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Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

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Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#561

Post by SAI_Peregrinus »

I'm a Discordian. To me, that means a sort of pandeistic existentialist absurdism.

A (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) argument:

God is the greatest possible being. The universe is, by definition, everything that exists. Everything is greater than any subset of everything. Therefore God is must be the entirety of existence. God seems to have numerous mostly disconnected consciousnesses, but is mostly Hydrogen. There's no inherent meaning given by a bunch of Hydrogen. Therefore we tiny conscious bits of the universe have to make our own meaning. Assigning a singular consciousness to God would be utterly arbitrary and quite silly. Silly things are fun. Therefore God is also a woman, her name is Eris, nonsense is the source of salvation, and God is the universe and isn't any singular being.

I also quite like the ontological argument for atheism:

God is the greatest possible being. Completing a task with a bigger handicap is greater (more impressive) than completing it without that handicap. Not existing is the greatest possible handicap. Therefore God must be a being capable of creating the universe despite not existing.

Faith, to me, is a joke. It's a deliberate choice to believe in things one has no evidence for (at best) or knows are false (at worst). So why not treat religion as a joke, and humor as sacred? It makes as much sense as any other choice in the matter.

So I try to live each day with a bit of humor.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#562

Post by doopy1 »

SAI_Peregrinus wrote: post #561

I'm a Discordian. To me, that means a sort of pandeistic existentialist absurdism. A (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) argument: God is the greatest possible being. The universe is, by definition, everything that exists. Everything is greater than any subset of everything. Therefore God is must be the entirety of existence. God seems to have numerous mostly disconnected consciousnesses, but is mostly Hydrogen. There's no in…

Hail Eris!

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#563

Post by andrei_says_ »

candiddevmike wrote: post #54

I recently started reading about druidism after spending the majority of my life an atheist. I found myself missing the spirituality side: rituals and a connection for meditation/introspection, which druidism provides (all revolving around nature, earth, moon, and sun). Additionally, druidism has a lot of neat math/science roots that I find pleasing, such as the eight holidays and the wheel of the year. Druidism has…

On “the universe is God” - there’s a great video of Carl Sagan answering the question of whether he believes in God.

And - if you are to perceive God - where is it? Up? Around? Inside?

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#564

Post by codr7 »

It's complicated.

I believe there is something bigger than physical existence, and I find the fact that many don't worrying, because much of what's good about humans clearly come from somewhere else from what I can see.

My own accumulated experience from meditation, psychedelics & life/death situations says that whatever I am, I'm definitely not my body.

The challenge I've set before me is to be the best version of myself that I'm capable of, whatever that is at the moment.

Organized religion is a distraction at best.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#565

Post by cogman10 »

memling wrote: post #552
cogman10 wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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). What tools would you use to prove supernatural claims?

Ultimately it depends on the claim, but the basis of it would that you'd have to be able to both test and repeatably reproduce whatever effect is claimed.

For example, let's say the claim is "God will heal you if you pray to him". Ok, let's pray that someone is healed in the hospital. How about another? And another? Do those prayers fail? Why?

The issue that one runs into is that the prayers will often fail and the answer is generally "mysterious ways". Yet, no religion seems to statistically fair better than other religions when it comes to diseases. So either, the prayer isn't working, or god is working extra hard to make sure to hide itself (Why would a divine being do that?)

Some claims I'll just reject outright. If the proof is "feelings" that's manipulation, not proof. Because, as I said, feelings are easily triggered. Pretty much every religion has figured that one out.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#566

Post by curiousgal »

andrei_says_ wrote: post #545
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?

Muslims pray towards the Kaaba (the house of God, built for him by Ibrahim (Abraham)) which is in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. So people across the world face different directions.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#567

Post by garyrob »

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...

...and the experience you describe is very, very resonant with Zen Buddhism.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#568

Post by criddell »

good8675309 wrote: post #451
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…

Raised Christian, became an atheist, then evaluated a bunch of religions for myself. Found Christianity to be the most historically and spiritually compelling but still didn’t believe. After feeling hollow and aimless for years I re-evaluated things, read about Jesus love for me. Really meditated on His perfect life, sacrifice on the cross, and resurrection. He died for me, in my place. It became personal. When I rea…

I've never understood what part of the crucifixion was a sacrifice. Jesus is literally a god. He knew he would end up on the cross before he even took on human form. He could have left at any time. He can return any time he wants. And how can his death on the cross be actually considered a death? If he was dead, are we to understand that for those few days there was no god overlooking all of creation?

It seems to me that Jesus allowing himself to be crucified is poetic but ultimately an empty gesture.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#569

Post by [deleted] »

dagmx wrote: post #376
stuporglue wrote: post #259

I'm a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I read scriptures every day (Book of Mormon, Bible, Doctrine and Covenants) for 10-30 minutes. I turned 40 this year and have a goal to read all of those scriptures cover to cover before my next birthday. I pray every day as well, at least at night, often when I wake up, and almost always before meals (unless I'm at a restaurant or something). Weekly I…

Out of curiosity, are you a recent convert? I would imagine anyone who's as religious as yourself would have easily read all the scriptures by now, rather than aiming to do it by the age of 41?

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#570

Post by [deleted] »

kazinator wrote: post #417
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" isn't a spiritual practice. It's just the absence of belief in the existence of gods. A rock is 100% atheist, yet in all likelihood doesn't have spiritual practice. You can have a spiritual practice under the umbrella of atheism, as long as it doesn't involve any kind of belief in gods. Whatever that practice is, that practice isn't identified with the atheism itself.

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