do you FEEL things are connected?

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Aletheia
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Interesting piece, any thoughts on it?
I'm a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, when I am off my medication I experience delusions, ideas of reference and some hallucinations, along with other symptoms. I've come to notice something I think some of you might find interesting

When I am on my medications, taking them regularly at the prescribed doses and I'm thinking clearly (as I am now), I am an atheist. In fact, I am a materialist/physicalist who is interested in philosophy and I like to read Nietzsche, Sam Harris, Epicurean stuff (Lucretius) and I am skeptical about the existence of free will.

When I'm off my meds however I have the impression that everything is interconnected spiritually, it's something I would struggle to put into words but something I can feel in the moment. I experience ideas of reference, believing that things said in TV shows or on the radio have hidden messages meant specifically for me. I believe there are beings who are reading my thoughts and implanting new ones etc. and in short, I believe at the time things that are obviously supernatural beliefs.

Contrary to popular belief, Schizophrenia does not entail there being split personalities or anything and that's not what I'm saying, only that when I am in a state of delusional thinking I accept supernatural experiences and beliefs that I otherwise would be prone to scoff at.

I also don't intend here to say that people with deeply religious beliefs are schizophrenics but I do think there might be something in the idea that whatever triggers schizophrenic delusions in the brain could be related to brain activity that could explain religious experiences like "feeling the presence of God" or having Marian visions
https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/commen ... en_im_off/
Deleted User 1074

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Why is he presuming atheism is the "normal" default state? maybe his drugs are the reason he loses all spirituality but wouldnt necessarily be the case if he had a normal unmedicated brain. I know a 2 schizophrenics who both hate being medicated because it makes them completely lack empathy become emotionless, numb, "in a fog" and feel like "zombies".

the majority of people historically have been religious. maybe its because we no longer have harsh natural selection type of conditions as obstacles to our survival that atheists are flourishing in modern times.
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ReadingRainbow
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Yes... as an anthropologist who has studied human evolution I am well aware that spirituality has always been a part of human existence . The idea of being spiritually motivated has a much stronger argument as the “default setting” as the poster above me described...
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Everything is indeed connected. Human's history with religion is our attempt to reconnect. Everything in this entire cosmos is made up of energy. Science tells us that all matter is made up of atoms which are energy charged particles. Our bodies are energetic and electric in that the neurons that send electric pulses from our brain to keep us alive. Our thoughts are energy too. There is a saying in the non-religious, spiritual community that energy follows thought and our thoughts can indeed create.
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