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Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

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Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#441

Post by pmarreck »

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…

While I sometimes debate atheists on this or that (such as denial of consciousness or "soul" or afterlife claims or resting on circular reasoning that they prima facie don't exist), their "100% assume nothing" stance is waaaaaay better to debate pretty much anything on vs. pretty much any person who takes seriously their (usually unfounded, at least empirically; I'm putting aside externally-unverifiable personal/subjective experiences here, which I do believe happen) religious beliefs.

It's been excruciating existing as the sole "loves to debate" member of my original nuclear family (who are all fairly hardcore Catholics; I was raised in that but my naturally-questioning naturally-curious nature eventually led me off that path). Sincere religious belief is almost anathema to sincere debate (since some things suddenly become "unquestionable" or "heretical to question"); and it seems that many people feel "lost" unless they have some framework to make sense of things... but even then, people use reasoning that just seems terrible to me (such as thanking God for the survivors of a disaster but not questioning God at all about the non-survivors; at least Mr. Rogers made some sense when he said "look to the rescuers").

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#442

Post by autopilot23 »

icytrumpet wrote: post #404
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…

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.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#443

Post by cogman10 »

scandox wrote: post #400
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…

Strong atheism of the sort you profess is religious in my opinion. It may or may not be spiritual, depending on its flavour. You don't sound like a God hating atheist (which is definitely spiritual).

There is, frankly, no such thing as a "god hating atheist". Those two notions are incompatible. Consider, for example, how little you (probably) care about fairies. Are you a fairy hating afairist?

You may find an Atheist that says something like "If god does exist, it's a dick". but that's not really hating god but rather pointing out the silliness of believing in a supernatural all powerful being that is good which allows evil to happen. IE, the problem of evil.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#444

Post by prometheus76 »

hycaria wrote: post #351
prometheus76 wrote: post #34

I am an Orthodox Christian. My day begins with prayer, as soon as possible after I wake up. Prayer consists of reading (or reciting) prayers from a prayer book, followed by 100-200 Jesus Prayers ("Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me!"), followed by 12-25 prostrations. I then read the daily scripture readings indicated by the liturgical calendar. At noon, I usually read a Psalm in front of my icons (I work from home)…

This sounds crazy to me, mostly regarding the amount of time all this must take.

How much time do you spend on social media (including youtube and HN)? How much time do you spend watching tv? How much time do you spend watching sports? I have shifted my attention to what is most important, doing these spiritual practice things first, and letting those other activities slot in around the time. Our lives are basically determined by what we put our attention on, so why not give the prime real estate to what is most important? We are all going to die. It's best to confront that reality each day and make peace with it in a ritualistic way that also brings meaning to each day.

I didn't start doing all of that overnight, by the way. I worked with my spiritual father on a pathway that started very simply, and this is my current level of participation, but I am sure it will continue to grow and change over time.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#445

Post by dotancohen »

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…

  > 100% atheism. Was raised some kind of protestant
Please don't conflate Christianity with religion or the lack of Christianity with atheism. Many religions are very spiritual, and I remind you that talking about our spiritual practice is the whole point of this thread.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#446

Post by opportune »

scandox wrote: post #400
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…

Strong atheism of the sort you profess is religious in my opinion. It may or may not be spiritual, depending on its flavour. You don't sound like a God hating atheist (which is definitely spiritual).

Please explain how being a god-hating atheist is spiritual

I think if god-hating atheists do exist it’s an inherent contradiction. Perhaps you are confusing people who practice “satanism” mostly as a way to troll religious people as god-hating.

There are definitely anti-religion atheists but I don’t see how that is spiritual.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#447

Post by [deleted] »

BTCOG wrote: post #319
whatshisface wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moral slavery as you put it is one of those things that's bad for you but good for everybody else, unless you're bad at getting away with things in which case it's also good for you. Another kind of slavery is doing whatever you want, because you don't decide what you want. What you want is determined by the often self-contradictory brain circuits that sprouted in your head without your intent or permission. That's s…

God is nature itself. I am happy toiling in soils, studying plants, etc. I could just as easily 100% drop computers and engineering next week and live on my own farm toiling the soils, raising farm animals and be as happy as I have ever been in my life.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#448

Post by cogman10 »

yibg wrote: post #433
scandox wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strong atheism of the sort you profess is religious in my opinion. It may or may not be spiritual, depending on its flavour. You don't sound like a God hating atheist (which is definitely spiritual).

I hear this sentiment quite a bit but I don't understand still. Can you explain a bit why (strongly) not believing in a deity is religious? I can hate God, because for instance I think religious belief has done a lot of harm, but how does that make my stance a religious one?

Honestly, I take this as not hating god but rather hating the belief in god.

I don't hate god anymore than I hate leprechauns.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#449

Post by hudon »

offa wrote: post #401
hudon wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For forgiveness, you need to actually be contrite and willing to amend your life. God loves you and wants you to heal but you need to be open to it. Also he is just, so he doesn’t exactly let you do whatever you want as you imply. There are always consequences to our actions. Further, I would argue that without living with God, you are actually freed from responsibility in moral judgements, because of the belief that…

I don't mean to start a "religion versus atheism" comment battle, but just wanted to discuss the idea of moral responsibility. For context, I grew up in a Christian (Eastern Orthodox) household and attended church for some twenty-five years of my life - that is to say, the perspective of a believer is not lost on me, even though I am now agnostic. For me, responsibility is irrevocably linked to the idea of care - car…

Why would you believe in a God whose morality isn't superior to yours? Conversely, if you care for those around you and you knew God's will was ultimately better for them, why would you not obey Him over your own judgements?

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#450

Post by jackpirate »

TchoBeer wrote: post #273
dragonwriter wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You might want to look at some of the more modern / postmodern branches of Christianity > Some people who practice it sincerely don't think of the Bible as a literally true document that has no mistakes or inaccuracies, That's not “modern and postmodern” Christianity, that's just OG Christianity. The view that, as doctrine, the Bible is entirely literal and without error in any sense (rather than often nonliteral a…

Name and cite a single Christian source from before 1600 which believes the Bible is a flawed text which contains errors.

You can find a reasonably extensive set of passages from the pre-400AD famous Christians about how the genesis story is supposed to be interpreted allegorically and not literally on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegorical_interpretations_of...

Of course, they would not consider the allegory an "error" in the same way that modern fundamentalists would.

It is not a fringe belief/conspiracy theory that biblical literalism is a relatively new Christian tradition, but rather well accepted fact among religious historians.

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