What are some books that awakened you spiritually? When did you realize that science can't solve all of our problems?

the law of one gave me a mini mystical experience

MAGA Mindset

>books that got me out of my euphoric phase... greeks and indians
Such as...?

the Torah
then going to Israel and visiting Jerusalem, touching the Wailing Wall

Stryer Biochemistry and Lewis cell biology

Evolution across a billion years doesn't cut it for me.

>When did you realize that science can't solve all of our problems?

That's a pretty low bar for being "awakened"

What are you now?

Tell me more about how enlightened you are.

A pompous faggot.

Honestly it wasn't a book but the degeneration of society or what over time becomes socially acceptable. The cess-pools, and the decrepitude of the people that inhabit them, nevertheless the attitudes of the people who allow them to be created/who create them. Places that might literally be considered as "hell on Earth". I figure if we can manifest such torments as some people do or later people expose themselves to, thus proliferating such conditions; if we can veritably create hell on Earth, then maybe there's something to creating a veritable "Heaven" on Earth, or something close to it. That maybe what is said in these old books isn't actually all for nothing or mere superstition, that there might be some wisdom to it that our more modern strict rationality condemns because it isn't in terms that we can any longer relate to. That's what led me to the books, not that the books led me to God. God might as well be an ideal, a divine ordinance under which things can illumine sanctity. And such people who manifest the will of this ordinance are the personality types that achieve through good-will their admittance to enlightenment, to Heaven if you will: which is why Heaven is considered as a place that is "perfect," because it's only occupied by people who had a righteous moral constitution. And so if I want these things, what should I do? I certainly shouldn't follow secular "morality" because that is constantly metamorphosizing according to whatever ephemeral value of the moment. I need an objective moral compass, and the prerequisite axiom for that is God.

>BE ME
>Sophomore year of high school
>Teacher tells the class "Everyone who thinks science will solve most of our problems, stand to the left of me. Anyone who thinks otherwise, stand to the right of me"
>I go to the right of her without really thinking too much about it
>The rest of the class goes to the left of her

It was weird.

Didn't even read past the first sentence. Please go back to pol.

>Honestly it wasn't a book but the degeneration of society or what over time becomes socially acceptable. The cess-pools, and the decrepitude of the people that inhabit them
youtube.com/watch?v=ytdEYapPXdY#t=8s

The only book (besides the Bible) that influenced my spirituality was Dostoievski's Brothers Karamazov. Despite being Eastern Euro and baptized Orthodox, I had a relatively secular upbringing. Never read the Bible, never went to church besides Easter, family were not overly religious. I never really cared much for religion throughout my adolescence, I thought going to church was for old ladies. That book made me begin to reconsider spirituality.

Started with "Advanced Magick For Beginners" by Alan Chapman. Got into Wicca for a bit but eventually turned to Islam and am going to convert once I finish the Quran. Also read some shit on Hermeticism, Gnosticism, and Jung but not too much. It's really saved my life I'd say.

Ah, so you could have just said you're a Petersonite instead of getting us to read all that crap

lol

>t. Jordan Peterson

It baffles me how people can just choose to convert to a religion when they know that all religions are human inventions and none of them provide adequate windows into the capital-T Truth.

...

Do you really think devoted muslims and christians "know" this?

Yes, especially if they "converted" from atheism.

Come on man, I thought it was religous people who routinely demonstrate an absence of theory of mind with that "who are you to judge God" crap. You ought to realize that no religious person has functional knowledge that his religion is unsubstantiated.

What do you mean? I've never read anything by him.

I got this book after seeing it on infographics. 2bh the title just sounded cool to me. It blew me away. I realized that prior to reading it, I had no concept of the depth of theology. Fast forward to now and I'm a catechumen in the Orthodox Church.

He often shills Dostoevsky and the Bible.

Imagine being this easy to influence.

Feels good man.

How long from reading that did you become a catechumen?

I was made a catechumen about a year after reading it. I did a lot of studying and attended church sporadically over that period.

Anna Karenina and Crime and Punishment

One of a kind book.

The Kingdom of Heaven can never be realized on Earth due to Man's imperfection. It's doctrine is as alien to Man as Day is to Night. The utopia of Earth created by Man can only be brought forth by a dystopian mechanism.

So I heard there was this cool new little book called the Quran...

>Now I'm like, well, I wouldn't say I'm, like, SUPER religious, but I'm, like, kinda spiritual now. Like, open to divine, like, possibilities, ya know? r-read Plato and you'll kinda get it, ya know?
Why does half of Veeky Forums feel the need to do this shit? Being an atheist doesn't instantly mean you're a disciple of scientism.

Then what happened?

...

The Seven Storey Mountain
The Brothers Karamazov
The Sword of Honor trilogy
Brideshead Revisited

It's a need to feel pompous and superior to other people in order to compensate for their insecurities.

Sounds about right

>choosing Quran when Book of Mormon is the true sequel to Jesus
youtube.com/watch?v=lVYD4I8dzRg

Reading Plato really is a shock to the system for a lot of young men encountering philosophy for the first time in university. I don't expect them to be able to put the experience into words. Your take, that they're all affecting a Plato-based spirituality because they don't want to be atheists, is bizarre. And even if that were the case, what's wrong with that? Almost the entire world rejects atheism.

As tempting as living in a white ethnostate, getting hooked up with a nice white virgin qt3.14, and job security may be, I don't think I can handle that much cognitive dissonance on a daily basis.

God bless you man, I've recently made a similar journey into the Catholic Church myself. Going to a Christian uni and making Christian friends went a long way.

>Your take, that they're all affecting a Plato-based spirituality because they don't want to be atheists, is bizarre
Its not at all, its exactly whats happened across this board over the past year. Most people here have been through their smug atheist phase and, in an attempt to distance themselves from it, they latch onto any kind of spiritual belief they find so that they can technically deny the label of 'atheist.' They do it with Christianity, Neoplatonism, The Upanishads etc. These belief systems do have some great value but the way many people approach them here is in a cynical, identity-crisis kind of way. Most of them are probably non-believers at heart, they just don't want to lumped into the same group as someone that's as embarrassing as Richard Dawkins.
>Almost the entire world rejects atheism
And? Is this appeal to popularity how you decide all your other beliefs?

Unironically this

is that the website?

>Richard Dawkins
I have a co-worker who thinks Richard Dawkins is "intelligent". He's an old guy so he's had plenty of years to encounter actually intelligent people and ideas. This sort of thing always makes me feel a little hopeless about the world.

Dawkins is pretty intelligent.

...

What do you mean unsubstantiated? There are esoteric and exoteric components to the Abrahamic religions and I think they're pretty comprehensive as a whole. What exactly are you talking about?

>Dawkins charges $1000 for meetings with laypeople
>The Pope does it for free

hmm...

Not user but I've always been fairly ambivalent over my spirituality as it is so vague. I do not believe in God but, and this is more of a feeling than anything, do believe in the continuation of experience after death, whatever shape that takes. I do believe the self completely dies but intuitively I cannot believe all goes void. I dunno fully where my spirituality comes from - I had christian parents. Part of it stems from how ununique people are generally; existence is special but in a way casual and random, I'm not a buddhist (or a nihilist) but that's nagged at me for a while and I struggle to believe it all starts and ends with me.

>and then we had sex on her desk while the whole class cheered and then we all played Sonic and ate pizza

>The Kingdom of Heaven can never be realized on Earth due to Man's imperfection
Naturally, the two are not one in the same. But in as much as I can go to Grape St., Watts, CA, and see bars on the windows of every house, or go to wherever is the spot that crack addicts are wandering like zombies in the courtyards, and they're not being tormented by physical manifestations of demons, I still feel comfortable to say that this akin to the closest possible realization of hell on Earth (aside from literal war-torn dilapidations such as in many countries in the third world). And vice versa. If you walk through a goodly, well-kept, well-mannered, and pleasant, possibly Christian neighborhood, it would be a night and day difference between that and the run-down, delinquent ghettos of Jordan Downs. It's not a literal Heaven, but so far as everyone is getting along and the positive environment inspires positive feelings in you to more-or-less establish a positive feedback loop wherein we keep improving ourselves because we see the manifestation of good-will and amicability around us, that might as well be our realization (or closest possible thing) of heaven (non-capitalised, this is an important distinction) on Earth.

You go ahead and keep acting like opioid and fentanyl epidemics aren't a cause for concern, but I assure you that sweeping the issue under the rug and refusing to acknowledge it exists in ugly but necessary terms isn't conducive to its amelioration.

>religion is unsubstantiated

Substantiate religion.

Try zhuangzi instead of this reddit bullshit

I can't even google that shit, nigga. What's it about?

>I dunno fully where my spirituality comes from
There are studies which indicate that we are born with a spirituality/an inclination towards religious thought. In other words, it's something that most people have to be taught out of it, not taught into. I haven't read them myself, so I can't vouch for them, but it's an interesting thought. It seems likely on its face, given the preponderance of religious belief.

Aristotle and Prabhupāda. It seems my first post triggered some fedoras

I think any feelings surrounding the greater mystery of life should always remain vague, thats why I find scientism and theism equally frustrating. Your own ambivalence is definitely something I feel as well.

>“Truth need not always take corporeal form; enough for it to be around in spiritual form, bringing about harmony as it floats on the breeze as a spiritual presence like the solemn-friendly sound of bells.”

>"Nature does not know extinction; all it knows is transformation. Everything science has taught me, and continues to teach me, strengthens my belief in the continuity of our spiritual existence after death."

>"Thus shall ye think of all this fleeting world:
>A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream;
>A flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
>A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream."

Yeah I have heard of that study, I think it claimed it was there as an evolutionary means of survival

What exactly do you mean by substantiate?

Have you read Boethius? Augustine? Anselm? Aquinas? Imam Ghazali maybe? No? You're not an atheist, just an ignoramus.

>When did you realize that science can't solve all of our problems?
About 2 years before i realised that neither can religion.

Reading about the nature of conversion helped a fair bit.

The evolutionary explanation would just be speculation. I wouldn't be surprised if there were a genetic component to it, though (and not only spiritual).

>genetic determinism

>the nature of conversion
What books did you read on this?

the evolutionary explanation is something like humanity always wants to be in control, and not having control is frightening, not knowing what happens after death is frightening. I believe the first signs found of spirituality were holes drilled into stones in order to influence the hunt.
still doesn't stop me from being religious even knowing where it likely comes from though

>I can't even google that shit, nigga.
This was the second entry in the search results. You are extremely bad at googling.

amazon.com/Gleam-Classic-Reprint-Helen-Rickey/dp/1330365755

Why yes, I have. :^)
youtube.com/watch?v=U3yKxvW9yNA

HOLY...

why can't it be a banana?

Brothers Karamazov
Light Through an Eastern Window
Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives

I probably wasn't talking to you

AQUINAS BTFO!!!

I didn't say religion was unsubstantiated. I said that religious people have no functional knowledge suggesting anything of the like (and was infact arguing with an atheist). So I'll just assume that was a minimalistic self-portrait you just posted.

Hi five

this is so amateurish it hurts

>blueberrymuffins.mp3

Even if God looked like something silly he/it would
still be God

>le logical left brain, creative right brain meme
I can tell just from the cover that it's garbage.

things like
-Battle for the Mind: A Physiology of Conversion and Brain-washing and the early chapters of -Shaken Faith syndrome.
-he True Believer: Thoughts On The Nature Of Mass Movements

Then you look a things like en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Prophecy_Fails

A lot of what people take for the divine can be produced through physiological means and even if its not conscious religious groups of all stripes use methods that relate to hypnosis and altered mindstates - whether through beautiful music or handling venomous snakes.

This has particularly interesting results when far from being rare/special 180 changes are a quite a common response when presented with new information.

>subtitles
I can already tell these are brainlet books.

Power vs Force by David Hawkins

Meme book and a half. user was fucking around with OP for sure.

>I’ve unironically read it though...

Only thing I picked up from it was taking cold showers.

Shit I meant Gorilla Mindset

Well if you want to reject a book based on nothing more than its title thats your choice and loss.

The four that really did it for me were Fear and Trembling, The Iliad, The Brothers Karamazov, and The Republic.

Dune. It's a story of triumph of mysticism.

Right on, my man. Time for a smoke for me