Carol service in prod church review.

[Monty92]

Surely this depends on the verdict going your way, for those who believe in an upstairs-downstairs afterlife.

As one that doesn't, the prospect of ceasing to exist doesn't bother me at all personally, as long as pain isn't involved in the process. I'm far more concerned about the distress, inconvenience and possible mess left behind for others at such a cessation.

Ash, I think you'd like this podcast with Brendan O'Neill in which he discusses his enduring fondness for Marxism and how his original ideas have been heavily distorted and stigmatised. Worth an hour of your time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ak51zb4G_Kk

[Ash]

Sorry, but wishy-washy phrases such as ‘the mysteries of consciousness’ set alarm bells ringing. What mysteries? Our ‘consciousness’ is simply a series of biochemical reactions to which we imbue undue significance. If you’re that interested in it, I suggest the answers will be found in science, not ‘spirituality’.

But consciousness is a mystery. That there is ultimately a scientific meaning to it doesn't stop it being mysterious or highly significant. And is it certainly biochemical? I have argued with someone who insists that we cannot rule out a sophisticated electronic intelligence acquiring consciousness.

And if you think, as you indicated earlier, that a belief in god is a perfectly natural response to seeking patterns of order in a chaotic universe, it isn't unreasonable that the process of consciousness reflecting upon itself (meta-consciousness) would be part of that belief, based in the feeling of detachment from the material body that such reflection can cause. I suspect that this sense of detachment may have been the 'spirituality' that Monty was alluding to in his clumsily-constructed post.

[Burney]

Wishy-washy phrases like "the mysteries of conciousness" are only toxic by association, because they've so often been utilised by wishy-washy idiots like Deepak Chopra. But that doesn't necessarily render them inherently useless.

What about the 'nature' of conciousness? Would you object to that too? You take a psychadelic drug to change the biochemistry of your brain and to get closer to understanding the nature of consciousness. In this sense, spirituality can often rely on science, yet you flippantly treat them as mutually incompatible.

Drugs do things to your brain that alter your perceptions. But that is not a spiritual issue, it’s a chemical one. If you choose to believe what you experience when you’re fúcked up is ‘truer’ than what you experience when you’re not, you’re no different to a religious adherent who thinks they’ve achieved religious ecstasy. It’s all the same thing.

[Ash]

Ash, I think you'd like this podcast with Brendan O'Neill in which he discusses his enduring fondness for Marxism and how his original ideas have been heavily distorted and stigmatised. Worth an hour of your time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ak51zb4G_Kk

Ah, thanks.

[Burney]

"There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy"

A mild cynicism towards scientific dogma would serve you well. See also: 'climate change'.

I retain a cynicism about all dogma. Dogma and good science are mutually exclusive.

[Sir C]

I retain a cynicism about all dogma. Dogma and good science are mutually exclusive.

Well then. Dismissing the possibility of there being some 'mystery' to human consciousness because 'science' told you so would be dependent on you knowing that this 'science' is the 'good science', rather than the 'climate change' or 'moon landing' science.

[Monty92]

Drugs do things to your brain that alter your perceptions. But that is not a spiritual issue, it’s a chemical one. If you choose to believe what you experience when you’re fúcked up is ‘truer’ than what you experience when you’re not, you’re no different to a religious adherent who thinks they’ve achieved religious ecstasy. It’s all the same thing.

I use 'spiritual' to describe the exploration of one's own mind. In other words, following the evidence in a wholly scientific way. You paint the two as mutually incompatible, but they are so compatible that any exploration of one's own mind that doesn't rely on science is likely to lead you to one place and one place only: religion.

Religion happens when you don't follow the evidence.

[Burney]

Well then. Dismissing the possibility of there being some 'mystery' to human consciousness because 'science' told you so would be dependent on you knowing that this 'science' is the 'good science', rather than the 'climate change' or 'moon landing' science.

No. Good science does not acknowledge ‘mystery’ - simply stuff science hasn’t yet understood. ‘Mystery’ is - again - a religious concept.

[Ash]

Drugs do things to your brain that alter your perceptions. But that is not a spiritual issue, it’s a chemical one. If you choose to believe what you experience when you’re fúcked up is ‘truer’ than what you experience when you’re not, you’re no different to a religious adherent who thinks they’ve achieved religious ecstasy. It’s all the same thing.

Not just perceptions, but ideas. Those ideas can remain after the psychedelic state has subsided.

As to your last point, I read somewhere a claim from a Christian that the altered brain patterns observed when stimulated by maijuana were similar to those observed when 'stimulated' (atheistic scare quotes) by prayer.

[Sir C]

I use 'spiritual' to describe the exploration of one's own mind.

In other words, following the evidence in a wholly-scientific way. You paint the two as mutually incompatible, but they are so compatible that any exploration of one's own mind that doesn't rely on science is likely to lead you to one place and one place only: religion.

Religion happens when you don't follow the evidence.

Anyone exploring your mind would want to be wearing an NBC suit.