Your brain is an electro-chemical machine, it gives of waves and electromagnetic signature. That's your soul. Upon death if we captures that signature and held it in a containment field (like soul in a can) you could then disgard it because its useless.

No it's not okay to believe in Jesus Christ. He didn't die for your sins, the earliest writings about him are from decades after his death. There were never 500 witnesses only the claim of 500 witnesses.

We need to be focused only on things that are actually true. Lies like religion are what lead to America becoming the failed Christofascist state it is.

A Christian Mindset is nothing but delusion and delusion should not be condoned or encouraged.

Enlightenment is just realizing truths that go against assumptions that get programmed into us by the way we are raised into society. Meditation, I think, is a way to think neutrally about things, which can make it easier to realize those truths, because we can have a lot of emotional attachment to the untruths they replace.

I don't really meditate myself (hence the "I think") though psychedelics might have helped prime me for several enlightenments (it's not just one thing). Enlightenment doesn't really solve any life problems but make it way easier to navigate life emotionally by adjusting expectations and entitlements.

I suspect the mysticism added on to Buddhism was intended to address the existential dread about the certainty of death (the reincarnation stuff) as well as try to temper those that realize nothing is really stopping them from doing whatever the fuck they want to others if they either have the power for it or don't care about what happens to themselves afterwards (the karma stuff).

Personally, I separate the mysticism from the philosophy, where I consider the latter very useful for living a happy or at least content life and the former fun to think about, probably wishful thinking, but no real way to know unless there is something after death.

My experience from taking the MBSR was that the match of meditation techniques to practitioner was wildly idiosyncratic.

I think the best thing about that class is that it just exposes you to a dozen or so different styles, and hopefully you like one or two.

My experience with the body scan is that it is best done guided, at least for the first few years, because you need to be walked through your blind spots.