Greta Christina has been writing professionally since 1989, on topics including atheism, sexuality and sex-positivity, LGBT issues, politics, culture, and whatever crosses her mind. She is author of
The Way of the Heathen: Practicing Atheism in Everyday Life, of
Comforting Thoughts About Death That Have Nothing to Do with God, of
Coming Out Atheist: How to Do It, How to Help Each Other, and Why, of
Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless, and of
Bending: Dirty Kinky Stories About Pain, Power, Religion, Unicorns, & More, and is editor of
Paying For It: A Guide by Sex Workers for Their Clients. She has been a public speaker for many years, and many of her talks can be seen on YouTube. Her writing has appeared in multiple magazines and newspapers, including Ms., Penthouse, Chicago Sun-Times, On Our Backs, and Skeptical Inquirer, and numerous anthologies, including
Everything You Know About God Is Wrong and three volumes of
Best American Erotica. (Any views she expresses in this blog are solely hers, and do not necessarily represent this organizations.) She lives in San Francisco with her wife, Ingrid. You can email her at gretachristina (at) gmail (dot) com, or follow her on
Facebook.
I had a ‘spiritual’ experience once, but I do not attribute that to any higher power, but just to some extremely messed up part of my brain, and one I would like to explore in no way involving a higher power.
When I hear the phrase “I had a spiritual experience” (or any variation on it), I cannot help but think “so you’re saying that some part of your brain circuitry burned out and you’re still suffering the consequences?”
I had a spiritual experience once. Then I wiped, washed my hands and got on with my life in the same way.
I had a spiritual experience once. Then I recovered and worked around the damaged bits.
The Maria usually commenting here:
I’ve never had a spiritual experience. I’m still not clear on what it even means.
I’m not sure that the sentence “Spiritual Experiences Aren’t Good Evidence” is entirely right. The way it’s redacted says that spiritual experiences are bad evidence, which seems to imply that they are evidence at all. Which AFAIK they aren’t. Do you think I am right?