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Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
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Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
#862Tetris. Twice per day. When I get into a good Tetris routine, my mind will continue to play even when I'm not in front of the screen. There's just this constant background game playing in my head. This might sound distracting, but somehow it's enlightening. It provides rhythm. It provides structure. It keeps my thoughts in constant reorganization, constant renewal. Overall, I believe Tetris gets my mind into a place…
So you're saying you worship the God of Tetris?
Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
#863Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Most anthiests seem to be nihilists, so they're already (claiming to be) doing that. I just always find it strange the way that "100% athiests" seem to ignore the logical conundrum of "I don't need a God or theology to live a good life" when our constructed definition of "good" comes from religion.
You can define good as you want, no need to have a religion define it for you.
I believe the main characteristic that takes apart atheist from other belief systems is that ultimately without a god that objectively defines what is good, one must define by himself what is good. This one one side is liberating because there is no more pressure between what one thinks is right and what the religion tell them, but at the same time extremely difficult because one exposes themself to all their psychological weaknesses (and to whom can manipulate them).
Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
#864I 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?
Let's say you do not practice any religion but believe in a higher power.
What is the goal of spirituality? Self knowledge. And self knowledge is also the knowledge about how you are related to said higher power and the people around you.
If you believe in spirituality but not religion it can be almost impossible to know what your relationship with the higher power is and how you stand in the community. Yes you can have your assumptions but they are unverified.
Religion gives you a framework where spirituality exists. Without that framework the idea of spirituality enters a domain where it has an extremely vague definition which, from a utilitarian perspective, is not useful.
So if the idea of spirituality loses its specificity to the point where it doesn't signify any particular idea which is grounded in some manner it creates a dissonance. You end up believing, say, the idea of crops without roots.
It's okay to revise particular beliefs with the times, but the central philosophies and practices of any religion (Eg. Fasting for a set number of days/abstaining from certain foods or activities for a set number of days) are essential.
Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
#865Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your assertion was that GP's statement is not beyond all doubt because Jesus only manifested to a small group of people. [1] I don't think your reason for your assertion is valid. Jesus only manifesting to a relatively (relative to all of humanity) small group of people doesn't invalidate or cast doubt on anything. You might have other reasons for doubting His divinity, but I don't think the one you've professed is a…
You've responded with an ipse dixit and didn't provide any substantiation. > Jesus only manifesting to a relatively (relative to all of humanity) small group of people doesn't invalidate or cast doubt on anything. Of course it does. You now rely on the testimony of these small of group of people (who you do not even know the identities of), rather than Jesus himself, or witnessing him directly.
As I clearly indicated in parenthesis, my use of the word small was relative to all of humanity. Jesus appeared to many people, over five hundred after his death and resurrection and we do know the identities of many including of course the original 12 disciples. [1]
> You now rely on the testimony of these small of group of people
So according to you, Jesus would have to manifest to many more people to pass your belief test. How many more would do? More than 500? 1000? Your requirement seems arbitrary to me.
> rather than Jesus himself, or witnessing him directly.
Again, if that's your requirement, then you should discount all of history.
[1] https://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/don_stewart/don_stewart_...
Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
#866Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is far too much intolerance, violence, misery and death in the world today caused by people acting on or motivated by their u̶n̶s̶u̶b̶s̶t̶a̶n̶t̶i̶a̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶r̶e̶l̶i̶g̶i̶o̶u̶s̶ beliefs. e.g. USSR anti-religious campaign of 1928–1941: "The campaign began in 1929, with the drafting of new legislation that severely prohibited religious activities and called for an education process on religion in order to further di…
> e.g. USSR anti-religious campaign of 1928–1941: Anti-religion campaigns are still in effect caused by religion, since they wouldn't be necessary if it weren't for religion. Next!
> Anti-religion campaigns are still in effect caused by religion, since they wouldn't be necessary if it weren't for religion. Next!
You seem to have missed my point.
The GP is saying religion is the cause of much violence, etc. I'm refuting that by saying violent people are the cause of much violence and that's orthogonal to religion.
The anti-religion campaign is just one example, not the whole point.
I hope you are not blaming religion for Stalin's campaign. That's akin saying it was the believers' own fault that they were massacred because they believed in religion.
> since they wouldn't be necessary
So anti-religion campaigns like this massacre are necessary because religion exists? I hope that is just you misspeaking and using a poor choice of words. Perhaps you meant wouldn't exist? If not and you meant necessary, that is despicable.
Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
#867Earlier quoted context omitted.
You've responded with an ipse dixit and didn't provide any substantiation. > Jesus only manifesting to a relatively (relative to all of humanity) small group of people doesn't invalidate or cast doubt on anything. Of course it does. You now rely on the testimony of these small of group of people (who you do not even know the identities of), rather than Jesus himself, or witnessing him directly.
As I clearly indicated in parenthesis, my use of the word small was relative to all of humanity. Jesus appeared to many people, over five hundred after his death and resurrection and we do know the identities of many including of course the original 12 disciples. [1] > You now rely on the testimony of these small of group of people So according to you, Jesus would have to manifest to many more people to pass your bel…
Again... you're still arguing a strawman against me. My response to the GP was that there is still doubt (and major, massive doubt when you read Ehrman's work) in this when you are relying on he said, she said; as opposed to witnessing Jesus directly himself.
Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
#868I try to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I like to seek out and fold in examples and teachings of other religious leaders as well as long as I can resolve differences in some creative way. I am particular keen of various Asian ideas of late. I read scriptures and other inspiring works when impressed to (I think that Dr Seuss, The Life of Pi, and maybe L…
Why not pick some less controversial church?
Many don't get to pick.
Our "leader"[1] have told us more than once to go elsewhere if we aren't interested.
At times it can come of as a trick, but twenty years later and seeing the way he treats people that leaves our church, i.e. friendly and with all respect I've come to realize he just doesn't want anyone to stay around just because they feel they must.
Still I'd find it hard to leave luckily to a large degree because it has meant a lot to me and they are my dear friends.
[1]: the one who most often starts our meetings as we don't have any schools or certifications to become a preacher, priest or anything
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Edit: looking at what I wrote above I feel a bit silly trying to elevate "us".
Sorry for that. Deadline for rewriting (2 hours) approaches quickly and I don't have a good idea about how to rewrite it, so please feel free to do so mentally.
My point is: I appreciate the liberty I get to approach other churches, to see if anyone teaches the same things we learn in the same or a better way or even to say that I only want to become a regular churchgoer. I appreciate the approch that our kids, even if they choose something different as adults should still look back at their childhood with joy.
I'm fairly certain this liberty isn't given to everyone else around, but I have no idea about how this is practiced elsewhere.
Well, I do have an idea, but I have realized lately that does ideas was planted by the same medias who plant lies about my friends, so I am very wary about what I think even about JW, a group that I think I deeply disagree with in theological questions.
Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?
#869Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What the idea of original sin is about that humans, by their very nature and in their being are confronted with evil. This is the kind of poetic language behind which people hide confusion so that they can still believe in this. I did the same. I understand the reflexive "let's not think about this too much in case we stop believing". What does it actually mean to be "confronted with evil" and why is it a problem r…
Because dirt exists all over the world all clothes are in need of washing at some point (or not worn I suppose). Confronting sin, temptation, immorality whether you want to look at it from a religious perspective or secular, is part of the human condition. No human can live a life and not be confronted with jealousy, anger, greed, pride or if you don't like the Christian undertones fill in whatever you think of as a…
> Because dirt exists all over the world all clothes are in need of washing at some point
Being gay this one made me really laugh. People can hardly agree on what dirt is, and when they do, they often change their mind 100 years later anyway (or wait 500 years to apologize, as was the case with the Church's treatment of Galileo). Society is built on social contracts, compromises we make to optimize our interactions with society as a whole. As an individual you have freedom to ascribe meaning, value, and take stock in whatever moral beliefs you see fit, but it is dangerous to assume that you are "correct" or that there is some ideal set of values that will be correct for all of eternity. Culture evolves, technology evolves, morality has to evolve with it. When morality fails to evolve as fast as culture or technology, we get things like wars, things like apartheid, things like conversion camps, genocide, etc., etc., and there is no greater damper on moral progress than religion.