Religious atheists?

[KDude]

Heh. You sound like you've given this more thought than I have.

 

[Totenkindly]

The opposite of atheism isn't necessarily believing in a priest/rabbi/imam/etc. Or a large institution, for that matter. It's a deity (which, of course, is another source outside of one's self, but it's an entirely different ballpark too). It could very well be that believing in this deity is pantheistic, tied into nature and the universe as a whole. Which both includes yourself and all outside you. How do you respond to this kind of theism? They would say that cutting yourself off from that which is outside you is akin to shooting yourself in the foot. Maybe even some atheists would believe in the same concept.

Yes, a common comment I've heard nowadays is that someone is 'spiritual' but not 'religious,' to designate an aspect of that kind of approach.

I've heard plenty of atheistic scientists who find connection to all that is outside of us from the fact that we and everything is all assembled from star dust (or should I say star "stuff"?).

Sounds like a quote from Sunshine.

 

[Lark]

When you believe in a source outside of yourself you are an atheist hence all religions are atheist in nature because the belief of a source outside of themselves is not a belief of a source inside of themselves.

Touch wood.

What religion does is create separation from source, from genuine spirituality by creating a bridge that the Priest, Imam or Kohen nor a Rabbi can replace and hence. Once you remove institution there is freedom, power no longer means the authority for religions to control what you must know, perform magic in the way of rituals and ceremonies for you nor teach and educate you in the ways and laws that are printed on paper that is channeled from dubious sources to begin with.

I dont understand the first part of your post, acknowledging a "source outside yourself" would sum up theism to me, not a-theism, although I would also say that failing to acknowledge any source outside yourself is going to make any relationship to others very difficult and sort of destroys science, it seems like an inversion of reality to be honest, that there are no natural laws independent of or extrenuous to the human mind. That's not going to work with gravity for instance.

The final part I think is a listing of conclusions which could only be reached by someone who is alienated/estranged from or even hostile towards religion, treating it as a kind of malignant trickery, there is the alternative, that it is a depository for wisdom and generational learning, a cultural well spring which sustained the world for a long time until its recent times.

 

[Rail Tracer]

Lark, you are probably talking about an agnostic atheist. Someone who is skeptical about religion, but also don't flat out say that it doesn't exists.

 

[Lark]

Lark, you are probably talking about an agnostic atheist. Someone who is skeptical about religion, but also don't flat out say that it doesn't exists.

No, its not really to do with skepticism or agnosticism which are seperate topics, for the purposes of this thread, but anyone who doesnt believe in either an afterlife or deity and still believes that religions have worth when those elements are excised or discarded.

There are people I have read about who profess to be Christian, Jewish or other who none the less disbelieve in these major aspects of the religion, so a religious atheist would appear to be the best description of that, on the links I provided earlier in the thread there is a definition of jewish humanism which describes it as a cultural or ethnic affinity with Judahism but without believing in the deity or afterlife (from a number of sources I've read Judahism is not affirmative about an afterlife anyway, there are many modern Christians who qualify their belief in an afterlife a great deal by stating that it is a matter of hoping for an afterlife, not knowing in anyway or even believing but hoping).

Eric Fromm has been the one writer who I think takes this the furthest, suggesting that Marx was a prophetic messianic thinker and that christian mystics such as Meister Eckhart in actual fact disbelieved/denied either God or an afterlife but preached and professed religious thinking because he understod it as humanistic.

I often wonder if anyone would accept prohibitions of thoughts and deeds or seek to live with joy in the same manner as religions did but with the promise of a deity or afterlife in the process.

 

[Synapse]

I dont understand the first part of your post, acknowledging a "source outside yourself" would sum up theism to me, not a-theism, although I would also say that failing to acknowledge any source outside yourself is going to make any relationship to others very difficult and sort of destroys science, it seems like an inversion of reality to be honest, that there are no natural laws independent of or extrenuous to the human mind. That's not going to work with gravity for instance.

The final part I think is a listing of conclusions which could only be reached by someone who is alienated/estranged from or even hostile towards religion, treating it as a kind of malignant trickery, there is the alternative, that it is a depository for wisdom and generational learning, a cultural well spring which sustained the world for a long time until its recent times.

I disagree, for how can any source outside of yourself ever be true source that comes from inside of yourself? You are thinking in a 3D state. You hear many accounts of people finding source inside for a reason, during NDE's in particular this should be hint enough that it is to look inside before the outside becomes unconditional. The physical world seem to place conditions upon our lives including love when it is meant to be unconditional. Maybe science is of itself distorted in their approach to scientific investigation and the pillars that give science a solid foundation like Newton and Einstein are either misinterpreted deliberately or limited in perception.

Oh I see what your saying about the distinction. I meant in general that because very rarely does religion promote a source inside rather deliberately creates an illusion that God is sitting in the clouds outside of ourselves and to connect with such a source people start believing we are separated from source and that is how it appears. Then I would say religions are atheist in nature as much as scientists because a very few seem to understand NDE and even fewer seem to acknowledge the after life or past lives and when they do its in passing, in hope only why?

None hostile, you are reading it as such. I will elaborate tomorrow.

 

[Ginkgo]

Atheism itself isn't a religion but religious atheists do exists. Including those who have deified atheist organizations and leaders.

 

[Lark]

I disagree, for how can any source outside of yourself ever be true source that comes from inside of yourself? You are thinking in a 3D state. You hear many accounts of people finding source inside for a reason, during NDE's in particular this should be hint enough that it is to look inside before the outside becomes unconditional. The physical world seem to place conditions upon our lives including love when it is meant to be unconditional. Maybe science is of itself distorted in their approach to scientific investigation and the pillars that give science a solid foundation like Newton and Einstein are either misinterpreted deliberately or limited in perception.

Oh I see what your saying about the distinction. I meant in general that because very rarely does religion promote a source inside rather deliberately creates an illusion that God is sitting in the clouds outside of ourselves and to connect with such a source people start believing we are separated from source and that is how it appears. Then I would say religions are atheist in nature as much as scientists because a very few seem to understand NDE and even fewer seem to acknowledge the after life or past lives and when they do its in passing, in hope only why?

None hostile, you are reading it as such. I will elaborate tomorrow.

I'm unsure that we'll be able to communicate well on this topic, we're coming from very different first principles and places.

I've read about near death experiences and some of them are interesting others are a bit ridiculous, like automatic writing, mediums, other things of a paranormal or para-psychological character, but I dont know what you mean about thinking in 3D.

I do think that God is something outside of myself, likewise any possible afterlife, and a big reason for my believing this is that there is a clear order outside of besides human comprehension, investigation or understanding of it.

The scientific revolutions since the enlightenment, since before that, from about the time that optics became popular and people began to speculate about what could be known when your eyes or senses could deceive you, have made the mistake of being more and more man centric. Reality's not like that, if you doubt it, suspend belief in gravity for a moment and jump to see if you remain suspended in mid-air, if you dont there's forces outside of and independent of yourself. Maybe start from there comprehending things outside of yourself.

 

[Synapse]

The final part I think is a listing of conclusions which could only be reached by someone who is alienated/estranged from or even hostile towards religion, treating it as a kind of malignant trickery, there is the alternative, that it is a depository for wisdom and generational learning, a cultural well spring which sustained the world for a long time until its recent times.

When I said magic I did not imply trickery, on the contrary I am an advocate of magic. Let me write out a few excerpts from a book called The Lost Art of Enochian Magic by DeSalvo which is relevant to the discussion.

Magic and alternative practices have been considered by some people to be against the teachings of the Bible, organized religion and church tradition. This belief has been perpetrated since at least the Middle Ages, when the church was afraid of losing its power over and control of the people. The perceived threat, which magic represented, was that it advocated a spiritual technique whereby a person could make spiritual progress and even be in the presence of God and the angels directly, without the help of a priest or church. How blasphemous was that!

Ironically enough, the Catholic mass in a sense resembles a magic ritual and even uses magical words. When Catholics attend mass, they witness the priest doing something that involves a mystical ceremony using mystical words. This occurs during the part of mass that we call the Consecration, when the priest says specific words over ordinary bread and wine. The church claims and believes that during this ritual, the bread and wine have been changed into the body and blood of Jesus Christ. The Catholic Church believes that this change, which it calls transubstantiation, really occurs - and isn't just symbolic, as many Protestant faiths believe. Catholics also claim that although we still see only the bread and the wine, it really has been changed to the body and blood of Jesus even though we're not able to perceive the change on a physical level.

Its important to note that the priest must use specific words for the transformation to occur. (in a magic ritual, specific words must also be used.) Another thing to realize is that not just anyone can invoke the actual transubstantiation - one must be an ordained Catholic priest. To become an ordained priest, a special ceremony is held wherein a bishop who has specific powers says certain words over the priest to confer this power to him.

Another interesting ritual in the Catholic Church is the Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, in which a host is put in a monstrance (vessel) and displayed on the alter. The faithful pray in front of it. This is akin to a ritual that the Egyptians performed, and in fact, if you compare these rituals side by side, they appear to be very similar.

Next I would like to point out Magic in the Bible

What most people don't realize is that magic is a consistent feature of the Bible, especially the Old Testament. It was a part of normal religious experiences and daily life at that time. First I must discuss the erroneous view that the Bible condemns the practice of all magic. The key word here is all. There are many forms of magic, including black magic and white magic, and there are all kinds of in between.

For arguments sake, lets say there are ten different kinds of magic, and two of them are considered black or evil magic. The Bible does condemn these two forms, but it accepts the use and practice of the other eight. So, many thin that, since some forms of magic (black or evil) are condemned in the Bible, all forms of magic are. Many, if not all, biblical patriarchs like Abraham, Moses and Joseph magic was accepted religious practice. The bible is very clear on this, and the examples are numerous.

Another reason for the confusion is that the Bible uses two different words for spiritual entities, daimon and diabolos. Diabolos refers to God's adversary, which we call Satan. Daimon refers to all other spiritual entities and beings, many of whom are good. Unfortunately, the early English translations of the Bible, including the King James version, have translated these two different terms as one term, Diabolos, thereby lumping the good angels, the bad angels, and spiritual entities together erroneously.

So then are these not magic?

So Aaron shall bear the names of the sons of Israel in the breaspiece of judgment on his heart, when he goes into the Holy Place, to bring them to regular remembrance before the Lord. And in the breastpiece of judgment you shall put the Urim and the Thummim, and they shall be on Aaron's heart, when he goes in before the Lord. Thus Aaron shall bear the judgment of the people of Israel on his heart before the Lord regularly. Exodus 28:29-30

The "Urim" and "Thummim" were devices used for magical divination or for discovering the will of God.

"Some think they could be two stones to divine yes and no like a pendulum, others think they could have been 22 stones each inscribed with one letter of the Hebrew alphabet and would work something like an Ouija board. Bear in mind the Urim and the Thummim are mentioned in several places in the Old Testament. ( Exodus 28:30, Leviticus 8:8, Numbers 27:21, Deuteronomy 33:8, 1 Samuel 28:6, Ezra 2:63, and Neheimiah 7:65)"

Would the Church today accept a priest using an ouija board or pendulum to make a decision?

If this isn't magic, I don't know what it is. Whether you believe it worked or not isn't the point. The point is that they believed it worked and they believe it worked by magic.

There are examples of black magic in the Bible too, Numbers 5:18 and 5:19-22,2 Kings 2:23 and 2:24 for instance.

There are more examples of other magic in the bible, will make the references and you can look it up or can write them out later. Tobit 6:7-8 and 6:16-17 and 11:11-13 of the authorized Kings James version, Ezekiel 21:21, Daniel 5:11, Numbers 21:9, Genesis 3:21, Deuteronomy 18:10-12.

Jesus lived in the first century during the time of the Roman occupation of Palestine. If you strip away the theology and our modern interpretations, the miracles that Jesus performed do appear to be similar to what we call magic today. In fact, some of his miracles involved making a potion (Jesus spit in the mud and then applied the mud to an afflicted person's eyes to restore his sight), uttering certain words (magical incantations), and calming a storm (power over nature). He is also credited with raising the dead (Lazarus), exorcising demons, walking on water, and turning water into wine (alchemy). If one looks at each act separately, they seem like the magical acts of a magician. What is the difference between a miracle and magic? Isn't the distinction a theological one imposed on us in the 21s century?

And such, quite fascinating if you think about it.

Its my belief that Jesus was trying to restore the original use of magic. His miracles, or should we say magic, were used for good. He helped others, both physically and spiritually. Before that, magic was often used in a frivolous fashion and for selfish ends. Jesus tried to restore what magic was originally meant to be: a way to enter into the presence of God and to help us with our spiritual advancement.

I think the early Christians were aware of this. Unfortunately, as time went on, this original intention was lost. When Christianity became the state religion in 325 CE under Constantine’s rule, paganism rapidly declined. Magic also started to die out, and those who continued to practice it were persecuted. The Church did a good job of almost completely annihilating its practice, especially during the Dark Ages. It was not until the Middle Ages that we see its revival.

Anyway I digress I wished to point this out first. Now wouldn’t it be strange that amongst alternative avenues there is a term called to become christconsciousness, maybe it would make more sense why such terminology came to pass.

 

[Synapse]

That's not going to work with gravity for instance.

Next I wanted to address your gravity remark, 3D refers to the three dimensional, the physical world. The physical sensorial world is gravity based and if I jump from a roof I will demise. Do I demise? It is a beginning only, why don't I jump then because you incur karma in each life. It is the same as any idea really. We are here born to learn of our life contracts and life purpose and to become in alignment to this artifact. Now I hope you have seen the film The Matrix. Imagine the physical wold to be like the matrix, this is your gravity field, this is your density, this is your story.

When you die your light body, your consciousness doesn't die, you do not die and go to hell or heaven. You are not judged by a flawed wounded masculine God or a wounded feminine goddess that is represented in this physical material world. Unless your imagination wants to see it that way then you will. It is important to realise that once you jump and let gravity do the job for you a new matrix appears that is infinite and limitless to the Earth based 3D reality you are partaking of. You are then accessing your quantum monad, or rather you become your quantum monad, or higher consciousness inside not outside.

The reality is that you consider everything outside of yourself to be trusted and true. Have you ever considered that everything outside of yourself was created from the inside out? All of the plants and animals, buildings, religion, science indeed the world around us are creations from the inside out. It is not from the observable outside that creation happened. If this was the case then you wouldn't be able to fall off of a building into gravity outside of you and die if there was nothing inside of you to make your body jump, could a zombie jump without an energy source inside to propel it to jump outside? It would stand there and decay back into the earth.

Next I would like to point out that Newton and Einstein are Gods of Science, they are the pillars of which Science is constructed around, how limiting. Its like saying in today's modern medicine Vaccines are Gods to us for giving us our health, nevermind vaccines contain neurotoxins that damage cell growth in our body, never mind because it is 10-50 years later when this starts to happen and by then Vaccines are seen too beneficial. The same confirmation bias seems to happen in other professions, when dentistry considered Amalgams Gods in our teeth because they did not break nvm mercury is a nerotoxin, if it works for 100-200 years it is impossible that it is unhealthy NOW! The debate in some circles still continues while the practice changed in the last 10-20 years thankfully. And you know what the amusing aspect to this once a tradition becomes common place there are literally thousands, if not millions who will stand up and sing the praises and enforce the tradition. Hahaha. It's a funny world, our beliefs are.

When people like Wallace Thornhill comes along and tries to explain the Electric Universe and says some of Newtons and Einsteins theories are inaccurate, Gods of Scientific Ego mind, blasphemy. Then it is ignored and placed on the fringe bin for a very long time.

Now I wanted to create a scenario with that, that translates across the board to all areas. Including Mediums, NDEs and Afterlife. Now my question is are all of the anecdotes supporting conscious awareness to our higher minds beyond death falsehood and mendacity? It would be entirely incredibly surprising if a collective consciousness of millions of people across the world were telling lies. A small proportion say thousands may be exaggerating and lying for material gain, but millions of people that would be illogical. And then for other spiritual practices to consider the past lives a possibility as well.

Now I do understand you dislike Mediums, they do seem to receive a lot of bad rep, the reality is like anything in this material world, be it science, religion, political, military etc. People are invested and driven by a dualistic personality ego, their psychology and in order to perceive it as such need to make a living somehow so what do a lot of mediums and psychics to cash in on this. The disingenuous who feed their ego even lie, as is human nature to get what they want, money!

How can you trust and worship what is outside by experience if you do not experience, trust and worship what is inside of you Lark?

Do you know that the 10 junk or silent DNA are communication gateways and when switched off any communication created happens during sleep inside you not on the outside? The outside is a vehicle towards the inside. The physical matrix is our story of experience that starts from the inner matrix of our spirit, our temple that like an eye may inverse and create the temple on the outside. And lo and behold so it came to pass.

Now during our deathbed or NDE maybe a process happens that is called the Dark Night of the Soul for a reason. What happens are stages, first is denial that death is here, next is anger that why must my physical body and ego die. Next is bargaining that the ego does, then its depression that death is inevitable, after which acceptance that the physical body and hence the ego personality dies, this can go in any order. Once that’s out of the way you come to a realisation and peace that you are going to die, if we know ego as impermanent from the beginning, we would never feel the need to deny or fear death. Its like in the waking world we are living, waiting to die, everything we do is death consciousness. When the realisation hits that past lives, as life flashes before our eyes and spirit are possible, the ego stops creating the persona, the duality drama story of your current life and a broader perspective opens up.

Now let me write out an excerpt from Physics of the Soul by Amit Goswami.

How do I love? You begin by undermining the ego's simple hierarchy structures in favour of the tangled hierarchy of the being that lies beyond ego. If you take notice, in our ego, our love for others is very self centered; we love other people and things for what they can do for us or because implicitly we regard them as extensions of us. We maintain ourselves as the head honcho of our simple hierarchical relationships with the rest of our limited worlds. When we undermine this structure by such practices as loving our neighbors as ourselves, or loving our enemies, or seeing God in everyone, a sudden quantum leap takes place in which we directly discover the “otherness of others. We see that other beings are individual jivas (individuality in Sanskrit is called jivatman or jiva for short, a name for the quantum monad or higher consciousness), as we are, with the same kind of creative aspirations, pursuing their dharma and plying out their karma. We even glimpse that we all, ourselves and others, are rooted in the same self, the universal self.

Wouldn't that be an interesting idea.

When you first look inside of you and create the connection then love, the dualistic nature of love changes to unconditional love. Then you stop thinking in a separation consciousness way, that God is outside of yourself, that love is outside of yourself, that death is outside of yourself…

Take the Hadron Collider, it is created to develop a way to access the superconsciouss, the altered state of consciousness, parallel states yet everyone is accessing this in REM. And Shamans and mediums have been doing this with the power of their own selves freely without such an instrument as the LHC. And yet here we are. Scientists are creating something outside of themselves to look inside of themselves, in the same way religion is looking for God outside of themselves instead of looking inside.

 

[lunalum]

So this would pretty much be a subset of the people who believe in following a specific religious doctrine except when it comes down to it they don't really believe in supernatural matters? I bet I've come across some of those before but I can't point fingers for sure.

 

[Qlip]

Sunday Christians?

 

[redacted]

My dad is an atheist and is a practicing Jew.

He says the sense of community is the reason. He volunteers for charity and donates tens of thousands of dollars a year to Jewish organizations. I guess it's just an already existing network that has goals aligned with his own.

He also grew up Jewish and is pretty resistant to change in general.

 

[INTP]

I believe that god is an projection of your unconscious mixed with people trying to rationalize stuff that they cant understand.

I also believe in afterlife, sort of hell and heaven, but i dont think that there is any gods involved. But its an activation of all neurons at the same time after dying.
http://firstpraxis.wordpress.com/20...ed-brain-life-09-february-2011-new-scientist/

If you think how people perceive time, its basically internal measurement of ones own brain activity and also comparing this to what happens in external world. Now when all of your neurons activate at once and you dont have any external stuff to perceive, this sense of time is lost and it should feel like eternity.

How about the feeling of suddenly realizing everything and gaining all the knowledge when duying(seeing the white light that has all knowledge in that you enter to heaven)? Well, while all neurons activate at once, all info in your brains are combined, this naturally leads to new insight and realizations. This white light can be explained with activation of neurons in visual cortex. While all neurons are activated, this naturally activates all memories, including the ones that you thought you had forgotten. Also this triggers emotional associations involved with those memories, but from every perspective.
This leads to the "last conviction", its not the god that does the judging, its yourself. But when you see all things from all perspectives, even the most unethical persons will judge themselves from ethical point of view and even the biggest saints will be judged from the perspective that thinks you wasted your life.
Balance is they key to everything!

I view the religious texts as teachings of life, but the problem with todays version of bible is that it has been edited so much over time that it has lost what the teachings were actually about, philosophy of good life, which ensures good afterlife.

Also the stuff in bible has been modified so much that im sure people who came up with the stuff, would see it as work of the devil.

Think about the stuff like commandment of "dont have other gods". I dont think its about jehova vs osiris, but about listening to your own heart and doing what you think is right, naturally rhis requires your heart being pure.

I could write a book about this, these are just few things in short that came to my mind.

Does this make me a religious atheist?

 

[Lark]

I believe that god is an projection of your unconscious mixed with people trying to rationalize stuff that they cant understand.

I also believe in afterlife, sort of hell and heaven, but i dont think that there is any gods involved. But its an activation of all neurons at the same time after dying.
http://firstpraxis.wordpress.com/20...ed-brain-life-09-february-2011-new-scientist/

If you think how people perceive time, its basically internal measurement of ones own brain activity and also comparing this to what happens in external world. Now when all of your neurons activate at once and you dont have any external stuff to perceive, this sense of time is lost and it should feel like eternity.

How about the feeling of suddenly realizing everything and gaining all the knowledge when duying(seeing the white light that has all knowledge in that you enter to heaven)? Well, while all neurons activate at once, all info in your brains are combined, this naturally leads to new insight and realizations. This white light can be explained with activation of neurons in visual cortex. While all neurons are activated, this naturally activates all memories, including the ones that you thought you had forgotten. Also this triggers emotional associations involved with those memories, but from every perspective.
This leads to the "last conviction", its not the god that does the judging, its yourself. But when you see all things from all perspectives, even the most unethical persons will judge themselves from ethical point of view and even the biggest saints will be judged from the perspective that thinks you wasted your life.
Balance is they key to everything!

I view the religious texts as teachings of life, but the problem with todays version of bible is that it has been edited so much over time that it has lost what the teachings were actually about, philosophy of good life, which ensures good afterlife.

Also the stuff in bible has been modified so much that im sure people who came up with the stuff, would see it as work of the devil.

Think about the stuff like commandment of "dont have other gods". I dont think its about jehova vs osiris, but about listening to your own heart and doing what you think is right, naturally rhis requires your heart being pure.

I could write a book about this, these are just few things in short that came to my mind.

Does this make me a religious atheist?

I think if you read some of Eric Fromm's books or Feurbach's book on the Essence of Christianity I think you'd find the sort of book you'd hope to write.

That "you judge yourself" idea is similar to what Death, ie the grim reaper, tells his apprentice in Terry Pratchett's The Discworld, he tells him there's no justice, just him that people who are self-reproachful can suffer eternal damnation and people who are wickedly arrogant can have undeserved heavenly fates.

The idea that the brain's neurons firing at once would result in a judging process which involves completely objective right and wrong is interesting, that would suggest that there is such a thing, which would be what I believe and I also believe that there is such a thing as a natural conscience patterned on the brain too, with the potential for its development.

This idea of judgement, which as you've describes it seems to exclude a deity entirely, actually accords with a lot of more recent, but nonetheless theist thinking. I dont know if you've heard or read Rob Bell's Love Wins, evangelists hate it but some atheists, religious or not, like it.

Bell's old testament and new testaments deal with early translations, the kingdom of God is instead "the age to come", it is within historical time and equivocal to saying "the hoped for future" and Jesus is often telling people "how will they live in the future?" or that they will be in the "dustbin of history" or on the tip/rubbish heap outside of town (it is a literal place).

He progresses to the new testament in which heaven or the kingdom of God is not simply a future but a place existing outside of time but which will be joined to a heavenly state as previously believed/hoped for and writes about how the bible describes cleansing fires in heaven, that's right in heaven, not as a seperate place, hell, governed by satan.

Bell remains an evangelist in the final instance, for me at least, I know that he's criticised by many of them and has even become a hate figure for them because he attacks some of the conceited and alienating aspects of that movement but I read his material as outreach towards atheists, not an endorsement of worldly humanism.

Likewise the "cleansing fires" idea and ideas about hell being a consequence of self-damnation in thought and deed in this life which streaches into eternity corresponds for me in the RC ideas of purgation and purgatory but those arent ideas that Bell or many of the thinkers like him would concur with.

I've highlighted the bit of your post which I think is important, I think that the human mind does indeed behave that way and that mankind can mistake many things for God but I dont believe that this is the whole story, that is reductive in my view, not everything which objectively exists is a construct from the human mind, for instance gravitation and an ordered universe exist independently of comprehension or understand or appreciation of them.

 

[Synapse]

Religion is a box and Spirituality is a Ceiling as wide as the heavens and the earths, to be limited in the mind is to stay in the box. One needs to go 'out of your mind', outside the box of your mind towards a place of no mind, Samadhi and beyond. When you explore a place of no mind then spiritual growth and conscious expansion are certain, for a place of no mind is indescribable, the human mind is incapable of processing the information.

The near realms and dimensions are creations of the mind, anything outside the mind is indescribable and no longer an illusion of the mind. Since the near realms and dimensions are of the mind and where spirits dwell after life lost, this is where heaven and hell are created and hence illusions of the mind, this is where most channels come from, this is where anything and everything goes. When you go beyond the beyond the beyond dose one start to release the prejudiced beliefs and views that hold many atheists and spiritual atheists alike in their boxes and ceilings, this includes mediums. The mind plays head games, when you die and go to the near realms and dimensions the mind continues to play head games until such a time you are in no mind.

And hence Religious people are atheists.

Because not only does one believe in a source outside of themselves rather than inside but very few seem to be able to understand the place of no mind.