RE: The "God" Part of the Brain, by Matthew Alper
January 6, 2024 at 12:41 pm
(This post was last modified: January 6, 2024 at 12:42 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
I think that perceptions of ineffability are more likely statements of frustration or exasperation than attributes of the experience. We’re saying “I don’t have the words” not that there are no words. There are piles of authors in every literary culture describing the sense of the numinous, and no shortage of words spoken in oral cultures on the same. Experientially and anecdotally, I think we can make some observations about drug induced states and religious states….if/when they’re not the same. I know from use that some drugs or combinations of drugs can produce the feeling in my own experience, and the two are joined at the hip with respect to the history of spiritualist belief. Both explicitly in tradition and practice, and as a matter of hard archaeological evidence.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
