Ponderous Intellect
Posts: 3,859 
Location: Victoria, BC
Location: Victoria, BC
April 22nd, 2006, 04:10 PM
Thought I'd kick off this forum with a topic I always find interesting.
I've always maintained that you can be spiritual without being religious, but you can't be truly religious without being spiritual. To me, "church" is a walk along the ocean (as I did today) or somewhere else that I feel close to nature. It is way more spiritual for me than the finest cathedral.
I don't belong to any organized religion ... doesn't suit my style ... but that doesn't mean I have no faith.
How do others view this?
Thought I'd kick off this forum with a topic I always find interesting.
I've always maintained that you can be spiritual without being religious, but you can't be truly religious without being spiritual. To me, "church" is a walk along the ocean (as I did today) or somewhere else that I feel close to nature. It is way more spiritual for me than the finest cathedral.
I don't belong to any organized religion ... doesn't suit my style ... but that doesn't mean I have no faith.
How do others view this?
Knows No Bounds
Posts: 2,976
April 22nd, 2006, 04:49 PM
I dont practice any Religion anymore, the RC church left a bad taste in my mouth by their very actions on "Covering up Rampant Child Abuse".
I have a very strong sense of "Faith", I believe in a higher power but what that is I cannot say. I also believe in Reincarnation, Magic and the existance of Evil.
I dont practice any Religion anymore, the RC church left a bad taste in my mouth by their very actions on "Covering up Rampant Child Abuse".
I have a very strong sense of "Faith", I believe in a higher power but what that is I cannot say. I also believe in Reincarnation, Magic and the existance of Evil.
Genius
Posts: 783
April 22nd, 2006, 05:06 PM
I don't practice my religion either but, I am very spiritual I believe religions came to control people back then with all due respect to all religions and religious people.
I strongly believe in Reincarnation only because it was proven to me.
Good forum, Thanx Cosmo..
I don't practice my religion either but, I am very spiritual I believe religions came to control people back then with all due respect to all religions and religious people.
I strongly believe in Reincarnation only because it was proven to me.
Good forum, Thanx Cosmo..
Bright Spark
Posts: 348
Location: Calgary
Location: Calgary
April 22nd, 2006, 05:08 PM
I don't practice my religion either but, I am very spiritual I believe religions came to control people back then with all due respect to all religions and religious people.
I strongly believe in Reincarnation only because it was proven to me.
Good forum, Thanx Cosmo
Rachelle-
I don't practice my religion either but, I am very spiritual I believe religions came to control people back then with all due respect to all religions and religious people.
I strongly believe in Reincarnation only because it was proven to me.
Good forum, Thanx Cosmo
Rachelle-
Clever Clogs
Posts: 663
April 22nd, 2006, 05:49 PM
church --for me--does not evoke any spiritual or religious sentiments-- its contrived
i have occasionally experienced --- mystical states-- as you
describe--- in the presence of --nature
im not sure these are really religious-- or merely physiological
some people with temporal lobe epilepsy--- describe a weird mystical feeling -- a oneness -- an epiphany of joy and mystery
just before they get a full blown seizure---- its apparantly part of the seizure prodome-- or aura----
so it seems that these states--- may just be physiological states
which may not bear any relation to a transendental reality---
but personally -- i like to think they do
i distinctly remember-- feeling that --- walking along the ocean--
mysticism--- all the time as a child----
gradually--- though it weakens--- a think partly because its
its such a private and incommunicable feeling
that finds no reinforcement in public life
and
that becomes smothered in the practicalities and pettiness of adult concerns
so --yes i think i know what you mean.
Quoting
i agree
Thought I'd kick off this forum with a topic I always find interesting.
I've always maintained that you can be spiritual without being religious, but you can't be truly religious without being spiritual. To me, "church" is a walk along the ocean (as I did today) or somewhere else that I feel close to nature. It is way more spiritual for me than the finest cathedral.
I don't belong to any organized religion ... doesn't suit my style ... but that doesn't mean I have no faith.
How do others view this?
I've always maintained that you can be spiritual without being religious, but you can't be truly religious without being spiritual. To me, "church" is a walk along the ocean (as I did today) or somewhere else that I feel close to nature. It is way more spiritual for me than the finest cathedral.
I don't belong to any organized religion ... doesn't suit my style ... but that doesn't mean I have no faith.
How do others view this?
church --for me--does not evoke any spiritual or religious sentiments-- its contrived
i have occasionally experienced --- mystical states-- as you
describe--- in the presence of --nature
im not sure these are really religious-- or merely physiological
some people with temporal lobe epilepsy--- describe a weird mystical feeling -- a oneness -- an epiphany of joy and mystery
just before they get a full blown seizure---- its apparantly part of the seizure prodome-- or aura----
so it seems that these states--- may just be physiological states
which may not bear any relation to a transendental reality---
but personally -- i like to think they do
i distinctly remember-- feeling that --- walking along the ocean--
mysticism--- all the time as a child----
gradually--- though it weakens--- a think partly because its
its such a private and incommunicable feeling
that finds no reinforcement in public life
and
that becomes smothered in the practicalities and pettiness of adult concerns
so --yes i think i know what you mean.
Genius
Posts: 783
April 22nd, 2006, 08:03 PM
Long post... Bear with me here a bit.
Before posting anything in here, I went to my dictionaries and looked up words like religion, spiritual, faith, and related things, just to see what they said. Jeez, a dozen definitions each, with some overlap and redundancies and tautologies, but still it was pretty clear that these are deeply complex ideas, even to compilers of dictionaries. I'm sure we could have long and complex discussions about what any of them really mean, without pinning them down to everyone's, or even anyone's, satisfaction. Such caveats aside, however, I will proceed on the assumption that there's at least some degree of common understanding of what the words mean.
I am, as many of you know, an atheist, by conviction. I grew up in a deeply religious household and for a long time accepted the words of parental authority on the way things are, until some of the things that were explained only as "mysteries" began to bother me. Why, I wondered, are they mysteries, why can't we understand them? Why, to take a rather extreme example I know of, would God, through the agency of St. Anthony, apparently respond to a little girl's prayer to find her lost kitten, yet fail to respond to a much more heartfelt--and to my mind much more important--request from a little boy (no, not me) whose father was dying? Is the girl's kitten somehow more important in the scheme of things than the boy's father?
To be told that, as Paul Simon's song "Slip Slidin' Away" puts it, "God makes his plan, the information's unavailable to the mortal man," seemed to me worse than no explanation at all. It's completely circular: a mystery is a mystery because it's a mystery. So as a very young man I came to be deeply suspicious of religious claims and explanations, and the longer and deeper I thought about them the less sense they made. Ultimately I rejected it all as useless and pointless. To make a long story short, I am now completely without religious belief: no gods, no demons, no ghosts, no spirits, no tooth fairies, no supernatural beings of any sort, have any role in my life, and I'm as certain as I can be that they have no reality outside the mind.
Ah, but spiritual I certainly am. I attended a Passover Seder last week at my best friend's home, who obviously is a Jew; non-Jews don't have Passover Seders. He's also an atheist like me, but he and his wife put on this dinner every year anyway, and every year they invite us. Even entirely stripped of its religious content, the Seder ritual has deeply humanist and humanitarian lessons we would all do well to take to heart. It's a celebration of the Israelite exodus from slavery in Egypt, an important part of the cultural traditions that have kept Judaism and Jews alive over millennia of persecution and diaspora. It's about endurance and survival, things well worth celebrating, but there's more than that. It also contains important lessons about how to treat each other, especially those less fortunate than you. The ritual goes on at length about widows, orphans, the poor, the downtrodden, the oppressed, the stranger among you, always with the reminder that these and all others must be treated with kindness, courtesy, charity, and respect, lest you become like the Egyptian oppressors of old. A dozen times the group gathered around the table is required after one of those reminders to recite in unison, "for you too were once strangers in the land of Egypt."
It's powerful, and strange. You'd have to be made of stone not to be moved by it.
Or an ignorant idiot, perhaps.
Long post... Bear with me here a bit.
Before posting anything in here, I went to my dictionaries and looked up words like religion, spiritual, faith, and related things, just to see what they said. Jeez, a dozen definitions each, with some overlap and redundancies and tautologies, but still it was pretty clear that these are deeply complex ideas, even to compilers of dictionaries. I'm sure we could have long and complex discussions about what any of them really mean, without pinning them down to everyone's, or even anyone's, satisfaction. Such caveats aside, however, I will proceed on the assumption that there's at least some degree of common understanding of what the words mean.
I am, as many of you know, an atheist, by conviction. I grew up in a deeply religious household and for a long time accepted the words of parental authority on the way things are, until some of the things that were explained only as "mysteries" began to bother me. Why, I wondered, are they mysteries, why can't we understand them? Why, to take a rather extreme example I know of, would God, through the agency of St. Anthony, apparently respond to a little girl's prayer to find her lost kitten, yet fail to respond to a much more heartfelt--and to my mind much more important--request from a little boy (no, not me) whose father was dying? Is the girl's kitten somehow more important in the scheme of things than the boy's father?
To be told that, as Paul Simon's song "Slip Slidin' Away" puts it, "God makes his plan, the information's unavailable to the mortal man," seemed to me worse than no explanation at all. It's completely circular: a mystery is a mystery because it's a mystery. So as a very young man I came to be deeply suspicious of religious claims and explanations, and the longer and deeper I thought about them the less sense they made. Ultimately I rejected it all as useless and pointless. To make a long story short, I am now completely without religious belief: no gods, no demons, no ghosts, no spirits, no tooth fairies, no supernatural beings of any sort, have any role in my life, and I'm as certain as I can be that they have no reality outside the mind.
Ah, but spiritual I certainly am. I attended a Passover Seder last week at my best friend's home, who obviously is a Jew; non-Jews don't have Passover Seders. He's also an atheist like me, but he and his wife put on this dinner every year anyway, and every year they invite us. Even entirely stripped of its religious content, the Seder ritual has deeply humanist and humanitarian lessons we would all do well to take to heart. It's a celebration of the Israelite exodus from slavery in Egypt, an important part of the cultural traditions that have kept Judaism and Jews alive over millennia of persecution and diaspora. It's about endurance and survival, things well worth celebrating, but there's more than that. It also contains important lessons about how to treat each other, especially those less fortunate than you. The ritual goes on at length about widows, orphans, the poor, the downtrodden, the oppressed, the stranger among you, always with the reminder that these and all others must be treated with kindness, courtesy, charity, and respect, lest you become like the Egyptian oppressors of old. A dozen times the group gathered around the table is required after one of those reminders to recite in unison, "for you too were once strangers in the land of Egypt."
It's powerful, and strange. You'd have to be made of stone not to be moved by it.
Or an ignorant idiot, perhaps.
Knows No Bounds
Posts: 3,428
Videos: 2
Location: 50° 30' N, 104° 38' W
Videos: 2
Location: 50° 30' N, 104° 38' W
April 22nd, 2006, 08:04 PM
Why does that show as being posted by Guest? I posted it. What's going on here?
Why does that show as being posted by Guest? I posted it. What's going on here?
Steven Hawking's Tutor
Posts: 4,838
Location: Independent Palestine
Location: Independent Palestine
April 22nd, 2006, 08:16 PM
Well as you guys know, I am an Asatru Heathen guy. I believe in my blots and etc, etc. And the gods that I have just reading about them makes you want to strive for it. They might not be real but Odin, was suppose to try to get divine knowledge so he gave his eye. Now, I wouldn't give my eye, but having a god like that makes you to strive for knowledge.
Well as you guys know, I am an Asatru Heathen guy. I believe in my blots and etc, etc. And the gods that I have just reading about them makes you want to strive for it. They might not be real but Odin, was suppose to try to get divine knowledge so he gave his eye. Now, I wouldn't give my eye, but having a god like that makes you to strive for knowledge.
Hawkings former plumber
Posts: 8,775
Videos: 1
Location: RR1 Distopia 666 Discordia Drive Apt 911
Videos: 1
Location: RR1 Distopia 666 Discordia Drive Apt 911
April 22nd, 2006, 08:55 PM
I'm just a piece of meat with a number, but I feel the power
all arround me I can't explain it but I know it's there, I love the earth and the sun and the moon all the old spirits the tree the stone and water and fire, no invented gods for me.
I'm just a piece of meat with a number, but I feel the power
all arround me I can't explain it but I know it's there, I love the earth and the sun and the moon all the old spirits the tree the stone and water and fire, no invented gods for me.
the clan of the claw
Posts: 1,976
April 22nd, 2006, 09:09 PM
the term religion traces its roots back to re ligio which referred to "tracing back to the origins". This is indeed what religions of all cultures have been. They are the long frequency slow changing forces of a society that create the stability and unity needed. Religions are all about man imposing upon man structure.
Spirituality is whatever you may want to imagine, or have form in thought subconsciously. A lovely term for "peace" and personal comfort, which is what all animals seek- a reduction in stressors. Spirituality is a "coping mechanism".
the term religion traces its roots back to re ligio which referred to "tracing back to the origins". This is indeed what religions of all cultures have been. They are the long frequency slow changing forces of a society that create the stability and unity needed. Religions are all about man imposing upon man structure.
Spirituality is whatever you may want to imagine, or have form in thought subconsciously. A lovely term for "peace" and personal comfort, which is what all animals seek- a reduction in stressors. Spirituality is a "coping mechanism".
Member
Posts: 217
April 23rd, 2006, 12:23 AM
Religion is useless to me. To me it's nothing more than a brainwashing mechanism created by stimulating your endorphin outputs to correlate morality to good feelings produced by the natural drugs. It can be good or bad depending on what is accepted and preached as morality. I don't really have much sense of spirituality, but I do see our interconnectivity in the grand scheme of things. We are nothing more than animals part of a food chain, and subjective to the natural laws that regulate the planet's eco-system. I don't believe in a God or a higher power of anykind. However, the energy that is me cannot be duplicated or destroyed, and my body is nothing more than the organization of elements designed to house my energy and allow it to interact with other energies. I believe the universe never began, and will never end, but is rather just a infinite continuation of rebirth and destruction. We're just a another cog in a perpetual motion machine. I'm just about done my journey in time, and when I die I'll move onto the fourth dimension which transcends space and time to a different kind of existence beyond the physical. It's like retiring your soul to become a consultant.
Religion is useless to me. To me it's nothing more than a brainwashing mechanism created by stimulating your endorphin outputs to correlate morality to good feelings produced by the natural drugs. It can be good or bad depending on what is accepted and preached as morality. I don't really have much sense of spirituality, but I do see our interconnectivity in the grand scheme of things. We are nothing more than animals part of a food chain, and subjective to the natural laws that regulate the planet's eco-system. I don't believe in a God or a higher power of anykind. However, the energy that is me cannot be duplicated or destroyed, and my body is nothing more than the organization of elements designed to house my energy and allow it to interact with other energies. I believe the universe never began, and will never end, but is rather just a infinite continuation of rebirth and destruction. We're just a another cog in a perpetual motion machine. I'm just about done my journey in time, and when I die I'll move onto the fourth dimension which transcends space and time to a different kind of existence beyond the physical. It's like retiring your soul to become a consultant.
jimmoyer
Posts: 4,911
Location: Winchester Virginia
Location: Winchester Virginia
April 23rd, 2006, 12:58 AM
Good post Dexter Sinister.
Many religions have spoken of your question
why a girl with a little lost kitten finds her kitten
and another little girl dies.
And the answer often is that seeming circular
reason of Paul Simon's Slip Slidin' Away song: "God makes his plan, the information's unavailable to mortal man."
I think the answer lies in that all of IT is not
about us.
Darwin saw it. So did the Old Testament.
Darwin was horrified by NATURE, it's lack of mercy
for the weak, its homicidal impulse to devour its own
young, its wastefulness in selectivity.
The Old Testament had a similar horror. Like Darwin
looked at Nature, so did the Old Testament look at
a fierce God who let bad things happen.
Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness of the Congo
later transferred to the Mekong in Apocalypse Now
ends with the hat trick of "horror."
We're not the center of anything. Not of the solar
system, not of the Milky Way, nor large in any scale
to anything of the Universe or of Nature.
It may not be about us.
In fact everything beyond us is essentially non-human,
even the concepts of God come to this horror of God
being not human.
So what we have to see, feel, hear and taste and
analyze is NATURE, the nature of the Universe.
If a flower had consciouness, the horror multiplies
as it dies.
Why ?
Good post Dexter Sinister.
Many religions have spoken of your question
why a girl with a little lost kitten finds her kitten
and another little girl dies.
And the answer often is that seeming circular
reason of Paul Simon's Slip Slidin' Away song: "God makes his plan, the information's unavailable to mortal man."
I think the answer lies in that all of IT is not
about us.
Darwin saw it. So did the Old Testament.
Darwin was horrified by NATURE, it's lack of mercy
for the weak, its homicidal impulse to devour its own
young, its wastefulness in selectivity.
The Old Testament had a similar horror. Like Darwin
looked at Nature, so did the Old Testament look at
a fierce God who let bad things happen.
Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness of the Congo
later transferred to the Mekong in Apocalypse Now
ends with the hat trick of "horror."
We're not the center of anything. Not of the solar
system, not of the Milky Way, nor large in any scale
to anything of the Universe or of Nature.
It may not be about us.
In fact everything beyond us is essentially non-human,
even the concepts of God come to this horror of God
being not human.
So what we have to see, feel, hear and taste and
analyze is NATURE, the nature of the Universe.
If a flower had consciouness, the horror multiplies
as it dies.
Why ?
jimmoyer
Posts: 4,911
Location: Winchester Virginia
Location: Winchester Virginia
April 23rd, 2006, 01:01 AM
By the way, Caracal Kid's definition of religion
bears repeating and Dexter Sinister's story on the
Seder is a good example of Caracal Kid's definition:
"the term religion traces its roots back to re ligio which referred to "tracing back to the origins". This is indeed what religions of all cultures have been. They are the long frequency slow changing forces of a society that create the stability and unity needed. Religions are all about man imposing upon man structure. "
By the way, Caracal Kid's definition of religion
bears repeating and Dexter Sinister's story on the
Seder is a good example of Caracal Kid's definition:
"the term religion traces its roots back to re ligio which referred to "tracing back to the origins". This is indeed what religions of all cultures have been. They are the long frequency slow changing forces of a society that create the stability and unity needed. Religions are all about man imposing upon man structure. "
Knows No Bounds
Posts: 3,428
Videos: 2
Location: 50° 30' N, 104° 38' W
Videos: 2
Location: 50° 30' N, 104° 38' W
April 23rd, 2006, 08:28 PM
Among the two metaphysical ideas I can think of offhand that I believe, that's the second one, that it's not really about us ("it" being the cosmos). I routinely inspect the night sky from my back yard, and knowing what I do about what I'm looking at, the notion that it might be all, or even mostly, about us strikes me as an impossibly vast conceit.
The other metaphysical idea is that the cosmos is consistent, logical, and, at least in principle, comprehensible. There's no a priori reason to think so (though it certainly appears to be so far), so it's a metaphysical assumption I make. That's the wellspring of scientific inquiry; if you don't believe that, you can't believe there's any purpose to trying to discover how things are, because they might change in the next second at the whim of some deity.
Speaking of which, let me leave you all this evening with my favourite Biblical quotation:
I Thessalonians 5:21: Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
The doubter's mantra. The heart and soul of science. The core of my world view.
Quoting
Ah jimmoyer, I see you are a widely read and thoughtful person. You can call me Dexter.
It may not be about us.
Among the two metaphysical ideas I can think of offhand that I believe, that's the second one, that it's not really about us ("it" being the cosmos). I routinely inspect the night sky from my back yard, and knowing what I do about what I'm looking at, the notion that it might be all, or even mostly, about us strikes me as an impossibly vast conceit.
The other metaphysical idea is that the cosmos is consistent, logical, and, at least in principle, comprehensible. There's no a priori reason to think so (though it certainly appears to be so far), so it's a metaphysical assumption I make. That's the wellspring of scientific inquiry; if you don't believe that, you can't believe there's any purpose to trying to discover how things are, because they might change in the next second at the whim of some deity.
Speaking of which, let me leave you all this evening with my favourite Biblical quotation:
I Thessalonians 5:21: Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
The doubter's mantra. The heart and soul of science. The core of my world view.
Running out of ranks
Posts: 8,366
April 23rd, 2006, 09:00 PM
Quoting
The other metaphysical idea is that the cosmos is consistent, logical, and, at least in principle, comprehensible. There's no a priori reason to think so (though it certainly appears to be so far), so it's a metaphysical assumption I make. That's the wellspring of scientific inquiry; if you don't believe that, you can't believe there's any purpose to trying to discover how things are, because they might change in the next second at the whim of some deity.
The deity might not be the only thing you need to worry about.The other metaphysical idea is that the cosmos is consistent, logical, and, at least in principle, comprehensible. There's no a priori reason to think so (though it certainly appears to be so far), so it's a metaphysical assumption I make. That's the wellspring of scientific inquiry; if you don't believe that, you can't believe there's any purpose to trying to discover how things are, because they might change in the next second at the whim of some deity.
Quote:
Matthew 17
19 Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out?
20 And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.
19 Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out?
20 And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.
Quoting
Maybe you could use a little 5:18 to temper that 5: 21.
Speaking of which, let me leave you all this evening with my favourite Biblical quotation:
I Thessalonians 5:21: Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
The doubter's mantra. The heart and soul of science. The core of my world view.
I Thessalonians 5:21: Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
The doubter's mantra. The heart and soul of science. The core of my world view.
