Introduction
I used to call myself atheist in the way people usually
refer to the word, as religionless. I have never
called myself religious, not even when I was younger and was
constantly punished in school for not telling the teacher
I believed in god when asked. Now, if someone would ask
me if I believed in the existence of gods, I would not answer no, I would
answer that the entire question is absurd to me. This
document will try to explain what I wish to say with me
explaining my experiences.
I grew up in a home quite unaffected of religious belief
or ideology, which laid a clean table for some of my
life's explorations. On the contrary, I have experienced
a kindergarten and schools in which religious tradition
and belief have been very present, although to a varying
degree. I took religion class like pretty much everyone
else until I was 9 or 10, after which an alternative was
presented. This alternative was unlike religion class, not a
class in which traditions and tales were told to be
remembered as is, but rather a class that's purpose was
to make people look inward and study religions and
philosophies from a distance. In Finnish, the subject is
called "Elämänkatsomus", which roughly translates into
"Life Stance". The subject is taught differently in different schools,
but usually from the first year of elementary school
until the pupil ends his/hers studies. If one proceeds to
secondary school(age 16 'til 18), the subject is also
taught, but more like philosophy or ethics, although
these subjects coexist in parallel during secondary
school. This balance between living religious traditions
and living a world without them, has been very valuable
to my personal growth, as I see it. This has allowed me
to explore the depths of many realms of mankind from an
outside perspective. Yet, I have later in life concluded
that there were, and still are, some blind spots I have
to work on. It is also about these blind spots of
mankind that I am to discuss in this document.
During my life, I have mostly been aware of that there
are some differences between me and many people in my
surroundings. Since very young, I have found tremendous
interest in things like problem solving, languages and
history. I was also always fascinated about natural
sciences, especially astronomy, which continue to be in
my interest even today.
At one point of my life, I set out to attempt to make
myself religious intentionally, just to see whether it
was possible or not. I also had the eager intention of
finding reason within religion, and wondered how
religious people thought. I started studying the material
of many religions, both large and small. I noted that there
were some very unifying factors in the writings of these
religions. These include among others The Bible(latin; book)
and The Bhagavad Gita(sanskrit; divine song).
During my explorations into these realms, I came to
identify some factors among the believers and their
traditions. In many religions, it seems that there has
been a ritual use of entheogens that has long vanished.
For the Vedic and Indo-Iranians, this is usually refered
to as the Soma. The etymology behind the word might be
interpreted as "the pressed out", perhaps in the meaning
of a juice. What this legendary drink was made of is
unclear, but it has been speculated that it was something
we today call a psychedelic mushroom, cannabis or some
other intoxicating substance. If it is to be a mushroom,
the main candidate is supposedly the red fly agaric,
amanita muscaria. Amanita muscaria has a very widespread
tradition of ritual use as an entheogen in the parts of
the world where it grows in the wild, and is considered
much more visionary than cannabis, which in normal doses
does not produce hallucinations or trancelike states.
It is to be noted that Amanita Muscaria does not grow, at
least in greater quantity, in india in modern times. Yet,
if we are to recon the ice ages, it might be that the
temperature in northern India has been suitable for the
growth of Amanita muscaria about 3000-4000 years ago,
which is seen as the Vedic period.~
The bible does not clearly state in any form that the
universe was created by this being that the creation
tells of. This is entirely an interpretetation that some
believers have come to, from the stating that god in the
creation created the sky and the earth. That is, it
relies entirely upon this part of the entire book.
It is easily to read the tale of creation simply, as the first realization of man that there is an external world separate from her. And it suddenly makes more sense, science-wise.
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