ILX Religiosity and Spirituality and Agnosticity and Atheicity Poll

xxpost that's a double edged sword anyway, cuz if someone states they unequivocally believe everything that the Bible said and take everything as gospel and therefore have no questions, they get lampooned for being brainwashed.

What I in fact meant was that there have always been, and continue to be, benevolent portions of society/acts within that society that are driven by motives that are unrelated to any religiosity.

nice people who are not religious are one thing. an institution providing for the common good is quite another, and historically I can't really think of very many that were NOT, on some level, either guided by or explicitly an extension of a religious institution.

xp

Well I mean they did laud the spiritual tradition of "wrestling with God" as Jacob wrestled with the angel (blah blah) but it was kind of assumed that you would do your questioning from inside the pre-set strictures of Faith, and that no matter the outcome, you would submit to God's will on the matter and not choose your own leanings.

How you were supposed to know God's will on the matter, it was never quite explained. Better to err, then, on the side of caution and become more conservative over time.

I'm with the fundies on this one -- if you indulge in skepticism, maybe you're not really religious.

this is bullshit, and pretty antithetical to Xtianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and (I'm sure) many others

there are simply no falsifiability criteria in discussions of spirituality

i think this is simply false tbh - if spiritual equals supernatural. religions, amongst other spiritual enterprises, make claims about the world, which can be tested. and i think the only thing that can survive such testing is a deism so vague and drained of content as to be virutally worthless.

"hardcore atheist" is kind of offensive. As if not believing in god makes you some kind of obnoxious extremist. Would you label all christians as "hardcore anti-Zeusists"?

xxpost Agreed. there's a big difference between "I'm not so sure that Random Bible Book Verses 2-3 happened exactly as described" and "y'know I'm not sure that this Jesus feller was real".

xp i don't think that was the intent of the phrasing?

(But, our Priests also didn't just shrug and go "ah well" - we also talked about capital-M Myth and we read Joseph Campbell and Robert Graves and talked about how to find the symbolism behind the stories.)

the only thing that can survive such testing is a deism so vague and drained of content as to be virutally worthless.

Go talk to my mum about whether what's survived her testing and whether that's worthless or not. No, really.

And for lots of people spirituality != "supernatural" - that's a conceptual leap where not everybody goes there.

xxpost that's a double edged sword anyway, cuz if someone states they unequivocally believe everything that the Bible said and take everything as gospel and therefore have no questions, they get lampooned for being brainwashed.

The problem with the Bible being a full-stop divine article is twofold:

- It was written by humans, who by definition are not divine and are therefore fallible, ergo the possibility exists that mistakes may have been written into it.

- Even if the document is somehow pure, it is read by humans, who by definition are not divine and therefore fallible, ergo the possibility exists that mistakes may have been made when interpreting it.

Go talk to my mum about whether what's survived her testing and whether that's worthless or not. No, really.

expand, pls?

By the way everyone, "agnostic" does not mean undecided FFS! You can be an agnostic atheist or an agnostic theist. But if you have just never really thought about this stuff and don't care one way or another that doesn't just make you an agnostic.

OK, this is where I gotta get off the thread because to me, it's fine and good when people talk about what *their* experiences of belief or non-belief. But when people start to draw moral conclusions about the belief or non-belief of others different from their own, that's when it gets on pretty shakey ground and I don't really find that constructive at all.

I did already expand on my mother's experiences. Several posts upthread.

And for lots of people spirituality != "supernatural" - that's a conceptual leap where not everybody goes there.

Yeah I know, I did cover that way above. But lots of people here are pleading agnosticism because you can't say one way or the other. I think you can. (But I don't want to start that all up, we've done it a million times before.)

anyways, I live my life without religion, and I'm not really spiritual, although I enjoy things like nature. but I still live with a code of morals that involve respecting other people and their rights. it always got annoying to me when friends of mine would say things like "so and so doesn't believe in God, I mean, how can you be moral without believing in God? You have no reason to be moral".

No, I have no reason to be immoral.

note these are not *current* friends

to quote myself, an hour ago

while we're at it, i find i do have a kneejerk dislike of ppl with the "spiritual but not religious" self-identification. i think there's enough information from the centuries of science and philosophy and religion to make up your damn mind. religions basically ask you to make up your mind, and i feel like i had some kind of intellectual duty to take them up on the offer. is jesus christ the son of god, the risen lord, the embodied eternal word, savior of the world? at 15 i basically said, you know what, no, i really doubt it.

you aren't asked just to believe that a guy called jesus of nazareth existed, there's, uh, a little more to it.

i can't really object when christians of one kind or another say, e.g., mormons are doomed to the pit. i mean, it's a normative statement about what mormonism claims to be true. did jesus appear, after the resurrection, in north america, to give a final testament? will we exist on another planet after death as gods (do i have that right?)? mormonism says yes. nobody else does!

If you are part of any tradition of questioning, I feel you are of my flock. Whether you do that within a religious framework doesn't matter to me, and I feel if atheism is to gain any currency, it shouldn't matter to atheists either.

I wouldn't describe myself as a hardcore atheist either, as I concede that there is a possibility that there is a god, I just think it's extremely unlikely. This position is stronger than agnosticism, however.

"there is a possibility that there is a god, I just think it's extremely unlikely" means you're an atheist. This position isn't "stronger" than agnosticism. It says nothing about the gnosis at all!

I don't think of myself as an atheist because I think it's just as presumptuous to claim to know that god doesn't exist as it is to claim that one does.

That's agnosticism. But it doesn't say anything about whether you actually believe or not. So in addition to being agnostic, you're either an atheist or a theist.

any 'religionist' has the right to remake the religion for themselves. Nearly all the ones who say they don't do this.

I just think it's really *rude* not to mention presumptuous to *tell* other people what you think they believe, or to assign your labels to them.

"so and so doesn't believe in God, I mean, how can you be moral without believing in God? You have no reason to be moral".

No, I have no reason to be immoral.

― Bo Jackson Cruise Control (San Te), Thursday, September 9, 2010 1:42 PM Bookmark

I thought of what I thought was kind of a nice counterargument to this the other day:

When people ask you "If you don't believe in God, what reason do you have to be moral?" they're really making morality a higher value than God - lack of morality is more disturbing than lack of faith in itself. Therefore they're really belying the idea that morality can't exist without God, because they feel some independent concern about morality.

nice people who are not religious are one thing. an institution providing for the common good is quite another, and historically I can't really think of very many that were NOT, on some level, either guided by or explicitly an extension of a religious institution.

Well, I think this is also untrue, but as I am not a history buff I will not argue it further. However, as you were asking me what this tells me, the answer is still very little. Society progresses. There are now shitloads of institutions that do good that have no religious affiliation. Many that may have started with religious roots have lost them. Many have started as purely humanist organisations. This tells me that it is entirely possible for other portions of society to take over the community aspects of religious life.

there are simply no falsifiability criteria in discussions of spirituality

i think this is simply false tbh - if spiritual equals supernatural. religions, amongst other spiritual enterprises, make claims about the world, which can be tested. and i think the only thing that can survive such testing is a deism so vague and drained of content as to be virutally worthless.

Well, there are some claims that can be tested, but the majority of the time when shown to be false, the goalposts are either moved or ignored. It breaks down frequently into fundamentalism or 'god is what you believe him to be'. The former don't care about proofs, the latter cannot be falsified.

when people start to draw moral conclusions about the belief or non-belief of others different from their own, that's when it gets on pretty shakey ground and I don't really find that constructive at all.

I don't think anyone was talking about morality of belief, rather rationality of belief without proof. The non-rational does not have to be morally lacking.

I just think it's really *rude* not to mention presumptuous to *tell* other people what you think they believe, or to assign your labels to them.

Um. Is it also presumptuous to tell someone that by your perception, they appear to have brown hair? Cos that's pretty much where this is at right now. Everyone reaches SOME conclusion about images/ideas/etc that are presented to them.

This thread will end well

I know this is o_0 material around here, but I really don't think that big-R Rationality is all it's cracked up to be. And I certainly don't want to make a religion of it. I have a rational side to my head and an emotive side to my head for a reason - to keep my *humanity* in balance.

And no, Laurel, this isn't about "YOU HAVE BROWN HAIR" it's much closer to the arguments the other day of "You have been to University, therefore, you are NOT working class" "um, actually, I self identify as working class for this reason and that reason, what right have you to tell me I'm not?"

Oh I must have missed that ball of fun re class divisions.

well re: the class discussion in the Pulp thread, i don't think the argument was "you went to U, therefore not working class" it was "you make more than the median income now, therefore not working class"

I get that some people might feel bad to be thought of as essentially atheists in the same way that they don't want to be baptized posthumously by another religion, but I think a lot of that has to do with the stigma of being labeled atheist, and really the only way to defuse that is to apply the term as broadly as possible, which is going to require an initial bit of proselytizing rudeness.

Kate, I kind of agree with you about big-r Rationality sometimes. But religion doesn't have the claim on emotive experience, and it makes some enormous ontological claims at the same time that simply aren't necessary.

nice people who are not religious are one thing. an institution providing for the common good is quite another, and historically I can't really think of very many that were NOT, on some level, either guided by or explicitly an extension of a religious institution.

Yes, religious societies have tended to create religious institutions. What's your point? What a shock that the 2% of the people in the world who are atheists haven't had as big of an impact on history.

well re: the class discussion in the Pulp thread, i don't think the argument was "you went to U, therefore not working class" it was "you make more than the median income now, therefore not working class"

Well, that's a UK / US class appellation division I don't think we'll ever resolve.

Also, Philip, the reason I don't want to be called an "atheist" is that being an "atheist" requires that I be "a - theist" - without god. I have a pretty clear god concept which I have wrestled with and balanced rationality and emotion over, and there is no way that you can re-assign me into your Broad Church no matter how widely you define "atheism".

You do NOT have the right to tell me what I believe, any more than fundamentalist Christians do.

I think the closest I've ever come to what I understand people to be referring to when they refer to "spiritual" experiences are a) scuba diving and b) some rock concerts.

Kate, I kind of agree with you about big-r Rationality sometimes. But religion doesn't have the claim on emotive experience, and it makes some enormous ontological claims at the same time that simply aren't necessary.

^^^ this

If you want to find another word, and divide the world into "truth-seekers" vs. "those who are happy to accept whatever beliefs they are born into without questioning" then I'm happy to be a part of that flock.

But Atheist? Never. That's not what that word means. I reject it.

Religion != Spirituality. Spirituality != Religion.

If anyone takes away any message from this thread, of anything I have been saying, please let it be this.

Please can we stop using these terms as if they are synonymous, because they are not.

It's like saying "Justice" and "The Court System" are the same thing. They are related, but they are not the same.

For the love of fuck, I need to stay off this thread, because I hate repeating myself so much. :-(

i've always like this freud quote

There are a few men from whom their contemporaries do not withhold admiration, although their greatness rests on attributes and achievements which are completely foreign to the aims and ideals of the multitude... One of these exceptional few calls himself my friend in his letters to me. I had sent him my small book that treats religion as an illusion and he answered that he entirely agreed with my judgement upon religion, but that he was sorry I had not properly appreciated the true source of religious sentiments. This, he says, consists in a particular feeling which he himself is never without, which he finds confirmed by many others, and which he may suppose is present in millions of people. It is a feeling which he would like to call a sensation of 'eternity', a feeling as of something limitless, unbounded - as it were, 'oceanic'. This feeling, he adds, is a purely subjective fact, not an article of faith; it brings with it no assurance of personal immortality, but it is the source of religious energy which is seized upon by various Churches and religious systems, directed by them into particular channels, and doubtless also exhausted by them. One may, he thinks, rightly call oneself religious on the grounds of this oceanic feeling alone, even if one rejects every belief and every illusion.

The views expressed by the friend [Romain Rolland] whom I so much honour, and who himself once praised the magic of illusion in a poem, caused me no small difficulty. I cannot discover this oceanic feeling in myself.

I just think it's really *rude* not to mention presumptuous to *tell* other people what you think they believe

Definitely.

or to assign your labels to them.

Well, I don't think any of us created these labels. And words mean something, right? It's definitely frustrating to be labeled against your will. I don't think atheism needs a label, and it's definitely not an "ism." It just seems like common sense to me. But having been thus labeled, it becomes doubly frustrating when people twist the term to pervert its meaning or run from it like it's some kind of mark of shame.

Of course labels for the religious are a whole other complicated ball of wax (who is really a christian and who isn't).

"Spirituality" is a nearly indefinable word, in my experience. Like, its definition is completely and utterly idiosyncratic -- I have never seen two individuals use it to mean the same thing.

"Love" is a nearly indefinable word, in my experience. Like, its definition is completely and utterly idiosyncratic -- I have never seen two individuals use it to mean the same thing.

"Creativity" is a nearly indefinable word, in my experience. Like, its definition is completely and utterly idiosyncratic -- I have never seen two individuals use it to mean the same thing.

"Intelligence" is a nearly indefinable word, in my experience. Like, its definition is completely and utterly idiosyncratic -- I have never seen two individuals use it to mean the same thing.

Most of our *really important* words fall in this category. This does not render them meaningless.

Mind=blown.

I need to re-evaluate my whole life now.

I have respect for the fact that although loads and loads of American religious people are pushing the easy, fundamentalist answers in order to placate their flocks or raise their congregations, that my mother is sitting down and teaching a more intellectual and difficult, but more *tolerant* and conscious and conscience-based version of Christianity.

uh since you said this upthread i dont think you can take a total high ground on other people making suppositions about the beliefs of others tbf

"Justice" is a nearly indefinable word, in my experience. Like, its definition is completely and utterly idiosyncratic -- I have never seen two individuals use it to mean the same thing.

We recognise that the Court System is supposed to embody and carry out Justice, but we also recognise that when it goes wrong, that the Court System has created a "miscarriage of Justice" but that does not mean that we completely negate that there is such a thing as Justice.

I really feel a very similar thing about Religion and Spirituality. That yes, Religion frequently goes very very wrong. But that does not invalidate that "oceanic feeling" (though obviously there are people who have never felt it, like there are obviously people who have never felt, for example, "being in love".)

and im not trying to like call you out or establish an "im right yer wrong", more getting at the idea that people tend to think they arent viewing other peeps religious/spiritual views through a lens, but 99% of the time its kinda inevitable. doesnt mean the discussion isnt worth having tho. xpost

uh since you said this upthread i dont think you can take a total high ground on other people making suppositions about the beliefs of others tbf

I did not, you notice, *label* them and tell them that they WERE NOT CHRISTIAN the way that some people on this thread are trying to tell me that I MUST BE ATHEIST because I've done a bit of questioning. Do you understand the difference?

I'm not trying to be all "don't tell me what to think" but seriously, labelling and shouting at someone "YOU ARE AN ATHEIST, ADMIT IT!" really doesn't win anyone over, in fact, it drives people in the opposite direction. It's a really misguided tactic.

Instead of telling people what they are, or what they think, it's a much better idea to try and identify the common ground *and* the differences between the two points of view to see if/where they can align. That is the way that you can actually bring about any kind of change.