For a very long time I have encountered attitudes such as that religion and   
   spirituality are for idiots, lunatics and conmen. My response to that is that   
   I do not have the luxury of such beliefs.   
      
   I am in no way a stupid person. I was very precocious as a child, and as a   
   child I developed – through my own motivation – extensive knowledge of   
   subjects such as geography, biology and astrophysics. I have an education in   
   economics and psychology    
   from a major American university, that I got at age 18. I also have extensive   
   experience in computer industry. I can do logic well enough. However what I   
   have found is that many people who claim to have logical worldview have   
   adopted logic as a worldview    
   rather than as a method; and that is a wrong conception of logic. Logic is   
   about reasoning and evidence. When an experience contradicts one's worldview,   
   the logical thing is not to deny the experience – as many who have this   
   worldview are prone to    
   doing – but to correct the worldview.   
      
   It is frequently thought by people who have this worldview that religious   
   people are bigots. While some are just that, there are any number of others   
   who have a very good reason for what they believe. I started out as a militant   
   atheist. But I have had    
   any number of experiences with less than a billionth chance of happening,   
   whose only explanations are spiritual; and I am I no way the only one.   
      
   I will share some of these experiences here.   
      
   In 1995, I had a passionate relationship with a woman named Michelle, who had   
   finished Harvard in three years and who was a poet. In 2000 I wanted to have   
   it recapitulated. What happened was that I started corresponding with a woman   
   named Michele, who    
   had finished Caltech in 3 years, who was a poet, and who in 1995 had had a   
   passionate relationship with a man from Bulgaria whose last name was similar   
   to my middle name.   
      
   One day my girlfriend woke up in the middle of the night complaining that her   
   ex-husband was talking to her in spirit. In the morning she decided to test   
   this, so she said in her head, “OK Todd, if you have been talking to me in   
   spirit then call me.”    
   30 seconds later Todd calls her and tells her that he has been talking to her   
   in spirit.   
      
   One day, in a meditation, I saw an outpouring of sorrow in Argentina. Shortly   
   thereafter I picked up a paper and found out that there was an outpouring of   
   sorrow in Argentina because someone had died.   
      
   I used to see “master numbers” on the clock – numbers such as 2:22 or   
   5:55. One day I set up an experiment. I set four different clocks to four   
   different times, and I recorded every time that I looked at the clock. One in   
   ten of what I got were “   
   master numbers” when by chance it would be one in sixty.   
      
   I was contemplating what kind of a woman I wanted, and I decided that I wanted   
   the best artist. Soon after that, I met Julia, who was a magnificent artist as   
   well as an especially beautiful woman, and she was in the middle of leaving   
   her husband, which    
   is the only time that a woman as beautiful as her would be single. I am   
   neither especially attractive or especially socially skilled. When I met her,   
   I wanted to introduce her to a friend of mine who is a successful businessman.   
   But she told me that she    
   had feelings for me. The result was me being with her and writing her a poetry   
   book that made me – and her – the talk of DC poetry scene.   
      
   It would not at all be logical to deny these experiences, and many others that   
   I have had. It is logical to use them to have a more complete view of reality.   
   I do not deny chemistry or physics. I see it as being part of the picture   
   rather than the whole    
   picture. It is wrong to deny the validity of such things; but it is also wrong   
   to deny the reality of spiritual experience.   
      
   I had a mathematics teacher named Henry Biddle, who was a devout Christian.   
   Mr. Biddle was a brilliant and ethical man who continued teaching mathematics   
   well into his retirement. He told me that there was nothing contradictory   
   between Christianity and    
   science. I know a distinguished professor at UVA, Roy Wagner, who talks openly   
   about his and other people's spiritual experiences. I know a man who has   
   written a book, sold in universities, showing how the paradigms of modern   
   physics are consistent with    
   the existence of God. I know a man with physics education who was able to tell   
   my mother that her father, who was at that time across the country, had a pain   
   in his arm.   
      
   Most people believe in something. The claim that all of these people are fools   
   and lunatics – and the only rational people are ones who do not have such   
   convictions – is narcissism and ignorance at its worst. Some people appear   
   to have made a virtue    
   of closed-mindedness. They think that they are logical and rational, but they   
   aren't. If you haven't had such experiences, the logical solution is to   
   investigate further. It is not to attack the people who either have had   
   spiritual experiences or have    
   religious beliefs.   
      
   When I was in high school, I had a conversation with a young mathematics   
   teacher and talked to him about spiritual experiences. He told me that he   
   ignored such things. This shows the basic dishonesty of the mindset. He   
   disregards the things that do not    
   parse into his view of the universe. That is not logic, and that is not   
   reason. It is dishonesty.   
      
   Logic, once again, is a method, not a worldview. A logical person investigates   
   things instead of attacking them or dismissing them. What I have seen on the   
   part of any number of people who claim this worldview, however, is hideous   
   conduct. They have    
   assumed that anyone who has either spiritual experiences or religious beliefs   
   is a fool, a lunatic or a conman. Out of this consideration they viciously   
   attack anyone who has the preceding. The problem is, they will be attacking   
   that way the bulk of    
   humanity. And that is in no way a rational standpoint.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)