Are PSYCHEDELICS A RELIGIOUS Experience? Jordan Peterson, Consciousness, GOD, Institutions, ATHEISM
Here’s the link for my Patreon page:
Newest Mindgasms Podcast with my friends Perker and Shane Kennedy about psychedelics and religion. Parker has joined many podcasts, book chats and a debate with me. Shane is an Orthodox Christian. Both are huge Jordan Peterson fans, while I am fairly critical of some of his views on certain subjects like philosophy and religion. Parker and I have used psychedelics and had transcendent experiences with them. We talk about how they feel religious, the history of ritual psychedelic use as religious sacraments, along with how Jordan Peterson is far from the first person who has looked at them in a religious way. We also discuss what both psychedelics and religion can make us contemplate about consciousness and God, whether religion is required for transcendence, along with whether institutions are required for religion. What does transencendce through psychedelics mean for the belief in a god, and atheism? We get into how Jordan Peterson proclaiming that no one is an atheist relies on his own personal and incredibly broad definition of God as well, along with what these terms in addition to religion mean in relation to psychedelics.
Check out my last Mindgasms Podcast with my friends Reid Nicewonder, who uses the Socratic Method to ask people questions about their beliefs on his Youtube channel called Cordial Curiosity, along with Shane Kennedy, a Protestant Christian. Reid uses street epistemology on his channel, which is similar to the Socratic Method, in attempts to find out the reasons behind people’s beliefs about controversial topics like religion, politics and culture. Even though I am an atheist, Shane and I debate/talk with Reid about our shared opinion that street epistemology has its own baked in biases and faith claims, even though it is meant to highlight those in other people. Street epistemologists like Reid present themselves as neutral, and they do appear to be that way. But Shane and I agree that perhaps street epistemologists are not aware, or at least see no problem with, the way they frame issues and what questions they ask. The underlying philosophy that is rarely or never acknowledged is seeing rationalism, empiricism and being non-religious as superior. These are faith claims and biases in themselves, which are never questioned. Shane and I want to know why it’s apparently so important for religious or political beliefs, conspiracy theories, or new age fringe subjects like astrology to be proven empirically, or adhered to only for rational reasons. Also, why is it supposedly better to be non-religious than it is to be religious? Why are these biases never or at least rarely highlighted by street epistemologists? Perhaps these faith claims and biases are often not noticed because street epistemology was first put forward by the philosopher named Peter Boghossian in his book called “A Manual for Creating Atheists.” It was also continued in the less anti-religious “How to Have Impossible Conversations,”, co-written by James Lindsay, who is a militant atheist as well, and wrote a very anti-religious book called “Everybody is Wrong About God.”
Check out my last Mindgasms podcast with my friend, Parker, on socialism. He thinks that it could lead to the extinction of the human race, and that every socialist economy/government in history has failed. I wouldn’t call myself a Socialist, but I think that it has some merits. So, on the face of it, claiming that it always fails and will lead to extinction sounds patently ridiculous to me. However, in order to understand each other properly, we start off with Parker’s reasons for these claims, along with his definition of socialism. We then go from there, including possible pros and cons of it, and many other aspects of this subject.
Check out my playlist with every Mindgasms Debate so far:
