[tomhoward]

I started my militant atheist phase about 10 years ago, then emerged from it about 4-5 years ago as I started to understand enough about the world/universe to realise that much of the true nature of existence is way beyond our ability to comprehend.

That doesn't mean I have any belief in a theistic, interventionist god.

It does mean I have an acceptance and appreciation for the transcendent and the unknowable, similar to what Einstein and Darwin described of themselves.

I'd recommend exposing yourself to the writings of physicists like Roger Penrose and Freeman Dyson, and recent podcast appearances by physicist Eric Weinstein, to understand how religion and spirituality can (and indeed, must) co-exist with physics.

To answer the question in the title of your post: we are so far away from understanding the fundamentals of the nature of reality, that such a question doesn't bear any serious consideration at all.

[hubatrix]

" I started to understand enough about the world/universe to realise that much of the true nature of existence is way beyond our ability to comprehend."

Can you quantify this with one of your own experiences? I will learn from it vicariously if possible. I am not militating theists and neither am I propagandizing atheism. Surprisingly enough these superstitions have saved animals and humans before (Ex: Hinduism, Bhudisim, Jainism, etc.) but caused more harm than good. I will look up people you referred and their writings. We will always be unbeknown about God or some super power because no matter how much technically advanced we become, there will always be layers deeper to dig into and we can never declare that we know everything to prove that God doesn't exist.

We can only fail to accept God but never truly reject him.

This is a universal truth.

You have all the freedom to be an agnostic(which I am too) and not an atheist, but what I am urging on more people should be educated enough to be agnostic and have the courage to question an action made in the name of God the almighty.

The question was to rekindle thoughts among HNs as to where we really stand in this path towards unknown waters.

[wahern]

Replace "God the almighty" with "homeland", "honor", or "science". Does it make a difference?

If it doesn't make a difference, then what does any of this matter? If the issue is people using imaginary persons, relationships, and qualities to justify bad behavior, I don't see how the response should be promoting a reactionary identity that fundamentally commits the same error. Some communists committed unimaginable horrors in the name of suppressing religious ideas. I'm not trying to equivocate history, but am trying to point out that replacing theism with anti-theism or even skeptical-theism isn't necessarily going to produce different outcomes in the long run. God exists, such as he does, whether you say "there is a God" or you say "there is no God" or you say "I don't know if there's a God". The only way to purge the idea is to say nothing at all.

If there is a difference, then there might something distinct and salient about such a concept that might be beneficial and worth preserving, notwithstanding all the harms.

[tomhoward]

Not sure if you'll read this so long after posting the comment - please reply if you do so I know it was worth the effort to write!

A few years ago, after going through a very difficult few years in my life, during which I became very angry and resentful at the world, including at all forms of religion, as well as being very physically fatigued and unwell, I started experimenting with various techniques to try to heal my body and mind. You can read my HN comment history for more detail on this.

After about 6 years of trying various healing practices, and about 3 years after discovering a set of mindfulness techniques and subconscious healing practices that I was finding to be particularly effective, I started experiencing altered states of consciousness that forced me to question the conventional (materialistic) understanding of how the mind and body work together. I started experiencing intuitions and insights that opened a path to new realisations that led me towards a much more healthy and happy life.

These experiences were not linked with any mind-altering substances, and there was no suggestion from people close to me that I had any serious psychiatric illness (apart from being a bit hysterical due to the unfamiliar experiences I was having; nobody saw any need for any medical intervention, I just had to chill out a bit, which I did).

It inspired me to more deeply investigate the most up-to-date research and debate about the mind and body, and the origins of consciousness. It turns out very little is known about where consciousness comes from; it's accepted in the mainstream that consciousness emerges out of brain matter, but when you examine this theory, it's an assumption based on our best understanding of evolution, but it's not proven in its own right.

It turns out that the notion that consciousness is some immaterial ("spiritual") phenomenon, and that consciousness originates from somewhere outside of our own brains/bodies, is just as plausible as the materialist hypothesis, and there are credible, eminent scientists who have sophisticated theories on this.

Probably the most compelling and sound is Sir Roger Penrose and his "quantum microtubules" concept [1]. But there are others with ideas worth exploring. I've gotten a lot out of reading Bernardo Kastrup, Rupert Sheldrake and Rudy Tanzi.

None of this is to say that science proves the merits of any organised religion (or mitigates any of its failings or wrongoings), but it's certainly not the case that science has disproven religion/spirituality and made it all irrelevant.

I'm with you that organised religion as done, and continues to do, much harm in the world. But we also take for granted how much good it has done (the Western system of government and judiciary, and everything that has emerged out of that, for a start).

And for the record, I haven't had any more of those altered states of consciousness for about 3 years, but every aspect of my life (physical/emotional health, friends/family/relationships, career/financial success) has been improving at an accelerating rate since that episode.

[1] http://nautil.us/issue/47/consciousness/roger-penrose-on-why...