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Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

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Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#541

Post by analog31 »

kirse wrote: post #299
pg_1234 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+100% ... well, straight here ... but I was 7 when I realised that religion was not only bullshit but actually dangerous as it represents a way for people to justify reprehensible acts by putting the importance of pandering to the alleged whims of a "supreme" being above any rational standard of decency and morality.

as it represents a way for people to justify reprehensible acts And in that view, it also represents a way for people to "justify" incredible acts of grace, mercy, and kindness to fellow man. At least in the US, the broad majority of charities and social work organizations that care for others' many needs (both internal and external to this country) have some sort of religious background. Even further, religious free…

My observation is that while religious people are kind and charitable, religious societies tend to be the opposite. An example is that the US is full of charitable organizations, yet in the aggregate, we are relatively uncharitable as a nation, especially towards the poor and weak. And how religious organizations actually spend their money overseas is anybody's guess, when a little bit of money can buy a lot of political power in a poor country.

From my reading of the gospel stories, this doesn't shock me. The religious doctrines have a lot to say about individual behavior, whether you agree with them or not, but nothing to say about how societies and governments treat people. In fact, my impression is that the gospels consider societies and governments to be irredeemable, and offer the "good news" of basically saving the good individuals and incinerating everything else, soon.

With this said, I'm hesitant to make a strong argument of this, because I have a rule that I don't try to interpret anybody else's religious doctrines or holy books. I hope that someone's religion motivates them to build a better society, but I can't prove that such a thing accurately reflects their doctrines.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#542

Post by KronisLV »

foobiekr wrote: post #509
KronisLV wrote: post #325

Daily existential crisis due to my own mortality. Curiously, the sensation of ever present dread keeps me grounded. Coming to terms with the fact that i'm in a losing battle against entropy itself really puts things in perspective. I'm mostly atheistic and, in my understanding of the world, once my consciousness ceases to be functional within my body, i'll be forever gone. So that's what i center my contemplation of…

> Daily existential crisis due to my own mortality I had this for a long time. The thing that cured it was that I remind myself every day how many days I should expect to live, how many of those days will be healthy enough to do anything, and what % of my remaining life and healthspan this year is. Even though it would seem this makes things worse, my experience is that it is the opposite. It is like tossing some egg…

Yep, of course, if worries like that prevent a person from actually living their life and being a functional member of society (in whatever capacity they wish to be one), then it's probably helpful to seek counseling or additional help with that. However, if things aren't so dire, being aware of the approximate time that you have left might actually motivate you to focus on what you want to achieve etc. The first time i saw a "life calendar", it felt a bit macabre, but upon further consideration, that's just one form of practicing mindfulness.

At the very least, it seems to be working out nicely for some rather productive people out there, like Randall Thomas (you can see one such calendar in the background in some of his videos about programming his own game engine): https://www.youtube.com/c/RandallThomas/videos

Personally, that awareness helped me deal with worrying about what my peers would think of me and so on. I mean, come on, we're all hurtling through space on an impeccable piece of rock with our entire existence being a splendid display of maths, physics and chemistry, yet even so it's just a blip on the overall time scale of the universe. Why should i worry in the slightest about what my clothes look like, or the stupid thing that i said 4 years ago, that no one even cares about?

I'd still call what i'm experiencing a "crisis" since the underlying problem of being mortal isn't really solved and might not be in my life span, but it can definitely be interpreted as something not wholly negative.

That said, i bet one can write a lot of amazing fiction after pondering the eventual point in time where it could reasonably be solved. At first, imagine our elderly being able to live out their days in peak physical shape, without being forced to witness their bodies breaking down with age. Then, imagine those few who'd actually want that sort of thing, being able to live for thousands if not tens or hundreds of thousands of years. Oh, how much one could learn. Oh, how much you'd start caring about the long term impacts of your actions, then. Truly an interesting topic!

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#543

Post by metadaemon »

selfhifive wrote: post #440

I practice my religion, believe in god, and pray for some minutes during the evening. Believing in spirituality without religion leads to a cognitive dissonance. My philosophy is that there are too many things that we simply cannot observe due to the limitations of our senses and thought/imagination, so to dismiss god is not truly rational. Spirituality is removed from any material success, so to go into any spiritua…

I'd almost think that believing in a particular religion would lead to cognitive dissonance rather than the other way around. Could you expand on that a bit?

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#544

Post by cogman10 »

laserlight wrote: post #341
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’m curious. How did you originally arrive at the conclusion that god didn’t exist?

We all come by it by different ways but I'll share my story.

I was mormon up until around 30ish. However, researching the history of the mormon religion ultimately led me to completely disbelieve the faith claims of the church.

From there, atheism was just sort of natural. Why, for example, would I suddenly believe that any other religious sect got it's supernatural claims correct when the one I was raised with, got a bunch of the "good feelings" from and was 1000% convinced was true ended up having really major issues?

I certainly could be convinced there is a god, but it cannot be through emotions. My emotions held me in mormonism for far to long. I know emotions can trick, deceive, and are easily played to. The right type of music or a charismatic orator can easily trigger them.

So what does that leave me with? Facts, logic, and evidence. Any religion that can give me solid evidence that the supernatural is real and exists would win me. None have succeeded (and I have had fun looking into a few).

If there is an all knowing, loving god that cares about me, then that god would know exactly how to present me the evidence I need to believe in it. If that god doesn't care about me, then why should I care about it?

And, if there's a supernatural belief without a god that I should believe in for afterlife rewards... well, there's just no way for me to correctly stumble into it. I need evidence that I'll be reincarnated as a spider if I don't believe in reincarnation, and that seems pretty tough to prove.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#545

Post by andrei_says_ »

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…

When you say “God” - where do you perceive it to be?

When you pray for example - do you pray toward a certain direction in space?

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#546

Post by [deleted] »

TchoBeer wrote: post #276
saperyton wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another Orthodox Jew checking in here. How do you manage to do shacharis in 20 minutes? Do you go to minyan? ;)

Is 20 minutes supposed to be long or short? Without a minyan it usually takes me about 10-15 minutes and I'm faster than average.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#547

Post by [deleted] »

TchoBeer wrote: post #296

I'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…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#548

Post by metadaemon »

calebm wrote: post #306

I was raised as a preachers' kid in the ultra-conservative Church of Christ Christian denomination, and I thought we were the only ones that had the truth and everyone else was going to hell. But I wondered why God doesn't show himself. Fast-forward to 2 decades of searching later, and I now hold a panentheistic - we are living in God, we are all part of God, and we are all tuning into the truth. I see God everywhere…

I believe in roughly the same concept, I'm glad there is a name for it!

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#549

Post by skinney6 »

garyrob wrote: post #170
skinney6 wrote: post #119

Not long ago in my new apartment after breaking up with a long time girlfriend I had an amazing experience while meditating. The odd thing was I never really meditated back then. Something just told me to do it. I was led on an internal journey that showed me some things about my self. One, don't turn away from uncomfortable thoughts and feelings. Two, don't judge yourself. Three, the ego or this idea of myself is an…

I recommend that you pick up a copy of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki. It may really resonate with you as well as deepen your insight. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0834800527/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_MK...

I'll check this out. Thanks!
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