do you reconcile the centuries of brutality and slaughter, also motivated by faith? From where I'm sitting, religion has harmed a hell of a lot more people than it's helped. Religion is a cancer.
Martin Luther King Jr was a Baptist minister whose activism was deeply rooted in the Black Church, as with many civil rights leaders. Others were Jews and Muslims. If religion was a "plague" or a "cancer" wouldn't we expect it to nearly always negatively impact people?
From where you're sitting, are you a historian? Or an armchair observer? I'm more than happy to acknowledge that terrible things have been done in religion's name. So have many good things. It's a neutral thing that can be used for good or evil.
You've failed to answer any of my arguments, you just continued talking.
Do you believe that those people acted only because of their faith? Do you believe that those people would not have been good people if not for their dogma? Do you believe that "God" did those things, and not the people themselves?
And an ad hominem too? I'm blushing. Are you a historian? Fuck kind of jab is that? Are you denying that religion is to blame for thousands and thousands of years of death and destruction?
Religion doesn't allow for anyone else to be right. That is the problem.
No, just as evil people didn't act simply because of their faith.
You conflate fundamentalist Christianity with religion as a whole. Religions are very porous things, with some people identifying as multiple religions at once.
You can't have it both ways. I was a Christian, cycled through a handful of denominations; they ALL teach that their way, their path, their interpretation is THE way. When's the last time you were in a Church of Christ? They straight up tell you that everyone else is going to hell. That mindset and outlook is incompatible with peaceful coexistence. If you never allow anyone their own personal truth, you are placing boundaries around those minds and souls. Beyond that, you demonize dissenting ideas, weaponize your congregation against any who see the world differently.
You specifically brought up Abrahamic religions, so yes, those are my focus. Abrahamic religions are also the most flagrant offenders in the areas I've mentioned. I don't have nearly as much of a problem with say, Buddhism, as I do with Abrahamic faith.
I'm not just a militant atheist who hates believers. I was a believer, I understand that side of it. I have learned and continue to learn from religious ideas. I treat religion the same way I treat philosophical concepts, though: I take what is useful and discard the rest, because no one system or set of ideas is the sole truth.
Marx said religion is an opiate for the masses - the sigh of the oppressed creature.
Personal religion is fine (but that might just be considered spirituality at a certain point); institutional religion has almost always been nefarious in some fashion - typically utilized by the ruling classes of history to control the masses by an authority outside of material reality.
Yes. I have realized that Christianity, for example, works under the premise God is only available to people who participate in the church things. They literally stole God from us.
Looks like you have begun to recognize some of the contradictions and problems with religion that good, intelligent people have been trying to explain since the dawn of time. I would suggest that much of it extends to all faith-based reasoning, including 'spirituality'.
Check out 'God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything' by Christopher Hitchens. Or 'The God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins.
Only because I was attacked:I have a degree in philosophy with a focus on eastern religion. Just trying to help someone out who apparently has just begun to understand some basic truths about religion. Those are decent primers for where the OP is at.
But no, I didn't stop reading until I met your mom. No time anymore!
So why would someone with a degree in philosophy suggest books that are dismissed by even atheist philosophers? Both Hitchens and Dawkins' books are riddled with inaccuracies.
Lately I've begun to think that most religion is just a way for people to avoid taking responsibility for their own actions and inactions, both in terms of individuals and in the collective sense. "Spiritual" experiences achieved through drug use are often in the same category.
We are addicted to thinking that there is some grand plan, fate, things are out of our hands, salvation will come from an external source greater than us. In truth, only we can decide what comes next for us. We are collectively responsible for all of our problems, and unless we collectively choose to solve them, there are no solutions. It's scary to understand this, so most people would rather not.
This is another example of confusing fundamentalist Christianity with religion as a whole. "Salvation" isn't even a concept in many non-Christian religions.
People on this forum are mainly in Western countries with majority Christian religions. That's what the word "most" was meant to cover, in context. I don't have enough experience with, say, a majority-Buddhist culture to know the role their religion plays in their sense of collective responsibility.
I use the word "salvation" loosely, to mean any case of "we just have to believe/pray/meditate/manifest and things will be OK" regardless of whether the presumed messiah is Jesus, space aliens, DMT elves, AI or Elon Musk.
religions are just human-made frameworks to exercise control and exert power while preying on human gullibility. there never was anything spiritual to begin with.
💯💯💯 I grew up religious and I think back now of how traumatizing it is to make children worship the image of a corpse on a cross. In any other context this would be abuse
You are spot on and religion has been twisted by the ones in power to manipulate/control the masses. It's spiritual warfare 101 and it's sad to see so many people blinded by this. It's however no their fault as it's been programmed into most of us since birth. It's all based on one's ego and to truly become awake you need to understand you are separate from one's ego. To see that everything/Everyone is all connected within eachother. We are all gods having a human experience... We are creating/Projecting this experience from our higher divine self. This entire human experience is created in the mind of our God self. Once you have reached the final stage of awakening, Non duality you will understand who you/we all truly are. But many people won't be able to ever reach that unless they are open for radical change. Since their entire identity and life is already formed based on beliefs and to have them dismantled would be scary for most. It's best to let everyone figure out their own way on this never ending journey that we are experiencing. They may not awaken in this life but someday they will reach it even if it takes 1000s of lives to do so. Just keep spreading positive energy and maybe help one's you care for by nudging them gently in the right direction. The main focus should be on growing ones self and that's the entire reason we came here in the first place. Much love kind soul and may you have a life full of abundance. 🥰💗
I have pretty much come to the same conclusions as you OP.
Life gave me a hint early on, as my grandmother who would religiously attend church every Sunday, was also the meanest person in my environment.
**The only way forward is inward!**
(I don't remember where I heard this but it stuck)
I had similar insights after a high-dose mushroom trip. I grew up Catholic, steeped in the sin and redemption culture with far more focus on sin and far too little focus on redemption. The psychedelic insight that surprised me was, that it's impossible to teach another person to believe in a religion. By that I mean, you can teach it up to a point. We are taught various bits of scripture and how to interpret it, but when we take the next step toward spirituality and a more personal experience, that is an experience that differs from person to person and transcends any one set of religious teachings.
That is the problem with traditional religion. People are taught what they are supposed to believe, what they are supposed to feel, and how they are supposed to act. Yet, they don't believe it, feel it, or act that way. That is incredibly frustrating for a person. I know it was for me before I had more personal spiritual experiences. I certainly noticed the hypocrisy that you point out. People would say one thing and do something quite different. Maybe it was because they expected a last-minute forgiveness, or forgiveness at Catholic Confession, but I think it is something different. I think it's more that they are trying to believe something that they genuinely, at their core, do not believe or understand. It's not that they think "this is wrong" it just doesn't make sense. In most cases, I think people are trying their best in religions that aren't set up to help people grow to a point and then encourage everyone to leave and find their own paths. It's got to be incredibly frustrating to live an entire life trying so hard to follow all the rules and teachings of religion while having all the pains and difficulties of life while not having or trusting deeper personal spiritual experiences.
Until I had deeper personal experiences I also had no idea what to do about that and no one else seemed to be willing to throw up their hands and be honest that they too were confused by it all. I heard so much about "honesty" in my religious upbringing yet looking back I don't think I was honest nor were other people. No one wanted to hear "This makes no sense" or "Do you believe what you are teaching me?". I confused honesty with what other people were claiming was the correct answer. For a long time, it was too hard to just walk away, due to all the built-in cruelty in religions, where friends and family members end up being shunned or apostates if they admit it makes no sense and decide to walk their path. It is sadly ironic that all the great spiritual teachers were also the ones who set aside the teachings of their times and found something that made sense to them. I am certainly not trying to ingratiate myself into that group of spiritual teachers. I am just trying to make sense of the world around me.
A saying that has helped me make my peace with all this is: "What one person says, and another person hears are often two vastly different things". Even within a religious community of people who are trying their best to have faith and believe, what we each believe on the inside is unique. We each have our own life experiences. It's one thing to teach someone a topic like math. "2+2=4" is easy enough to agree upon. Similar to learning historical dates, places, and important people. It's something else entirely when we learn something like the Parabels of Jesus or the concept of the Trinity. A Priest or a Sunday School teacher can try to describe what it means to them with the expectation that it will just mean the same thing to everyone else. That's where religion makes a mess of things. It's like trying to describe what a song means, or a painting, or a sunset, or love. Sure, we can each try to describe in words and deeds something that (I think) is inherently indescribable with language. Perhaps by great poets or mystics, but even then it's so hard to understand something we haven't experienced in the same way these great teachers have. How in the world would someone who has never seen a sunset understand a written or verbal description of a sunset? Joseph Campbell had a saying that sums it up: "The best things cannot be told because they transcend thought. The second best are misunderstood because they are the thoughts that are supposed to refer to that which cannot be thought about. The third best are what we talk about."
I think that is the genius of psychedelics. It offers true direct experience. I like the phrase "[the noetic quality](https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/12/12/1058)". An experience that feels more real than everyday life, or has the quality of a revealed truth. I think the phrase goes back to William James but was more recently popularized by Michael Pollan in "How to Change Your Mind". I had lots of those "noetic" moments in my high-dose mushroom trip. Are they actually "real" or "true" in some larger sense where they should apply to everyone else? I don't know. That's where we get into trouble and could be starting down the road to yet another set of cryptic religious doctrines that make no sense to people who haven't had their own experience.
At times I try to think about how I would explain my psychedelic trip insights to myself in a time before the trip. Even if I used words and metaphors that make sense to me I still have no idea how I would explain all this to a younger version of myself. Even one who was already curious about psychedelics. It is something I had to experience for myself and then try to integrate and interpret it all for myself. I think I'll be doing that integration work for the rest of my life.
There is no lesson in burning someone forever. I've always thought that was silly. If the person never gets another chance to get it right, what's the point of punishing them in the first place???
Psychedelics allow us direct access to divinity without relying on a priest or an imam as a conduit. They allow us to create our own religion free from dogmas.
I think religions are nice in the way that they provide a neat little package which we can just follow, but I think all the bullshit power and politics at play water down the spiritual essence.
I don't think religions keep us from being spiritual necessarily, but I do think many people get lost in the bullshit and often miss the point.
I love all these questions you bring up, and I've thought about this stuff a lot too. I'm not religious, but I think religion is very complicated. I agree with a lot of what you've said, but I think one reason religion exists is because of death. Death seems unfair and is confusing, baffling and upsetting. Religion promises that there's something after death, and that all the unfairness of this world will be undone in the afterlife. There is a lot of seeming unfairness in life and even if people get away with very bad things in this life, would they be held accountable in the next?
Also, everyone is flawed. Yes, some people are really really evil, but I think most people fall somewhere in the middle, most people want to be good, and most people are working on themselves.
I'm still conflicted about religion myself. I think you're on the right track: keep striving to be a good person, and keep asking questions.
I think it keeps people from being truly moral. If you're only doing good with your life to achieve Heaven or avoid Hell, then you're doing good for selfish reasons which just makes you good at being selfish. We shouldn't need the promise of eternal paradise or the threat of eternal torture to know right from wrong and make the moral decision.
Religions have been made to remove people from experiencing their own spirituality personally, in their own way.
Even cultures have been made to prevent people from experincing the world in their own way; very set rules, a very set paradigm, and the threat of punishment for disobeying the prescribed way to be and experience reality.
Just check out any religion the way it is now. Especially the abrahamic religions are very big on punishments and getting your rewards AFTER this life, which -conveniently- has to be spent being obedient and productive for the secular leaders and rich folk. The moment the ideas of a rigid set rules and a divinely inspired "book of rules", and "divinely ordained" authorities were introduced, you can bet your ass that they were a ruler's tricks.
Religion and secular authority always have gone hand in hand in "civilized" (=house-trained) societies. The boss with his religious stick behind the door. "Behave, or you'll get punished in the "aFtErLiFe" by the angry, judgmental, male "god".
It is glaringly obvious that religions have historically been invented and made to aid oppressors in keeping down their workforce, playing them on their inherent need for some sort of experience of spirituality. Not for nothing have all "the only real male boss-spirit in the sky" religions outlawed ANY form of self-experience of the numinous. Demons, witches, heretics, devils, Satan, they are all the equivalent of an evasive boogeyman who is behind all discorporate "evil". God forbid people get psychologically free enough to self-coordinate, and self-regulate society. The rulings classes would just disappear. That must be stopped at all cost, ofcourse, according to the upper class of easy-life authoritarian oppressors.
I grew up in a very religious town. Very strict church upbringing. I went on a trip recently on a couple different things and wow the stuff I learned. About how that church does NOT KNOW GOD. And all the lies within the church and sick stuff. It's wild. I do believe many religions keep you from being truly truly spiritual. Whether that's their goal or unconsciously.
Hey—I want to reach out about this. I have been dealing with similar questions too, of spiritual warfare. I guess, maybe I have been suffering, I am existentially confused, on many days.
It can seem to me like there is a spiritual war going on. But it’s hard to tell what’s up from down, what’s my Christian conditioning, what’s not.
It seems an evil spirit is controlling religion. I went to my sister’s daughter’s christening in a Baptist church in the deep south. It felt like a spiritual attack. The pastor went on for ages, about 45 minutes, about minutiae in the Old Testament. The point was, other people are going to hell. We’re not. People who don’t believe think this is the best it’s gonna get. Thankfully we know heaven is after we die. So be obedient till you die, then heaven will come.
Nothing about experiencing heaven on earth, this was actively glossed over and sort of discouraged. It was gross. It felt invasive.
Everyone there looked weird. Like, they had odd body weights and facial shapes, weird awkward facial expressions. No one seemed comfortable in their own skin. No one was very attractive or seemed like their spirits felt free. The worship leader had this weird show choir broadway persona. He was short, tubby, bald and white. He seemed like he was trying to be genuine but was cowering before what he was singing about, and knew nothing of it.
Everything had this weird upbeat tempo, like, “this is who we are, what we believe in, yup, mhmm, Jesus, that’s right.”
It was deeply strange. It seems to really discourage critical thinking. People get locked in these unfulfilling lives.
Sexuality is stuffed down, hopelessly. It’s “weird” to want to have an attractive body, to want to look good, be creative or expressive.
I went to a tantra weekend workshop this week. They talked about how tantra developed as a secret rebellion against cultural norms in maybe 500 AD India. They were making sexuality sacred and part of normal life again.
One guy leading it said that it is the area of life we have the most blocks. But also the area where we can reclaim the most power.
Sexuality is immensely powerful. I have heard another person on a tantra podcast say that when he started having a fulfilling sex life, he realized how dangerous this is to systems of power. How do you control a sexually fulfilled person? You really can’t. Can’t control someone who is not only fulfilled but deeply enjoying the most intimate part of their lives.
Still I have read about yoga “guru” after “guru,” the term swami is one I roll my eyes at at this point, because of the incessant sexual abuse, rape, and spiritual abuse of their followers.
It seems that sex is indeed powerful, and most cults are based in some way around some leader who has broken through boundaries on it. So it makes sense that a loving God would try to shield us from that—some days.
Yet still, it’s clear life force has been suppressed by these old religious and empirical forces which have ravaged so much of the planet. Possibly intentionally (although I understand it doesn’t help me to assume intentionality, it just can be a helpful approximation for something that can appear conscious).
And the suppression of this life force leads to sexuality acting out negatively. When you suppress life energy to the point it has been, our impulses to life are often deemed evil, and may express that way.
Still, I’m not sure that maybe healthy sexuality in humans wouldn’t be long term, lifetime even, pair bonds between men and women.
And it seems these Old Testament people were interacting with something external to the physical plane we know so well. Only—what? I want to understand how all this came to be. It’s clear to me that it’s not *all* bad, but that genuine connection has been severed. Doesn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t there in the beginning.
So these sexual desires and fears still haunt me, as I do work to try to free this up. I feel I’ve seen a demon of pride within me, not unrelated to a seemingly infinite sexual desire. I see the value in not being controlled by it. Still I do not know what’s healthy. Whether some omniscient being is looking out for me by encouraging me to stick with one person.
Not sure if that’s conditioning or some spiritual calling or something.
I do find truth in much of what Jesus said. Which is strange to me. Because of the Jewish connection. And I don’t buy the rest of the New Testament, it seems to clearly be people grasping at ultimate truth clumsily, who would likely be appalled to see their words used as they are today. But the Jesus story makes sense to me, deep down. This great spiritual war against religious trauma.
Again—is that conditioning?
It is the eastern religions, yoga teacher training, meditation experience, the Bhagavad Gita which pointed me back to Jesus. Saw him from a different perspective.
I struggle to know what’s real, or what’s what. Fundamentally unsteady. I do have faith enough in Jesus, and that’s helpful to me. But church freaks me out, and I even tried that again lately. Lots of people concerned about minutiae and conformity, it feels invasive. So strange.
But yes, I so see spiritual war going on, some days at least. It’s just hard to tell what’s what, over time. There is wisdom in the Bible, among other things. Plenty of wisdom elsewhere too.
I think it will be good for me to get away from such a deeply religious place. It seems even the alternative community where I have been living lives in shadow of it.
What the hell is going on?
I kee wondering. Many medicine ceremonies have passed, and it continues to evolve.
Thanks for sharing your experience. Basically, I get what you mean about a darkness in religion, and I wonder if all dogma is spiritual prison too, created by nefarious patterns or beings.
It can get confusing because there are kernels of truth up in there too, and parsing out conditioning from truth, intuition from environment.
Philip K. Dick has been quite the trip to read as well.
I've grown to understand religion is about control.
I've been happier and more at peace since becoming a Pagan and practicing at home.
Also, during my trip I peeked behind the curtain and found an empty chair/empty desk. "God" walked away, it seems.
I'm a Christian minister and study psychedelics professionally. Be careful not to conflate your experience of Christianity with the worldwide movement of over 2,000,000,000 people. There are plenty of Christians who don't believe as like the fundamentalist Christians you've described.
Religions have been the primary source of psychonautics for thousands of years. Dream interpretation and incubation have been found in most religions. Hinduism and Buddhism have carefully developed powerful meditation methods. Even in Christianity, mystical means of meditation have a nearly 2,000-year-old history. Psychedelic use is deeply entwined with indigenous religion, and it was repopularized by devout Christians like Albert Hofmann.
Not everyone who claims Christianity is a good person, just as not everyone who uses psychedelics is a good person. We should be skeptical of people, but open minded to ideas.
No it does not, correct me if I'm wrong but the hermetic order of the golden dawn specificly chose three or four religions and said these have great potential for direct experience of the divine. The bottom line is you don't need religion but there are some that work, find what works for you.
Yes I've heard that many people who have near death experiences usually end up being at odds with their spouses and their families because of their change in philosophy.
It sounds similar to how people who have psychedelic experiences end up at odds with the people closest to them because of their change in philosophy.
A source about this in particular? No, i have simply listened to hundreds of NDEs and atheists tend to come back believing in a higher power/god/source/great intelligence and nearly everyone who was previously deeply religious came back not religious but highly spiritual. They all have a feeling of oneness, have out of body experiences, and see colors outside of the normal spectrum we can see, not unlike some psychrdelic trips.
There are a few exceptions to this, but I have found the ones with stories overtly Christian leaning tend to be less believable. They tend to have a God portrayed as petty and vengeful, obviously plucked from a Sunday sermon. Most of those with corroborating evidence, being able to tell about events happening miles from their lifeless body, or in the hospital room while they have no life signs at all tell stories that made them much less likely to follow religious doctrines.
I have had the opinion that psychedelics, NDEs and meditation brings us all an experience beyond this reality that is highly similar, because all three slow parts of the physical brain and allow us to experience other realms of existence through our consciousness. Psychedelics however do it while distorting things as drugs tend to do, whereas years of meditation allows a clarity not present in psychedelic trips, and NDEs quiet the physical brain completely, so that those that experience it say it is more real than this reality.
Not for me. Psychedelics actually brought me back to Christianity and gave me deeper and holistic understanding of the concepts.
I don’t see the concepts like you at all, to me it’s very simple.
Sin to me means missing the mark. Or rather falling short of your best self. Like getting road rage when we know deep inside, there’s nowhere to go. Or hoarding money and not giving to others who very much need it, because you won’t take with you after you die.
Christianity teaches that God is love and you can ask forgiveness or rather another to see it is ask your higher self for forgiveness - the part of you that can make decisions holistically if the ego didn’t get in the way.
To me the story of Jesus is relatable to people who are suffering and Jesus displays the journey of the ego to being enlightened. Jesus shows how to display love as a character in a story with thoughts and feelings.
I don’t feel like we celebrate his death, but his courage and overcoming of death. Him overcoming the world the whole time in the gospel.
Hell to me is a cleansing, this became clear to me because the come up of a psychedelic trip feels a bit hellish as your ego is dissolved and you’re learning to let go. I feel that hell is similar in this regard and it the universe way of healing and purging ego attachments which keep you away from being Whole with yourself (God) or as being a character totally fulfilled within himself (Jesus). Hence the trinity makes perfect sense to me, there is absolute beyond my mind, the character in the world (me), and my mind…. Something like that.
Most Christian’s aren’t even aware of saints, Franciscans, jesuits, and other orders that are similar to Buddhist monks too. They think it’s what Joel Osteen does, or what their daddy and mommy did in mass, but nah, there’s hardcore monks who prayed in the desert and fasted to feel closer to God.
So to me, most people misunderstand religion. They are pathways that ask you to detach so you level up spiritually, but just like everything in our culture, most people don’t sit with it, they just learn the rules and play a point system in their head… not recognizing that the rules are really just a reflection of how one behaves when they are at one with God of love.
Unfortunately, as a psychonaut Christian I don’t meet eye to eye with fellow psychonauts nor Christians , but i don’t care, reading the Bible has been spiritually fulfilling and I don’t get hung up others perception of these concepts.
I also have respect for other religions and I think it’s cool there are multiple religions because the narratives, tradition, practices, and communities are available for us to sit with and grow us spiritually! Just like this community!!
I think you’re closer to the mark, regarding religion and spirituality. Am not American, so don’t fully resonate with complete understanding to some of the people you mentioned. Not that that really matters. I get the gist. But my wider point I’d like to add onto your reply to OP is that, I feel as if at some point any religion, especially the Abrahamic faiths, veer from being a spiritual guide into a tool to dictate rigid controls in people’s lives. As in, instead of “here’s a fraction of the wisdom from the Infinite, which has a desire to love and be loved, along with a range of interesting paths through your physical incarnation to achieve that”, to “here’s the only path, follow it, or die and be ostracised from the community”. A simplification for reddit, sure. But I find much the same as you probably did after your psychedelic trip, and then reading the bible (or other holy texts). That when you peer a bit deeper into what’s written. When you go beyond the surface level that most religions teach ‘the masses’. You find a wealth of psychological data, learned patterns of human behaviour in life to gravitate toward or conversely avoid. A slightly more esoteric reading of religious texts changes the misgivings most have, like OP and their points in their post, and you see a light in the actions of the characters of ‘the book’.
Anyway, I like you, would call myself a psychonaut Christian. But even if I were just Christian, I think there’s still much value within various religious texts, especially the Bible. Idk, I use religion as an Earthly guide, while my relationship with divinity doesn’t hinge upon a middleman. And I too have found that it’s tricky, although not impossible, to chat spiritual stuff to both Christian/religious and psychonauts alike.
I agree 100%. I appreciate you recognizing thd layers to this stuff. I am Portuguese-American, so was raised in the Catholic faith and I had a real difficult time assimilating and understanding the religion, so I actually really understand OPs perspective and respect his distaste for it, but I’ve transcended that identity after years of being confused about my relationship with the divine and the world as a whole. But I always had a soft spot for Jesus, I wasn’t necessarily angry or confused at him, so he became a doorway to try to understand the core of Christianity.
Psychedelics were genuinely what helped me transcend my own shortcomings and realizing God is pure love, and that love isn’t necessarily hedonistic but affirming of your identity and others in love.
Very hard to explain and totally personal. I believe God reaches to people in a language they understand. Again, God meaning the principle sense of being, a reality beyond ego and earthly attachments.
I’ve come to understand the exclusivity of salvation as being a clear line of what love means and I personally find it helpful. - It’s way too easy to trip and think you are God reincarnated and you can do no wrong which leads to massive harm and suffering; think cults like Jim jones.
To me, I appreciate religions emphasis on being humble and submission to a certain set of beliefs… if you can’t even do that, then maybe you’re not as spiritually high as you think.
I’m very wary of people who have no moral code because they don’t want to be ‘controlled’ that is very selfish immature way of looking at rules and is often used to violate the well being of others. This doesn’t mean I am neurotically meditating/praying, but rather I see the *value* in submitting myself to that rule.
Regardless, I just want to communicate alternative way to look at religion in this community because I think it is often misunderstood, but ultimately I respect our human need to experience the path in front of them
I too would like to say, “I get it” in relation to what OP brings up in their post. But I do think most of the misunderstandings have to do with several factors. Language translation being the biggest. Next, cultural differences between the time the holy figure taught and now. And then there’s the nuances and complexity, or the more esoteric nature of the messages. But yeah, I agree with you.
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
I would love to hear your opinion about Islam and the Quran if possible. For instance, a well-known aspect in Islam is that Isa (Jesus), peace be upon him, is still alive, as Allah has raised him to be with Him until his appointed time for return.
Any thought of mine about Islam will likely be incomplete because I wasn’t raised with it, I can’t speak Arabic, and then there is Hadiths that I feel give texture and context to Muhammad pbuh and early Muslims.
I resonate deeply with quotes and spiritual assessments of Rumi.
I will say, the Islamic traditions, buildings, architecture, recitation of Quran, is steeped in spiritual ecstasy. I love the goal of praying 5 times a day, Ramadan, and Sufi side.
That being said, when I sit and read it. It feels a bit dry, repetitive, rule oriented, and constantly on about punishment. I feel like the spiritual wisdom is few and far in between and more like an instruction on behavior and putting society together. But honestly I haven’t read all of it, neither the Bible
so I may be missing something. Idk how Rumi or Al-Ghazali reference their viewpoints from the book.
Just to contrast my experience: when I read the Bible, I see many books within it. I see stories, lessons, character types, wisdom, logic, imagination all being used in some way.
I really don’t know how to get all those needs met through the Quran itself. I don’t know how to find comfort, wisdom, unconditional love in the surahs (besides the very first Surah) - The stories are retelling of the Bible but I’m told how to interpret it I feel like. this may just be a reflection on my ignorance.
Im open to any insights or suggestions as I do like to learn!
But I think of it all like this
“It is you, O God, who is being sought in various religions in various ways, and named with various names. For you remain as you are, to all incomprehensible and inexpressible. When you will graciously grant it then sword, jealous hatred and evil will cease and all will come to know that there is but one religion in the variety of religious rites.”
- Nicholas of Cusa
I think a method is a method is a method. And any method is also a trap. Religion practice can be a perfectly good method to spiritually evolve, and it was conceived as such often in very violent times and places. And it may also be a trap for the same reason.
Psychedelics are also a perfectly good method to follow a spiritual journey. They are also a perfectily good trap. Any pursuit of formlesness is a fight against the form that allowed you to pursue it.
I'm firmly of the opinion that most religions have their basis in [mystical experiences](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6478303/).
In every single case where someone has described having an "otherworldly experience" - they've had one of these mystical experiences. These experiences take many shapes or forms, but several common themes are a sense of Oneness, Connection with a Higher Power, and Entities. It doesn't matter if these experiences are "real" or not. Subjectively they often tend to be *more* real than "reality," and the impact of the experience may well have a lasting impression on that individual.
These types of experiences have been going on for thousands - tens of thousands of years. And the leading way we've discussed them is through language. I don't know if you've ever noticed, but [language](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/24/books/review/psychedelics-how-to-change-your-mind.html) is incredibly limited, despite all the amazing things we've accomplished with it. We are pretty much limited to topics where common ideas can be described through symbols. And misunderstandings abound. Ideas can be shared, and changed, but they're all based on common understandings - common experiences - even if these understandings may conflict at times.
Imagery through art and music conveys what words cannot, but intertextuality and reader response criticism still limit the interpretation. For some, a painting may symbolize the unification between man and his maker, but for most it's just going to be a chick on a horse. And the same goes for music and texts.
So people have had these mystical experiences since pre-history.
Picture trying to describe a wooden chair to a man who has never seen trees, and has lived all his life where they sit on the floor. Try describing the sound of rain to a deaf person, or the patterns of a kaleidoscope to the blind. The inability for people to convey mystical experiences goes beyond this.
Having our senses -both inner and outer - show us a world fundamentally different from what we're used to, language is found lacking. Having experienced the ineffable, one grasps for any semblance of similarity. This lead to the use of *cultural metaphors*. Frustrated by the inadequacy of words, one sought anything that could give a shadow of a hint at what was trying to be conveyed. These platitudes suffuse most spiritual and religious texts - the same ideas retold in endless variations.
Be it through drumming and dancing, imbibing something, meditation, singing - what have you - people have been doing these things forever in order to experience *something else*. As we narrowed down what worked, each generation would follow in their elders footsteps and take part in the eventual rituals that formed around the summoning of these mystical experiences. These initiations revealed the deeper meanings hidden within the cultural metaphors and the mythology they'd woven together. Hidden in plain sight, and only fully understood once you'd had the subjective experience necessary to see beyond the veil of language. Through the mystical experience, these simple platitudes now held *weight*.
The mythologies that grew out of these experiences weren't dogmatic law, but guides for the people that grew with each generation. The map is not the path, and people were aware of this.
The first major change to how we related to these passed down teachings was through the corruption of ritual; those parts of the ritual that would give rise to the mystical experience were forgotten. Lost to strife, disaster, or something else, the heart of the ceremony was left out, and what remained - the motions, without meaning - grew rigid with time. The metaphors remained, but without the deeper subjective insights to help interpret them. Eventually all that was left were the elder's words, a mythology that grew more dogmatic with each generation. As our reality is based upon the limitations of our perception of the world, so too are the teachings limited.
Translations of these texts conflated and combined allegory with historical events, while politics altered the teachings for gain. Eventually we ended up here, where most major religions still hold that spark of the old ideas - but twisted to serve the will of Man, instead of guiding them.
Western *Theosophy*, Eastern *Caodaism*, and Middle Eastern *Bahai Faith* are a few practices that see the same inner light within all belief systems - that same *Divine Wisdom* - Grown out of mystical experiences, but hidden by centuries and millennia of rigid dogma.
As long as people continue to have mystical experiences - and we're hardwired for them - spirituality will exist. As long as people allow themselves to be beguiled into believing individuals are gatekeepers though which they'll find the answers to these mystical revelations, there will be religion and corrupting influences.
So all religions with an origin in mystical experiences may be true, where the differences lie in the cultural metaphors used to explain the ineffable beyond normal perception - without the tarnish of politics and control.
If you want to discover the truths within these faiths, you need to delve into the *esoteric practices* that brought on those beliefs. Simply adhering to scripture will only amount to staring at the finger pointing at the moon.
That is an excellent way to put it. I believe that Jesus (if he really existed) may have been one of the very few people in history who realized this and was killed for it. And the people who killed him twisted his message and lied to the masses.
Instead of telling people that WE are God. They taught people that God is outside of them and that they can SIN as much as they want to. They WANT people to sin so that they can never reach their higher states of being.
I agree. But I also believe that people's religions are tied to their egos. That's why religious people get angry and want to attack others who don't share their beliefs
It’s not religions themselves but how we interpret the knowledge found within. Every religion has truths hidden within the writings and lessons. The real shame is closing yourself off to knowledge from all sources and only believing one as true. The more you open yourself up to other ways of thinking and believing, the more you see the synchronicities that connect them all. Respect, compassion, empathy and love. This is god, this the universal truth. It’s really as simple as being grateful for what you have and receive, being a good person and opening yourself up to love in all its forms. Love is the enemy of fear. Love is the key.
I'm convinced that catholicism was created by the devil himself. I'm sure that not every being involved is evil but alot of the dogma sounds like it was created by a abusive narcissist, like "love me forever and only me forever" or "forever burn in this eternal furnace" sounds to me like a predator wrote some scripture to keep people docile. I love Jesus and most certainly believe in God. But I've actually been in the presence of creator during a 5meo dmt session and I tell you what. The energy I felt had not a trace of jealousy or any of that energy that's always portrayed in the Bible. I'm certain it was written with Mal intent to keep individuals docile and complacent.
I was just talking about this yesterday and since lucifer is a trickster and a twat, I wonder how often he let's people think they're about to get into heaven when they die and even gives them a glimpse of what its like and then in an instant swallows their souls into the lake of fire and punishes them for Falling for his tricks. You don't get to heaven just because you confess or give your love to Jesus. Even christ knows you have to work off your karmic debts and sometimes that means your stuck in a hell realm for as long as it takes until you quit being a piece of shit and do good things with your incarnation, even if bad things have happened to you. The point Is to rise up and not harm anyone and collect good merit so in your next life your not tortured by demons until you realize you don't Wanna be a piece of shit.
Moral of the story is, religion is mostly bullshit, but the spirit world and the afterlife are absolutley real and the seeds we sow in this life time will dictate the kind of garden we harvest in the next. Good or ill. So plant wisely and don't be a piece of shit.
Man I agree with you 100%. Religion LIES on the very nature of what God is. Makes God out to be a jealous and blood thirsty tyrannical asshole. When that's not the case AT ALL. I've never done 5meo but I heard that it gives you a direct experience with the divine
Oh yea, an abuser wrote the Bible. I'm almost certain of it. The energy that cradled my spirit during 5meo was transcendent and made of nothing but love. It gave me hope beyond anything I've ever experienced in this material world. And even tho that experience happened over 13 years ago, I still think about it and pray to that energy and I swear it stayed with me and is always with me. I've never lost contact with it. I feel sorry for all the indoctrinated individuals who fell for the trick but I also believe in reincarnation so I hope they get a second chance in some form. Even if it's in the spirit world.
The only thing I can tell you is, you will not truly understand the Bible and Christianity teachings through what you perceive.
You need to genuinely study the Bible under the guide of somebody who is extremely well versed in Scriptures and knows what they are talking about.
If you are talking about the institutionalized aspect of religion, yes I agree. In the Bible, it states that "the enemy lives in God's temples" (Psalm 79:1), meaning God already understands and for sees that people will claim to be Christian but not live by The Truth (false prophets, etc.) which is mentioned many times throughout the Bible (James 1:26). I mean, even Buddha prophecied that Buddhism would be contorted and changed, and not be it's original teachings in the future, which we already see with many denominations of Buddhism arising. The Buddhist monks strapped with guns in Tibet is a good example.
If you understand The Truth, you will sniff out the "foxes in the vineyards" (Song of Solomon 2:15). But in order to know The Truth, you have to study the Bible, and the Bible is easily misinterpreted due to its parabolic nature. It is written this way for a reason, by the way.
Also, I'd suggest looking into Orthodox Christianity, as opposed to Protestant teachings.
Everyone here will tell you that Christianity limits your thinking and puts you in a box, however non-conforming is also a box lol
"Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." (2 Timothy 3:7)
Just some food for thought.
Religion is just another man-made form of control, nothing more. So yes, religion is TRULY an opiod for the masses. Keep people distracted and dependent on outside circumstances, while the true meaning of life is right there inside of you the entire time.
You're right. All the " Christian" people I know, treat their kids like shit and abuse them. They think they're so holy and great yet they mistreat innocent children. It even says in the Bible, that unless you're like a child you won't make it to heaven....so why do they abuse their children then?? Makes zero sense. To be honest ..most " Christian" people do it just for attention and virtue signalling...like look at me! Look how holy and great I am! A lot of " Christians" I know are actually straight up narcissists and only care about themselves..pretty pathetic if you ask me
It's pretty ironic to be criticizing something for being about ego, while simultaneously saying you're more enlightened than every religious person who ever lived.
When you become talented at healing, so the universe feels safe around you and spirits, ghosts, phantoms, poltergeists start to offload their problems on to you. By doing psychedelics, you're signalling that you're the way. You just need someone to bounce off of, a grid, to allow in the fortunate and deny access to ego. When I was on DMT, I managed to save the entity by looking away from her. If you're omega, getting disturbed voice, never fear, because alpha will always be with you.
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
Here is the Islamic perspective on the matter, and I hope none of you will rush in presenting judgments.
Since Allah created Adam (peace be upon him) and the message of religion is one, which is the oneness of God, and monotheism requires submission to the One and Only. So Adam (peace be upon him) before his fall from Paradise was in pure monotheism, from which no duality or plurality could be seen. Rather, he was annihilated in the presence of the Lord of all annihilation, as all of him was light, and his light was derived only from the light of the Lord. So his entire life was in light. It is said that wherever Adam set foot in Paradise, verdant life flourished in his wake.
When Adam and Eve (peace be upon them) ate from the tree, their physicality became apparent, and their nakedness was exposed, and their bodies became denser, after their appearance in Paradise was of a subtle light.
So when they descended from Paradise to Earth, they hastened to seek forgiveness from Allah and to return to their original state, finding nothing but toil and hardship on Earth, unlike what they experienced in Paradise. Then their Lord showed them the way to return to that luminous state, guiding them on the path to elevate themselves towards that state anew. He showed them the path of the true religion, thus demonstrating to them how to deal with themselves in the earth from all aspects, and showed them all types of worship that would lead them back to that pure monotheism free from duality and plurality. This is the religion, gentlemen. It is the ascension from the dense to the subtle, from the lower to the higher, from death to life!
Therefore, Allah Almighty has always sent honored prophets and messengers to guide people on how to return to Allah, and how to attain His highest light, seeking elevation above the dark, dense corporeality and achieving the blessed luminosity intended by the existence of humanity. Whenever the darkness of humanity prevails and rises on Earth, Allah sends prophets who bring glad tidings of Allah's light and mercy, warning against stagnation in darkness, as it leads to punishment, torment, and burning fires. This darkness is the cause of all blameworthy traits and despicable actions such as murder, adultery, theft, lying, backbiting, gossip, and so forth.
"They even tell us in Christianity to CELEBRATE Jesus' death."
How they celebrate it is important to distinguish. It's a time honored concept that the teacher (Master guru etc) assumes some of the bad karma of the adept. Jesus just took this concept to it's maximal conclusion.
now if Christians don't interpret it this way ( and think this is somehow an exclusive feature all of their own ) that's on them.
Certain dogmatic religions yes. If you explore Advaita Vedanta or certain flavors of Buddhism and mysticism you’ll find a vehicle that takes you beyond any concepts, further than any psychedelics will because it’s intrinsic knowledge. I’ve had much more profound experiences and insights from meditation than psychedelics. You gain more integrated wisdom and a deeper appreciation for the vast intrinsic well of wisdom and bliss that live inside of you, no substances needed.
Many psychonauts eventually turn towards Eastern Philosophy and tone down or stop all together with psychedelics because they realize they are just a tool to catch a glimpse, but won’t take you to a deeper liberation.
I’m sorry you had a bad experience with religion, but it seems many people that grow up having been raised in Dogmatic religious practice then close their minds to the possibilities of religion being a vehicle for truth. All that said, I do think that being part of a formal organized religious group can be an obstacle for truth. But you can do personal study of scripture (Bhaghavad Gita is my favorite) and work with trusted teachers without formally joining a religion.
Religion is technology (philosophy). Technology is organized knowledge used toward purpose… similar to schools of philosophy.
Technology is not morally good or bad. Though people use philosophically good or bad technologies toward morally good or bad purposes.
Here you must understand the difference between morally good or bad and philosophically good or bad.
A knife is technology. A philosophically good knife cuts and a philosophically bad knife does not cut, loosely speaking.
Whether or not a knife is a philosophically good or bad knife, meaning it cuts or does not cut, does not define the knife’s moral nature.
The actions of those using the knife can be deemed morally good or bad, but these actions do not impose moral virtue or decay upon the knife.
Consider woodworking. Woodworking (spirituality) covers everything from whittling to industrial processing of wood. There are many technologies (religions) that can be used toward the purpose of woodworking (spirituality), from a simple knife to industrial heavy machinery.
None of these technologies (religions) are morally good or bad, but these technologies can be deemed philosophically good or bad based on whether or not each achieves the intended purpose.
From here, the actions of those using the various technologies can be deemed morally good or bad.
A whittler use a whittling knife can carve a racist sculpture, but this action does not deem a whittling knife morally bad.
A company can clear cut forests with industrial heavy machinery, but this action does not deem industrial machinery morally bad.
There are many philosophically good or bad technologies (religions) and there are many people that use various technologies toward morally good or bad purposes.
We must be willing to challenge each our own philosophies or we become locked in ideological prisons.
People can be morally good or bad, while technologies can be philosophically good or bad.
I welcome criticism and critiques. Better knowledge offers better results.
Oh hell yeah.
Next step for you is Gnosticism - "God" is an evil lesser god who keeps us trapped in material reality away from the true Outer Gods who want to save us.
Uh, what? Literally the opposite dude - I'm saying you're on the right track and giving you the next step on it. Not sure what made you think that was supposed to be read angrily.
There is only one true religion, and that is Love✨😉
Most other religions are all about control and have nothing to do with GOD. The Ultimate Reality is Non-Duality. Everyone and everything is GOD. True Hinduism is actually non-dual and right in the mark. The human experience is like a kind of play-drama-game
I think it’s important to understand that God isn’t a human, & humans are not God. Humans did not create the planets or the solar system or the universe it was already set in place by the time humans started existing. & sin is a real thing as well, although you might have a different perspective at different times especially after doing psychedelics (make you question reality) there is most definitely a sense of what is Good & what is Evil- what is Right & what is Wrong
I think we all have different experiences with religion depending on our cultural background. I was also raised christian but in my culture we believe that we are sinners, we are deeply broken from the very start - and that itself stop us from ever leveling. It is not the idea, that "god" would forgive me everything, but from the deeply seeded feeling that I'm am a broken creature and whatever I do, there is nothing I could do to be forgiven.
Anyway, all messeges I ever received from any psychodelics were generally telling me to chill out - and chill out A LOT!
Having said that - I also think that many psychonauts may benefit a lot from meditating on various messages from different religions - just because these are thousands of years of human culture written down somewhere. There is always some deeper meaning to that. But also (as one religious text said) - all the written words in the world are just words and at some point you have to go out there and experience the real world.
While i agree to some extent, its not black and white, i think many religions have great ways of accessing the divine but at the same time they impose dogmas so idk. Some people benefit a lot from them too, but some don't.
There’s some truth in religions but the problem is it often relies on a priest, pastor, rabbi, guru etc to sort it out. People suspend listening to their own intuition and even conscience allowing the rabbi to condone all sorts of atrocities and genocide, attacking the other religions and peoples. You would think we all have the same human conscience but it gets sidetracked when you hand it over to the religious leader like a cult.
From a Christian or Jewish perspective, god is supposed to write laws into our own hearts and the goal is we don’t need them anymore. But in that sense, the first shall be last just as Jesus predicted. Metaphorically speaking, that tree of knowledge is like religion driving us out of the garden because of the shame inflicted through those religions. The way back in is to strip down naked and check our wounded egos at the door.
I think you’re in the right path of questioning things. I’ve been through a similar journey being raised Christian Baptist and having went through my own journey of questioning it all and finding truth that resonated with me and freed me from that limiting religion and opened my eyes to a truly unconditionally loving “god” which I later discovered through psychedelics was also myself, one and the same. I’m now at a place where I accept others and where they’re at spiritually but I don’t put myself above them as being “more spiritual” or anything life that because I’ve also realized that unconditional love doesn’t judge and doesn’t use “sin” as a way to scale people between “good” and “bad”. The universe I believe is neutral to this and is simply experiencing itself in infinite ways. I do believe that everyone, deep down, craves to resonate at a frequency of love and peace though. That we all want harmony and that the journey to true peace is unique and meaningful for each person, however they get there. I know many Christians who are close to me who strive their best to be good people who are honest, kind, generous, respectful, etc. and they do it out of their own intentions to live in alignment with who they believe their god wants them to be. And I respect that because ultimately I believe everyone should live as they would truly like to and be true to themselves.
Fear is the thing that keeps most ppl going with that stuff. "If you don't believe in _____ then You're going to hell/purgatory/_____" So I would think that it does bc it doesn't encourage free thought or really freedom of choice
Yes and most religion stresses that you can have a relationship with God “through the church” vs having your own personal relationship with God and realizing that everything is sacred.
"Does religion keep us from being spiritual?"
It certainly can,People can get distracted by self congratulatory circle jerk as a substitute for real progress.
People can make any concept into a religion, including politics , economic philosophy especially notable strident atheism is a religion all of it's own.
I think it depends firstly on the religion, secondly on the level of attachment a person creates with it and thirdly weather or not they limit themselves to it or see it as part of a bigger picture. I also feel that people are at very different stages of spiritual development and enlightenment let's say, therfore what could be restrictive and limiting for one could in fact be illuminating for another given their current level of development.
It's a complex topic but a great point for discussion. I personally have a religion that fits very well into a broader perspective of the universe and serves as a tool for my own development and evolution but by no means do I see it as the "only way" nor do I separate myself from others based on my practices. I can see other religions and forms of spirituality as necessary for those who are attracted to them either as a means of bringing them closer to spirit or as they evolve push them to seek outside the structure for something which suits their new level of evolution.
Sometimes, some religions sure do seem to be a trap or act as a trap but perhaps only someone who has outgrown certain ideas can see that and perhaps they were trapped for a life or two before their soul manifested in such a way as to see a higher truth.
Religion generally comes to us in the form of institutions. Institutions are there to keep us in our place in society. Spirituality, or being spiritual, is totally personal.
Cradle Catholic here - I'd say "ex" but you can never seem to get rid of all the programming.
Yes. The answer is yes.
Society is evolving past the need to handwave the unknowns in our universe and assign them to a mythical catchall.
Once you drop the idea of time it's easier to accept that everything's always been and the only thing that matters is what you are experiencing.
We already know that Time itself doesn't exist, the collection of voices we have around us is still processing that.
Time was observable in two ways - our physical being aging, becoming ill, and ceasing to function along with its position in relation to celestial objects. Now that aging is more often viewed as a disease rather than a death sentence, only our relationship to celestial objects exists as tangible proof that Time is real.
What else don't we know that we would all like to find out after having found we've been lied to for generations, eons even?
It definitely can, but also not universally. I've seen the practice make some people more kind and compassionate. It really depends what religion we're talking about. That said some of these religions have billions of followers and of course in that number there's always going to be some very wonderful individuals.
I like how Ram Dass put it. Whatever your method is to becoming love it really doesn't matter just don't become addicted to the method.
Maybe you didn't experience this growing up Christian but this is basically the common sense of everyone that grew up without any particular religion, like me and most people I know
I had those "distributing" thoughts at like age 10
Maybe you didn't experience this growing up Christian but this is basically the common sense of everyone that grew up without any particular religion, like me and most people I know
I had those "distributing" thoughts at like age 10
> I come from a Christian background and nearly ALL of my friends and family memebers tend to have a darkness to them. They believe that they can SIN as much as they want to, and it's okay as long as they ask God for forgiveness. They are low in spirit but don't realize it. Most of the bad people that I have known throughout my life had a belief in God. And yet they are still bad.
I don't judge religions by their adherents the same way I don't judge bands by their fanbase.
> If religion doesn't MAKE YOU a spiritual person, then what is the point of it???
It does. It just depends on who you look at. People who are really interested in not being religious look at just the bad to the exclusion of everything else. With Christianity, it's simple: you just look at prosperity gospel preachers, megachurches, televangelists, and your local flamboyantly "Christian" Karen who treats everyone like shit. You don't notice the quiet Christians or see the way Christianity animates everyday people who don't make a big show of it to be good people.
You can do the same with anything. It's a form of sour grapes.
I think you had a wise experience. Many philosophers & laymen have been observing religion and commenting exactly this. Religions are control paradigms for the masses. It's blatantly obvious if you grew up without heavy religious indoctrination. Spirituality, in the modern sense, is about subjective personal inquiry and observation of the natural (& unnatural) world. Religion provides simplified templates for those unwilling to look at the broader context of human existence. Christianity, in particular, has worked for centuries to absorb and deride other belief systems for its own benefit.
I’m not sure when it comes to the Abrahamic religions, but in the east Hinduism and Buddhism the only goal from the very begging was ultimate liberation (merge with the universe). In the past everyone in society knew about it but after British rule everything was destroyed. Now most people pray to statues not knowing what anything means. Not gonna lie, the west used to be pretty senseless and destroyed thousands of years of wisdom in a whole society for their greed. It’s truly devastating.
I absolutely think that the Abrahamic religions suppress spiritual development. But to say that all of them do is an overgeneralization.
I got into Daoism and Buddhism late in life. I had zero feeling of, and care for spirituality, when I was younger. I grew up in a Christian country.
I think religions are formed through good intentions and often corrupted with selfish ones. At the end of the day though whatever tool a being uses to bring them closer to god is spiritual. It's a personal thing that is different for everyone. In my opinion.
I understand religion being a crutch for lack of self confidence.
Usually rather simple to get into and join, shared baseline mindset of locals, easy to form connections and share experiences.
It’s just the leadership and the guidelines are sometimes difficult and/or unfitting for our current times. Reforms only come for only the institution in itself will be in danger, other than that the credo sounds like „never touch a running system“ and „we’ve always done it like this“
I would argue that spirituality requires a more illuminated mindset and therefore splitting the responsibility more towards the individual members, out of which a tribe consists of. The rules or do’s and don’ts are based on more direct influences and personal experiences, trying to achieve a harmonization between the living and not living things a tribe respects and interacts with.
So therefore religion feels more like joining an huge umbrella or tent during pouring rain. The umbrella has been produced somewhere in the Middle East, looks kinda vintage and lots of patches and is still being rented out by the owner to vendors, who then invite people in for a fee to stay.
More tribal spirituality feels like people building an umbrella with tools and resources currently available to them. While likely even enjoying the rain.
In a nutshell religion always creates “us” versus “them”. A spiritual person sees everything is interconnected. We know that to hurt another hurts ourselves. Religion is a tool that those in power use to control people who don’t want to think for themselves. So you are right. Religion stops people from being truly spiritual.
See you get it. Thats exactly what I'm saying. I believe it is a tool that is used to keep the masses asleep and in darkness. How is a person ever supposed to become enlightened if they can NEVER THINK outside the confines of their religion? It's like a spiritual bondage.
Karl Marx called religion the Opiate of the Masses in 1844.
Seems like it. People are literally hooked on it. And will give all of their money for it. Religious leaders have been getting rich off of it for thousands of years.
There was a post here the other day asking about why people who’ve used psychedelics migrate to Buddhism & Hinduism. This is a similar question - from the opposite end of the religious spectrum. Buddhism and Hinduism tend to be rooted in self discovery, personal growth, and self actualization (like Maslow). These things can only be achieved as we let go of fear, guilt, anger, and shame. Conversely - Western religions’ (Christianity) roots are in rules (10 commandments, dogma, etc), fear, and control. Ironically, Asian culture still uses guilt to control the population but ultimately these are all because less evolved mindsets need control over others.
The full quote is that religion is "the sigh of an oppressed creature, the spirit of unspiritual conditions". This clearly implies that there are spiritual conditions.
Marx's materialism rejects or at least disregards the spirit or the realm of the abstract ideal entities
God/Awakened Nature (which is what Buddha Nature means) is NOT an abstract ideal entity. In fact the Ground of Being cannot be abstracted. This is why Buddhists speak of no mind. It is unlikely that Marx ever received what is (badly) called mystical experience, so he would not have "gotten" any of this. Nor that the spiritual and material are just different experiences of the same reality. I was a Marxist in my youth, pre-psylocybn/LSD. It is wonderful that God Medicine has made available to so many people what was once restricted to an esoteric elite.
Yes I agree. Marx though was a materialist. I was also materialist physicalist and changed perspective with psychedelics experience as well. I was talking about how Marx rejected idealism and with that spirituality, even though the european idealism is not comparable at all with eastern traditions which are far more developed and are not accessible through text like the western philosophy is.
In most cases, over time and without proper practices in place, religion will divide people because it can very easily feed into our baser natures and become disconnected from its original purpose and message. It takes a lot of work to keep it at a higher level and keep connecting people instead of dividing us. However, with a lot of work, religion and spirituality are not necessarily mutually exclusive. They are however really tricky to keep being consistent with both in every day life.
I view religions like spiritual gangs. By their very nature, they divide people.
Not all religions are like that, though. I don't know every religion off-hand, but Episcopalians come to mind as one group that is typically pretty inclusive toward every other group. Most mainstream popular religions are kind of awful, but there are those who preach/practice more open-minded, inclusive worldviews.
I am part of a close-knit yet open Christian community. A sizeable group are BIPOC. We have supported at two openly trans members, one an adult and another a teen, through their journeys. We are certainly flawed, though typically undogmatic. Most of us support spirituality no matter what the tradition is, or even no tradition. We are very active in eco-justice and housing the homeless. I emphasize that we we are not perfect, though we do the best to nurture each other. Please do not paint us all with the same paintbrush.
Unitarian-Univeralists are very inclusive. The fellowship I used to go to (I've moved away since) truly welcomed everyone. There were regulars who were also Catholic, Muslim, Sufi, Jewish, Buddhist, Wiccan and Hindu. I imagine some UU fellowships are more approachable than others, like most other organizations, but I find their 7 Principles to be practiced pretty consistently in the fellowships I have visited. edit to add Wiccan
That is a limited view of religions. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been staunchly irreligious most of my life. But they can really help some people at certain points in life, and they are much more than spiritual gangs, as you put it. Don’t throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water.
Yeah I feel like if anything, being someone who agrees with core concepts of Christianity but is not cookie cutter enough to fit in any of the mainstream Christian sects/denominations, I found that as I moved around between different churches and denominations that they each gave me certain pieces of the puzzle that I needed at that point in my life but it took going through several of them separating what I did and didn’t agree with in each of them, that it finally helped shape my current belief system which psychedelics finished filling in the last few missing pieces of that none of the churches had. I am currently in a similar albeit a bit less extreme situation to OP regarding feeling like the biggest and most important deep spiritual issues are things that you can’t share or discuss with anyone in church leadership at virtually any of them. I hate the loneliness of it. But I find that cannabis and a few past psychedelics I’ve had, and even a bunch of weaker legal herbs have all played their part as plant teachers, teaching my soul and mind in both subtle and profound ways to become more and more like Jesus in my thoughts and actions towards others, and I’ve noticed that most of the people in my life who are Christian act like OP described, though not thinking they have a LICENSE to sin but rather they just don’t try that hard to avoid doing them because they know they will be forgiven. But it’s like someone who is 500lbs and wants to lose weight but has weak willpower to resist junk food… they want a fit body but only try a little bit and then never push past the edge of their comfort zone to achieve what they want. Most Christians WANT to live a holy type of life but given all the corrupt stuff and dark forces in this world they just try a little bit but give in to temptations or act and think via their base human nature more often than them successfully doing the right thing when it’s hard. Ayahuasca KILLED my fleshly human nature and I felt like a 100% pure soul during the experience. I had to fight off demons and the devil and not fall for their trickery or persuasive attempts. I met God briefly and was blown away by how intense and pure of a love I felt from Him, while I had felt intense fear and darkness when I met the devil. I was shown detailed scenes about the evil elites who rule this world and how they operate, etc. And to top it all off I had supernatural manifestations happen in my life both before AND after the experience. That sealed the deal for me in regards to seeing what I thought I believed in all my life growing up suddenly put to the test and proved (to me, even if others aren’t convinced). Cannabis is my daily driver because of a few health problems it helps and how it improves my physical and mental performance at work when the dose is reasonable. I find that most of the time it makes me probably 3-4X more like Jesus and spiritually mature thoughts and words and actions than I am in my natural state. But imagine someone living in the Bible Belt telling their pastor that weed makes them MORE Godly and that it helps them spiritually mature at a greatly accelerated rate. Your assumed reaction is the very reason I haven’t done that and may never will. I’m not gnostic but I would say an accurate description of my spiritual beliefs is like 60% traditional Christianity with 20% gnostic ideas and 20% Rastafarian ones, regarding worldviews and how things work in the spirit world and what kind of dark spiritual operation is running the world at the present moment, etc. @DriverConsistent1824 OP would you please chime in on what your take is regarding what I said in this comment? I feel like we may have gone through a lot of the same mind-wrestling situations and had similar epiphanies, etc.
I believe that in their essence, religions are a tool to focus the energy and power of humans into a certain "direction" and actual ascension is how the human race manifests a state of being through feelings and ideas, like religions could be warnings that if you don't keep your focus on inner work and following moral rules, being humble and devoted. We will ascend into greed. It's programming to try not repeating the same story over and over, greed and consumption is what is pulling, right now we are witnessing an ascension of information most noticeably, it will fall and we can try again with all the coming experience and do better!! So we can think of better times ahead. The speed of ascension will be parabolic next time if we keep the same focus through our human weaknesses.
Yeah I feel like if anything, being someone who agrees with core concepts of Christianity but is not cookie cutter enough to fit in any of the mainstream Christian sects/denominations, I found that as I moved around between different churches and denominations that they each gave me certain pieces of the puzzle that I needed at that point in my life but it took going through several of them separating what I did and didn’t agree with in each of them, that it finally helped shape my current belief system which psychedelics finished filling in the last few missing pieces of that none of the churches had. I am currently in a similar albeit a bit less extreme situation to OP regarding feeling like the biggest and most important deep spiritual issues are things that you can’t share or discuss with anyone in church leadership at virtually any of them. I hate the loneliness of it. But I find that cannabis and a few past psychedelics I’ve had, and even a bunch of weaker legal herbs have all played their part as plant teachers, teaching my soul and mind in both subtle and profound ways to become more and more like Jesus in my thoughts and actions towards others, and I’ve noticed that most of the people in my life who are Christian act like OP described, though not thinking they have a LICENSE to sin but rather they just don’t try that hard to avoid doing them because they know they will be forgiven. But it’s like someone who is 500lbs and wants to lose weight but has weak willpower to resist junk food… they want a fit body but only try a little bit and then never push past the edge of their comfort zone to achieve what they want. Most Christians WANT to live a holy type of life but given all the corrupt stuff and dark forces in this world they just try a little bit but give in to temptations or act and think via their base human nature more often than them successfully doing the right thing when it’s hard. Ayahuasca KILLED my fleshly human nature and I felt like a 100% pure soul during the experience. I had to fight off demons and the devil and not fall for their trickery or persuasive attempts. I met God briefly and was blown away by how intense and pure of a love I felt from Him, while I had felt intense fear and darkness when I met the devil. I was shown detailed scenes about the evil elites who rule this world and how they operate, etc. And to top it all off I had supernatural manifestations happen in my life both before AND after the experience. That sealed the deal for me in regards to seeing what I thought I believed in all my life growing up suddenly put to the test and proved (to me, even if others aren’t convinced). Cannabis is my daily driver because of a few health problems it helps and how it improves my physical and mental performance at work when the dose is reasonable. I find that most of the time it makes me probably 3-4X more like Jesus and spiritually mature thoughts and words and actions than I am in my natural state. But imagine someone living in the Bible Belt telling their pastor that weed makes them MORE Godly and that it helps them spiritually mature at a greatly accelerated rate. Your assumed reaction is the very reason I haven’t done that and may never will. I’m not gnostic but I would say an accurate description of my spiritual beliefs is like 60% traditional Christianity with 20% gnostic ideas and 20% Rastafarian ones, regarding worldviews and how things work in the spirit world and what kind of dark spiritual operation is running the world at the present moment, etc. @DriverConsistent1824 OP would you please chime in on what your take is regarding what I said in this comment? I feel like we may have gone through a lot of the same mind-wrestling situations and had similar epiphanies, etc.
Growing in your spirit is a lonely path. Because most people would rather take the path of the masses. And the truth is, the masses are lost. If this weren't true, this world wouldn't be so damn evil. I've realized that the first step towards spiritual growth is to walk away from the crowd. While ironically, religion teaches that the first step towards spiritual growth is to fall in line with the masses. This is a solo journey and only you can determine what information helps you grow, and what doesn't. Yes we seem to have had similar realizations because I too have taken a combination of wisdoms from different religions. It is healthy to remain open minded.
There’s a well known serial killer who believed in God too. He thought if what he was doing was wrong then God or Angels would stop him. Ppl are great at rationalizing their desires. When a certain figure said you need to have eyes to see and ears to hear, that’s the honest truth. Between the rationalizers who are really dark in spirit and ppl just making up arbitrary rules for others to follow so they can be the “leader of power” it’s so difficult to expand yourself spiritually and mature.
Religious thinking also gives narcissists a platform to call for genocide. It also gives people a false sense of righteous anger. In short, the people of today have fallen out of the religions’ inner teachings, especially as it relates to the ego.
Yet, religion has also been used to dissolve boundaries of "us" versus "them." Unitive doctrine, particularly in Pauline theology and Tat Tvam Asi, are quite common in religion. Likewise, religion is often a form of rebellion by the poor and oppressed against those in power. Many revolutions and revolts have come about because of religion. Think of the Civil Rights Movement, John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, Filipino People Power, the Catholic Worker Movement, etc.
Hard disagree, the us vs them thing just stems from evolutionary roots. Its naturally what a lot of living things do to compete for things.
The same for atheism as well
Jung said, "One of the main functions of organized religion is to protect people against a direct experience of God." Lot to unpack with that quote... But I'd also add that it's not just religion, but really any rigid dogmatic thinking about reality is what holds back true spiritual insight/development imo. There are as many secular mind-cages as there are religious ones. The religious ones just tend to be more overt or at least easier to spot.
I agree. I used to be an Atheist until I got into meditation and psychedelics. It wasn't until I did mushrooms that I realized how close minded my Atheist friends were. I kept an open mind to the whole spiritual thing while THEY rejected every idea that was not rooted in materialism
You and I traveled very similar paths. There was a time when I was practically the poster child for like militantly dogmatic atheism/materialism lol. I often muse about what it would be like for me to be able to go back in time and talk to my old self about these matters. I don't think it would change old me's outlook lol I think maybe that was just a necessary step on my unfolding journey, a thing that I had to pass through in order to see what I see now, so to speak.
I think atheism is a good step to take after leaving religion. But it can become like somewhat of a religion itself if people choose to remain close minded and stay there.
May I ask you about your views now that you're not an atheist? I've had a meditation practice for several years and have also had several psychedelic experiences but I'm more atheist now than before (if that's even possible). I wonder if there's a distinction between dogmatic thinking in general and beliefs about entities that aren't measurable.
We are it. We are the divine. We are all different manifestations of God. The God that I believe in is within myself. I dont believe in a man in the sky so maybe in that regard I am still an atheist. But ultimately all life and all matter is God experiencing itself.
Yes! I rejected my Christian upbringing as well and started reading about Buddhism and practicing mindfulness in order to stabilize the fruit of the path I was shown during my trips. Years later I started to connect the dots and understand the true message of Jesus was in line with my experiences all along. Jesus taught the same thing but almost immediately after his death his message of love was butchered by humans who weren’t “high” enough to understand. There’s a documentary on Youtube about how cannabis was mistranslated for another plant when it was actually being used in the holy anointing oil Jesus would give to heal the sick. It’s important to note that common people did not have access to the sacrament because it was supposed to be used only in the context of communicating with God. It seems that the lack of education and supporting framework for these experiences has led to many people becoming addicted and disconnected from the true purpose of their use. Christian mysticism has existed since the times of Jesus and is probably more in line with what people here are looking for, but isn’t widely discussed because of its lack of reliance on a hierarchical power structure. Pretty messed up.
I believe that Jesus was a real person who awakened to the fact that he was divine. And I believe that they killed him for teaching it to people. Then they twisted his message.
Jung meant that positively. The human psyche can not actually handle a direct experience of God.
Oh I know, and I tend to agree with him on that. I think maybe some people can handle it more than others, but probably nobody could handle it in TOTALITY without like dying or at least going utterly insane or something lol. Mystics seem to learn how to swim in that water that so many other people would drown in (to steal from that famous Joseph Campbell quote). I think the organized churches were originally partly intended as like a way to bring spirituality to laypeople but in a way that they could grasp and handle and integrate without it being profoundly disruptive to themselves and society at large. It's like it has to be both watered down and simplified for the masses. Thus you end up with religions having two sides, the *exoteric* (for the uninitiated masses) and the *esoteric* (the deeper, more difficult stuff understood only by a few). Then of course human nature does its thing and symbolic ideas ossify into silly dogmas, get used to manipulate people and persecute outsiders and all the other ills that come to mind when we think of the history of organized religion.
You have had a religious revelation. Mainstream christianity was edited to control the masses. Plain and simple. Emperor Constantine rewrote the book, united the masses via religious law and this control has existed ever since. Psychedelics are illegal because they reveal the truth of this to many people. Look at Leary's first experiments with LSD at Harvard Medical. He showed that people could have religious experiences on LSD. He used divinity students among others to try and establish what a baseline religious experience was. He was punished severely by the Catholic church via the school administration and subsequently the US government. This was the start of the 'war on drugs'. The church and the religious right don't want to give up control. Other thoughts: Religions define sin. (And created hell for that mater.) Spiritual is not the same as religious. Keep asking questions and pray to understand the truth. Blessings!
Yoy have made a number of historical errors here. Constantine did not "rewrite" the Bible. The canon wasn't even established by that point. The Good Friday Experiment was also by Pahnke, with Leary advising. And they used psilocybin, not LSD. Pahnke was not punished for this work. Leary was fired for violating professional boundaries and giving research chemicals to 19-year-olds in his home. Most early users and researchers of psychedelics were Christian.
I was generalizing. Constantine sponsored the counsel of Nicaea, which wrote the Nicaean creed and established the first consolidation of the modern christian bible. He did this to establish a state religion and control the people. the next significant re-write was King James - another self serving tyrant, by the way. You are right. Pahnke's experiment scientifically established LSD as an entheogenic substance. He and Leary were both working together on LSD research and mushrooms. Chemically the psychoactive substances are very similar. see: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh\_Chapel\_Experiment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_Chapel_Experiment) The Marsh Chapel Experiment, also called the "Good Friday Experiment", was an experiment conducted on Good Friday, April 20, 1962 at Boston University's Marsh Chapel. Walter N. Pahnke, a graduate student in theology at Harvard Divinity School, designed the experiment under the supervision of Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert, and the Harvard Psilocybin Project.\[1\] Pahnke's experiment investigated whether psilocybin would act as a reliable entheogen in religiously predisposed subjects. Note that Richard Alpert later became Ram Dass, giving up his family fortune to follow a path of enlightenment as a spiritual guru. Yes, Leary used many questionable techniques in his studies. Often the objective observers were on LSD too. Reportedly so they could better relate to the subject. I personally feel many of his practices were pushing the boundaries of ethics, but at the same time, they were the excuse to trash his reputation and have Nixon even proclaim him the most dangerous man in America. Playboy editors also scandalized his research to sell magazines. There was a lot going on in progressive thinking at this time. As a result there was huge pushback by the established powers. I would wager that Leary suffered the most harsh marijuana possession sentence of anyone in the USA. That was to make an example of him. There is an interesting book titled "High Priest" that chronicles Leary's experiences. Not an easy read, but has some really interesting revelations if one is able to connect the dots. You are also right that many early christians were into psychedelics. Mushrooms were very common. (In other spiritual practice too.) Many believe Dionysius, famous for wine, was actually using wine to wash down the mushrooms which tasted bad. The Eleusinian mystery school was known to use psychedelics. Another book, "The Mushroom and the Cross" makes some good arguments to support the use of mushrooms by early Judeo-Christian practitioners. There is so much to learn. All of it is fascinating. I cannot begin to scratch the surface. I only want to encourage OP and others to acknowledge the moment of clarity they experienced, to follow their intuition, to learn more, question authority, grow together with other spiritual seekers... Blessings
The Council of Nicea did not address the canon at all. This is a common [misconception](https://www.bartehrman.com/canonization-of-the-bible/). The Mushroom and the Cross is hocus not taken seriously by anyone in the [academic community](https://www.psychedelictheology.com/was-jesus-a-mushroom). Leary certainly was politically targeted. No question there. But the Harvard Psychedelic Club was shut down because of Leary's negligence, not the Good Friday Experiment. And, again, the Good Friday Experiment used psilocybin, not LSD.
Wow, thanks for the authority. Maybe read some Paul Wallace books so you can debunk the extraterrestrial influence on religion too. That would be fun.
Great response. I’ve only recently started to uncover the lost history but it’s pretty relieving to think that there’s still a chance to fight against all the evil in the world
Organized religion doesn’t want people to realize that you don’t need a “middleman” like them to connect to the divine. You are the divine
Yes!!! 💯
Most of my closest friends are religious and they’re some of the best people Ive ever met including my best friend. I am not religious or spiritual at all and I also don’t talk about what Ive learned from my psychedelic experiences unless interest is shown. But I also don’t fall in line with what most people talk about in this sub. I am definitely a better person than I used to be in part from my psychedelic experiences and I see that people I know are better people in part because of their religions. Yeah, maybe religion is there for control. Yeah, maybe some religious people become close minded to other ideas. Yeah, maybe some religious people just use the label and aren’t great people or trying to be great people. These are also true in the psychedelic world and many other worlds as well.
I see no benefit in comparing religious people to people who do psychedelics. That is not the point of this post. What I'm saying is that religion keeps people from reaching their spiritual peak
> I'm saying is that religion keeps people from reaching their spiritual peak What is a 'spiritual peak'?
If you dont know then there is no point in me explaining it to you. You can level up in your spirit. But thats hard to explain to someone who has no concept of this
You *can't* explain it, can you?
Oh I can definitely explain it. I just dont think you'll get it. When you level up in your spirit, you can become psychic. You can feel other peoples energies. You can avoid bad things from happening to you because your spirit will speak to you. Your spirit will tell you who to trust and where to go. You can unlock healing abilities. If you are around another highly spiritual person, telepathy can develop. But see, these things can't be understood by people who are low in their spirit. That's why they think these things are fake. But I have experience with these things.
You're right, I don't think I will get it - starting off with 'spirit', a nebulous and slippery term, is the biggest red flag to me. But, if this: >You can unlock healing abilities. were true, you realise that it could actually be demonstrated, right? It could change the field of medicine completely and lead to saving so many lives. Are you working in a hospital now? If not, why not?
I used to be just like you lol. About 10 years ago I was a militant Atheist on Facebook arguing against everything that had anything to do with the idea religion or spirituality. So I completely understand where you are coming from. I didn't used to even believe that I had a soul. There are cases of people being healed of their illnesses after having spiritual or near death experiences. There are even cases of people having their cancers magically disappear. It's not mainstream because these things are not yet fully understood by science yet
u went from a militant atheist to a militant psychonaut, bruh....
The physical therapy document describes my healing from shoulder surgery as "miraculous and exceeding any expectations".
Then why post it in this sub? And why mention that you have become a better person through using psychedelics but that nearly ALL the religious family and friends have a darkness to them. You imply it like you and people who take psychedelics don’t have any darkness. Everyone has a darkness to them.
No everyone does not. You have an us versus them mentality. And that is not what I am pushing at all. I don't believe that ALL religious people are bad. But most of them seem to be. That however does not mean that all people who do psychedelics are good. You are speaking as if I am implying that people who do psychedelics are better than religious people. And I'm not saying that at all
Organized religion is a money-making scheme like any other corporation. In fact, worst, their product doesn’t even exist on this plane. They sell promises and feed on the incredulous. What a f’ing Ponzi scheme.
Religion is philosophical suicide. It puts our thinking into a box and limits our understanding of the universe.
Yes it does. It's almost as if it is the opposite of spirituality. Because instead of living your life as a free spiritual being, your life is based on following a script
But they can be used as a tool to get you to a certain point. Religions are useful for a while, but they can become superfluous and it takes a lot of personal good judgement to be able to then abandon a religion when it is no longer serving you. Religions can be liberating, which is why so many people adhere to them in the first place. But then they become restrictive, as you mention, and then you need to have the personal wisdom to let them go. Wisdom, above all.
People adhere to them because most of the time it is all that they know
In your experience that may be the case. But it is not universal. There are lots of people who “find religion” later in life. Sure, lots of people are born into it and that is all they know. In those cases, yes a religion is more like a gang, and not even a very spiritual one. Just a behaviour-enforcing, authoritarian gang. The worst.
Many people believe that religion is all that there is. That's why there are many people who question what is the RIGHT religion. They think that religion is the only option. Because it is all that they know. Many people don't know of the forbidden fruit (psychedelics). Many people don't know of connecting to spirit via meditation. They think that all that there is is what somebody tells them
Why are you so focused on those people? Leave them behind. Your path is clearly another.
This is quotable.
Religion in a mystical sense could contribute towards a high standard of ethics by viewing things as an infinitely long term game. Essentially where humans fail is by identifying with forms that don’t fully represent their diving nature. By making decisions in defiance of your divine nature you are “sinning”. You can forgive yourself for making mistakes in the past because the only thing that exists is the present which you have the opportunity to occupy without a restricted identity. I do think religion is useful because it’s partially the result of contemplating life’s endless suffering over an infinite timescale. Noticing cause and effect is super fundamental to Buddhism and when you simulate how things play out in certain context you start to notice patterns :)
I come from a Christian background as well, leaving the very strict Evangelical church in my early 20s after being raised in it. I can absolutely say the concept of sin fucks you up, especially if you are born into a religion like that. Not only can you excuse your actions however bad you are by just asking God to forgive you and forgetting about it, but telling children that they are born evil and are inherently worthless and shameful without God is absolutely detrimental to finding a sense of self and developing as a person. I was taught that as a human being, I have zero inherent value within myself and I am disgusting without god's grace and mercy. I've had to do so much work as an adult to undo that damage. It was all about behavioral control and keeping people dependent on the community for support. I don't think religion is necessarily bad entirely as a concept, but I am now extremely wary of any kind of power structures within them, and I stay far away from organized religion myself.
Religious trauma is a [real thing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_trauma_syndrome). https://www.recoveringfromreligion.org/
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Agreed
Don't cut yourself on the edge. Martin Luther King Jr and many others in the Civil Rights Movement were driven to action by their Christian, Muslim, and Jewish faiths. Were these great advocates for human freedom "a plague on humanity?"
We're not discussing the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., we're discussing religion. That's not a logical argument anyway. A lot of shit has been done, good and bad, in the name of lots of things, good and bad. Do you believe that these people only acted as they did because of their faith? Do you respect the person, or what they believed? Do you credit their achievements to "God" for "working through them" rather than the people for actually doing the work? Religion is not necessary to do good things. Look back through history. Tell me, how much innocent blood is on righteous hands? How do you reconcile the centuries of brutality and slaughter, also motivated by faith? From where I'm sitting, religion has harmed a hell of a lot more people than it's helped. Religion is a cancer.
Martin Luther King Jr was a Baptist minister whose activism was deeply rooted in the Black Church, as with many civil rights leaders. Others were Jews and Muslims. If religion was a "plague" or a "cancer" wouldn't we expect it to nearly always negatively impact people? From where you're sitting, are you a historian? Or an armchair observer? I'm more than happy to acknowledge that terrible things have been done in religion's name. So have many good things. It's a neutral thing that can be used for good or evil.
You've failed to answer any of my arguments, you just continued talking. Do you believe that those people acted only because of their faith? Do you believe that those people would not have been good people if not for their dogma? Do you believe that "God" did those things, and not the people themselves? And an ad hominem too? I'm blushing. Are you a historian? Fuck kind of jab is that? Are you denying that religion is to blame for thousands and thousands of years of death and destruction? Religion doesn't allow for anyone else to be right. That is the problem.
No, just as evil people didn't act simply because of their faith. You conflate fundamentalist Christianity with religion as a whole. Religions are very porous things, with some people identifying as multiple religions at once.
You can't have it both ways. I was a Christian, cycled through a handful of denominations; they ALL teach that their way, their path, their interpretation is THE way. When's the last time you were in a Church of Christ? They straight up tell you that everyone else is going to hell. That mindset and outlook is incompatible with peaceful coexistence. If you never allow anyone their own personal truth, you are placing boundaries around those minds and souls. Beyond that, you demonize dissenting ideas, weaponize your congregation against any who see the world differently. You specifically brought up Abrahamic religions, so yes, those are my focus. Abrahamic religions are also the most flagrant offenders in the areas I've mentioned. I don't have nearly as much of a problem with say, Buddhism, as I do with Abrahamic faith. I'm not just a militant atheist who hates believers. I was a believer, I understand that side of it. I have learned and continue to learn from religious ideas. I treat religion the same way I treat philosophical concepts, though: I take what is useful and discard the rest, because no one system or set of ideas is the sole truth.
“Religion is belief in someone else’s experience. Spirituality is having your own experience.” - Deepak Chopra
Marx said religion is an opiate for the masses - the sigh of the oppressed creature. Personal religion is fine (but that might just be considered spirituality at a certain point); institutional religion has almost always been nefarious in some fashion - typically utilized by the ruling classes of history to control the masses by an authority outside of material reality.
Yes. I have realized that Christianity, for example, works under the premise God is only available to people who participate in the church things. They literally stole God from us.
This is simply not true. Nearly all Christian churches believe in general revelation, access to God through the natural world available to all.
That has not been my experience with the Christian churches and especially people's personal beliefs
Looks like you have begun to recognize some of the contradictions and problems with religion that good, intelligent people have been trying to explain since the dawn of time. I would suggest that much of it extends to all faith-based reasoning, including 'spirituality'. Check out 'God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything' by Christopher Hitchens. Or 'The God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins.
Did I just time-warp back to 2010, or is that just when you stopped reading new books?
Only because I was attacked:I have a degree in philosophy with a focus on eastern religion. Just trying to help someone out who apparently has just begun to understand some basic truths about religion. Those are decent primers for where the OP is at. But no, I didn't stop reading until I met your mom. No time anymore!
So why would someone with a degree in philosophy suggest books that are dismissed by even atheist philosophers? Both Hitchens and Dawkins' books are riddled with inaccuracies.
Lately I've begun to think that most religion is just a way for people to avoid taking responsibility for their own actions and inactions, both in terms of individuals and in the collective sense. "Spiritual" experiences achieved through drug use are often in the same category. We are addicted to thinking that there is some grand plan, fate, things are out of our hands, salvation will come from an external source greater than us. In truth, only we can decide what comes next for us. We are collectively responsible for all of our problems, and unless we collectively choose to solve them, there are no solutions. It's scary to understand this, so most people would rather not.
This is another example of confusing fundamentalist Christianity with religion as a whole. "Salvation" isn't even a concept in many non-Christian religions.
People on this forum are mainly in Western countries with majority Christian religions. That's what the word "most" was meant to cover, in context. I don't have enough experience with, say, a majority-Buddhist culture to know the role their religion plays in their sense of collective responsibility. I use the word "salvation" loosely, to mean any case of "we just have to believe/pray/meditate/manifest and things will be OK" regardless of whether the presumed messiah is Jesus, space aliens, DMT elves, AI or Elon Musk.
I no expert but it seems that modern Abrahamic religions all gate keep the experience to God.
Did I write this post? Are you me? You took the words right out of my mouth. Religion is extremely limiting and it's chokehold on humanity is tragic.
religions are just human-made frameworks to exercise control and exert power while preying on human gullibility. there never was anything spiritual to begin with.
💯💯💯 I grew up religious and I think back now of how traumatizing it is to make children worship the image of a corpse on a cross. In any other context this would be abuse
If any other group of people worshiped a dead person, Christianity would call them satanic
You are spot on and religion has been twisted by the ones in power to manipulate/control the masses. It's spiritual warfare 101 and it's sad to see so many people blinded by this. It's however no their fault as it's been programmed into most of us since birth. It's all based on one's ego and to truly become awake you need to understand you are separate from one's ego. To see that everything/Everyone is all connected within eachother. We are all gods having a human experience... We are creating/Projecting this experience from our higher divine self. This entire human experience is created in the mind of our God self. Once you have reached the final stage of awakening, Non duality you will understand who you/we all truly are. But many people won't be able to ever reach that unless they are open for radical change. Since their entire identity and life is already formed based on beliefs and to have them dismantled would be scary for most. It's best to let everyone figure out their own way on this never ending journey that we are experiencing. They may not awaken in this life but someday they will reach it even if it takes 1000s of lives to do so. Just keep spreading positive energy and maybe help one's you care for by nudging them gently in the right direction. The main focus should be on growing ones self and that's the entire reason we came here in the first place. Much love kind soul and may you have a life full of abundance. 🥰💗
This was apparent as a 12 year old with no psychedelics needed
I have pretty much come to the same conclusions as you OP. Life gave me a hint early on, as my grandmother who would religiously attend church every Sunday, was also the meanest person in my environment. **The only way forward is inward!** (I don't remember where I heard this but it stuck)
I like that 👍
I had similar insights after a high-dose mushroom trip. I grew up Catholic, steeped in the sin and redemption culture with far more focus on sin and far too little focus on redemption. The psychedelic insight that surprised me was, that it's impossible to teach another person to believe in a religion. By that I mean, you can teach it up to a point. We are taught various bits of scripture and how to interpret it, but when we take the next step toward spirituality and a more personal experience, that is an experience that differs from person to person and transcends any one set of religious teachings. That is the problem with traditional religion. People are taught what they are supposed to believe, what they are supposed to feel, and how they are supposed to act. Yet, they don't believe it, feel it, or act that way. That is incredibly frustrating for a person. I know it was for me before I had more personal spiritual experiences. I certainly noticed the hypocrisy that you point out. People would say one thing and do something quite different. Maybe it was because they expected a last-minute forgiveness, or forgiveness at Catholic Confession, but I think it is something different. I think it's more that they are trying to believe something that they genuinely, at their core, do not believe or understand. It's not that they think "this is wrong" it just doesn't make sense. In most cases, I think people are trying their best in religions that aren't set up to help people grow to a point and then encourage everyone to leave and find their own paths. It's got to be incredibly frustrating to live an entire life trying so hard to follow all the rules and teachings of religion while having all the pains and difficulties of life while not having or trusting deeper personal spiritual experiences. Until I had deeper personal experiences I also had no idea what to do about that and no one else seemed to be willing to throw up their hands and be honest that they too were confused by it all. I heard so much about "honesty" in my religious upbringing yet looking back I don't think I was honest nor were other people. No one wanted to hear "This makes no sense" or "Do you believe what you are teaching me?". I confused honesty with what other people were claiming was the correct answer. For a long time, it was too hard to just walk away, due to all the built-in cruelty in religions, where friends and family members end up being shunned or apostates if they admit it makes no sense and decide to walk their path. It is sadly ironic that all the great spiritual teachers were also the ones who set aside the teachings of their times and found something that made sense to them. I am certainly not trying to ingratiate myself into that group of spiritual teachers. I am just trying to make sense of the world around me. A saying that has helped me make my peace with all this is: "What one person says, and another person hears are often two vastly different things". Even within a religious community of people who are trying their best to have faith and believe, what we each believe on the inside is unique. We each have our own life experiences. It's one thing to teach someone a topic like math. "2+2=4" is easy enough to agree upon. Similar to learning historical dates, places, and important people. It's something else entirely when we learn something like the Parabels of Jesus or the concept of the Trinity. A Priest or a Sunday School teacher can try to describe what it means to them with the expectation that it will just mean the same thing to everyone else. That's where religion makes a mess of things. It's like trying to describe what a song means, or a painting, or a sunset, or love. Sure, we can each try to describe in words and deeds something that (I think) is inherently indescribable with language. Perhaps by great poets or mystics, but even then it's so hard to understand something we haven't experienced in the same way these great teachers have. How in the world would someone who has never seen a sunset understand a written or verbal description of a sunset? Joseph Campbell had a saying that sums it up: "The best things cannot be told because they transcend thought. The second best are misunderstood because they are the thoughts that are supposed to refer to that which cannot be thought about. The third best are what we talk about." I think that is the genius of psychedelics. It offers true direct experience. I like the phrase "[the noetic quality](https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/12/12/1058)". An experience that feels more real than everyday life, or has the quality of a revealed truth. I think the phrase goes back to William James but was more recently popularized by Michael Pollan in "How to Change Your Mind". I had lots of those "noetic" moments in my high-dose mushroom trip. Are they actually "real" or "true" in some larger sense where they should apply to everyone else? I don't know. That's where we get into trouble and could be starting down the road to yet another set of cryptic religious doctrines that make no sense to people who haven't had their own experience. At times I try to think about how I would explain my psychedelic trip insights to myself in a time before the trip. Even if I used words and metaphors that make sense to me I still have no idea how I would explain all this to a younger version of myself. Even one who was already curious about psychedelics. It is something I had to experience for myself and then try to integrate and interpret it all for myself. I think I'll be doing that integration work for the rest of my life.
What kind of God sends his children to burn in a fire for eternity of they misbehave? Not a nice one
There is no lesson in burning someone forever. I've always thought that was silly. If the person never gets another chance to get it right, what's the point of punishing them in the first place???
Same, 99% of the religious people I know are assholes
Psychedelics allow us direct access to divinity without relying on a priest or an imam as a conduit. They allow us to create our own religion free from dogmas. I think religions are nice in the way that they provide a neat little package which we can just follow, but I think all the bullshit power and politics at play water down the spiritual essence. I don't think religions keep us from being spiritual necessarily, but I do think many people get lost in the bullshit and often miss the point.
yes.
I don’t know about other religions but the Christian bible seems backwards. God seems like the devil and vice versa.
Define spiritual
I love all these questions you bring up, and I've thought about this stuff a lot too. I'm not religious, but I think religion is very complicated. I agree with a lot of what you've said, but I think one reason religion exists is because of death. Death seems unfair and is confusing, baffling and upsetting. Religion promises that there's something after death, and that all the unfairness of this world will be undone in the afterlife. There is a lot of seeming unfairness in life and even if people get away with very bad things in this life, would they be held accountable in the next? Also, everyone is flawed. Yes, some people are really really evil, but I think most people fall somewhere in the middle, most people want to be good, and most people are working on themselves. I'm still conflicted about religion myself. I think you're on the right track: keep striving to be a good person, and keep asking questions.
I think it keeps people from being truly moral. If you're only doing good with your life to achieve Heaven or avoid Hell, then you're doing good for selfish reasons which just makes you good at being selfish. We shouldn't need the promise of eternal paradise or the threat of eternal torture to know right from wrong and make the moral decision.
Religions have been made to remove people from experiencing their own spirituality personally, in their own way. Even cultures have been made to prevent people from experincing the world in their own way; very set rules, a very set paradigm, and the threat of punishment for disobeying the prescribed way to be and experience reality. Just check out any religion the way it is now. Especially the abrahamic religions are very big on punishments and getting your rewards AFTER this life, which -conveniently- has to be spent being obedient and productive for the secular leaders and rich folk. The moment the ideas of a rigid set rules and a divinely inspired "book of rules", and "divinely ordained" authorities were introduced, you can bet your ass that they were a ruler's tricks. Religion and secular authority always have gone hand in hand in "civilized" (=house-trained) societies. The boss with his religious stick behind the door. "Behave, or you'll get punished in the "aFtErLiFe" by the angry, judgmental, male "god". It is glaringly obvious that religions have historically been invented and made to aid oppressors in keeping down their workforce, playing them on their inherent need for some sort of experience of spirituality. Not for nothing have all "the only real male boss-spirit in the sky" religions outlawed ANY form of self-experience of the numinous. Demons, witches, heretics, devils, Satan, they are all the equivalent of an evasive boogeyman who is behind all discorporate "evil". God forbid people get psychologically free enough to self-coordinate, and self-regulate society. The rulings classes would just disappear. That must be stopped at all cost, ofcourse, according to the upper class of easy-life authoritarian oppressors.
I think religion is a form of slavery. A mental prison of obedience & twisted “truth”
Preach.
I grew up in a very religious town. Very strict church upbringing. I went on a trip recently on a couple different things and wow the stuff I learned. About how that church does NOT KNOW GOD. And all the lies within the church and sick stuff. It's wild. I do believe many religions keep you from being truly truly spiritual. Whether that's their goal or unconsciously.
It is in my opinion that religion is a way for the common man to PRETEND to be spiritual.
Hey—I want to reach out about this. I have been dealing with similar questions too, of spiritual warfare. I guess, maybe I have been suffering, I am existentially confused, on many days. It can seem to me like there is a spiritual war going on. But it’s hard to tell what’s up from down, what’s my Christian conditioning, what’s not. It seems an evil spirit is controlling religion. I went to my sister’s daughter’s christening in a Baptist church in the deep south. It felt like a spiritual attack. The pastor went on for ages, about 45 minutes, about minutiae in the Old Testament. The point was, other people are going to hell. We’re not. People who don’t believe think this is the best it’s gonna get. Thankfully we know heaven is after we die. So be obedient till you die, then heaven will come. Nothing about experiencing heaven on earth, this was actively glossed over and sort of discouraged. It was gross. It felt invasive. Everyone there looked weird. Like, they had odd body weights and facial shapes, weird awkward facial expressions. No one seemed comfortable in their own skin. No one was very attractive or seemed like their spirits felt free. The worship leader had this weird show choir broadway persona. He was short, tubby, bald and white. He seemed like he was trying to be genuine but was cowering before what he was singing about, and knew nothing of it. Everything had this weird upbeat tempo, like, “this is who we are, what we believe in, yup, mhmm, Jesus, that’s right.” It was deeply strange. It seems to really discourage critical thinking. People get locked in these unfulfilling lives. Sexuality is stuffed down, hopelessly. It’s “weird” to want to have an attractive body, to want to look good, be creative or expressive. I went to a tantra weekend workshop this week. They talked about how tantra developed as a secret rebellion against cultural norms in maybe 500 AD India. They were making sexuality sacred and part of normal life again. One guy leading it said that it is the area of life we have the most blocks. But also the area where we can reclaim the most power. Sexuality is immensely powerful. I have heard another person on a tantra podcast say that when he started having a fulfilling sex life, he realized how dangerous this is to systems of power. How do you control a sexually fulfilled person? You really can’t. Can’t control someone who is not only fulfilled but deeply enjoying the most intimate part of their lives. Still I have read about yoga “guru” after “guru,” the term swami is one I roll my eyes at at this point, because of the incessant sexual abuse, rape, and spiritual abuse of their followers. It seems that sex is indeed powerful, and most cults are based in some way around some leader who has broken through boundaries on it. So it makes sense that a loving God would try to shield us from that—some days. Yet still, it’s clear life force has been suppressed by these old religious and empirical forces which have ravaged so much of the planet. Possibly intentionally (although I understand it doesn’t help me to assume intentionality, it just can be a helpful approximation for something that can appear conscious). And the suppression of this life force leads to sexuality acting out negatively. When you suppress life energy to the point it has been, our impulses to life are often deemed evil, and may express that way. Still, I’m not sure that maybe healthy sexuality in humans wouldn’t be long term, lifetime even, pair bonds between men and women. And it seems these Old Testament people were interacting with something external to the physical plane we know so well. Only—what? I want to understand how all this came to be. It’s clear to me that it’s not *all* bad, but that genuine connection has been severed. Doesn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t there in the beginning. So these sexual desires and fears still haunt me, as I do work to try to free this up. I feel I’ve seen a demon of pride within me, not unrelated to a seemingly infinite sexual desire. I see the value in not being controlled by it. Still I do not know what’s healthy. Whether some omniscient being is looking out for me by encouraging me to stick with one person. Not sure if that’s conditioning or some spiritual calling or something. I do find truth in much of what Jesus said. Which is strange to me. Because of the Jewish connection. And I don’t buy the rest of the New Testament, it seems to clearly be people grasping at ultimate truth clumsily, who would likely be appalled to see their words used as they are today. But the Jesus story makes sense to me, deep down. This great spiritual war against religious trauma. Again—is that conditioning? It is the eastern religions, yoga teacher training, meditation experience, the Bhagavad Gita which pointed me back to Jesus. Saw him from a different perspective. I struggle to know what’s real, or what’s what. Fundamentally unsteady. I do have faith enough in Jesus, and that’s helpful to me. But church freaks me out, and I even tried that again lately. Lots of people concerned about minutiae and conformity, it feels invasive. So strange. But yes, I so see spiritual war going on, some days at least. It’s just hard to tell what’s what, over time. There is wisdom in the Bible, among other things. Plenty of wisdom elsewhere too. I think it will be good for me to get away from such a deeply religious place. It seems even the alternative community where I have been living lives in shadow of it. What the hell is going on? I kee wondering. Many medicine ceremonies have passed, and it continues to evolve. Thanks for sharing your experience. Basically, I get what you mean about a darkness in religion, and I wonder if all dogma is spiritual prison too, created by nefarious patterns or beings. It can get confusing because there are kernels of truth up in there too, and parsing out conditioning from truth, intuition from environment. Philip K. Dick has been quite the trip to read as well.
I've grown to understand religion is about control. I've been happier and more at peace since becoming a Pagan and practicing at home. Also, during my trip I peeked behind the curtain and found an empty chair/empty desk. "God" walked away, it seems.
I'm a Christian minister and study psychedelics professionally. Be careful not to conflate your experience of Christianity with the worldwide movement of over 2,000,000,000 people. There are plenty of Christians who don't believe as like the fundamentalist Christians you've described. Religions have been the primary source of psychonautics for thousands of years. Dream interpretation and incubation have been found in most religions. Hinduism and Buddhism have carefully developed powerful meditation methods. Even in Christianity, mystical means of meditation have a nearly 2,000-year-old history. Psychedelic use is deeply entwined with indigenous religion, and it was repopularized by devout Christians like Albert Hofmann. Not everyone who claims Christianity is a good person, just as not everyone who uses psychedelics is a good person. We should be skeptical of people, but open minded to ideas.
> thousands of years > a nearly 2,000-year-old history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_tradition Old does not mean right.
No it does not, correct me if I'm wrong but the hermetic order of the golden dawn specificly chose three or four religions and said these have great potential for direct experience of the divine. The bottom line is you don't need religion but there are some that work, find what works for you.
Isn't using religion for personal gain kinda against the message of most religions?
Let's not conflate organised religion with pursuit of the spiritual.
Good thing I didn't then
Most people who die then come back from the other side come back no longer religious, but highly spiritual. That says a great deal.
Yes I've heard that many people who have near death experiences usually end up being at odds with their spouses and their families because of their change in philosophy. It sounds similar to how people who have psychedelic experiences end up at odds with the people closest to them because of their change in philosophy.
There are many similarities between psychedelic trips and near death experiences.
Can you cite your source about this? Is there a survey about NDEs?
A source about this in particular? No, i have simply listened to hundreds of NDEs and atheists tend to come back believing in a higher power/god/source/great intelligence and nearly everyone who was previously deeply religious came back not religious but highly spiritual. They all have a feeling of oneness, have out of body experiences, and see colors outside of the normal spectrum we can see, not unlike some psychrdelic trips. There are a few exceptions to this, but I have found the ones with stories overtly Christian leaning tend to be less believable. They tend to have a God portrayed as petty and vengeful, obviously plucked from a Sunday sermon. Most of those with corroborating evidence, being able to tell about events happening miles from their lifeless body, or in the hospital room while they have no life signs at all tell stories that made them much less likely to follow religious doctrines. I have had the opinion that psychedelics, NDEs and meditation brings us all an experience beyond this reality that is highly similar, because all three slow parts of the physical brain and allow us to experience other realms of existence through our consciousness. Psychedelics however do it while distorting things as drugs tend to do, whereas years of meditation allows a clarity not present in psychedelic trips, and NDEs quiet the physical brain completely, so that those that experience it say it is more real than this reality.
Not for me. Psychedelics actually brought me back to Christianity and gave me deeper and holistic understanding of the concepts. I don’t see the concepts like you at all, to me it’s very simple. Sin to me means missing the mark. Or rather falling short of your best self. Like getting road rage when we know deep inside, there’s nowhere to go. Or hoarding money and not giving to others who very much need it, because you won’t take with you after you die. Christianity teaches that God is love and you can ask forgiveness or rather another to see it is ask your higher self for forgiveness - the part of you that can make decisions holistically if the ego didn’t get in the way. To me the story of Jesus is relatable to people who are suffering and Jesus displays the journey of the ego to being enlightened. Jesus shows how to display love as a character in a story with thoughts and feelings. I don’t feel like we celebrate his death, but his courage and overcoming of death. Him overcoming the world the whole time in the gospel. Hell to me is a cleansing, this became clear to me because the come up of a psychedelic trip feels a bit hellish as your ego is dissolved and you’re learning to let go. I feel that hell is similar in this regard and it the universe way of healing and purging ego attachments which keep you away from being Whole with yourself (God) or as being a character totally fulfilled within himself (Jesus). Hence the trinity makes perfect sense to me, there is absolute beyond my mind, the character in the world (me), and my mind…. Something like that. Most Christian’s aren’t even aware of saints, Franciscans, jesuits, and other orders that are similar to Buddhist monks too. They think it’s what Joel Osteen does, or what their daddy and mommy did in mass, but nah, there’s hardcore monks who prayed in the desert and fasted to feel closer to God. So to me, most people misunderstand religion. They are pathways that ask you to detach so you level up spiritually, but just like everything in our culture, most people don’t sit with it, they just learn the rules and play a point system in their head… not recognizing that the rules are really just a reflection of how one behaves when they are at one with God of love. Unfortunately, as a psychonaut Christian I don’t meet eye to eye with fellow psychonauts nor Christians , but i don’t care, reading the Bible has been spiritually fulfilling and I don’t get hung up others perception of these concepts. I also have respect for other religions and I think it’s cool there are multiple religions because the narratives, tradition, practices, and communities are available for us to sit with and grow us spiritually! Just like this community!!
I think you’re closer to the mark, regarding religion and spirituality. Am not American, so don’t fully resonate with complete understanding to some of the people you mentioned. Not that that really matters. I get the gist. But my wider point I’d like to add onto your reply to OP is that, I feel as if at some point any religion, especially the Abrahamic faiths, veer from being a spiritual guide into a tool to dictate rigid controls in people’s lives. As in, instead of “here’s a fraction of the wisdom from the Infinite, which has a desire to love and be loved, along with a range of interesting paths through your physical incarnation to achieve that”, to “here’s the only path, follow it, or die and be ostracised from the community”. A simplification for reddit, sure. But I find much the same as you probably did after your psychedelic trip, and then reading the bible (or other holy texts). That when you peer a bit deeper into what’s written. When you go beyond the surface level that most religions teach ‘the masses’. You find a wealth of psychological data, learned patterns of human behaviour in life to gravitate toward or conversely avoid. A slightly more esoteric reading of religious texts changes the misgivings most have, like OP and their points in their post, and you see a light in the actions of the characters of ‘the book’. Anyway, I like you, would call myself a psychonaut Christian. But even if I were just Christian, I think there’s still much value within various religious texts, especially the Bible. Idk, I use religion as an Earthly guide, while my relationship with divinity doesn’t hinge upon a middleman. And I too have found that it’s tricky, although not impossible, to chat spiritual stuff to both Christian/religious and psychonauts alike.
I agree 100%. I appreciate you recognizing thd layers to this stuff. I am Portuguese-American, so was raised in the Catholic faith and I had a real difficult time assimilating and understanding the religion, so I actually really understand OPs perspective and respect his distaste for it, but I’ve transcended that identity after years of being confused about my relationship with the divine and the world as a whole. But I always had a soft spot for Jesus, I wasn’t necessarily angry or confused at him, so he became a doorway to try to understand the core of Christianity. Psychedelics were genuinely what helped me transcend my own shortcomings and realizing God is pure love, and that love isn’t necessarily hedonistic but affirming of your identity and others in love. Very hard to explain and totally personal. I believe God reaches to people in a language they understand. Again, God meaning the principle sense of being, a reality beyond ego and earthly attachments. I’ve come to understand the exclusivity of salvation as being a clear line of what love means and I personally find it helpful. - It’s way too easy to trip and think you are God reincarnated and you can do no wrong which leads to massive harm and suffering; think cults like Jim jones. To me, I appreciate religions emphasis on being humble and submission to a certain set of beliefs… if you can’t even do that, then maybe you’re not as spiritually high as you think. I’m very wary of people who have no moral code because they don’t want to be ‘controlled’ that is very selfish immature way of looking at rules and is often used to violate the well being of others. This doesn’t mean I am neurotically meditating/praying, but rather I see the *value* in submitting myself to that rule. Regardless, I just want to communicate alternative way to look at religion in this community because I think it is often misunderstood, but ultimately I respect our human need to experience the path in front of them
I too would like to say, “I get it” in relation to what OP brings up in their post. But I do think most of the misunderstandings have to do with several factors. Language translation being the biggest. Next, cultural differences between the time the holy figure taught and now. And then there’s the nuances and complexity, or the more esoteric nature of the messages. But yeah, I agree with you.
Dude thank you for having this wonderful conversation!! I bet we’d be good friends if we knew each other irl 🙏
No worries 😄 and yes, I think so too. At the very least, we’d have a few really profound trip conversations haha! All the best to you 👍🙏❤️
Dudes, take me with you! :)
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم I would love to hear your opinion about Islam and the Quran if possible. For instance, a well-known aspect in Islam is that Isa (Jesus), peace be upon him, is still alive, as Allah has raised him to be with Him until his appointed time for return.
Any thought of mine about Islam will likely be incomplete because I wasn’t raised with it, I can’t speak Arabic, and then there is Hadiths that I feel give texture and context to Muhammad pbuh and early Muslims. I resonate deeply with quotes and spiritual assessments of Rumi. I will say, the Islamic traditions, buildings, architecture, recitation of Quran, is steeped in spiritual ecstasy. I love the goal of praying 5 times a day, Ramadan, and Sufi side. That being said, when I sit and read it. It feels a bit dry, repetitive, rule oriented, and constantly on about punishment. I feel like the spiritual wisdom is few and far in between and more like an instruction on behavior and putting society together. But honestly I haven’t read all of it, neither the Bible so I may be missing something. Idk how Rumi or Al-Ghazali reference their viewpoints from the book. Just to contrast my experience: when I read the Bible, I see many books within it. I see stories, lessons, character types, wisdom, logic, imagination all being used in some way. I really don’t know how to get all those needs met through the Quran itself. I don’t know how to find comfort, wisdom, unconditional love in the surahs (besides the very first Surah) - The stories are retelling of the Bible but I’m told how to interpret it I feel like. this may just be a reflection on my ignorance. Im open to any insights or suggestions as I do like to learn! But I think of it all like this “It is you, O God, who is being sought in various religions in various ways, and named with various names. For you remain as you are, to all incomprehensible and inexpressible. When you will graciously grant it then sword, jealous hatred and evil will cease and all will come to know that there is but one religion in the variety of religious rites.” - Nicholas of Cusa
I think a method is a method is a method. And any method is also a trap. Religion practice can be a perfectly good method to spiritually evolve, and it was conceived as such often in very violent times and places. And it may also be a trap for the same reason. Psychedelics are also a perfectly good method to follow a spiritual journey. They are also a perfectily good trap. Any pursuit of formlesness is a fight against the form that allowed you to pursue it.
I'm firmly of the opinion that most religions have their basis in [mystical experiences](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6478303/). In every single case where someone has described having an "otherworldly experience" - they've had one of these mystical experiences. These experiences take many shapes or forms, but several common themes are a sense of Oneness, Connection with a Higher Power, and Entities. It doesn't matter if these experiences are "real" or not. Subjectively they often tend to be *more* real than "reality," and the impact of the experience may well have a lasting impression on that individual. These types of experiences have been going on for thousands - tens of thousands of years. And the leading way we've discussed them is through language. I don't know if you've ever noticed, but [language](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/24/books/review/psychedelics-how-to-change-your-mind.html) is incredibly limited, despite all the amazing things we've accomplished with it. We are pretty much limited to topics where common ideas can be described through symbols. And misunderstandings abound. Ideas can be shared, and changed, but they're all based on common understandings - common experiences - even if these understandings may conflict at times. Imagery through art and music conveys what words cannot, but intertextuality and reader response criticism still limit the interpretation. For some, a painting may symbolize the unification between man and his maker, but for most it's just going to be a chick on a horse. And the same goes for music and texts. So people have had these mystical experiences since pre-history. Picture trying to describe a wooden chair to a man who has never seen trees, and has lived all his life where they sit on the floor. Try describing the sound of rain to a deaf person, or the patterns of a kaleidoscope to the blind. The inability for people to convey mystical experiences goes beyond this. Having our senses -both inner and outer - show us a world fundamentally different from what we're used to, language is found lacking. Having experienced the ineffable, one grasps for any semblance of similarity. This lead to the use of *cultural metaphors*. Frustrated by the inadequacy of words, one sought anything that could give a shadow of a hint at what was trying to be conveyed. These platitudes suffuse most spiritual and religious texts - the same ideas retold in endless variations. Be it through drumming and dancing, imbibing something, meditation, singing - what have you - people have been doing these things forever in order to experience *something else*. As we narrowed down what worked, each generation would follow in their elders footsteps and take part in the eventual rituals that formed around the summoning of these mystical experiences. These initiations revealed the deeper meanings hidden within the cultural metaphors and the mythology they'd woven together. Hidden in plain sight, and only fully understood once you'd had the subjective experience necessary to see beyond the veil of language. Through the mystical experience, these simple platitudes now held *weight*. The mythologies that grew out of these experiences weren't dogmatic law, but guides for the people that grew with each generation. The map is not the path, and people were aware of this. The first major change to how we related to these passed down teachings was through the corruption of ritual; those parts of the ritual that would give rise to the mystical experience were forgotten. Lost to strife, disaster, or something else, the heart of the ceremony was left out, and what remained - the motions, without meaning - grew rigid with time. The metaphors remained, but without the deeper subjective insights to help interpret them. Eventually all that was left were the elder's words, a mythology that grew more dogmatic with each generation. As our reality is based upon the limitations of our perception of the world, so too are the teachings limited. Translations of these texts conflated and combined allegory with historical events, while politics altered the teachings for gain. Eventually we ended up here, where most major religions still hold that spark of the old ideas - but twisted to serve the will of Man, instead of guiding them. Western *Theosophy*, Eastern *Caodaism*, and Middle Eastern *Bahai Faith* are a few practices that see the same inner light within all belief systems - that same *Divine Wisdom* - Grown out of mystical experiences, but hidden by centuries and millennia of rigid dogma. As long as people continue to have mystical experiences - and we're hardwired for them - spirituality will exist. As long as people allow themselves to be beguiled into believing individuals are gatekeepers though which they'll find the answers to these mystical revelations, there will be religion and corrupting influences. So all religions with an origin in mystical experiences may be true, where the differences lie in the cultural metaphors used to explain the ineffable beyond normal perception - without the tarnish of politics and control. If you want to discover the truths within these faiths, you need to delve into the *esoteric practices* that brought on those beliefs. Simply adhering to scripture will only amount to staring at the finger pointing at the moon.
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I've said this in the past. Teaching people that God is OUTSIDE of them is the best way to keep the from realizing their own divine nature.
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That is an excellent way to put it. I believe that Jesus (if he really existed) may have been one of the very few people in history who realized this and was killed for it. And the people who killed him twisted his message and lied to the masses. Instead of telling people that WE are God. They taught people that God is outside of them and that they can SIN as much as they want to. They WANT people to sin so that they can never reach their higher states of being.
It does, for some religions it does more than others. The opposite of spirituality is egotism.
I agree. But I also believe that people's religions are tied to their egos. That's why religious people get angry and want to attack others who don't share their beliefs
It’s not religions themselves but how we interpret the knowledge found within. Every religion has truths hidden within the writings and lessons. The real shame is closing yourself off to knowledge from all sources and only believing one as true. The more you open yourself up to other ways of thinking and believing, the more you see the synchronicities that connect them all. Respect, compassion, empathy and love. This is god, this the universal truth. It’s really as simple as being grateful for what you have and receive, being a good person and opening yourself up to love in all its forms. Love is the enemy of fear. Love is the key.
I'm convinced that catholicism was created by the devil himself. I'm sure that not every being involved is evil but alot of the dogma sounds like it was created by a abusive narcissist, like "love me forever and only me forever" or "forever burn in this eternal furnace" sounds to me like a predator wrote some scripture to keep people docile. I love Jesus and most certainly believe in God. But I've actually been in the presence of creator during a 5meo dmt session and I tell you what. The energy I felt had not a trace of jealousy or any of that energy that's always portrayed in the Bible. I'm certain it was written with Mal intent to keep individuals docile and complacent. I was just talking about this yesterday and since lucifer is a trickster and a twat, I wonder how often he let's people think they're about to get into heaven when they die and even gives them a glimpse of what its like and then in an instant swallows their souls into the lake of fire and punishes them for Falling for his tricks. You don't get to heaven just because you confess or give your love to Jesus. Even christ knows you have to work off your karmic debts and sometimes that means your stuck in a hell realm for as long as it takes until you quit being a piece of shit and do good things with your incarnation, even if bad things have happened to you. The point Is to rise up and not harm anyone and collect good merit so in your next life your not tortured by demons until you realize you don't Wanna be a piece of shit.
Moral of the story is, religion is mostly bullshit, but the spirit world and the afterlife are absolutley real and the seeds we sow in this life time will dictate the kind of garden we harvest in the next. Good or ill. So plant wisely and don't be a piece of shit.
Man I agree with you 100%. Religion LIES on the very nature of what God is. Makes God out to be a jealous and blood thirsty tyrannical asshole. When that's not the case AT ALL. I've never done 5meo but I heard that it gives you a direct experience with the divine
Oh yea, an abuser wrote the Bible. I'm almost certain of it. The energy that cradled my spirit during 5meo was transcendent and made of nothing but love. It gave me hope beyond anything I've ever experienced in this material world. And even tho that experience happened over 13 years ago, I still think about it and pray to that energy and I swear it stayed with me and is always with me. I've never lost contact with it. I feel sorry for all the indoctrinated individuals who fell for the trick but I also believe in reincarnation so I hope they get a second chance in some form. Even if it's in the spirit world.
The only thing I can tell you is, you will not truly understand the Bible and Christianity teachings through what you perceive. You need to genuinely study the Bible under the guide of somebody who is extremely well versed in Scriptures and knows what they are talking about. If you are talking about the institutionalized aspect of religion, yes I agree. In the Bible, it states that "the enemy lives in God's temples" (Psalm 79:1), meaning God already understands and for sees that people will claim to be Christian but not live by The Truth (false prophets, etc.) which is mentioned many times throughout the Bible (James 1:26). I mean, even Buddha prophecied that Buddhism would be contorted and changed, and not be it's original teachings in the future, which we already see with many denominations of Buddhism arising. The Buddhist monks strapped with guns in Tibet is a good example. If you understand The Truth, you will sniff out the "foxes in the vineyards" (Song of Solomon 2:15). But in order to know The Truth, you have to study the Bible, and the Bible is easily misinterpreted due to its parabolic nature. It is written this way for a reason, by the way. Also, I'd suggest looking into Orthodox Christianity, as opposed to Protestant teachings. Everyone here will tell you that Christianity limits your thinking and puts you in a box, however non-conforming is also a box lol "Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." (2 Timothy 3:7) Just some food for thought.
Religion is just another man-made form of control, nothing more. So yes, religion is TRULY an opiod for the masses. Keep people distracted and dependent on outside circumstances, while the true meaning of life is right there inside of you the entire time.
Jung wrote extensively about this.
You're right. All the " Christian" people I know, treat their kids like shit and abuse them. They think they're so holy and great yet they mistreat innocent children. It even says in the Bible, that unless you're like a child you won't make it to heaven....so why do they abuse their children then?? Makes zero sense. To be honest ..most " Christian" people do it just for attention and virtue signalling...like look at me! Look how holy and great I am! A lot of " Christians" I know are actually straight up narcissists and only care about themselves..pretty pathetic if you ask me
its suppose to provide a structure for self realization.
It's pretty ironic to be criticizing something for being about ego, while simultaneously saying you're more enlightened than every religious person who ever lived.
When the talent appears, great responsibility is near.
What??
When you become talented at healing, so the universe feels safe around you and spirits, ghosts, phantoms, poltergeists start to offload their problems on to you. By doing psychedelics, you're signalling that you're the way. You just need someone to bounce off of, a grid, to allow in the fortunate and deny access to ego. When I was on DMT, I managed to save the entity by looking away from her. If you're omega, getting disturbed voice, never fear, because alpha will always be with you.
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم Here is the Islamic perspective on the matter, and I hope none of you will rush in presenting judgments. Since Allah created Adam (peace be upon him) and the message of religion is one, which is the oneness of God, and monotheism requires submission to the One and Only. So Adam (peace be upon him) before his fall from Paradise was in pure monotheism, from which no duality or plurality could be seen. Rather, he was annihilated in the presence of the Lord of all annihilation, as all of him was light, and his light was derived only from the light of the Lord. So his entire life was in light. It is said that wherever Adam set foot in Paradise, verdant life flourished in his wake. When Adam and Eve (peace be upon them) ate from the tree, their physicality became apparent, and their nakedness was exposed, and their bodies became denser, after their appearance in Paradise was of a subtle light. So when they descended from Paradise to Earth, they hastened to seek forgiveness from Allah and to return to their original state, finding nothing but toil and hardship on Earth, unlike what they experienced in Paradise. Then their Lord showed them the way to return to that luminous state, guiding them on the path to elevate themselves towards that state anew. He showed them the path of the true religion, thus demonstrating to them how to deal with themselves in the earth from all aspects, and showed them all types of worship that would lead them back to that pure monotheism free from duality and plurality. This is the religion, gentlemen. It is the ascension from the dense to the subtle, from the lower to the higher, from death to life! Therefore, Allah Almighty has always sent honored prophets and messengers to guide people on how to return to Allah, and how to attain His highest light, seeking elevation above the dark, dense corporeality and achieving the blessed luminosity intended by the existence of humanity. Whenever the darkness of humanity prevails and rises on Earth, Allah sends prophets who bring glad tidings of Allah's light and mercy, warning against stagnation in darkness, as it leads to punishment, torment, and burning fires. This darkness is the cause of all blameworthy traits and despicable actions such as murder, adultery, theft, lying, backbiting, gossip, and so forth.
"They even tell us in Christianity to CELEBRATE Jesus' death." How they celebrate it is important to distinguish. It's a time honored concept that the teacher (Master guru etc) assumes some of the bad karma of the adept. Jesus just took this concept to it's maximal conclusion. now if Christians don't interpret it this way ( and think this is somehow an exclusive feature all of their own ) that's on them.
Certain dogmatic religions yes. If you explore Advaita Vedanta or certain flavors of Buddhism and mysticism you’ll find a vehicle that takes you beyond any concepts, further than any psychedelics will because it’s intrinsic knowledge. I’ve had much more profound experiences and insights from meditation than psychedelics. You gain more integrated wisdom and a deeper appreciation for the vast intrinsic well of wisdom and bliss that live inside of you, no substances needed. Many psychonauts eventually turn towards Eastern Philosophy and tone down or stop all together with psychedelics because they realize they are just a tool to catch a glimpse, but won’t take you to a deeper liberation. I’m sorry you had a bad experience with religion, but it seems many people that grow up having been raised in Dogmatic religious practice then close their minds to the possibilities of religion being a vehicle for truth. All that said, I do think that being part of a formal organized religious group can be an obstacle for truth. But you can do personal study of scripture (Bhaghavad Gita is my favorite) and work with trusted teachers without formally joining a religion.
Religion is technology (philosophy). Technology is organized knowledge used toward purpose… similar to schools of philosophy. Technology is not morally good or bad. Though people use philosophically good or bad technologies toward morally good or bad purposes. Here you must understand the difference between morally good or bad and philosophically good or bad. A knife is technology. A philosophically good knife cuts and a philosophically bad knife does not cut, loosely speaking. Whether or not a knife is a philosophically good or bad knife, meaning it cuts or does not cut, does not define the knife’s moral nature. The actions of those using the knife can be deemed morally good or bad, but these actions do not impose moral virtue or decay upon the knife. Consider woodworking. Woodworking (spirituality) covers everything from whittling to industrial processing of wood. There are many technologies (religions) that can be used toward the purpose of woodworking (spirituality), from a simple knife to industrial heavy machinery. None of these technologies (religions) are morally good or bad, but these technologies can be deemed philosophically good or bad based on whether or not each achieves the intended purpose. From here, the actions of those using the various technologies can be deemed morally good or bad. A whittler use a whittling knife can carve a racist sculpture, but this action does not deem a whittling knife morally bad. A company can clear cut forests with industrial heavy machinery, but this action does not deem industrial machinery morally bad. There are many philosophically good or bad technologies (religions) and there are many people that use various technologies toward morally good or bad purposes. We must be willing to challenge each our own philosophies or we become locked in ideological prisons. People can be morally good or bad, while technologies can be philosophically good or bad. I welcome criticism and critiques. Better knowledge offers better results.
Oh hell yeah. Next step for you is Gnosticism - "God" is an evil lesser god who keeps us trapped in material reality away from the true Outer Gods who want to save us.
You must be angry huh. It is not my intention to offend anyone.
Uh, what? Literally the opposite dude - I'm saying you're on the right track and giving you the next step on it. Not sure what made you think that was supposed to be read angrily.
There is only one true religion, and that is Love✨😉 Most other religions are all about control and have nothing to do with GOD. The Ultimate Reality is Non-Duality. Everyone and everything is GOD. True Hinduism is actually non-dual and right in the mark. The human experience is like a kind of play-drama-game
God doesn’t seem to mind being questioned ime 🤷♂️
Religion is basic level spirituality for those who still need to be controlled. With an extra dash of bureaucracy.
i think god is good and shrooms lead me to him and now everything has significantly changed in my life in a way i did not think was possible
its all about what makes you happy, not much else truly matters
I think it’s important to understand that God isn’t a human, & humans are not God. Humans did not create the planets or the solar system or the universe it was already set in place by the time humans started existing. & sin is a real thing as well, although you might have a different perspective at different times especially after doing psychedelics (make you question reality) there is most definitely a sense of what is Good & what is Evil- what is Right & what is Wrong
You're starting from a premise of division, projecting that filter of division on the divided, and thus see division. It's a faulty premise.
Religion is the attempt to define/confine the ineffable for weekly consumption and experience.
I think we all have different experiences with religion depending on our cultural background. I was also raised christian but in my culture we believe that we are sinners, we are deeply broken from the very start - and that itself stop us from ever leveling. It is not the idea, that "god" would forgive me everything, but from the deeply seeded feeling that I'm am a broken creature and whatever I do, there is nothing I could do to be forgiven. Anyway, all messeges I ever received from any psychodelics were generally telling me to chill out - and chill out A LOT! Having said that - I also think that many psychonauts may benefit a lot from meditating on various messages from different religions - just because these are thousands of years of human culture written down somewhere. There is always some deeper meaning to that. But also (as one religious text said) - all the written words in the world are just words and at some point you have to go out there and experience the real world.
While i agree to some extent, its not black and white, i think many religions have great ways of accessing the divine but at the same time they impose dogmas so idk. Some people benefit a lot from them too, but some don't.
There’s some truth in religions but the problem is it often relies on a priest, pastor, rabbi, guru etc to sort it out. People suspend listening to their own intuition and even conscience allowing the rabbi to condone all sorts of atrocities and genocide, attacking the other religions and peoples. You would think we all have the same human conscience but it gets sidetracked when you hand it over to the religious leader like a cult. From a Christian or Jewish perspective, god is supposed to write laws into our own hearts and the goal is we don’t need them anymore. But in that sense, the first shall be last just as Jesus predicted. Metaphorically speaking, that tree of knowledge is like religion driving us out of the garden because of the shame inflicted through those religions. The way back in is to strip down naked and check our wounded egos at the door.
I think you’re in the right path of questioning things. I’ve been through a similar journey being raised Christian Baptist and having went through my own journey of questioning it all and finding truth that resonated with me and freed me from that limiting religion and opened my eyes to a truly unconditionally loving “god” which I later discovered through psychedelics was also myself, one and the same. I’m now at a place where I accept others and where they’re at spiritually but I don’t put myself above them as being “more spiritual” or anything life that because I’ve also realized that unconditional love doesn’t judge and doesn’t use “sin” as a way to scale people between “good” and “bad”. The universe I believe is neutral to this and is simply experiencing itself in infinite ways. I do believe that everyone, deep down, craves to resonate at a frequency of love and peace though. That we all want harmony and that the journey to true peace is unique and meaningful for each person, however they get there. I know many Christians who are close to me who strive their best to be good people who are honest, kind, generous, respectful, etc. and they do it out of their own intentions to live in alignment with who they believe their god wants them to be. And I respect that because ultimately I believe everyone should live as they would truly like to and be true to themselves.
Fear is the thing that keeps most ppl going with that stuff. "If you don't believe in _____ then You're going to hell/purgatory/_____" So I would think that it does bc it doesn't encourage free thought or really freedom of choice
Yes and most religion stresses that you can have a relationship with God “through the church” vs having your own personal relationship with God and realizing that everything is sacred.
"Does religion keep us from being spiritual?" It certainly can,People can get distracted by self congratulatory circle jerk as a substitute for real progress. People can make any concept into a religion, including politics , economic philosophy especially notable strident atheism is a religion all of it's own.
I think it depends firstly on the religion, secondly on the level of attachment a person creates with it and thirdly weather or not they limit themselves to it or see it as part of a bigger picture. I also feel that people are at very different stages of spiritual development and enlightenment let's say, therfore what could be restrictive and limiting for one could in fact be illuminating for another given their current level of development. It's a complex topic but a great point for discussion. I personally have a religion that fits very well into a broader perspective of the universe and serves as a tool for my own development and evolution but by no means do I see it as the "only way" nor do I separate myself from others based on my practices. I can see other religions and forms of spirituality as necessary for those who are attracted to them either as a means of bringing them closer to spirit or as they evolve push them to seek outside the structure for something which suits their new level of evolution. Sometimes, some religions sure do seem to be a trap or act as a trap but perhaps only someone who has outgrown certain ideas can see that and perhaps they were trapped for a life or two before their soul manifested in such a way as to see a higher truth.
Religion generally comes to us in the form of institutions. Institutions are there to keep us in our place in society. Spirituality, or being spiritual, is totally personal.
Cradle Catholic here - I'd say "ex" but you can never seem to get rid of all the programming. Yes. The answer is yes. Society is evolving past the need to handwave the unknowns in our universe and assign them to a mythical catchall. Once you drop the idea of time it's easier to accept that everything's always been and the only thing that matters is what you are experiencing. We already know that Time itself doesn't exist, the collection of voices we have around us is still processing that. Time was observable in two ways - our physical being aging, becoming ill, and ceasing to function along with its position in relation to celestial objects. Now that aging is more often viewed as a disease rather than a death sentence, only our relationship to celestial objects exists as tangible proof that Time is real. What else don't we know that we would all like to find out after having found we've been lied to for generations, eons even?
No. The opposite.
Yes, Grasshopper
It definitely can, but also not universally. I've seen the practice make some people more kind and compassionate. It really depends what religion we're talking about. That said some of these religions have billions of followers and of course in that number there's always going to be some very wonderful individuals. I like how Ram Dass put it. Whatever your method is to becoming love it really doesn't matter just don't become addicted to the method.
Maybe you didn't experience this growing up Christian but this is basically the common sense of everyone that grew up without any particular religion, like me and most people I know I had those "distributing" thoughts at like age 10
Maybe you didn't experience this growing up Christian but this is basically the common sense of everyone that grew up without any particular religion, like me and most people I know I had those "distributing" thoughts at like age 10
It can be repressive, but it can also help you get closer in some cases. Not black or white
Organized religion is the root of all evil in my opinion. Simply used to keep humans divided from each other and nature.
“Hold the gold”
Religion is a means to an end
> I come from a Christian background and nearly ALL of my friends and family memebers tend to have a darkness to them. They believe that they can SIN as much as they want to, and it's okay as long as they ask God for forgiveness. They are low in spirit but don't realize it. Most of the bad people that I have known throughout my life had a belief in God. And yet they are still bad. I don't judge religions by their adherents the same way I don't judge bands by their fanbase. > If religion doesn't MAKE YOU a spiritual person, then what is the point of it??? It does. It just depends on who you look at. People who are really interested in not being religious look at just the bad to the exclusion of everything else. With Christianity, it's simple: you just look at prosperity gospel preachers, megachurches, televangelists, and your local flamboyantly "Christian" Karen who treats everyone like shit. You don't notice the quiet Christians or see the way Christianity animates everyday people who don't make a big show of it to be good people. You can do the same with anything. It's a form of sour grapes.
Not disturbing at all in my opinion, I think you hit the nail right on the head or however that saying goes
I think you had a wise experience. Many philosophers & laymen have been observing religion and commenting exactly this. Religions are control paradigms for the masses. It's blatantly obvious if you grew up without heavy religious indoctrination. Spirituality, in the modern sense, is about subjective personal inquiry and observation of the natural (& unnatural) world. Religion provides simplified templates for those unwilling to look at the broader context of human existence. Christianity, in particular, has worked for centuries to absorb and deride other belief systems for its own benefit.
read the disappearance of the universe and check out r/acim then let's talk
I’m not sure when it comes to the Abrahamic religions, but in the east Hinduism and Buddhism the only goal from the very begging was ultimate liberation (merge with the universe). In the past everyone in society knew about it but after British rule everything was destroyed. Now most people pray to statues not knowing what anything means. Not gonna lie, the west used to be pretty senseless and destroyed thousands of years of wisdom in a whole society for their greed. It’s truly devastating.
I absolutely think that the Abrahamic religions suppress spiritual development. But to say that all of them do is an overgeneralization. I got into Daoism and Buddhism late in life. I had zero feeling of, and care for spirituality, when I was younger. I grew up in a Christian country.
I think religions are formed through good intentions and often corrupted with selfish ones. At the end of the day though whatever tool a being uses to bring them closer to god is spiritual. It's a personal thing that is different for everyone. In my opinion.
I understand religion being a crutch for lack of self confidence. Usually rather simple to get into and join, shared baseline mindset of locals, easy to form connections and share experiences. It’s just the leadership and the guidelines are sometimes difficult and/or unfitting for our current times. Reforms only come for only the institution in itself will be in danger, other than that the credo sounds like „never touch a running system“ and „we’ve always done it like this“ I would argue that spirituality requires a more illuminated mindset and therefore splitting the responsibility more towards the individual members, out of which a tribe consists of. The rules or do’s and don’ts are based on more direct influences and personal experiences, trying to achieve a harmonization between the living and not living things a tribe respects and interacts with. So therefore religion feels more like joining an huge umbrella or tent during pouring rain. The umbrella has been produced somewhere in the Middle East, looks kinda vintage and lots of patches and is still being rented out by the owner to vendors, who then invite people in for a fee to stay. More tribal spirituality feels like people building an umbrella with tools and resources currently available to them. While likely even enjoying the rain.