Can stage blue religious people feel God?

[danilofaria]

Back when I was a very annoying atheist, I used to question the faith of religious people I knew and engage in debates. 

Often what I would hear from the religious stage blue people is that God was something that they felt and could not be explained rationally. To me at the time this sounded like total bs and I thought they were totally deluding themselves and thinking they were feeling something that came from God when it was totally made up by their minds.

Nowadays I no longer engage in these kinds of debates and I have evolved to more stage green and above values. I have had many interesting spiritual experiences (meditation, psychedelics, tantra, etc...) that have changed my perspective quite a lot.

However I was just thinking these days: never in my life have I had any special "feeling" in me that made me think that God exists until recently with some psychedelic experiences in which I had some sorts of awakening experiences that totally blew my mind. And it took me a lot of work to finally get to experience something like that. 

So my question is: are stage blue religious people really capable of feeling something that comes from God when they go to church or when they pray which I am not able to experience or are they really deluding themselves like I originally thought they are?

Please don't interpret my question as an attempt to make religious people look stupid, but rather a genuine curiosity to understand where this feeling of God that they feel comes from. It is surprising to me that you could somehow feel God without doing any of the hard spiritual work and by simpling praying or going to church.

[Osaid]

@danilofaria There are many spiritual truths within religion which may enable them to experience God at times. It's probably a mix of delusion and truth.

[Verdesbird]

there are even real miracles in stage blue churches

[danilofaria]

let me be a little more specific on what I'm trying to understand: how can someone raised in a religious tradition (think average churchgoer), who has put zero effort into their spiritual growth, who simply goes to church on Sundays and prays to God before they go to bed still claim that they are able to somehow "feel" God? What is it that they feel? Hard for me to understand since I never felt anything before I started putting a lot of effort into my spiritual growth.

[Forestluv]

Of course they can feel God, because they are God. It would be like asking “Can someone feel themself?”.

[AtheisticNonduality]

13 minutes ago, Verdesbird said:

there are even real miracles in stage blue churches

Nope.

[danilofaria]

4 minutes ago, Serotoninluv said:

Of course they can feel God, because they are God. It would be like asking “Can someone feel themself?”.

So how come I never felt anything? (until I tried very hard)

[Verg0]

@danilofaria I guess it depends on the individual. Many people who put zero effort into their connection with God will never truly feel anything, but there are some religious people who put a lot of effort into their spiritual growth and for them it is possible to glimpse God. But sadly many will only see and interpret it through their specific religious lense and be so biased and closeminded that they never get to a full awakening. 

[allislove]

So my question is: are stage blue religious people really capable of feeling something that comes from God when they go to church or when they pray which I am not able to experience or are they really deluding themselves like I originally thought they are?

Everything is God. Everything "comes" from God to itself. 

Are you asking if they have mystical experiences while praying? 

Only God knows ? I heard some churches use 5-MeO, so why not. 

[Osaid]

@danilofaria They're technically feeling God but they just don't know it, they're not conscious of what God really is, so its similar to no experience of God. You gotta be conscious enough of what God actually is to really feel God.

[danilofaria]

@dimitri The people I talked to which told me they could feel god were typically people my age at the time (teenager to young adults), who definitely didnt do 5-MeO or any psychedelics for that matter. They were simply kids with no spiritual ambitions (average people). So restricting the target of the questions to these kinds of individuals, it makes it very hard to believe they could actually feel some sort of mystical thing

[danilofaria]

3 minutes ago, Osaid said:

@danilofaria They're technically feeling God but they just don't know it, they're not conscious of what God really is, so its similar to no experience of God. You gotta be conscious enough of what God actually is to really feel God.

So you would say that the typical case boils down to a mix of wishful thinking and delusion? Maybe there is a little bit of intuition that gets strengthened by the wishful thinking? 

[Leo Gura]

21 minutes ago, danilofaria said:

who has put zero effort into their spiritual growth, who simply goes to church on Sundays and prays to God before they go to bed still claim that they are able to somehow "feel" God?

This is a very arrogant framing.

People who go to chruch are often very serious about it and put in a lot of effort in walking a spiritual path. They are basically doing a crude, traditional form of Actualized.org

Prayer is a legit spiritual technique.

Of course they can feel God. That doesn't mean they are awake or that all of them feel God. Some of them do. Most of them don't. And just because you feel God does not preclude delusion. Even awakening does not preclude delusion. Self-deception and the self-bias and corruptions of the ego-mind are a near-constant driving force.

Don't underestimate the power of belief and faith. Billions of people are religious for good reason: it actually improves their lives.

Your view of religion is too negative and it's clear you've never hung out with serious religious people or partook in their practices.

[Osaid]

 

12 minutes ago, danilofaria said:

So you would say that the typical case boils down to a mix of wishful thinking and delusion? Maybe there is a little bit of intuition that gets strengthened by the wishful thinking? 

I'm sure there is some truth to practices like prayer, it might make them feel more present and that might feel Godly to them. If anything, it's a very narrow glimpse of what God actually is. But you gotta start somewhere.

[TrustTheProcess]

Yes, stage Blue can be very in touch with God. Intensely so sometimes. 

Spiritual blue people just interpret their relationship with God and spiritual experiences in different ways than say a spiritual green or yellow. 

[danilofaria]

 

 

 

1

36 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

People who go to chruch are often very serious about it and put in a lot of effort in walking a spiritual path. They are basically doing a crude, traditional form of Actualized.org

I am sure a lot of religious people are very serious about their practices and put a lot of effort into it. I was specifically asking about people who don't make any conscious effort and still claim to feel God just naturally. There are a lot of people in this category and this really puzzles me. Sorry if I sounded arrogant, it wasn't my intention. 

 

 

 

 

50 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Even awakening does not preclude delusion. Self-deception and the self-bias and corruptions of the ego-mind are a near-constant driving force.

Great reminder! 

 

 

 

 

51 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Your view of religion is too negative and it's clear you've never hung out with serious religious people or partook in their practices.

I actually did hang out with a lot of serious religious people. I myself went to church for a while to see if I could find any truth in it and I also spent a good portion of my young adult life going to places of worship of various religions as part of my quest for truth. I eventually realized none of that was for me though and I became an atheist. I stayed a materialist atheist for a while and things changed for me drastically when I found you on youtube in 2016 @Leo Gura so I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for opening up my mind to new things.

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, danilofaria said:

I was specifically asking about people who don't make any conscious effort and still claim to feel God just naturally. There are a lot of people in this category and this really puzzles me.

Plenty of people are naturally spiritually gifted and effortlessly connect with God through intuition and feeling without a lot of prior work.

[mandyjw]

Pentecostal Christians are pretty open minded to mystical experiences, some of them anyway. I was raised Baptist and we always said Pentecostals were opening themselves to demon possession. Warnings about yoga and meditation warn of the same, where atheists think that's ridiculous yet don't acknowledge the possibility of them not being able to have complete control of themselves or supernatural forces outside them. In my dad's church supposedly a girl once started channeling in English in a man's voice, they removed her from the service as soon as possible, but they were absolutely freaked out. They write off all things like that as demon possession for the most part. 

I've also heard a lot of strange stories where general law of attraction stuff is attributed to God. Missionaries being poisoned and not getting ill, people healing in strange circumstances. People receiving messages and calling it the voice of God. General synchronicity stuff, happens to anyone open minded enough to notice or look for it. Faith is faith. 

 

Edited May 26, 2020 by mandyjw

[Forestluv]

2 hours ago, danilofaria said:

So how come I never felt anything? (until I tried very hard)

You seem to be creating a construct in which there is an internal me ‘in here’ that has a relationship with a separate external god ‘out there’. That’s not how I use the term God.

With my impression of your framing, I would use terms like “spiritual experience” or “divine”. My relationship with your question is that you are asking why some religious people had spiritual experiences, yet you did not (until you tried very hard). There are many reasons for this. Some people are more open, in-tuned and believe in such experiences. If I go to mystic to guide me through past life regressions with an attitude of “This past life stuff is airy fairy bullshit. No way can this so-called ‘paranormal’ hypnotize me” - there is a low chance of having a spiritual experience. Yet if someone is open, curious and allows space for exploration there is a much higher chance of having a spiritual experience. As well, prior conditioning and spiritual abilities come into play. 

[Eren Eeager]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

This is a very arrogant framing.

People who go to chruch are often very serious about it and put in a lot of effort in walking a spiritual path. They are basically doing a crude, traditional form of Actualized.org

Of course they can feel God. That doesn't mean they are awake or that all of them feel God. Some of them do. Most of them don't. And just because you feel God does not preclude delusion. Even awakening does not preclude delusion. Self-deception and the self-bias and corruptions of the ego-mind are a near-constant driving force.

 

You are not talking here about the average stage blue individual, right? maybe you are talking about saints who are seeking spirituality through religion?

Stage blue spirituality is faith produced feelings  like depending on God, trusting God, fearing God. whenever you come closer to realizing God, those feelings become replace by love, direct clear Love.