Does that mean that I can't find God until I do?

How does one go about creating a religious experience that is truly in touch with God?

“I as I think” must
Be absent for “I as I
Am” to be present.

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The "I as I am" is what can be "in touch with God" as you put it.

To realize what that haiku means is lesson 1-100...

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So, be still; It's within you.

As an aid to understanding the above, sit and relax and just breathe for awhile. Focus on the breath and don't take up any thought. Notice the two states: the habitual state where one's mind is going blah blah blah all day. And the one where you are not taking any thought. It's in the still state of the latter where one might find the presence of God. Experiment. Observe. Awaken. Realize. Rinse-repeat.

Trinity of corn, blue deer and peyote

I've been in this state quite often. In fact, I've been in this state after almost every time I play a soccer match. After the game, my body and brain are so exhausted that usually, I can't even string a thought together so I just zone out for a bit as you describe above. I have however, never had a religious or spiritual experience either.

Any other way to induce a religious experience?

I've had magic mushroom trips, but I wouldn't describe those experiences as spiritual or religious. Just different.

Somewhat similar, yes. Also, everyone sleeps and "takes no thought" during that time also. If you are familiar with that state, enter it with a bit of intent and stay there.

I think the main differentiator between those who have had a religious experience and those who have not is faith. For example, we all know that someone who has a ghost story. Isn't it peculiar that for those (such as myself) who don't believe in ghosts, have never seen, heard or felt a ghosts presence?

My point is that faith comes first, experience follows. Hence, the issue me, and other scientifically-inclined people have with this, is that we're genuinely looking for evidence of God and not finding anything. We're not cherry-picking evidence to fit with our pre-existing beliefs like those who already believe and then go looking for evidence. We're looking for evidence without any cloud of bias (faith).

Ultimately, if you already had faith in God's existence prior to having a religious experience, then you weren't really looking for evidence, all you were doing is cherry-picking data to confirm your pre-existing beliefs.

Well, you certainly need to be open to It. I will grant you (only) that much.

But, without commenting on the substance of your post, if you are genuinely looking for God and you see reports of "faith" coming first for those who experience God, what prevents you from experimenting with this "faith" thing? Because it's a 'cloud of bias?'

I, for one, don't think I can do faith. Not honestly anyway.

Because I'd be lying to myself. How can I have faith in an answer to a question, before having any evidence of that answer - without lying to myself?

It's like asking me to experiment with having faith in ghosts, just so I can experience the presence of ghosts in my house...

Hmmm. I don't know. Quite a pickle you are in. You could wrestle with it for a few more years, I suppose.

Or, keep on keepin' on. You never know, you might be the one to find God using the "scientific" methods you are using. And then you could tell the millions who came before you and didn't find God where they went wrong.

This just occurred to me. What's wrong with you experimenting like so:

Hypothesis: By affirming that God is and then looking within--being still in the state of no-mind--a spiritual experience occurs (eventually).

Sure you and the scientifically minded folk are cherry picking and relying on faith, if faith is defined as believing without evidence. For instance, you believe in an external objective reality, but an external objective reality is an unverifiable assumption. So your entire worldview is grounded in an assumption you can’t provide evidence for, and you cherry pick that assumption to fit along with your pre-existing belief. So if that’s not cherry picking, it’s at least the pot calling the kettle black.

do you have faith that we are not plugged into a perfectly unfalsifiable Matrix? Ya ya I know we ought to say "I don't believe X" not " I believe not X" and ha we should form beliefs with an inductive basis okay I get it and am happy to spout it to every religious person who comes by. But really, I believe probaby about as strongly as any religious person believes in god that we are NOT plugged into the matrix and am quite content with saying my emotional predilection is towards strong matrix atheism if you will.

Maybe that is just my crazy side talking, I don't know, but I think many of us do take proportions like this on faith.

Here we go again. Haven't we been over this?

Your belief system is not functional. It derives no useful predictions and it does nothing useful, except for tell us about how little we know. I refuse to entertain your ontological belief system.

I'm unsure why you consider yourself to have an emotion predilection towards towards strong matrix atheism. I don't consider, for instance, the matrix scenario to be any more grandiose or strange than the God scenario, so what's the difference?

Actually the bold is incorrect in general. I cannot speak for Duffee but the theistic belief system typically predicts that there is an afterlife and that your fate in that afterlife is in some way dependent on how you use this life.

How is this useful or functional? *I* will not exist, in any meaningful way, after death. It will (presumably) not be *me* that will experience an afterlife, so how is this prediction useful to *me*?

You can prove that? If not, it is an element of your belief system which is different from the typical theistic system. Therefore it does not apply.

Well, first define the *I* that is going to heaven, so I can see if we're talking about the same thing.

That which you essentially are is immortal. That aspect lives on. The body doesn't live on. The conditioned thinking doesn't live on. A reason you don't know this stuff right now, is because of what is going on in your head; you are attaching to and identifying with the conditioned thinking and that is forming an illusory self which you believe you are.

Take no thought; don't attach, don't identify; what remains? Don't attempt to logically work it out. Do it. What remains? Experiment. Experience. Realize. More haiku from Richard Hay (pdf):

The only way I
Can be other than I am
Is by thinking so.

Perfect knowledge lies
In being that which I am—
Without taking thought.

Thinking collapses
Man’s potential for divine
Conscious awareness.

Separation from
An Absolute God is a
Product of belief.

Thinking and knowing
Are mutually exclusive
States of awareness.

If you believe in god, certain experiences that you know are due to certain things, dehydration, drugs, an overactive imagination, etc, can be attributed to god. So in a sense I agree that it takes a belief in god to experience god.

Lol. I will take that as a concession.

LOL. I will take that as a concession.

If you're unwilling to defend how it is, in a meaningful way, *you* that makes it into heaven, then fine. Just don't pretend this is an automatically rational presupposition.