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Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

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Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#361

Post by [deleted] »

kirse wrote: post #333
eatYourFood wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked with a pastor in the Philippines doing charity work a number of years ago, he outright said that his good deeds were all to spread and grow the religion, not because doing good deeds is a good thing to do. I did not like that one bit but it’s hard to argue against given these Filipinos really did need food parcels. The Japanese mafia also give out charity to get people onside. Putin used to drive around rura…

Growing a religion (or a movement) through bribery is an ancient practice. Of course, and there's always an element of corruption in modern churches that needs to be guarded against. That said, wrt Christianity the early disciples were often broke/homeless, all of them ended up without a dime in their pockets and most were gruesomely executed: https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/m7tiq6/what_happen... If money w…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#362

Post by dagmx »

I was raised Hindu and Christian (both Protestant and Catholic). I was also taught Islam to widen my world view.

As a child, the exposure to multiple religions made me a staunch atheist. I think I've been an atheist since I can remember, at least since I was five or six.

The teachings aren't compatible. There's too many times that you'd be taught that you need religion to be moral, or that there's one true God (mostly from the monotheistic ones) or that there's too many subjective interpretations. Worse, I grew up seeing the immorality of many religious people from huckster gurus, to pastors taking donations and not accounting for where it went and the news at the time was of the Catholic churches coverup of pedophilia. As a young child, it all just seemed so deeply wrong.

Anyway atheism makes sense to me. Morality is logic combined with cultural context. Not having religion let me be more open to more cultures, and I find studying the cultural aspects of other religions more fascinating than when I was taught that there should only be one.

My spiritual practice therefore is trying to learn more about different cultures and people. Understanding different perspectives helps give me clarity to my own, without the burden of trying to fit it into an existing religious framework

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#363

Post by dragonwriter »

hall0ween wrote: post #291
sfotm wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was raised in the Catholic church, and I don't think your take on confession is quite right. The process of confession isn't "sit in this booth and walk out scot-free on all of your wrongdoings". It's meant to be an assisted meditation on what you can do better in your life, and how to do so. The act of confession doesn't help you if it's not done in good faith, and a penance for murder might be a confession to the…

As far as I know, confession is a route for absolution of “sins”. And for some reason this is a power Christian churches give themselves. If it doesn’t result in a form of leverage (moral or otherwise) over it’s practitioners, I’d be surprised. Even more so for children who have yet to establish their own view of the world.

> And for some reason this is a power Christian churches give themselves.

Mostly, Mt. 16:15-19.

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/16

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#364

Post by DangitBobby »

fjabre wrote: post #353
TchoBeer wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Atheism is not spiritual and to conflate the two is foolish. Not necessarily, obviously, but there are spiritual atheists, and if OP asks "what are your spiritual practices" then "I have none" is a valid answer. >It is clear that atheism and consumerism in modern society do not make people happy. The least happy people I know are religious, and almost all the Atheists I know are pretty happy with their lives. I don'…

Quoted post unavailable.

Ah, the No True Christian fallacy.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#365

Post by aidenn0 »

hudon wrote: post #344
hall0ween wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know, confession is a route for absolution of “sins”. And for some reason this is a power Christian churches give themselves. If it doesn’t result in a form of leverage (moral or otherwise) over it’s practitioners, I’d be surprised. Even more so for children who have yet to establish their own view of the world.

Forgiveness is from God, but can be through a priest, as long as you are contrite. The Church as a body of Christians obviously benefits from contrite brothers and sisters attempting (and yes often failing miserably, but at least attempting) to live in peaceful communion.

Though in many catholic communities the level of contrition is perhaps unhealthy. I joke that:

- A Christian Fundamentalist believes that only those who believe a very specific set of things is saved

- A Christian Universalist believes that all are saved

- A Catholic Christian believes that everyone except him/herself is saved

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#366

Post by ss108 »

yashap wrote: post #311

Atheist-ish - no spiritual practice of any kind. In terms of beliefs, I think there’s a tonne of massive, unanswered questions about the universe, and it’s certainly possible that there are forces out there that resemble spiritual concepts. Something vaguely resembling a soul, or an intelligent life that created the universe, that sort of thing. Or not - I have no real opinion on this other than “nobody knows”. I do…

Sounds like you're more of an Agnostic, no?

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#367

Post by guilhas »

I do take comfort in believing there is some kind of God somewhere. It really does not matter if it exists, or what is it, and it does not rule over my life. It just fills what is missing spiritually

As most people don't really follow any regular religious ritual on lack of time. My girlfriend does take our child to the local mini-church activity which is fun and entertaining

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#368

Post by simonh »

laserlight wrote: post #341
sam0x17 wrote: post #233

100% atheism. Was raised some kind of protestant I forget which one, and derived tremendous spiritual and psychological relief when I realized all of that was absolute nonsense at the age of 9. I knew I was gay at the time and wouldn't come out until I was 18 or so, but my life just got a lot easier when I removed religion completely. I also recall discovering increased moral agency -- as a Christian I had been taugh…

I’m curious. How did you originally arrive at the conclusion that god didn’t exist?

Good question, hope you don’t mind me jumping in. For me as a teenager or even younger, reading about various faiths and mythologies, I was thinking about which faith was the right one. Obviously I could simply choose the one of my parents and the adults around me followed, but I went to a school with Muslims, Hindu and Buddhist children too. Was I really supposed to try and convert them? None of the Christian teachers did.

It all made no sense. Everybody was just doing and saying what their parents told them to, and actually thinking or talking about it and taking it actually seriously just seemed absurd. Nobody was actually following through on what the scriptures said they aught to be doing, if it really was all true, and if they had that would be even worse.

So it wasn’t so much deciding god doesn’t exist, it was that if god does exist, which version is it and how would I know? From there concluding that religion is an entirely artificial social construct was a pretty small step.

Having said that, I also concluded that spirituality is clearly a ubiquitous human experience. Religion seems to be a response to a universal, or near universal impulse that it’s worth taking seriously.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#369

Post by dhimes »

Subsentient wrote: post #156

I'm a secular Satanist. I believe Christianity and Abrahamic religions are inherently unethical. I have very strong utilitarian principles that run even deeper, which is ultimately what pushed me to Satanism. I'm a member of the Satanic temple, but in some ways it's more of a political organization than religious. I'm open to the possible existence of the paranormal, but I do not trust it at all and would question th…

I only recently learned that the Satanic Temple split from the Church of Satan. The ST moved next door (to Salem, MA).
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