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

611–620 of 966 posts

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#611

Post by Fnoord »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #456
Fnoord wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to be careful with Ayahuasca to not have MAOI in your diet or medicine. Things like fermented cheese, fish, wine for example can each be dangerous. Disclaimer: I used Ayahuasca once. If you must use psychedelics, stick to LSD or amanita muscaria / psilos, they are much safer. Its ridiculous Ayahuasca is legally obtainable in The Netherlands, while LSD and psilos are not with the former easy to standardize an…

Have you tried Amanita muscaria? I'm terrified.

Twice, legally bought standardized in powdered form from an online smartshop. I found it less severe than psilos, more mellow, not very visual (but I had difficulty with getting visual hallucinations anyway). At one point I fell asleep and it reached the level of a waking dream. Woke up all sweaty. Back when I did it (around 2005-7), the smartshop had an OK website, and there was Erowid.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#612

Post by alecbz »

aristofun wrote: post #520
yibg wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“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.

> In this case god-hating atheists confirm the existence of god in the form of 'concept' you may say.

C'mon, no atheist is remotely claiming that God doesn't exist even as a concept. You can't possibly think this is what any atheist ever meant?

On the face of it it's almost impossible to claim that something doesn't exist as a concept, since making such a claim creates the concept. Some atheists might claim there are logical inconsistencies in the concept of God, but that's still different from claiming the concept doesn't exist.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#613

Post by mullingitover »

I occasionally take a moment to pause, reflect, and appreciate the luck that I have to exist, and the beauty of the universe. I try to use the pragmatic aspects of buddhism (the Eightfold Path is a very useful guidebook for a good life), although I'm not ideologically a full-blown buddhist.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#614

Post by cogman10 »

yibg wrote: post #600
cogman10 wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you know if unitarian universalists have some sort of equivalent to church or church gatherings?

They do.

You can check out your local congregation by looking it up here.

https://www.uua.org/

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#615

Post by dragonwriter »

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?

Sunday Assembly is explicitly that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunday_Assembly

As I understand, Unitarian Universalist congregations are often this way, but can vary a lot.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#616

Post by bobthechef »

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…

No post body was provided.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#617

Post by defgeneric »

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”

Etymologically, spirit originally seems to have meant something like breath or life (hence "aspirated"). The reification of that sense into an otherworldly Being is a later development. So maybe there's some room for an atheist to be "spiritual" in the simple sense that one would contemplate the significance or meaning of being or existing. The only assertion that atheism makes is a negative one--namely, that the theists are wrong. That doesn't necessarily preclude one from having some other idea about the nature of being.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#618

Post by omarfarooq »

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?

There is a direction of prayer, but Muslims do not conceive God to have dimensions, so He is not in any direction.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#619

Post by mistermann »

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 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.

As an armchair Taoist (and psychologist/neuroscientist), I consider this as jumping from the frying pan into the fire, or another frying pan at least. Although, the current popularity of this metaphysical framework is undeniable, as was the historic (and current) popularity of many more traditional metaphysical frameworks (religions).

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#620

Post by dragonwriter »

aristofun wrote: post #520
yibg wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“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.

> In this case god-hating atheists confirm the existence of god in the form of ‘concept’ you may say.

The existence of a concept is not the same thing as the existence of the thing the concept refers to.

Post reply on HN