The mystical experience of oneness, which is sometimes interpreted as an experience of god, and which comes about when subject/object perception abruptly ceases while some sort of experiencing continues, is certainly not confined to any single religious tradition or practice. Doesn't matter whether you're Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Daoist, or from some other tradition -- that experience seems to be at its core something that can occur to anyone. However, how one interprets the experience, what they think it was all about -- whether, for instance, one thinks it is an experience of some god or not -- tends to depend on the predominant tradition or practice that one comes from. — Sunstone, post: 5012843, member: 499
Are the interpretations necessarily exclusive due to religious views? Or is it possible that one person can interpret it many different ways regardless of their beliefs? Then it is further possible for a person to interpret it many different ways, but only accept one of those interpretations? — Jeremiahcp, post: 5012919, member: 61265
βIt was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.β
Maybe you have a source where Einstein himself said that he meditates, prays, practices celibacy, and tries to live like Jesus did. — m-theory
I am pretty sure that this was not something he had said himself, even if it is something that was said of him. — m-theory
The mystical experience of oneness, which is sometimes interpreted as an experience of god, and which comes about when subject/object perception abruptly ceases while some sort of experiencing continues, is certainly not confined to any single religious tradition or practice. — Sunstone, post: 5012843, member: 499
It would be a good idea to change the first sentence of that post, because it reads to me as well as though you are quoting Einstein. The best option would be to leave Einstein out of it altogether. He is probably the second most quoted source after the Bible in religious arguments and, just like the bible, one can always find a quote that supports either side of an argument.I never said nor meant to imply that he did these things. I was talking about myself, — Thorongil
Rational Theist? Spiritual Atheist?
When I think of religion at all, I feel as if I would like to found as order for those who cannot believe: the Confraternity of the Faithless, one might call it, when on an altar, on which no taper bured, a priest, in whose heart peace had no dwelling, might celebrate with unblessed bread and chalice empty of wine. Everything to be true must become religion. And agnosticism should have its ritual no less than faith.
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