By virtue of our place in history, we simply know more about the world and the way things work than every generation that came before us. There was no Golden Age, the ancients were not privy to divine secrets of which we are ignorant. Every single piece of evidence found throughout human history points to the fact that we have superseded every creation myth and every view of the natural word that were once thought to be universal truths. These facts are not to be ignored, they exist in reality whether you like it or not.
There is no book of divine commandments, ancient spiritual leaders didn't know more than we do, God didn't directly meddle in human affairs for a couple thousand years and then suddenly stop. The fact that people across all faiths can have and have had deeply spiritual and life-changing experiences proves, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the individual precepts of those religions are wrong. Under the right set of circumstances, a Christian is just as likely as a Muslim or a Hindu to have a once-in-a-lifetime spiritual experience. There are certain practices where focusing the mind can lead to a feeling of oneness with everything; I don't doubt that the plasticity of the human mind easily allows for such experiences.
That someone has such an experience in no way suggests that the precepts of their religious faith are thereby justified as true. Your mind may be particularly labile and allow you to experience consciousness in a way that others can't. Again, I don't say these things are not possible, and you can even go on calling them 'religious experiences' if you wish; but they are no such thing. They are 'Human Experiences'. And that, to me, is far more beautiful and compelling than ascribing it to metaphysics or the supernatural.
There is no book of divine commandments, ancient spiritual leaders didn't know more than we do, God didn't directly meddle in human affairs for a couple thousand years and then suddenly stop. The fact that people across all faiths can have and have had deeply spiritual and life-changing experiences proves, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the individual precepts of those religions are wrong. Under the right set of circumstances, a Christian is just as likely as a Muslim or a Hindu to have a once-in-a-lifetime spiritual experience. There are certain practices where focusing the mind can lead to a feeling of oneness with everything; I don't doubt that the plasticity of the human mind easily allows for such experiences.
That someone has such an experience in no way suggests that the precepts of their religious faith are thereby justified as true. Your mind may be particularly labile and allow you to experience consciousness in a way that others can't. Again, I don't say these things are not possible, and you can even go on calling them 'religious experiences' if you wish; but they are no such thing. They are 'Human Experiences'. And that, to me, is far more beautiful and compelling than ascribing it to metaphysics or the supernatural.
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