Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 966 posts

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#381

Post by gautamdivgi »

fjabre wrote: post #358
gautamdivgi wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incorrect. Hinduism has had Sankhya Yoga which adopts a “rationalistic” approach and at some points in its existence has questioned the existence of God (Ishvara) [0]. I think Buddhism and Taoism are atheistic as well. This is my assumption though and I will be happy to be corrected. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samkhya#Views_on_God

Buddha himself was a Hindu and believed in God, many gods. Hinduism believes in God. Many gods in fact and the concept of a cosmic intelligence. Have you not heard of Bhakti or devotional yoga?

I am a practicing Hindu. Yes, I’ve heard of all of those and Bhakti is but one school of thought. But Hinduism has always had space for other schools of thought. Sankhya is one of them. It does not have a lot of adherents but it does exist. About many God’s in Hinduism - It’s one God (Brahman or Truth) but its different forms as perceived by humans based on the agency/actions of God.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#382

Post by devmunchies »

thom wrote: post #261

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 impleme…

I had the thought that our relationship to this “colin” could be like a fat cell to a human. If the human is fat, we are happy and we actually have influence. If the human is a body builder, we’re in trouble.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#383

Post by spacebanana7 »

deathofsocrates wrote: post #302

Atheism. downright non-believer. Grew up by a deist family. they were not really religious. I do remember hearing praying every now and then from my childhood but it was not something that's reflected to me as important part of life. Later on met lots of religious people but did not find them interesting. After learning more about science and technology, the unresolved facts started to disturb me while I was still yo…

How do you define science? Most attempts at formal definitions involve some sequence of hypothesis/experiment/observation (e.g. wikipedia [1]). With such definitions, however, it's not clear that the employment of some respectable modes of learning like mathematics or the historical method amount to doing science.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#385

Post by fjabre »

garbanzoXDP wrote: post #355
fjabre wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a contradiction. “Spirit”ual. You cannot be Spiritual without belief in Spirit. It is in the word itself. You can be a good Atheist however that is mostly in line with good spiritual practices. Atheists seem to want it both ways. To believe in nothing but also define themselves as “Spiritual”

> You cannot be Spiritual without belief in Spirit How would you define "Spirit"? Languages evolve over time and I'd argue the word "spirituality" is morphing into something with a very broad definition of "spirit", one where, for example, an atheistic Buddhist can practice and still be considered "spiritual".

You yourself are Spirit now. You just think you are a body.

Buddha was not an atheist.

The belief is the other half of this thing. Your benefits of practice will be very limited if there is no belief in it.

It will be mechanical Buddhism which isnt really Buddhism. It’s just someone making the motions.

There is deep meaning there and I have a feeling that you in particular are closer to it than you think.

Call God an alien if you want. I think many simply take issue with the names and symbols. The word God itself evokes controversy in many.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#386

Post by stickfigure »

fjabre wrote: post #337
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'…

It is a contradiction. “Spirit”ual. You cannot be Spiritual without belief in Spirit. It is in the word itself. You can be a good Atheist however that is mostly in line with good spiritual practices. Atheists seem to want it both ways. To believe in nothing but also define themselves as “Spiritual”

> Atheists seem to want it both ways

No, they don't. I understand how you'd like to imagine there are a bunch of atheists out there coveting something you have, but that isn't the case. Reread the root comment and try not to take "spirituality" so literally.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#387

Post by elboru »

newacc9 wrote: post #320

Catholic-Sedevacantist. Day-to-day: pray the 15 decade rosary and fast a couple times a week. Sedevacantist means someone who rejects Vatican II, its leaders and reforms as breaking from tradition. https://endtimes.video/ to learn more.

Complex times to be a Catholic. It’s sad to see our church divided with so many shades of gray, even in the traditional side. God bless you and Merry Christmas

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#388

Post by fjabre »

TchoBeer wrote: post #373
fjabre wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a contradiction. “Spirit”ual. You cannot be Spiritual without belief in Spirit. It is in the word itself. You can be a good Atheist however that is mostly in line with good spiritual practices. Atheists seem to want it both ways. To believe in nothing but also define themselves as “Spiritual”

Spirit doesn't necessarily mean God.

It certainly doesnt mean believing in nothing.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#389

Post by koonsolo »

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.

No post body was provided.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#390

Post by hycaria »

bambax wrote: post #100

I was raised religious (catholic), and kind of believed in it. And then when I was 18-20 I spent a lot of time and effort to rid myself of religion, and have been living happy and free ever since. I still enjoy the occasional mass (once or twice a year), mainly because I like to sing. I have not taught my kids any kind of religion or spirituality, and they don't seem to miss it. I wanted to spare them the effort of g…

Being ignorant of most religious things is socially not that big of a problem in my experience, you eventually miss some references in pop culture though.
Post reply on HN