J Neil Schulman

SEK3 (entirely Objectivist in his epistemology and an atheist for all of his life past childhood) always emphasized that there is no such thing as an objective point of view.

Who's SEK3?

Samuel Edward Konkin III

George, nowhere will you find me saying that anything in scripture is to be taken on face value as either historical or "true." But nonetheless even fiction tells us a lot about reality. In the case of scripture I think there are kernels of truth that can be found, separating wheat from chaff. And I find stories in scripture that parallel some of my own experiences, so I examine them more closely and use them for whatever value I can get out of them.

I have no problem with this, but it has no relevance to the problem of historical accuracy. It was you, not I, who mentioned the analogy of evaluating the testimony of witnesses in a court. Btw, I would think that you would find more of value in the noncanonical "Gnostic Gospels" than in the Bible.

Going back to your statement that "one's personal experience preferences count for zilch when analyzing historical records," I'd say that one's personal experiences are the only basis for building up a set of criteria which can analyze the external world, its accounts, stories, and records -- and that includes what premises of scientific inquiry one regards as definitive. For example, I believe that while the principle of parsimony -- Occam's Razor -- is useful, reality is messy enough to give us lots of cases where the simplest explanation is wrong. Likewise, just because the principles of positivism require falsifiability in testing facts, I'm confident that non-falsifiable facts play a central role in trying to figure out what is and isn't. Lots of cases boil down to "preferencing" one interpretation over another with nothing else to go on than what one's total life experience brings to the analysis.

We unavoidably use our personal experiences when attempting to understand history, because we have no other experience to draw upon. But our personal experiences are not the same as our personal experience preferences, which is the expression you initially used. A good historian will attempt, as much as possible, to exclude his personal preferences from his historical evaluations. This is the essence of objectivity --an ideal that, though it cannot be completing achieved, can nevertheless be approximated.

Occam's Razor is more of a rough guideline than a rule, and it is more useful in science than in history, where it has little application. But the issue of naturalistic explanations has nothing to do with Occam's Razor. Rather, this has to do with the issue of what qualifies as an adequate historical explanation to begin with.

Edward Gibbon addressed this issue in Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. In his scandalous account that attributed the rise of Christianity to purely natural rather than to supernatural causes, he wrote, somewhat tongue-in-cheek:

The theologian may indulge the pleasing task of describing Religion as she descended from Heaven, arrayed in her nature purity. A more melancholy duty is imposed on the historian. He must discover the inevitable mixture of error and corruption which she contracted in a long residence upon earth, among a weak and degenerate race of beings.

Our curiosity is naturally prompted to inquire by what means the Christian faith obtained so remarkable a victory over the established religions of the earth. To this inquiry an obvious but unsatisfactory answer may be returned; that it was owing to the convincing evidence of the doctrine itself, and to the rule providence of its great Author. But as truth and reason seldom find so favourable a reception in the world, and as the wisdom of Providence frequently condescends to use the passions of the human heart, and the general circumstances of mankind, as instruments to execute its purpose, we may still be permitted, though with becoming submission, to ask, not indeed what were the first, but what were the secondary causes of the rapid growth of the Christian church?

Although Gibbon was addressing a different issue than the one we are considering here, the same basic principle applies. History, by its very nature, deals with natural, or what Gibbon called "secondary," causes. If the historian leaves this framework, all bets are off.

Lastly, I'm not a positivist.

Ghs

SEK3* (entirely Objectivist in his epistemology and an atheist for all of his life past childhood) always emphasized that there is no such thing as an objective point of view. All points of view reflect the assumptions, if not the biases, of the speaker or writer, making them to one extent or another subjective. SEK3 suggested the best you could hope for is someone self-aware of their own assumptions and biases, and who declares them up front to the reader or audience.

Regarding historical events as "naturalistic" is rather odd when one includes the assumption of human free volition, as most Objectivists do. I'm not even sure the words "natural" or "supernatural" ultimately have any difference in meaning. A natural event is one we think we know the causes of; a supernatural event is one the cause of which we can't yet explain.

Let me give you an example, and it's one I brought up on the Amazon.com page writing a user comment on a Richard Dawkins book.

All attempts to negate intelligent design come down to providing a mechanistic theory of cause and effect, and I include statistical probabilities into this paradigm. But there's no way to trace this process all the way back to a first cause if that cause is not, itself, part of the specific space-time continuum we call the universe. The moment there's any possibility whatsoever of a causative agency entering from an additional continuum, all analysis grinds to a halt. So one can argue as reasonably that an intelligent consciousness residing outside our continuum designed our entire "world" (continuum, universe, heavens and the earth -- whatever you choose to tag it) and everything unfolded naturally from that architecture as one can argue that the whole shebang is self-starting or possibly even periodic. One can argue for intelligent design of this continuum without ever having to dispute evolution or natural selection as the means the animal life on this planet ended up here.

Nor if one is positing an external incursion into this continuum must one limit the assumption to a single architectural planning, with no revisions. If time is a function of a particularly continuum, incursion could exist at any point on the timeline. It just requires a mind with free will able to navigate to a specific point of entry, and externally impose an effect at that point. Lacking a good basis to track this sort of entry, it's tagged supernatural -- when, really, it would be entirely natural except for the "geographic" point of origin.

Now, is there any reason to take multiple continua seriously? Sure, because the best science we have does.

There's an old rhyme about a student of mathematics who ponders the square root of infinity and switches to the school of divinity. Having had experiences (with sufficient reason to satisfy my initial skepticism) that I regard as genuine contacts with people we consider the dead, tell me why what theologians call "heaven" can't be a better populated continuum somewhere on the 11 dimensions of the "brane," and I'll be more willing to consider my views crankish.

*Samuel Edward Konkin III, author of the New Libertarian Manifesto and editor of various "New Libertarian" magazines.

What criterion do you use to distinguish trustworthy from untrustworthy accounts?

The hard question, especially when applied to one's own accounts, even more so when applied to the experience of meeting the master of the universe, good old grand old god.

In a world that contains ecstatic religious hallucinations from every faith, I simply add Neil to the list of claimants.

A big month at OL -- an Intelligent Design crank, an I Met God crank, an anti-Muslim crank and now a Dianetics crank.

Engrams, holy spirits, immortal beings, fingers of creation! Onward, upward, Objectivists!

And at least one crank whose demand to satisfy his skepticism is always, "If I can't do it then you can't either."

No offense, Neil, but one's personal experience preferences count for zilch when analyzing historical records. This is not a chicken/egg problem. It is a matter of which explanation is more credible.

Countless people throughout history have claimed to have experienced a god in some fashion, so unless you are willing to accept every account at face value, you will need some kind of criterion to distinguish the veridical from the false. For example, when an NFL player claims that God helped him to score a touchdown, do you believe him? When the sole survival of a plane crash claims that his survival was owing to divine intervention (i.e., a miracle), do you accept this explanation? If not, why not? What criterion do you use to distinguish trustworthy from untrustworthy accounts?

Ghs

The exact same criteria I'd have to use on a jury when evaluating the testimony of any witness.

In the case of the Bible, you first have to be reasonably certain that the writer in question was actually a "witness" to what he reports. This wasn't the case in many cases. No reputable biblical scholar since the mid-19th century, for example, has believed that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. Indeed, this traditional belief got big holes poked in it during the 12th century by Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra, and the coup de grace was delivered by Richard Simon, Thomas Hobbes, Spinoza, and others during the 17th century.

Likewise, outside of fundamentalist circles, virtually no biblical scholar would claim any longer that Matthew wrote the Book of Matthew, or that Mark wrote the Book of Mark, or that Luke wrote the Book of Luke. Many of the epistles attributed to Paul, however, were probably written by him.

In short, in most biblical accounts you are dealing with accounts that are far removed, whether by decades or by centuries, from real witnesses. You would never get a chance to evaluate the credibility of such "witnesses" in court, because they would never be permitted to testify in the first place. It's called "hearsay."

Ghs

George, nowhere will you find me saying that anything in scripture is to be taken on face value as either historical or "true." But nonetheless even fiction tells us a lot about reality. In the case of scripture I think there are kernels of truth that can be found, separating wheat from chaff. And I find stories in scripture that parallel some of my own experiences, so I examine them more closely and use them for whatever value I can get out of them.

Going back to your statement that "one's personal experience preferences count for zilch when analyzing historical records," I'd say that one's personal experiences are the only basis for building up a set of criteria which can analyze the external world, its accounts, stories, and records -- and that includes what premises of scientific inquiry one regards as definitive. For example, I believe that while the principle of parsimony -- Occam's Razor -- is useful, reality is messy enough to give us lots of cases where the simplest explanation is wrong. Likewise, just because the principles of positivism require falsifiability in testing facts, I'm confident that non-falsifiable facts play a central role in trying to figure out what is and isn't. Lots of cases boil down to "preferencing" one interpretation over another with nothing else to go on than what one's total life experience brings to the analysis.

Why do you think that a god or gods had anything to do with the Bible? As people become more civilized, so (usually) do their gods. You've got the tail wagging the dog.

George, of course I have no direct evidence that God had anything to do with the stories in the Bible. But we're talking about very old stories, old enough that any events described in them become historically problematic to prove or disprove with hard evidence. I'm fairly confident that the time periods usually ascribed to a lot of the stories are wildly inaccurate. I'm also well aware of echoes in Judeo-Christian scripture from earlier stories.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Is God described as human in the Bible (as well as gods described in Greek and Norse stories) because the stories were written by humans? Or because beings with a human-like consciousness precede our own species and we've had contact with them?

My personal experience preferences the latter explanation.

No offense, Neil, but one's personal experience preferences count for zilch when analyzing historical records. This is not a chicken/egg problem. It is a matter of which explanation is more credible.

Countless people throughout history have claimed to have experienced a god in some fashion, so unless you are willing to accept every account at face value, you will need some kind of criterion to distinguish the veridical from the false. For example, when an NFL player claims that God helped him to score a touchdown, do you believe him? When the sole survival of a plane crash claims that his survival was owing to divine intervention (i.e., a miracle), do you accept this explanation? If not, why not? What criterion do you use to distinguish trustworthy from untrustworthy accounts?

Ghs

The exact same criteria I'd have to use on a jury when evaluating the testimony of any witness.

I think that God having a learning curve is perhaps the most important character trait one can glean from reading the Bible. It not only means that God is capable of making mistakes and learning from them -- which makes God very human -- but it also means that God's type of consciousness is not categorically different from our own, which strongly suggests that being God-like in cognitive powers is what we get to be also if we work at it long enough.

Why do you think that a god or gods had anything to do with the Bible? As people become more civilized, so (usually) do their gods. You've got the tail wagging the dog.

Ghs

George, of course I have no direct evidence that God had anything to do with the stories in the Bible. But we're talking about very old stories, old enough that any events described in them become historically problematic to prove or disprove with hard evidence. I'm fairly confident that the time periods usually ascribed to a lot of the stories are wildly inaccurate. I'm also well aware of echoes in Judeo-Christian scripture from earlier stories.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Is God described as human in the Bible (as well as gods described in Greek and Norse stories) because the stories were written by humans? Or because beings with a human-like consciousness precede our own species and we've had contact with them?

My personal experience preferences the latter explanation.

Your point is confirmed by many of the writings of Jung. Our subconscious mind is the vast (and largely unexplored) place where such cognitive powers could be tapped.

In which portion of the brain is the Subconscious Mind located?

Ba'al Chatzaf

I hesitate even to use terms like subconscious mind, since what I'm talking about isn't a lower consciousness limited to what is immediately available to the physical body's sensory organs, but a non-localized consciousness which the brain acts as a mediator to interpret. We already know that the brain has its own algorithms which regularly create symbols to "dumb down" a more complex set of data inputs. This is why, for example, there are optical illusions. I think a good way of looking at it is that we live in a far-more complex reality than the one our "conscious" mind shows us, and that the conscious mind can be looked at much like a high-level computer language that has been built up because we can't actually process (metaphorically) "binary code" that would be offered to our physical sense organs directly. Things we take for granted -- such as linear time lines with the time arrows all going in the same direction -- is, my experience leads me to believe, one of them.

So to answer your question, additional states of consciousness aren't actually "located" in the brain at all any more than external reality is -- they're just alternate programming languages we can sometimes train ourselves to use.

Perhaps pantheism can bridge the gap. Make God reality itself, in all its manifestations.

--Brant

anyway, I don't like "atheist" as any kind of word at all

Then why call it God?

To undercut religion. I respect reality, I don't worship it. The religionists worship God, which is silly. I'd not say I believed in God, I'd just say I was a pantheist.

--Brant

cutting the legs out from under

It's interesting that in one respect my experiences match up with ones described in the Bible. When I met God he was completely uninterested in being worshiped. I don't recall God demanding worship in conversations with Abraham, Noah, or Moses. The story of the demand for the sacrifice of Isaac has always struck me that God was hoping that Abraham would tell him to go fuck himself, but when Abraham appeared lacking in the moral integrity to do so, the story as I interpret it would mean that God had so far failed to cultivate a being with an independent mind ... and he had more work to do. Perhaps some indication of that moral advancement and independence of mind is when Abraham later on argues with God about the annihilation of two cities. Abraham didn't win that argument but at least he argued that time.

Later on, Moses not only argues with God, who wants to commit mass killing, but wins the argument and talks God out of it ... and remarkably Exodus 32:14 uses the phrase "And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people."

The reason I'm bringing this up is that the Bible describes God as having a fully human personality, which was my experience as well, for what it's worth. The difference is the text of the Bible is written by authors anonymous and long gone, and I'm right here right now, writing under my own name.

I've only met one God as far as I know. If there are more, apparently I'm of no interest to them.

I think this kind of thing is merely justifying and re-enforcing patriarchy in an agriculture-based tribal society carried forward in time by custom and inertia as much as by any social and psychological need or necessity.

--Brant

Assuming it's fiction used as propaganda.

Let's not forget that God can change. This is the explicit premise of Carl Jung's Answer to Job, and the implicit premise of Jack Miles' God: A Biography, both of which are extraordinary reads. There is also biblical warrant for this, although those verses make many Christians very unhappy. Some of the problems that typically arise when talking about "God" are a product of our assumption that the God who challenged Abraham is the "same" God--in every respect--as described by Mr. Schulman, or, more signficantly, who decided that Jesus was necessary.

I think that God having a learning curve is perhaps the most important character trait one can glean from reading the Bible. It not only means that God is capable of making mistakes and learning from them -- which makes God very human -- but it also means that God's type of consciousness is not categorically different from our own, which strongly suggests that being God-like in cognitive powers is what we get to be also if we work at it long enough.

Perhaps pantheism can bridge the gap. Make God reality itself, in all its manifestations.

--Brant

anyway, I don't like "atheist" as any kind of word at all

Then why call it God?

To undercut religion. I respect reality, I don't worship it. The religionists worship God, which is silly. I'd not say I believed in God, I'd just say I was a pantheist.

--Brant

cutting the legs out from under

It's interesting that in one respect my experiences match up with ones described in the Bible. When I met God he was completely uninterested in being worshiped. I don't recall God demanding worship in conversations with Abraham, Noah, or Moses. The story of the demand for the sacrifice of Isaac has always struck me that God was hoping that Abraham would tell him to go fuck himself, but when Abraham appeared lacking in the moral integrity to do so, the story as I interpret it would mean that God had so far failed to cultivate a being with an independent mind ... and he had more work to do. Perhaps some indication of that moral advancement and independence of mind is when Abraham later on argues with God about the annihilation of two cities. Abraham didn't win that argument but at least he argued that time.

Later on, Moses not only argues with God, who wants to commit mass killing, but wins the argument and talks God out of it ... and remarkably Exodus 32:14 uses the phrase "And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people."

The reason I'm bringing this up is that the Bible describes God as having a fully human personality, which was my experience as well, for what it's worth. The difference is the text of the Bible is written by authors anonymous and long gone, and I'm right here right now, writing under my own name.

I've only met one God as far as I know. If there are more, apparently I'm of no interest to them.

Since Gary York's interview with me, the full text of my book I Met God -- God Without Religion, Scripture, or Faith -- has been posted beginning at http://jneilschulman.rationalreview.com/2009/12/i-met-god-god-without-religion-scripture-or-faith/.

That might act as an adequate "follow-up question."

But if you have any, I'm here.

To start off with the questions already posed:

"For example, WHY did God (allegedly) threaten to kill Schulman?"

The threat was withdrawn when I agreed to stop setting terms to God for my continued living.

Mr. Schulman,

Here is my list of questions. TIA for your reply.

1) WHY exactly did God threaten to kill you?

2) And how precisely did that threat manifest itself?

3) Did God speak to you?

4) If yes, what words did you hear? Was it "I'm going to kill you?"

5) You sad God put his hand on your heart. Did you feel intense pressure on your chest?

6) Or was it a general feeling of possibly being "annihilated"?

7) What exactly had you been doing in the hours before the experience? Were you awakened from sleep when you had the experience?

8) Had you ingested any mood/mind altering substances before the experience?

9) Did you have experience with meditation and certain breathing techniques?

[quoting Starbuckle] "(and why didn't Schulman call the police to report Him)?" (end quote)

I called paramedics. And if I had called the police to report that God was threatening me, I risked being committed for psychiatric observation. Given that likely outcome, making the call would have been crazy. :-)

10) What did you tell the paramedics?

11) Could they find any medical symptoms?

[quoting Starbuckle] "But my main question here is whether accepting the existence of God or accepting that he had had a "psychotic break" with reality were really Schulman's only reasonable alternatives when he experienced whatever it was that he experienced. Does a strong feeling that God (whatever his nature is said to be) is communicating with you constitute evidence for a God? Or does it mean only that you are experiencing something that you can't yet explain?" (end quote)

It wasn't a feeling, any more than having a conversation is "feeling." It was a full cognitive experience in which tons of perceptual and conceptual information was passed.

12) In what form was the information passed? Did it involve language, i. e. did you hear a voice speaking to you?

And I've spent over 13 years now examining the experience -- as well as both earlier and later ones -- testing it against the rest of my life experiences, and entering into discussions with others who want to challenge it. That appears to me a rational way of dealing with an extraordinary experience and set of perceptions.

ITA about the "rational" bit.

You speak about an experience you have had.

It is impossible to prove to others that you have had the experience (as it is imposible to prove to others what one has dreamed, one can only tell them about it).

It is also impossible for others to find out whether what you tell us really happened. Again, only you will know if this is the case.

So in order to enter into a discussion, one has to make the basic decision whether to believe you or not. I've decided to believe your story.

My gut feeling lets the scales lean more to that side. Again, it is a personal feeling only.

Believing your story does not imply that I also believe it was a god who contacted you, but I believe you did not make the story up, and really did have an experience where you had the feeling of entering into contact with a god figure.

Now when we speak of "rationality" in this context, the first thought which enters my mind is how strongly Ayn Rand rejected any and kind of faith as irrational.

Excerpt from your interview with Gary York: http://www.pulpless.com/jneil/glp_imetaynrand.html

J. NEIL SCHULMAN: Interestingly, my disagreements with Objectivism as a formal philosophy are fairly minimal, partly because Rand never developed Objectivism into a full philosophical system. I find what she wrote to be true in its own context, but her context was too provincial and time-bound to encompass the possibility of an afterlife. Her dismissal of paranormal experience as sources of data about the real world negates the possibility of learning about additional continua beyond our conventional sensory experience, which is limited to local knowledge gained from our own bodily existence.

If I have more of a problem, it's not so much with Objectivism, per se, but with the cultish behavior of her admirers, who in their worship of Atlas Shrugged mirror Evangelical Christians' worship of the Bible. I also have a problem with Objectivist-influenced atheists who raise skepticism to the level of religious dogma.

But isn't the problem actually with Objectivism per se when you consider the premises on which this philosophy is based? For Objectivism is an explicitly atheistic philosophy. Atheism is one of the pillars Objectivism rests on.

Imo the gulf between Objectivism and any form of religious faith is so enormous that it is unbridgeable.

Rand was clear as a bell in her rejection of religious faith as irrational, so much in fact that she even presented what she cannot know as if she knew it, for she said "no supernatural dimension exists".

Trying to marry the premises of Objectivism with the premises of any faith in transcendence is as impossible as if one tried to marry the premises of Objectivism with those of Marxism.

Suppose there is a god and Ayn Rand got to know the god in an 'afterlife', she would have had to admit that the premises of her philosophy had been false, plain and simple. Rand would be the first to know the dramatic implication of that, since it was she herself who stressed time and again the importance of checking premises.

Imo it is impossible to save a philosophy whose founder has to realize that one of its root premises is false.

Excerpt from another interview you gave: http://www.pulpless.com/jneil/glp_imetaynrand.html

Maybe a year later [around 1980?] I [N. Schulman] phoned her [A. Rand] again. I don't know what set her off, but this phone call didn't last long. It ended with her telling me, "I despise all libertarians." Then after a pause, "Including you."

Those are the last words I ever heard from Ayn Rand.

Well. Those are the last words I heard from Ayn Rand while she was alive on earth. I've since run into Ayn Rand on the other side, in one of my dream-state crossings to the afterlife. She was a whole lot friendlier.

Next time you meet Ayn Rand "on the other side", if you would please ask her about the 'premise' thing. TIA. ;)

To Xray:

J. Neil Schulman: Since Gary York's interview with me, the full text of my book I Met God -- God Without Religion, Scripture, or Faith -- has been posted beginning at http://jneilschulman.rationalreview.com/2009/12/i-met-god-god-without-religion-scripture-or-faith/.

That might act as an adequate "follow-up question."

But if you have any, I'm here.

To start off with the questions already posed:

"For example, WHY did God (allegedly) threaten to kill Schulman?"

"The threat was withdrawn when I agreed to stop setting terms to God for my continued living."

Mr. Schulman,

Here is my list of questions. TIA for your reply.

1) WHY exactly did God threaten to kill you?

I was making living my life conditional on demands I was making through prayers and attempts at psychic control. God wanted me to stop doing that, and telling me "I can take you now" was his way of shaking me loose from my demands.

(quote)

2) And how precisely did that threat manifest itself?

3) Did God speak to you?

4) If yes, what words did you hear? Was it "I'm going to kill you?"

5) You sad God put his hand on your heart. Did you feel intense pressure on your chest?

6) Or was it a general feeling of possibly being "annihilated"?

7) What exactly had you been doing in the hours before the experience? Were you awakened from sleep when you had the experience?

8) Had you ingested any mood/mind altering substances before the experience?

9) Did you have experience with meditation and certain breathing techniques?

(/quote)

Forgive me if my answer is "Read the book." I went to the trouble of documenting all these answers in detail there and since it's already published for free on the web and I've linked it, I really don't see the utility of reprinting the material in this forum, clogging it with pasted in text.

(quote)

quoting Starbuckle: "(and why didn't Schulman call the police to report Him)?"

"I called paramedics. And if I had called the police to report that God was threatening me, I risked being committed for psychiatric observation. Given that likely outcome, making the call would have been crazy. :-)"

10) What did you tell the paramedics?

11) Could they find any medical symptoms? (/quote)

No. They said I was perfectly health.

(quote)

quoting Starbuckle "But my main question here is whether accepting the existence of God or accepting that he had had a "psychotic break" with reality were really Schulman's only reasonable alternatives when he experienced whatever it was that he experienced. Does a strong feeling that God (whatever his nature is said to be) is communicating with you constitute evidence for a God? Or does it mean only that you are experiencing something that you can't yet explain?"

It wasn't a feeling, any more than having a conversation is "feeling." It was a full cognitive experience in which tons of perceptual and conceptual information was passed.

12) In what form was the information passed? Did it involve language, i. e. did you hear a voice speaking to you? (/quote)

Part of it was an enhancement of my cognitive abilities so I could perceive things in extraordinary ways. Part of it sounded an awful lot like a conversation, except that it was all inside my head in my own voice.

(quote)And I've spent over 13 years now examining the experience -- as well as both earlier and later ones -- testing it against the rest of my life experiences, and entering into discussions with others who want to challenge it. That appears to me a rational way of dealing with an extraordinary experience and set of perceptions.

ITA about the "rational" bit.

You speak about an experience you have had.

It is impossible to prove to others that you have had the experience (as it is imposible to prove to others what one has dreamed, one can only tell them about it).

It is also impossible for others to find out whether what you tell us really happened. Again, only you will know if this is the case.

So in order to enter into a discussion, one has to make the basic decision whether to believe you or not. I've decided to believe your story.

My gut feeling lets the scales lean more to that side. Again, it is a personal feeling only.

Believing your story does not imply that I also believe it was a god who contacted you, but I believe you did not make the story up, and really did have an experience where you had the feeling of entering into contact with a god figure.(/quote)

If I can quote John Denver in the movie Oh God!, "Well he thinks he's God ... and I'm in no position to argue!"

(quote)Now when we speak of "rationality" in this context, the first thought which enters my mind is how strongly Ayn Rand rejected any and kind of faith as irrational.

Excerpt from your interview with Gary York: http://www.pulpless.com/jneil/glp_imetaynrand.html

"J. NEIL SCHULMAN: Interestingly, my disagreements with Objectivism as a formal philosophy are fairly minimal, partly because Rand never developed Objectivism into a full philosophical system. I find what she wrote to be true in its own context, but her context was too provincial and time-bound to encompass the possibility of an afterlife. Her dismissal of paranormal experience as sources of data about the real world negates the possibility of learning about additional continua beyond our conventional sensory experience, which is limited to local knowledge gained from our own bodily existence.

"If I have more of a problem, it's not so much with Objectivism, per se, but with the cultish behavior of her admirers, who in their worship of Atlas Shrugged mirror Evangelical Christians' worship of the Bible. I also have a problem with Objectivist-influenced atheists who raise skepticism to the level of religious dogma.(/quote)

But isn't the problem actually with Objectivism per se when you consider the premises on which this philosophy is based? For Objectivism is an explicitly atheistic philosophy. Atheism is one of the pillars Objectivism rests on."

Imo the gulf between Objectivism and any form of religious faith is so enormous that it is unbridgeable.

Rand was clear as a bell in her rejection of religious faith as irrational, so much in fact that she even presented what she cannot know as if she knew it, for she said "no supernatural dimension exists".

(/quote)

Rand's objections were taking things on faith without proof -- but she well knew that things axiomatic don't require proof since they are the foundation for offers of proof. That's the reason the subtitle of my book "I Met God" is "God without religion, scripture, or faith."

As for supernatural dimensions -- the word supernatural is daunting, particularly when indistinguishable from paradigms in modern physics like multiple continua and a "brane" with 11 dimensions.

(quote)

Trying to marry the premises of Objectivism with the premises of any faith in transcendence is as impossible as if one tried to marry the premises of Objectivism with those of Marxism.(/quote)

I agree. But I'm not an advocate of taking anything on mere faith.

(quote)Suppose there is a god and Ayn Rand got to know the god in an 'afterlife', she would have had to admit that the premises of her philosophy had been false, plain and simple. Rand would be the first to know the dramatic implication of that, since it was she herself who stressed time and again the importance of checking premises.

Imo it is impossible to save a philosophy whose founder has to realize that one of its root premises is false.

Excerpt from another interview you gave: http://www.pulpless.com/jneil/glp_imetaynrand.html

(quote)Maybe a year later [around 1980?] I [N. Schulman] phoned her [A. Rand] again. I don't know what set her off, but this phone call didn't last long. It ended with her telling me, "I despise all libertarians." Then after a pause, "Including you."

Those are the last words I ever heard from Ayn Rand.

Well. Those are the last words I heard from Ayn Rand while she was alive on earth. I've since run into Ayn Rand on the other side, in one of my dream-state crossings to the afterlife. She was a whole lot friendlier.

Next time you meet Ayn Rand "on the other side", if you would please ask her about the 'premise' thing. TIA. ;)

(/quote)

I'm afraid "I am only an egg" in these matters, to quote Heinlein's Valentine Michael Smith. I have a hard time initiating any of these phenomena, and limited control to navigate to particular destinations. In fact, I've woken myself up from more than one lucid dream by working too hard at attempting control.

I was an atheist from age 5 (when I first thought about it) through age 30. Then I started having higher intensity episodes of an ongoing series of extraordinary experiences. I hung on to my atheist worldview until experience forced me out of it.

Are my experiences convincing evidence to anyone but me? No. But the paradigms I've come up with do tend to refute some of the more common arguments against the possible existence of God and -- most interestingly, to me -- answer a bunch of questions that no religious scripture or tradition has ever been able to tackle. I'm sure you've read the Bible pretty much cover to cover. Find me where scripture tells us why God decided to create anything or anyone else in the first place. It's not there. But if I can present what Korzybski asked for -- an extensional definition of the word "God" -- and this definition tends to match up with some of the traditional usages of the word "God" -- isn't that useful?

I first read the Bible cover to cover while I was a sophomore in high school. It had a lot to do with starting me down the path to atheism. It was with good reason that for centuries the Catholic Church only permitted clerics to read the Bible, except with special permission.

I'm afraid I don't know what you mean by "an extensional definition" of "God."

As for your remarks about premonitions, out of body experiences, etc., I remain a resolute skeptic about such matters. This skepticism goes back well before my O'ist days to when I took up magic and studied it for nearly seven years. You will not find a more skeptical bunch than magicians, e.g., Houdini and, more recently, Randi. This skepticism comes from having witnessed, time and again, how easily people can be misled, whether by others or by themselves, and reach erroneous conclusions about events that seem patently obvious. Many attempts have been made to test paranormal claims under controlled conditions, but none that I know of has ever succeeded.

The workings of the subconscious, especially in highly intelligent and complex people, can bring about extraordinary experiences, including some valid insights. I have always been very interested in mystics -- not in the Randian sense, of course, but in the more accurate sense of people who believe they have directly experienced "God" or some transcendent reality. I find such people interesting because they tend to be very introspective, not because I agree with their conclusions. Of course, the classic work in this field is The Varieties of Religious Experience, by William James. It is a fascinating read.

Ghs

George, Korzybski used "extensional" the way Rand would have said "ostensive."

What stage magicians can duplicate is utterly beside the point unless you're accusing me of attempting to promulgate deliberate fraud.

I won't debate whether my experiences were real. I conclude for what I consider good and sufficient reason they were as real as anything else I've experienced. Nobody has to believe me, but I'm not going to be talked out of it. It would be like demanding Winston Smith lie about the number of fingers being held up. I stand by what I experienced and share them with those who are interested in the possibility that what I took out of these experiences has utility to someone other than me.

To someone like me who has led a,... err, comparatively unexciting life, the exchanges in this thread sound like some of the deeply profound thoughts that I have heard from others on occasions such as New Year's celebrations and similar events where "spirits" were plentiful (this is not a criticism).

Despite ample opportunities, I have not been the recipient of any visitations from otherworldly entities: spirits (other than the liquid kind), gods, demons, or even from UFOs . These are yet other areas where my education has been sorely lacking.

However, since many of you have been so blessed, I was wondering if, in your next conversation with paranormal and/or extraterrestrial entities, you could suggest that they come on over to visit me? ;) I am evidently not high on their "to do" list, but you could appeal to their sense of altruistic aide to the unfortunate as a reason to stop by.

Much appreciated! Thanks!

If you're actually interested, stay off the booze and other chemicals that interfere with alpha states and REM sleep, which is when enhanced perception is possible. The moments just before you fall asleep can be a good place to start. Also, as an exercise, get into a completely and utterly blacked-out room, close your eyes, and imagine a screen of blinding sunlight coming from around the back of your head into your view. This can often act as a projection screen to see things photons hitting your retina can't trigger in your brain.

GHS wrote: "My most extraordinary inner experience had nothing to do with God or religion. I have been candid about my drug use before, both on OL and other forums, so there is nothing revelatory about this story, except the details."

I am very surprised. Do you discuss the reasons for your drug use somewhere in the forums? Can you provide a link?

I can't recall if I have discussed that aspect or not. In any case, I am pushing a difficult deadline, and now is not a good time for me to be taking an unpleasant stroll down memory lane.

Although drugs contributed greatly to the crisis that set the context for my story, they were not a factor in the experience itself; i.e., it's not as if I did more drugs and felt better as a result. The remarkable physical and psychological changes that swept over me in a matter of seconds were more dramatic than any drug I had ever taken, and I have little doubt that my experience was the same as those Christians who have described the transformative experience of being "saved." Indeed, had I been religiously-minded to begin with, I would probably have attributed the cause of my experience to a supernatural agency.

With one exception that occurred in my early teens, I have never had a cathartic experience -- and this is essentially what we are dealing with here -- that was so intense. Granted, there were some memorable orgasms, and I may even have shouted "Oh, God!" during some of them, but I don't know if they count.

George, just for the record, my own experiences have had nothing to do with ingestion of mind, consciousness, or mood altering chemicals. One of them may have been triggered by a natural physiological condition involving hyperketosis and dehydration -- conditions traditionally present in "40 days in the desert" or in the thin air of Mount Sinai.

While a very young and very devout Christian, I would occasionally awake during the middle of the night and see Jesus standing next to my bed. Complete with halo and a white robe, he looked exactly like a standard painting I had seen countless times. I remember wondering when Jesus posed for the portrait and who painted it.

Ghs

Psychics often report -- and I can reify from my own experiences -- that a lot of extraordinary communication is the triggering of stored memories. Repetitions of these triggerings create associations which become a symbolic "vocabulary" so that eventually you can plug them into a context.

And this should not be surprising, since memory and sensory triggers can be duplicated by small electrical charges to various parts of the brain.

So, your seeing Jesus as portrayed in a painting you'd seen countless times would be precisely how someone attempting to communicate with you through extraordinary cognition might start the conversation.

Jneil, thanks for joining this discussion. I haven't read your longer exposition yet but will try to do so soon.

Thanks! :-)

God could not answer my question about why the consciousness of the universe as a whole, if it could be said to be conscious, would be so hard to perceive that it would require a special experience to do so. As individuals we have no direct awareness of any awareness but our own, but we have no trouble inferring consciousness in other human beings and animals.

I think lots of people have direct awareness of other's awareness, except that when it first occurs in childhood children are usually told it's unreal and they are taught to screen it out rather than learn how to enhance and develop it as a cognitive tool. I think the same thing happens with dreams -- we're taught to regard them as always unreal so most people never make an effort to remember or examine them, or to pursue lucid dreaming in which extraordinary perception becomes trainable.

If the consciousness permeating the universe as a whole is so very different from our own awareness (weaker than it? more furtive than it?) that it cannot be detected except under very special circumstances, can it really be said to be consciousness?

I don't think it is different from our own. I think it's what our own cognitive abilities can be trained into.

Why would its manifestations not be readily observable by those who lack the same extraordinary experiences that you and others have reported?

Limitations on sensory abilities is quite common. Lots of people have no sense of smell, or are tone deaf, or color blind; some people are myopic. I had 40/20 eyesight into my 40's; my father had perfect pitch. Part of it may be genetic differences; but I think a lot of it is that even people with high sensitive potential for what's considered extraordinary cognition are conditioned out of it.

Do you know/have any opinion about James's book on religious experiences? Here's a passage that I happened upon more or less at random but which seems relevant in which James compares conversion to psychological maturation. Is anything detailed below have parallels in your own experience? (I added a couple paragraph breaks that are not in the text.)

"Formed associations of ideas and habits are usually factors of retardation in such changes of equilibrium. New information, however acquired, plays an accelerating part in the changes; and the slow mutation of our instincts and propensities, under the 'unimaginable touch of time' has an enormous influence. Moreover, all these influences may work subconsciously or half unconsciously. And when you get a Subject in whom the subconscious life -- of which I must speak more fully soon -- is largely developed, and in whom motives habitually ripen in silence, you get a case of which you can never give a full account, and in which, both to the Subject and the onlookers, there may appear an element of marvel. Emotional occasions, especially violent ones, are extremely potent in precipitating mental rearrangements. The sudden and explosive ways in which love, jealousy, guilt, fear, remorse, or anger can seize upon one are known to everybody. Hope, happiness, security, resolve, emotions characteristic of conversion, can be equally explosive. And emotions that come in this explosive way seldom leave things as they found them.

"Jouffroy is an example: 'Down this slope it was that my intelligence had glided, and little by little it had got far from its first faith. But this melancholy revolution had not taken place in the broad daylight of my consciousness; too many scruples, too many guides and sacred affections had made it dreadful to me, so that I was far from avowing to myself the progress it had made. It had gone on in silence, by an involuntary elaboration of which I was not the accomplice; and although I had in reality long ceased to be a Christian, yet, in the innocence of my intention, I should have shuddered to suspect it, and thought it calumny had I been accused of such a falling away.' Then follows Jouffroy's account of his counter-conversion, quoted above on p. 173. One hardly needs examples; but for love, see p. 176, note, for fear, p. 161; for remorse, see Othello after the murder; for anger see Lear after Cordelia's first speech to him; for resolve, see p. 175 (J. Foster case).

"Here is a pathological case in which guilt was the feeling that suddenly exploded: 'One night I was seized on entering bed with a rigor, such as Swedenborg describes as coming over him with a sense of holiness, but over me with a sense of guilt. During that whole night I lay under the influnce of the rigor, and from its inception I felt that I was under the curse of God. I have never done one act of duty in my life -- sins against God and man beginning as far as my memory goes back -- a wildcat in human shape.'

"In his recent work on the Psychology of Religion, Professor Starbuck of California has shown by a statistical inquiry how closely parallel in its manifestations the ordinary 'conversion' which occurs in young people brought up in evangelical circles is to that growth into a larger spiritual life which is a normal phase of adolescence in every class of human beings. The age is the same, falling usually between fourteen and seventeen. The symptoms are the same, -- sense of incompleteness and imperfection; brooding, depression, morbid introspection, and sense of sin; anxiety about the hereafter; distress over doubts, and the like. And the result is the same -- a happy relief and objectivity, as the confidence in self gets greater through the adjustment of the faculties to the wider outlook. In spontaneous religious awakening, apart from revivalistic examples, and in the ordinary storm and stress and moulting-time of adolescence, we also may meet with mystical experiences, astonishing the subjects by their suddenness, just as in revivalistic conversion. The analogy, in fact, is complete; and Starbuck's conclusion as to these ordinary youthful conversions would seem to be the only sound one: Conversion is in its essence a normal adolescent phenomenon, incidental to the passage from the child's small universe to the wider intellectual and spiritual life of maturity.

Yeah, well, the experiences that ended my atheism were in my 30's.

" 'Theology,' says Dr. Starbuck, 'takes the adolescent tendencies and builds upon them; it sees that the essential thing in adolescent growth is bringing the person out of childhood into the new life of maturity and personal insight. It accordingly brings those means to bear which will intensify the normal tendencies. It shortens up the period of duration of storm and stress.' The conversion phenomena of 'conviction of sin' last, by this investigator's statistics, about one fifth as long as the periods of adolescent storm and stress phenomena of which he also got statistics, but they are very much more intense. Bodily accompaniments, loss of sleep and appetite, for example, are much more frequent in them. 'The essential distinction appears to be that conversion intensifies but shortens the period by bringing the person to a definite crisis.' "

http://bit.ly/gQ4vh5 [a Virginia.edu etext site]

###

I can only speak to my own experiences, but they don't appear to match up with those described above.

Neil,

I check your website now and then, and your career appears to be running on all cylinders. My congratulations.

Thanks!

"During my early years as a Christian (up to age 13 or so), I had numerous 'religious experiences,' including some that were extremely vivid and included far more than a feeling. Many atheists I know, including a former Baptist minister of nearly 20 years, have reported similar experiences to me.

"I therefore don't doubt the subjective reality of such experiences in many cases, and I understand why they seem so compelling to those who have them, but their evidential value for the existence of God is zilch."

George, I haven't had anything I'd classify as a "religious" experience. But I've had numerous experiences which I'd classify as extraordinary. Some of these experiences, such as out-of-body travels, have allowed me to see things I was able to verify by checking our things that I've never seen or known of by conventional means, and finding out they they were real. On another occasion what I'd classify as a supernatural auditory experience was heard not only by me but by my mother.

What makes my "God" experiences useful is that they conveyed information to me, some of which I haven't been able to verify, but some of which I have. The nature of the experiences themselves have also conveyed a lot of information.

Now, science is based primarily on taking in and evaluating perceptions. There are rules of thumb, but if you run into data that diminishes a paradigm, you don't say, "I don't like the data because of my paradigm." You become more skeptical of the paradigm. I'm not the only person who has ever claimed extraordinary experiences or we wouldn't even have common descriptive language for them. So if I regard data I've accumulated from sources that others don't even consider data, I consider that I'm not the one being irrational about it.

I was an atheist from age 5 (when I first thought about it) through age 30. Then I started having higher intensity episodes of an ongoing series of extraordinary experiences. I hung on to my atheist worldview until experience forced me out of it.

Are my experiences convincing evidence to anyone but me? No. But the paradigms I've come up with do tend to refute some of the more common arguments against the possible existence of God and -- most interestingly, to me -- answer a bunch of questions that no religious scripture or tradition has ever been able to tackle. I'm sure you've read the Bible pretty much cover to cover. Find me where scripture tells us why God decided to create anything or anyone else in the first place. It's not there. But if I can present what Korzybski asked for -- an extensional definition of the word "God" -- and this definition tends to match up with some of the traditional usages of the word "God" -- isn't that useful?

"As for your premonition about your grandfather's death, you would be hard-pressed to find someone who has not had a similar experience. One problem here is that we tend to forget the premonitions that don't pan out."

I have a very good memory, George. It wasn't one premonition. It was a series of them which validated on the same day I had them. And not on other days. But this is hardly the only psychic or precognitive experience I've had. If I have any failing of memory, it's that they're so common for me that I can't even remember them all. But I agree: most people have premonitions one time or another. It's just that they learn to dismiss them.

"I'm confused about something. As I recall, you and I had some arguments about 'the existence God not long after we first met in 1975. Yet, having looked through your book, I Met God, I got the impression that your "conversion" to theism occurred years later. Since I only skimmed some parts of your book, I could have gotten the wrong impression, but I distinctly recall your pressing me to read C.S. Lewis not long after we met."

In 1975 when we first met I was a firm atheist and would say I was until late 1983, when I'd say I became an agnostic about four years. I wouldn't say I was a theist until 1988. To tell you the truth, I think the best description of me is that I'm an atheist still -- except that I've met God and regard the experience as real. But I am no less skeptical about human-invented religions, and their scriptures, than I ever was.

I recommended C.S. Lewis to you because his book Miracles raised epistemological points that I thought spoke to your own writings.

"Btw, do you keep in touch with Vic Koman? I sometimes wonder what he has been up to these days. It's not every day that I become the basis for a fictional character (the Atheist of Van Ness) in a novel. "

Ghs

I'm now living in Nevada and Vic is still in Orange County, CA, so I rarely see him anymore. As well, Vic began to feel that his immersion in libertarian ideas diminished his life, and he's become more-or-less of a mainstream Republican, maybe even tending towards being a Neocon. But Vic has always been pretty cagey (I think he got this from his readings of Crowley) so he's still publishing and selling books by Sam Konkin and "Vote for Nobody" buttons. But I don't think he believes in much of it anymore, which is one reason I don't think we've had a new novel from him.

Neil

God shared so much--but Neil isn't passing it along. It might as well be, "Jesus saves, Jesus saves, Jesus saves his money in the First National Bank!"

--Brant

http://jneilschulman.rationalreview.com/2009/12/i-met-god-god-without-religion-scripture-or-faith/

Enough sharing for you?

And Jesus saves at the Banco Espírito Santo in Portugal. They gave him a toaster when he opened his account. You know, for his loaves. :-)

http://www.pulpless.com/jneil/libertarianprophet.html

[Does Schulman believe that the supernatural realm, evidence of which he allegedly received directly from God, has the power to intermittently repeal the law of identity in the natural realm?]

No.

http://www.pulpless.com/jneil/libertarianprophet.html

The lack of certain follow-up questions is a little frustrating in Gary YOrk's interview with SF writer and publisher J. Neil Schulman. For example, WHY did God (allegedly) threaten to kill Schulman (and why didn't Schulman call the police to report Him)? WHAT did Schulman learn during the time that he (allegedly) shared God's super-cognitive powers?

But my main question here is whether accepting the existence of God or accepting that he had had a "psychotic break" with reality were really Schulman's only reasonable alternatives when he experienced whatever it was that he experienced. Does a strong feeling that God (whatever his nature is said to be) is communicating with you constitute evidence for a God? Or does it mean only that you are experiencing something that you can't yet explain?

From the interview:

GARY YORK: Neil, you say you met God. What exactly do you mean by that?

J. NEIL SCHULMAN: God didn't call me for an appointment in an office building like in Oh God! or Bruce Almighty. But I've had two distinct waking experiences where I can say with confidence that I encountered God's presence.

The first time I recognize for sure was on April 15, 1988 when God put his hand on my heart and threatened to kill me.

The second encounter was February 18, 1997, when God merged his own consciousness with my own for the better part of a day, and for that short time let me share his own mind and superhuman cognitive powers.

Both were life-changing experiences, and when my abstract skepticism came up against my actual experience, I could either conclude that I was out of my mind or eventually accept the reality of it. After a thorough analysis of my previous life's experiences, and later experiences that lent validation, I concluded that the reality was that what had happened to me were really encounters with God -- therefore proving God's existence to me -- and that sanity would lie not in denying the truth of my experience by dismissing it as a psychotic break but in embracing the reality of it, maintaining my rational faculties, and proceeding accordingly.

[schulman also contends that Randian-style rationalism is consistent with accepting the existence and lawfulness of a supernatural realm. of a supernatural realm. Does Schulman believe that the supernatural realm, evidence of which he allegedly received directly from God, has the power to intermittently repeal the law of identity in the natural realm?]

GARY YORK: You once were a rationalist; you claim that you remain a rationalist. How, as someone who now believes in God, a supernatural entity, can you simultaneously espouse a belief in the supremacy of reason?

J. NEIL SCHULMAN: Because I don't believe the supernatural is unreal, therefore reason can eventually discern supernatural operations and supernatural laws.

More of Jneil's god-notions in this exclamation-strewn writeup:

http://www.weeklyuniverse.com/2003/godexists.htm

###

Since Gary York's interview with me, the full text of my book I Met God -- God Without Religion, Scripture, or Faith -- has been posted beginning at http://jneilschulman.rationalreview.com/2009/12/i-met-god-god-without-religion-scripture-or-faith/.

That might act as an adequate "follow-up question."

But if you have any, I'm here.

To start off with the questions already posed:

"For example, WHY did God (allegedly) threaten to kill Schulman?"

The threat was withdrawn when I agreed to stop setting terms to God for my continued living.

"(and why didn't Schulman call the police to report Him)?"

I called paramedics. And if I had called the police to report that God was threatening me, I risked being committed for psychiatric observation. Given that likely outcome, making the call would have been crazy. :-)

"WHAT did Schulman learn during the time that he (allegedly) shared God's super-cognitive powers?"

Some of that is answered in the Gary York interview; much more in the book. You have the links; there's no point my clogging this forum with reprints.

"But my main question here is whether accepting the existence of God or accepting that he had had a "psychotic break" with reality were really Schulman's only reasonable alternatives when he experienced whatever it was that he experienced. Does a strong feeling that God (whatever his nature is said to be) is communicating with you constitute evidence for a God? Or does it mean only that you are experiencing something that you can't yet explain?"

It wasn't a feeling, any more than having a conversation is "feeling." It was a full cognitive experience in which tons of perceptual and conceptual information was passed.

And I've spent over 13 years now examining the experience -- as well as both earlier and later ones -- testing it against the rest of my life experiences, and entering into discussions with others who want to challenge it. That appears to me a rational way of dealing with an extraordinary experience and set of perceptions.