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

511–520 of 966 posts

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#511

Post by coryfklein »

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'll agree with the other comment that atheism – almost by definition – is not a spiritual practice. But I'll point out that the transition itself, from dogmatic religion to atheism, is almost always a highly spiritual experience.

Having gone through this process myself years ago I can attest to this, while also I must give my strongest recommendation that you eventually begin looking for a spiritual practice. Organized religion's wild success among humanity is a great testament to it's Darwinian fitness, and it undisputably provides many benefits to believers that you most definitely lose if you simply subtract it from your life.

Many atheists struggle with finding a replacement for those benefits without adopting magical thinking in some other way, and I sympathize with this. But once you have had a few years to distance the pain of religion, I highly recommend looking for a routine source of spiritualism in your life. Sam Harris advocates for meditation which seems to be the most prominent atheistic alternative, but it doesn't come by default with many of the benefits that organized religion does (community and ceremony to just name a couple off the top of my head).

Whatever time and effort your parents and family invested into religion, I recommend taking some portion of that and investing it in your own spiritual well-being. And as a disclaimer to all this: I too am atheist, I don't subscribe to any magical thinking, and I am co-opting the word "spiritualism" significantly here but I can't think of a good alternative. I don't actually believe "spirits" exist.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#512

Post by yibg »

cogman10 wrote: post #448
yibg wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That’s true of course and maybe is just an artifact of imprecise language. Of course I can’t hate a physical thing that I don’t think exists, but I can hate the concept of it. When people say “God hating atheist” I assume they mean an atheist that hates the concept of god. I still fail to see how that’s religious though.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#513

Post by [deleted] »

pmarreck wrote: post #441
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/subj…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#514

Post by kk6mrp »

BTCOG wrote: post #278
kk6mrp wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might like this poem (from what I can find it is attributed to Bill Britton): When you are forgotten, or neglected, or purposely set at naught, and you don’t sting and hurt with the insult or the oversight, but your heart is happy, being counted worthy to suffer for Christ. THAT IS DYING TO SELF When your good is evil spoken of, when your wishes are crossed, your advice disregarded, your opinions ridiculed, and y…

It's so odd to me that since the dawn of time, humans find this innate need to live in slave morality. Living a life of moral slavery based on stories and tales previous humans made with their own minds. It's a definition of insanity, from my own perspective. To contribute to the discussion: I practice nothing, no religion, no meditations. Nothing. I find peace enough knowing that I'm not morally enslaved and that I…

I'm far from a philosopher so I wasn't familiar with master/slave morality before your comment so bear with me. It is odd to me that you say that this is the definition of insanity to find this need to live in slave morality; yet many of the Stoic and Christian teachings are very similar which is easy to see comparing biblical teaching to the Enchiridion. I mention this since you identify somewhat with the Stoics, maybe I misinterpreted the sentence completely though.

While many of the teachings are very similar, the Christian finds ultimate freedom from sin by turning his/her life to God. While you acknowledge there may be a God, Christians proclaim that there is a God that commands men to repent of their sin and follow Him. The apostle Paul's explanation is much better than mine:

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+17%3A16-34...

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#515

Post by robofanatic »

aerodog wrote: post #87

Muslim here. Ritual prayer is the core exercise. Before sunrise, after sunset, and 3 other times during the day. But as important or more so is constant remembrance of God. If that's not institutionalized in one's day-to-day psychology, one will lose spiritual momentum, if we can use such terminology. "Worship" in Arabic عبادة actually means something like "conformity to God's order", as far as I understand. So even…

It is all good as long as it isn’t forcefully institutionalized upon others (that includes your own children)

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#516

Post by cogman10 »

yibg wrote: post #502

A bit of slight tangent. I’m an atheist, but sometimes I envy the communities religious groups build (e.g. church). One big advantage I’ve seen is some of my Christian friends can move cities and almost instantly have a community via the local church. They make friends, have a place to go on a regular basis and has a support network. Anyone aware of anything similar but not based on religion?

Unitarian universalist might be what you are after. They don't outright reject religion but they also don't really prescribe it.

There are also quite a few atheists in the community of christ, funnily enough :D.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#517

Post by sjfnjsdjfn2764 »

Since the past year Christian, while having been atheist the rest of my life.

It's a long path and has required a lot of study, since I cannot internalize something without fully understanding the rationale and any pertaining evidence. Past the popular reductionist views of religion, there is a lot of ambiguity and depth, so it takes time. There are also many relevant philosophical/scientific questions worth researching (e.g. morality, the origin of "things", etc.).

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#518

Post by offa »

hudon wrote: post #449
offa wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I'm not arguing that God's morality is somehow inferior to mine - I'm arguing that by trusting and obeying Him over my own moral judgement (I know murder is wrong, yet God tells me to kill someone), I am shifting responsibility for my own actions onto Him - Abraham's greatness is that he does not doubt the Lord. The ultimate accountability to God is inherently at odds with my responsibility for those around me.

"He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." Would you look your son in the eye as you lower the knife?

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#520

Post by aristofun »

yibg wrote: post #506
aristofun wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's just simple logic. If you hate something that doesn't exist, your are either making no sense or must imply the existence (in some form). Think about it deeply.

“God hating atheists” don’t hate the actual God, it doesn’t exist. The hate is directed toward the concept of god, which is definitely real.

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.

Post reply on HN