[ExI] Religious Idiocy Triumphs Over Science Yet Again

[BillK]

On 11 December 2015 at 07:29, Adrian Tymes  wrote:
> The problem is, insights gained under such a state often turn out to be
> illusory, critically flawed, or so mundane that most who are not tripping
> would consider them obvious.  You are left with the memory that you had some
> profound insight...but, in fact, all that you had was the memory of that,
> not the actual insight.  Your memories yell and scream that you had the real
> thing, but those memories were manufactured by the drugs.  External
> measurements show that no such insights were captured, even if you were
> specifically trying to defeat this illusion by recording your insights as
> clearly as possible so as to bypass any tainting of your memories.  Of
> course, in most cases people do not do this, and so are only left with those
> fabricated memories.
>

Some people have had 'near-death' religious experiences that had such
a huge emotional impact that it changed their life for ever after. The
flood of emotions is so overwhelming that it rewrites their
personality. These are life-changing events. Sometimes causing new
careers, new relationships, moving home, rearranging their life. Some
years ago there was one such person on Exi for a while.
Similar effects sometimes happen with drug-induced experiences.

These events are illusions, but not 'just' illusions. They really do
change people dramatically.
It is arguable, of course, whether the personality changes are
improvements. But for the people involved there is no question that
they believe they have changed for the better. For them life will
never be the same again.

(The writings of Paul in the New Testament indicate that he may have
had such an experience).


BillK