I’m an agnostic atheist, but recently I’ve been drawn to somewhat pagan beliefs about spirituality in nature. I can’t bring myself to believe in some mother Gaia goddess that controls the flow of nature, but something about nature holding innate power and energy rings true. I’m still figuring it out.
I had some traumatic events happen in my life recently, and in looking for ways to feel safe again I found myself believing in things I’ve never believed in before. I had some serious dysphoria about it lol, I was like “is this how ancient humans developed religions? A result of terror and seeking comfort?” As someone who became an atheist on my own as a young child, having any belief in something without actual evidence was making me question a lot about myself. But I don’t think I need to pigeon-hole myself into any self-made boxes, I can just let my beliefs be.
Postdata: But I hope you can allow me a quote of Father Jorge Loring in her book “to save yourself”: “Those who reject all morals (” prohibited to prohibit “), are some hypocrites, because they want to impose their rules. He said, Ortega and Gasset:” of the moral, it is not possible to be disengaged “69” I personally like the scientific approach to look for the truth, but also that same has prevented me many times to walk quietly. Although and I’m just surpassing.
Did you know that Martin Luther references child molestation in his little paper?
The Catholic Church spends so much resources protecting child molesters that at some point you have to wonder 'whats the purpose of the church?'
I wouldn’t call it support or comfort but I often think if there was reincarnation then everyone must eventually live every life, so those who are killing will also be the killed, we will all end up living the lives of those we despise too, and that would be fair.
Also I think about just how little we can perceive of the world and universe, we have techniques and senses to see this pinhole view, and mostly trust it, but it’s so much bigger and more complex than we can imagine or perceive.
It’s a nice pat way of thinking of things, but it presupposes some sort of justice or built-in meaning to the universe, when the real truth is that there is no inherent meaning to any of it. Meaning is an emergent property that evolves with the development of sapience.
I don’t believe it, really, just consider it whenever people talk about past lives. Just seems like either we are individual and a blip in time (acceptable to me) or we are a collective and cannot tell with our separate bodies and senses, we are all one happening. We evolved here on earth, many systems here have a distributed existence, intelligence, consciousness, whatever it is. I have had enough weird shit happen to me to question whether our current working model is correct. But don’t have the “gift of faith” at all, can’t really draw conclusions from my experiences.
I’m an atheist through and through, but the one thing I’m unsure about is consciousness.
We basically made zero progress in figuring out what it physically is, how to test for it or how it is created, despite every single one of us experiencing it first-hand every day of our lives. That might be a sign that our physical understanding of reality is just not equipped to deal with this question.
On the other hand, if it has physical consequences then it must measurably interact with the physical world, and maybe it emerges from the complex interactions in the brain somehow. I personally just cannot imagine how the thing I’m subjectively experiencing as myself could ever arise from “dead” atoms and molecules.
The main reason I think consciousness is just advanced firing of synapses in the brain is because drugs can impact it, surgeries can impact it, flaws in the system can impact it.
If it was anything more than physical, these things wouldn’t affect consciousness so easily.
Take those who have had their Corpus Callosum split. It’s widely viewed that patients with this procedure end up with two distinct consciousnesses communicating with each other (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7305066/) which suggests to me that consciousness must be nothing more than the effects of complex physical systems in our brains.
If it was anything more than physical, these things wouldn’t affect consciousness so easily.
We know that it changes perception and behavior, because those are the things we can measure. We have no idea if it affects consciousness, because we don’t even know what that is.
[…] which suggests to me that consciousness must be nothing more than the effects of complex physical systems in our brains.
The problem I have with these studies is that they all test the functions of the brain and its hemispheres, and then argue what the produced consciousness(es) could look like based on some preconceived notion of what a consciousness can an cannot do. But who says that one consciousness cannot make two different choices simultaneously for example? Ofc it’s the best we have right now and imo very interesting and important work, but it’s still nothing like actually “detecting” consciousness and analyzing its properties. The sad truth is that we still have no f*cking clue.
I know that this all sounds very ominous, but that’s kind of the point. Consciousness as I’d define it is not just the mechanical function of the brain, but the experience of being “present”.
Nihilism. Imagine there being no past nor future, but like a child in a waiting room for the abyss you’re given a paper and some crayons. Why wouldn’t you try to draw the greatest piece you could? And if something goes wrong, well it’s just a happy accident. It’s not like this matters anyway. That’s how I see my life. This mindset let’s me not stress over old mistakes, while still striving to be better. I don’t want to waste this metaphorical paper but it doesn’t matter what I do with it in greater whole, since there isn’t a greater whole.
You know, it makes so much sense, and I truly resonate with tbese ideas, but I’ve never been able to put them into practice. I’m still finding myself running 5 minutes late leaves me super stressed, even though I’m now at university where being late for a lecture literally does not matter, or at college, where for the last few months it really didn’t matter but I still couldn’t quite just relax. I’ve been trying to live a more stress-free life and this belief system really helps me do that, if only I could find a way to not hyperfocus on small and insignificant issues or mistakes. Stress has been hurting me, to the point where oftentimes I would find it difficult to keep my hand stillin the air, and it would just start slightly twitching, as if I have Parkinson’s.
I follow a pagan path (but I’m not Wiccan). I view it more as a spirituality than a religion since it isn’t organized or faith based. It just resonates with me. I wear witchy jewelry for personal comfort, maintain an altar at home (mostly for tarot, incense and meditation), love to study folklore and pagan practices in other parts of the world, celebrate the wheel of the year, and honor nature and the cosmos above all.
I grew up atheist and still consider myself one since I view gods as a reflection of the real world, akin to Mother Nature.
Haha I’m another atheist with an altar at home! Instead of religious symbols, there are framed pictures of ancestors.
Normally in Asia we worship at these altars (usually involving serving food and drinks), but I don’t do that. I just see it as a nice reminder of the memories I’ve had with all those people, and a connection to the past.
…although the idea you can crack open a beer with your ancestors from time to time is sort of neat.
I have been described as the least spiritual person various people have ever met. I think that’s accurate. I just don’t have a spiritual side.
Some people have treated me less than excellently as a result, with the notable exception of Buddhists (I immigrated to a predominantly Buddhist country).
I don’t believe any of their stuff, I find a lot of it superficial and against the core principles they preach… and they don’t seem to mind at all. I don’t have to hide what I think – I’m also free to discuss these matters (politely). Even with the monks.
Anyway, I’m a practical person. When the floods come, we fill sandbags together. I’m OK to volunteer at their events, and so on. The support is mutual and practical in nature.
That’s been my way as well so far. I’d be interested in how logic helps you cope with questions, such as where do we come from?, where do we go?, what is our purpose?. (Not playing devil’s advocate, real interest.)
Unless something some day suggests “this” is “all about” anything at all, it seems weird to me to try and imagine meaning where there’s no evidence of any 🤷♀️
No judgement on people who find that scary or take comfort in faith or whatever, we’re all different. Just doesn’t bother me.
I think those questions are great, but the answers will always lead to more questions. It is a journey in that regard which I suppose is logically driven. I think the best analogy is asking what is this table. It is made of wood and screws. What is wood made of…fibres. What are the fibre made of, carbon and other atoms. What was the atoms made of….etc. etc. Logic brings you closer to reality, but the closer you get, the more questions you will have which is one of the joys of life.
I like to believe in nature and energy. I don’t know, but this is is what we can “see” and detect. Its universal, the rules are real. And it is the cause of everything.
I feel like this image of “worshipping the sun” is kind of the most realistic in terms of cause and effect. Its the reason we live and can do stuff. Its the reason for any kind of life to be there and enjoy this expirience.
I mean, with the availible technology we are able to look into the outer space right till the nearest galaxy before the cosmic radiation and the big bang. We can detect the behaviour of the inside of colliding protons. We can adress almost every reaktion which happens to substantial energies, like gravitation, electro magnetic energy, strong and weak core forces (I believe its called, as Im not a english native).
And we still didn’t find a “godlike” force, which is able to control what happens. Or that changes its behavior if you say nice words. Even if there is sth. but we can not detect its force in protons or in galaxies, or any kind of (right now) detectable frequencys. Why should I care for it? It clearly has no control over anything in this universe, so all the energy I put into the “believing” is kind of useless.
Of course if you belive in sth. You will put in the energy and kind of “manifest” it if you do it. But this is not because you convince a supernatural beeing to be kind with you. Its because we are a super complex “energy transformer” which are concious of its abilities to adjust our surroundings to our abilities.
And if sth happens by incident, there is always a plausible action which happened before.
It will probably mean, that there is nothing after this “expirience” and this is kind of creepy. But to be here and expirience it, this whole series of unprobabilities which bring me to generate pixels for you to read. From the first enzymes till now. All of this had to happen, for this exact moment.
Im happy that I can enjoy this life, and grateful for my intact body and the reason for me to have this is uncountable different probabilities.
But where it comes from, or where it will go. I dont know.
That’s always been an odd argument to me, even when I was an atheist. No god worth their substance would need to interact with the universe in any way that didn’t just look like the laws of physics, since they’re the ones who initiated the laws of physics.
But even if they interact in the laws of physics. Then why is there no sudden change. No incoherence, or sth truly random like sth coming out of nothing.
I mean, we are not able to observe every detail in the universe, maybe there is some random stuff happening in another galaxy cluster and we are just in the wrong place.
But the chance for this is almost nonexistent.
But so is the chance for this moment to, and its happening.
If this God exists outside time, it would make sense since we may be unable to perceive these perturbations in time - it will just always have been that way.
That could be true. I mean the timeframe of our existence is small. Even the mammal timeframe is small, so maybe it intercepted even 1500 years ago and whispered some prophet into his hear or sth.
But there are possibilities to tell if something hasnt changed, like in differences of wavelength or if bigger things in our universe just disappear. Extremly said of course. And too we are in a really early stage of all of this knowledge, so if there is definitly proof of some being, Id think otherwise maybe.
But as we know more and more, we just see evidence of physics.
I mean, one perspective is that they got everything right to begin with so there’s no need for intervention.
Another is that quantum weirdness, or chaotic event behavior, exactly is evidence of direct intervention.
Another yet is that, as more limited beings that exist within the laws of physics, we lack the perceptive equipment to bear witness to the “sudden” changes in the fabric of the divine meta-reality, which materialize in the physical world in mundane ways.
In any case, why should we expect a higher power to affect the world in incoherent or random ways?
RNGesus take the wheel!
I actually find it much more comforting to believe that there isn’t any sort of supernatural phenomena. And that our universe is entirely the product of explainable natural laws, through likely quantum and probabilistic in may nature. Along with random chance.
If the universe is fully a system of laws, then we can have some measure of control over the outcome. If the universe is ruled by supernatural forces which we can neither categorize nor understand, then we have no control and at any second those supernatural powers could just decide, “fuck this, time to shake the cosmic Etch-a-Sketch!” Or maybe, “fuck you, in particular”. No control, no need for explainable reasons, just an almighty toddler whose temper tantrums mean death and destruction.
Yes, a universe without some sort of supernatural system playing backstop to death also sucks. It means that when you die you cease to exist. And that’s terrifying. It also means that the only meaning in life is what you make of it. At the same time, I get to define my life and don’t have to live according to some arbitrary supernatural definition either. That’s a pretty good trade, I my view.
In the end, the rejection of the supernatural is both terrifying and freeing. You have to accept that there is no one out there helping you or that there will be anything on the other side of death. But, that frees you to make your life truly your own. You get to define your own purpose, without some huckster telling you that you are bad for enjoying the enjoyable things in life. Or some organization scaring you into giving up what you have earned, because their sky wizard can provide everything they need, except all the things they actually need.
Stop looking for someone else to tell you the propose of your life and instead realize that you are the purpose of your life.
No control, no need for explainable reasons, just an almighty toddler whose temper tantrums mean death and destruction.
This are some good words. Because I think we would see or be able to tell if somewhere in our observable universe there are truly random situations, happening out of nowhere. But there are none, what we observe now are mustly just proof of concepts some really wise people made in the last centuries.
From the biggest to the smalles (for us) observable objects we cannot see irregular interference. So there is nothing what changes without the energy it needs to change. (At least that we know of)
This cease to exist part, coupled to the sheer hard-explainably complex stuff which happens around us is I think the root of our religious believes and the idea of an afterlife - Because we have to go somewhere dont we?
But what is it what “goes” somewhere and what is it what even is going right now?
Its just a complex form of energy transfer happening between our synapses. Thats whats happening. We cant detect something else which is controlling us than our brain, and what happens in our brain can be explained pretty well by ohr understanding of how our neurochemistry works. (Why it does what is does and where it comes from is still up to debate) but there is no blackbox, which uses energy and is controlling us.
I think we just need to accept that we have this experience and can do what we want with it, because sometime in the future it will end for each of us.
And if there is a god in the end, and a life after, it will be enlightning I hope and I will give it my full respect how it hid itself so well, and for how the universe turned out to be, I hope it will understand. But all this torture in the afterlife stuff is really not fitting into all of this.
So your way is more accepting the unknown, than filling it with some sort of believe, if I understand it correctly? I’d say that’s a take on spirituality as well.
I do not really accept the unknown. Im lretty interested in how the universe works and what its made of. Why everything is happening and how it came all to start.
This brought me into studying chemistry.
I just dont thing there is a beeing, which made alll of this up. Just for us.
I mean there is trillions times trillions galaxies, and this number is still small in comparison to the real amount. All of this just for some kind of weird test of some weird carbon based structures, so after they die they can have all of what they want?
Something has to be behind all of this, but this human centric view of our universe definetly doesnt get it right. in my opinion.
There are only two major churches which have a valid historical claim to be a direct succession of the original Church, the other one being the Roman Catholic Church. On the major points of contention - the filioque and papal supremacy - I found the history of the early Church to be solidly supporting of the Orthodox view.
I found the history of the early Church to be solidly supporting of the Orthodox view.
Not to be a dick, but that’s because they did their absolute best to kill heretics and dismantle their belief systems by destroying their literature.
The early church had a lot of ideas about Jesus and his purpose, but the gnostics and other groups were all suppressed by the Orthodox Church and we only know about their beliefs through the lens of their interlocutors.
History is written by the victors, if the Orthodox Church is responsible for early church history they’re going to give you their version of it.
Rome killed heretics, because Christianity was the state religion, and turned to the Church to speak to what is and is not Christianity. And the Church has condemned things like gnosticism as non-Christian from the very beginning. Don’t confuse Rome having an official prescribed acceptable set of religions with some nefarious scheme by the Church. It is the role of the bishops to speak to what the authentic Christian faith is; what the state - in this case, the Roman empire - does with that information, with regard to non-Christian faiths, is it’s own business. The Church is under no onus to accept false theology as Christian simply for fear that the Empire will persecute those people if they don’t. In fact, she would’ve been wrong to do so, and unfaithful to her commission by Christ had they compromised the Christian religion that way.
None. I find them all so false and superficial, claiming to have all the answers but refusing to actually share any of them with the flock, saying “you must find the answers for yourself, trust in [religious whatever].” I’m like okay, so you’re admitting that you are superfluous to the search for meaning. Got it. Bye.
I had to think about this for a minute because I’m British and religion is just not a huge deal here so I don’t often think about it. Got some religious friends (mostly Americans but there are a few here too) but it’s just never really been a part of my life in a positive or a negative way.
My philosophy pretty much boils down to “we’re just here, roll with it” because anything else is essentially looking for meaning where it appears to not exist.
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