For different reasons than you, I'm sure though. Ha. Time for bed over here.
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <emilymaenot@...> wrote : I *loved* that sentence also. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> wrote : This bit made me laugh: "In my experience, those who make the most theatrical display of demanding “proof” of God are also those least willing to undertake the specific kinds of mental and spiritual discipline that all the great religious traditions say are required to find God." The experience she had is quite interesting though, and proof that we have an inner world that can go a bit screwy occasionally. But where does the feeling of wisdom that we designate god come from? We know that consciousness is a group experience of many parts of the brain pitching in, perhaps there's a bit confirms to us when we are on the right track about something and reward us with some chemical that feels profoundly wise (mescalin?) when other bits that help self-regulation step offline for a minute we can be overwhelmed by unified wisdom. An unbalancing of what we think of as "ordinary" experience. Let's not forget these experiences are part of the continuum reported by schizophrenics, who are understood to have a fracturing of their normal day-to-day reality. My best guess is that our inner picture takes so much energy and complicated processing to keep going that it's bound to get in a muddle every now and again. Mostly it will be bad (mental illness) but sometimes good (mystical experience). I'm sure everyone gets things like this, especially when they are younger and in the grip of hormonal changes, I certainly did. My first mystical experience was while walking through a meadow aged 10 (ish) . Suddenly the world revealed a hidden depth, a silent vastness behind reality that was also part of it. Very profound vision and stayed with me also. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <authfriend@...> wrote : A fascinating exchange of views... Opinion piece in the NYTimes by Barbara Ehrenreich, rationalist author and political activist (and atheist), about the change in her perspective on life wrought gradually over many years by a mystical experience she had as an adolescent (note: at age 73, she's still an atheist): http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/06/opinion/sunday/a-rationalists-mystical-moment.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/06/opinion/sunday/a-rationalists-mystical-moment.html Response by NYTimes columnist Ross Douthat (not an atheist) pointing out that her call for science to investigate mystical experiences in depth is premature because science doesn't yet understand ordinary experience well enough: http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/09/how-to-study-the-numinous/ http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/09/how-to-study-the-numinous/
