I'm agnostic, but I choose to believe that there's a chance the universe was created, either directly or as a side-effect of some act of will. Given what I know about how complicated projects generally get delivered, I assume that instead of some benevolent, perfect creator, the universe was created in a rush, by some stressed low-level figure. They are probably unhappy with how it turned out, and they had to implement a bunch of performance hacks (the speed of light and quantum mechanics among them) to get it working properly. They may not understand its internal state, or know we exist, but I hope they have at least some grudging affection for their creation, even if it's been superseded by other universes at this point. I call them Colin. I occasionally ask for Colin's help, and in return I try to keep my part of the universe interesting. You are free to join me in Colinism.
Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
261–270 of 966 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
#262Orthodox Jew. I pray three times a day. Morning takes about 20-25 minutes, afternoon is 5 minutes, and evening is 5-10 minutes. I don't really think of it as a spiritual practice though, more of just a religious obligation.
Another Orthodox Jew checking in here. How do you manage to do shacharis in 20 minutes? Do you go to minyan? ;)
Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
#263100% 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…
Similar experience.
I was raised Christian and very into it (mission trips, Bible study, accountability groups, etc) but abandoned it in my early twenties. I am much more content with life—no more sense of guilt constantly hanging over my head along with an increased sense of control and responsibility. My wife was raised Mormon and also abandoned her faith. Both of our immediate and extended families are still very religions.
Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
#264No post body was provided.
Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
#265It’s great to see all these responses. I enjoyed looking through these.
My core view is some flavor of monism, and I see no (ultimate) contradictions among monotheistic, polytheistic, pantheistic, even atheistic or apatheistic views. I have had visionary experiences with and without psychedelics. There are some things I don’t need a belief for, having experienced enough.
I spend a lot of time doing healing work on myself, and that bleeds into work on people around me and people I encounter. In the past two years, this work has also bleed into the land as I study and put into practice permaculture design principles.
I used to do mindfulness practices and japa yoga regularly in the mornings. These days, I am practicing neigong with the aim of refining the vessel (the body) to materialize spirit. Or at least, as I can, with helping my wife with our one-year-old child.
Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
Recently I was attending several catholic weddings and I was taken aback by the level of religious fervor and literal interpretation of the bible there. I was expecting the preaching to be more focused on how to live a good life and be a valuable member of society, but instead it was more about how I will burn eternally for not believing.
The guilt is definitely pushed strongly in Catholicism and probably the worst part of it. But I don't think Catholics are too literal in their interpretation of the bible - in fact I think they are generally more rational than most other denominations. For instance, Catholics generally accept scientific explanations for evolution and the origin of the universe unlike many (most?) protestants.
Lifelong Catholic here -- I've never felt that the guilt was pushed too strongly. What I do feel is that the Catholic Church is very willing to say that certain beliefs and practices are proscribed, that sin is real and should be avoided. What people are calling guilt is their own attachment to sin, and their reluctance to abandoning it.
(That being said, God's capacity for love is beyond human conception and no person can ever be beyond redemption.)
Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
#267100% 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 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 community.
Think of it as a precursor to modern-day psychotherapy, if that helps. Admittedly, some modern day implementations of confession feel a bit like the spiritual equivalent of a drive through, nor are all priests equally capable of helping.
Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
#268None. I have none. Don't need one.
Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
#269Am the embodiment of all the secularism.
Loves every experience in Life’s journey, doesn’t discriminate anyone.
Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
#270I used to be devout Mormon, and a hardcore one at that. It was woven so deeply in my reality, that everything had spiritual significance for me. A few years ago, I encountered history, documents, and truths about the religion that were never presented to me. Since then, I've slowly, painfully, removed myself from the religion, and removed the religion from me. It's extremely painful to go from a space where everythin…
>nothing actually matters
Maybe it’s just a matter if having a time perspective that is appropriate for what we can possibly get a handle on as humans. In the medium term, as opposed to the heat-death-of-the-universe long term, stuff definitely matters.
Also btw that phrase “nothing actually matters” is a little piece of propaganda planted by religion as a false caricature of non-religious thinking. You might consider that by buying into it, you are still allowing that religion to control your thinking.