Ok, it's not going to be much of a debate coz I'm in agreement with everything you've detailed.
To 'find faith in (a) god' (in the indoctrinated/figurehead sense) is really to lose faith in one's self.
I can understand those of us who've been bought up from an early age to have religion... just like parental influence/school/hero-figures/music, the religion that is brought into our lives whilst we're still 'impressionable' is hard to shake - if you do break the shackles - good for you! - if not, no problem! - we are merely our products of environments. (to an extent - there's a debate in this statement)
Finding the good book late in life is an interesting change... to go from being your own person with your own doctrine to a rigid religion based upon denial of the self is a big upheaval... and there surely must be a significant catalyst that started this change in thought/belief....
Yes - there's gotta be something monumental within the self or a loss of something external that would cause a change of this magnitude.
And remember --- the easy path in life is to follow one that is already pre-destined for you.... hey, you can't argue with 'god's will' can you?
My god is the self... much like yours.... sometimes I do right by him, sometimes I sin against him, and just like good ol' catholicism, I order myself a steady course of 'Hail Petes' and I'm generally absolved... occasionally I need to regress to flagellation for truely mortal sins against the self though.
Oh --- and I could never convert to Christanity anyway... I'll always covet your donkey... he's so fucking sexy!
there was an interesting article on Disinformation a while ago that put some things in a new perspective for me. while i guess it's really just a form of labelling for viewpoints along the athiest - thiest line, it reinforced that not all thiests are westbro baptist churchies, and not all athiests think Dwarkins in the new messiah
Not too bad at all, how are you guys? Hows the new puppy? Having a good summer? Not much happening here, going to Wellington for the weekend next week, if you would recommend anything there
Oh, being an atheist is awesome, it gives you one less thing to judge people on.
(I have so too much to say on this subject -- and I will say it, soon -- but I have only enough time to write: please drop back by my blog and leave a proper question and I promise to dig for 1D20. Or I'll use this: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/dice/dice.htm, which is even geekier, of course.)
(Okay, KJ, you've done your part by posting a question on my blog and I've answered in the die-roll-determined appropriate way. It's 10:35 a.m. in my corner of the States, there's a foot of snow on the ground, I'm off of work as a consequence, and I think of no better way of spending the day than by drinking hot sake and watching samurai films. But first, a blog comment for you.)
I'm an atheist and phenomenologist. I believe in nothing beyond the empirical and physical. However, I believe there's a good deal in the world beyond what we currently understand -- but that the farthest extents of experience, when found, will be understandable.
For many years, the sloppy credulity of the religious bothered me. I was young and I had no patience for anything so obviously foolish. Even when I saw why certain religious or spiritual ideas should be held, I couldn't understand why adherents wouldn't push beyond -- to be strong enough to supplant external superstitions with meanings they could generate for themselves. Why be slave to an abstract and distant faith when you could be your own god?
I'm slightly, but just slightly, more forgiving now. For years I looked at religion as primarily a philosophical debate, whereas, of course, it's almost entirely psychological. I've come to consider the the social devices by which a faith is wired into one's psyche in childhood, and the needs which cause one to revere or reject or rediscover that faith. Nor can I be all that angry with those who are violent in the name of their religion, because i suspect so many of them otherwise would be destructive in the name of money or land or something safely secular. Non-human animals have no religion, and they consume each other just swell.
And as long as another's faith doesn't dramatically affect my own life, I've even come to tolerate the idea of others having as much right to believe in their ghosties as I believe in my own mind.
I've developed this tepid tolerance primarily through not having to fight people about religion. In college and before, that's hard. Since then, in my little backwoods urban cloister, I've come to a wary dtente.
But I am disappointed. It's disappointing when anyone bows to a faith or morality in which I can't see sense. As a vegetarian, I'm sad when my vegetarian friends start eating meat. As a pacifist, I'm sad when my pacifist friends join the army. As an artist, I'm sad when my artist friends get law degrees and watch The Bachelor while drinking lite beer.
Anyhow, we could always launch a whole separate colloquium on the psychological (and existential, if you like) underpinnings of religion -- of why humans need meaning, why that meaning must be to some degree external, the contrasts between the meaning one inherits and the meaning one forges, etc.
It should wait, for now. I've written a bunch, and that hot sake calls.
It did kinda freak me out a little to see a woman almost regressing back to toddler behaviour whilst asleep...
And this is after a night of fantastic sex... (cue: Pete's feeling of guilt and concern over his behaviour!) I get the feeling there might be a bit of emotional-recovery-work involved. Is that something I want to do? - I need to weigh that up aye.
To 'find faith in (a) god' (in the indoctrinated/figurehead sense) is really to lose faith in one's self.
I can understand those of us who've been bought up from an early age to have religion... just like parental influence/school/hero-figures/music, the religion that is brought into our lives whilst we're still 'impressionable' is hard to shake - if you do break the shackles - good for you! - if not, no problem! - we are merely our products of environments. (to an extent - there's a debate in this statement)
Finding the good book late in life is an interesting change... to go from being your own person with your own doctrine to a rigid religion based upon denial of the self is a big upheaval... and there surely must be a significant catalyst that started this change in thought/belief....
Yes - there's gotta be something monumental within the self or a loss of something external that would cause a change of this magnitude.
And remember --- the easy path in life is to follow one that is already pre-destined for you.... hey, you can't argue with 'god's will' can you?
My god is the self... much like yours.... sometimes I do right by him, sometimes I sin against him, and just like good ol' catholicism, I order myself a steady course of 'Hail Petes' and I'm generally absolved... occasionally I need to regress to flagellation for truely mortal sins against the self though.
Oh --- and I could never convert to Christanity anyway... I'll always covet your donkey... he's so fucking sexy!