Earlier quoted context omitted.
Okay, but you said: "that would require assuming that the statement "Is there a god?" is both coherent, meaningful, and answerable." What part of this question is incoherent, unmeaningful, and unanswerable, if you are able to understand religion in an objective sense?
What's a god? How can I meaningfully ascribe any qualities whatsoever to a non-corporeal, non-perceptible entity? What does it even mean to ask if things that are outside of our universe "exist"? Etcetera etcetera. You can't even get past the superficial layers of "Is there a god?" without hitting questions that are ill-formed.
Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
851–860 of 966 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
#852Earlier quoted context omitted.
But what's actual difference between God and concept of God? This is rethorical question, 'cause there is no easy answer, and yet my original statement is valid. In this case god-hating atheists confirm the existence of god in the form of 'concept' you may say.
> In this case god-hating atheists confirm the existence of god in the form of 'concept' you may say. C'mon, no atheist is remotely claiming that God doesn't exist even as a concept. You can't possibly think this is what any atheist ever meant? On the face of it it's almost impossible to claim that something doesn't exist as a concept, since making such a claim creates the concept. Some atheists might claim there are…
Personally I don’t care neither abou atheists nor about religious people in general.
I was just answering the question.
Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
#853Earlier quoted context omitted.
Genetics, cultural values, chemicals, hormones, electrical impulses, all conspiring to create the illusion of objective morality
We pretend to seek out reasons, when we're actually just looking for excuses. "I didn't actually do anything wrong, something outside of me made me do wrong, you can't prove it wasn't chemicals" "There's no such thing as a shared moral code ,it doesn't exist, unless someone hurts me and then suddenly, they did something horribly wrong" Our ancestors are fortunately a bit wiser than we are, they know there are things…
Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
#854Earlier quoted context omitted.
>So, what do you call me the thing that drives otherwise reasonable humans to hate each other? Go to Google News and search for the terms 'sectarian violence', 'religious violence' and 'blasphemy'. There are the Sunni and Shia killing each other in the Middle East, the Christians and Muslims killing each other in Nigeria and Hindu religious leaders calling for the mass killing of Muslims in India. In Pakistan, angry…
There is far too much intolerance, violence, misery and death in the world today caused by people acting on or motivated by their u̶n̶s̶u̶b̶s̶t̶a̶n̶t̶i̶a̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶r̶e̶l̶i̶g̶i̶o̶u̶s̶ beliefs. e.g. USSR anti-religious campaign of 1928–1941: "The campaign began in 1929, with the drafting of new legislation that severely prohibited religious activities and called for an education process on religion in order to further di…
Anti-religion campaigns are still in effect caused by religion, since they wouldn't be necessary if it weren't for religion. Next!
Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
#855Earlier quoted context omitted.
> To your point about the miracles attributed to him, again, because he didn't manifest those miracles to everyone ever, they didn't happen? Recall that I responded to a GP that said all this is "beyond doubt." You're arguing a strawman with me. (On a personal note, I do believe in many of the miracles attested to Jesus, but that isn't evidence to me that he was God in the flesh.) As for your links, I counter suggest…
Your assertion was that GP's statement is not beyond all doubt because Jesus only manifested to a small group of people. [1] I don't think your reason for your assertion is valid. Jesus only manifesting to a relatively (relative to all of humanity) small group of people doesn't invalidate or cast doubt on anything. You might have other reasons for doubting His divinity, but I don't think the one you've professed is a…
> Jesus only manifesting to a relatively (relative to all of humanity) small group of people doesn't invalidate or cast doubt on anything.
Of course it does. You now rely on the testimony of these small of group of people (who you do not even know the identities of), rather than Jesus himself, or witnessing him directly.
Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
#856I try to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I like to seek out and fold in examples and teachings of other religious leaders as well as long as I can resolve differences in some creative way. I am particular keen of various Asian ideas of late. I read scriptures and other inspiring works when impressed to (I think that Dr Seuss, The Life of Pi, and maybe L…
Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
#857I'm a religious Jew, in a bit of a crisis of faith. I still pray three times a day, I still make shabbat and observe holidays, I even still learn Torah even though I don't really believe in it anymore, because I find being well read useful when I have to explain the times I do break the cultural norms to people. Orthodox Judaism in general has a lot of laws everywhere: what you wear, what you eat, what you put in you…
> a society that will treat you like a stranger and disown you if you don't get married, let alone if you have a relationship with someone of the same sex How do you reconcile these within yourself? My curiosity is about true spiritual practice - the alchemy inside your being. Is your practice to humble yourself to the rules for example? Or to follow them while knowing in your heart that they are limiting and possibl…
Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
#858100% 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…
Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
#859Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why even bother forgiving yourself if morality is just a human construct and there is no judgment in the afterlife?
Why even bother "trying to live a good life" if "a good life" is just a human construct and there is no judgement on that in the afterlife? By your assumptions, every atheist should just, like, die or at best, live a meaningless life.
If your religious beliefs were somehow proven to be invalid, I guarantee you wouldn't just kill yourself, as you claim. You'd ascribe meaning however you can, and live your best life, as you always have.
If you are gay or otherwise something that was (previously) on the fringe of accepted culture, it becomes super obvious from a young age that people who try to tell you how to live your life are full of crap. I figured this out at the young age of 9. What shocked me then and continues to shock me now, though, is the cowardice and ignorance of people like you who, faced again with infinite moral and ontological agency, are afraid, and would rather die than have to come up with meaning and purpose themselves. What a boring, privileged, and childish take. People like this are either chronically unimaginative or have simply never experienced any adversity of any kind.
Still, some will press on and say, OK, well why is it that organized religions around the world tend to be somewhat similar despite tremendous geographic boundaries throughout history -- isn't it significant that all these different people and cultures came up with very roughly the same set of ideas and moral values? Of course it's significant! The power of the placebo effect is well documented and religion, if you think about it, is the ultimate placebo, and we've had hundreds of thousands of years to evolve the optimal set of religious values that produce the most dopamine while being the best at placating and controlling the general populace with promises of an afterlife and judgement for wrongdoing (where wrongdoing is anything that threatens the status quo). The best part is even if you agree with one particular religion, you have to acknowledge that yes, other religions seem to provide the same existential, spiritual, and psychological relief across the board (hence the millions of practitioners), and seem to organize society in a way that is pliable and easy to be led by a centralized authority (which historically is a good predictor for the success of things like empires, etc). So is it really surprising that after running hundreds of thousands of years of randomized trials to find the most effective religion with the best placebo effect, we've arrived at a select few that placate most people at least until they examine their convictions more closely and are properly educated? Knowing this, you could just as easily ascribe meaning yourself to get similar effects, so why go to the trouble of believing in something you know deep down to be false? You could get all these same effects, minus the cognitive dissonance of doubt, by simply taking charge of your existence and ascribing meaning to things you care about.
On the flip side, how are people so OK with the idea of an afterlife? When surveyed, most people say they would not be OK with living forever, yet we are all supposed to look forward to an afterlife where we do in fact live forever? What if heaven turns out to be not to your liking, and then you are stuck there forever? Wouldn't it then be a sort of hell? Even if you like it at first, eventually we get sick of everything anyway (without the urgency created by having limited time, meaning fades regardless of what you believe), so if heaven existed, it would eventually be hell no matter who you are. To eternal life, or any kind of an afterlife, I say no thank you unless I still have the option to off myself when I feel like being done. What right does some God have to imprison me in some eternal "ideal" afterlife and never allow me to just end, if I want to? What if the people he saves are actually super annoying sycophants and I'm stuck listening to them blather for all of eternity?
But, the religious person will say, "how can you believe things just end!! That's horrifying!!". Again this is such an infantile take. Maybe to an 8 year old this is horrifying, but if you think about it, it's not horrifying at all. Pain is scary, sure, and we don't like to imagine those we care about having to live on without us, but if you're simply afraid of the state of "not existing", full stop, you're being silly -- you wouldn't be there to experience whatever it is you're worried about anyway, because you wouldn't exist, you wouldn't be able to experience, so it couldn't be a negative or a positive experience! Sounds incredibly relaxing to me, knowing that eventually I don't have to exist anymore. If anything, it is much, much scarier to believe that perception or consciousness continues after death in some way, especially if they used ugly drapes and you're stuck with that for eternity.
Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
#860I'm a religious Jew, in a bit of a crisis of faith. I still pray three times a day, I still make shabbat and observe holidays, I even still learn Torah even though I don't really believe in it anymore, because I find being well read useful when I have to explain the times I do break the cultural norms to people. Orthodox Judaism in general has a lot of laws everywhere: what you wear, what you eat, what you put in you…
Have you tried a Reform community? You can get the religious structure and meaning while also not being shunned for loving whomever you love.