Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

As an Atheist, I recently started reading religious texts of all Abrahamic religions(Judaism , Islam and Christianity) as well as Dharmic ones such as Buddhism. Why? Because I have always been curious about religion yet always discarded it as "bronze age superstition" as Christopher Hitchens would describe it..

Thanks to this journey, I ended up meeting a lot of great people in the community. Without exception, everyone welcomed me as an outsider and politely answered all my questions. I have been to mosques, synagogues and churches during hours of prayers and other events to observe and learn and so my network has grown by a decent size which I'm grateful of.

I think overall the result has been a net positive in my life and has broadened my understanding of history, philosophy and art. I haven't necessarily "settled" in a particular camp but I no longer brush off the idea of worshiping a God. I think one can make the distinction between _radical_ religious dogma and having a holy house of worship.

Having done lots of introspection over the past year, I don't think subscribing to Atheism is healthy because in your happiest moments or your darkest moments of despair, you have no spiritual basis to fall back on, you have no way structure way of burying the dead or celebrating the joining of a couple in a ceremonial way. Further, all Atheists still celebrate Christmas, or Easter , all of which are religious holidays and are completely meaningless to them which is ironic..

As an Atheist you also have to make up your "subjective" morality (and who is to say one's sense of moral is superior to another? there are no basis for this) which is again ironically borrowed from religious teachings. Finally Atheism fails to answer the deepest questions we have which is Why is there something instead or nothing and why are we here?

Thus considering the above, I can confidently say that my views on spiritually and religion has shifted significantly.

I read math to focus and relax. In my opinion this is spiritual as it gives me calm.

>If you mean the war between the US on one side and al-Qaeda and various other Islamist groups on the other, that’s…a pretty bad example of a war that doesn’t involve religion.

Ya I included that intentionally because it was the only one I could think of that was related to religion in anything I would consider close to meaningful.

It really depends on how loosely you want to define "involve," like I said, wars involve sticks and shoes because everyone uses them. Nearly everything involves language does that means all wars involve language? I guess so in a pedantic sense, but still, so what? Wars don't involve language in any meaningful way other than a means of communication. I would argue because of that, language is far more important than any semblance of religion in all of the wars I listed.

What's the point of your or the OP's argument? Following the definition of "involve," anything involves religion, even an atheist walking down the sidewalk, because the sidewalk was funded by at least one person who happens to be religious. Not overly meaningful.

Here's OBL's "Letter To America," where he states his reasons for his attacks.

In bin Laden's November 2002 "Letter to America",[3][4] he said that al-Qaeda's motives for the attacks included Western support for attacking Muslims in Somalia, supporting Russian atrocities against Muslims in Chechnya, supporting the Indian oppression against Muslims in Kashmir, support for Israel in Lebanon, the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia,[4][5][6] US support of Israel,[7][8] and sanctions against Iraq.[9]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motives_for_the_September_11_a...

I mean I guess if you really wanted to make a connection to religion you could, but in the statement he mentions Israel, not Judaism, so it would be a stretch in my mind. The only connection to religion is the term "Muslims," and those citations are always followed by "in" a country. Hell, even the crusades weren't fought over religion, they were fought over resources and power, the church just used religion to get free cannon fodder. Of course Bush, in his infinite wisdom called the WoT a "crusade," which again I guess "involves" religion in that it was mentioned in a speech, but again, not in an overly meaningful way.

What I think the OP was trying to say, perhaps I'm wrong, is that religion is bad and as an example, all wars involve religion. If that's the case, I disagree with the premise.

All wars involve dirt therefore dirt is bad. Prophetic!

My point is not that the default assumption should be either the supernatural or the natural, but that perhaps actual agnosticism is the humble stance.

The older I get, the more I realize that endless nitpicking just sucks the joy out of life. 25 years online and I forget what life was like before every thought and attitude I or anyone ever had was raked over the coals. Constant peanut gallery. It's a chilling effect that you can't even measure. Endless criticism doesn't make everything better. It just puts everyone on edge, and it's absolutely asymmetric between those who want "fluffy bullshit" or whatever and people who can't for the life of them keep their commentary to themselves. I regret my own arguing more and more; I never feel better afterwards. Hell, I don't even like bringing this up because we gotta discuss it to death.