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Originally posted by mytym
Opinion Are Not Facts
The Mind in the Cave by David Lewis-Williams published by Thames & Hudson;
I am not alone in emphasizing the importance of making sense of altered states of consciousness in the genesis of religion.
Peter Furst, then a research associate of the Harvard Botanical Museum, wrote, 'It is at least possible' though certainly not provable, that the practice of shamanism...may have involved from the first- that is, the very beginnings of religion itself- the psychedelic potential of the natural environment.
Without stressing the use of psychotropic plants to alter consciousness,James McClenon sums up the matter: Shamanism, the result of cultural adaptation to biologically based altered states of consciousness is the origin of all later religious forms.
And Weston La Barre came to the same conclusion: 'All the dissociative 'altered states of consciousness'- hallucination, trance, possession, vision, sensory deprivation and especially the REM-state dream- apart from their cultural contexts and symbolic content, are essentially the same psychic states found everywhere among mankind;...shamanism or direct contact with the supernatural in these states...is the de facto source of all revelation, and ultimately of all religions'.
I'm all for freedom of speech and members expressing their opinions, regardless of the contrast to my own, but disguising opinions, assumptions, beliefs or anything else subjective as objective facts is something I cannot stand for or remain silent about.
It's happening far too often and something needs to be done about it, especially when these "facts in disguise" are being used to prove a subjective point of view.
Originally posted by mytym
I know it may seem like pointing out the obvious to many of you, but as is even evidenced here on this thread by one poster at least, there are those of you that still cannot grasp this concept. Sad, but true, I'm afraid.