# Your perspective on spirituality



## Fallowfox (Mar 20, 2019)

Since some users wanted to discuss their spiritual beliefs, and they began expanding beyond the gamut of discussion that their original threads were about, I've decided to create a thread that can accommodate all of that.

Topics that appear to be coming up frequently include the utility of beliefs.

-Does it matter whether you can be confident that spiritual beliefs are true, if they are beliefs that you find comforting, for example?

-Is it necessary to believe in a theistic religion if you want to believe in an afterlife?

And personally I want to ask if there's anybody who believes in a theistic religion but _doesn't_ believe in an afterlife.


I've seen a lot of discussions about spirituality go very badly, so I encourage everybody who posts to try to be considerate of other's feelings, not just whether you perceive them as right or wrong.


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## Faexie (Mar 20, 2019)

Here's my two cents:
-If the belief in these spiritual beings make you feel like you have to forgo certain things that actually don't harm anyone, or that you have to go down a certain path when you would prefer another, I wouldn't find it healthy to believe. If it doesn't control you, though, I wouldn't see any issues with that. Feeling that someone is there for you is a human need, and sometimes a belief in spiritiual beings can help, especially if you have no one else you can truly turn to. Personally just imagining a person in my head often does the trick when need be, or even better turning to people online. Though it's healthier to find people who support you irl.

-You don't have to take in a set of beliefs just to believe in just one thing, so no. You can believe in ghosts, a creator, or whatever else without ascribing to a religion (Imo if you shaped your spiritual beliefs yourself and they weren't just thaught to you, it's not a religion)

-I think Jews didn't believe in the afterlife? I donct know enough abput judaism to be sure


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## Fallowfox (Mar 20, 2019)

Ramona Rat said:


> Here's my two cents:
> -If the belief in these spiritual beings make you feel like you have to forgo certain things that actually don't harm anyone, or that you have to go down a certain path when you would prefer another, I wouldn't find it healthy to believe. If it doesn't control you, though, I wouldn't see any issues with that. Feeling that someone is there for you is a human need, and sometimes a belief in spiritiual beings can help, especially if you have no one else you can truly turn to. Personally just imagining a person in my head often does the trick when need be, or even better turning to people online. Though it's healthier to find people who support you irl.
> 
> -You don't have to take in a set of beliefs just to believe in just one thing, so no. You can believe in ghosts, a creator, or whatever else without ascribing to a religion (Imo if you shaped your spiritual beliefs yourself and they weren't just thaught to you, it's not a religion)
> ...



I thought they did? I'll have to ask @Simo to explain, if he feels like it.


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## quoting_mungo (Mar 20, 2019)

To me I guess spirituality exists as a separate thing from religion - while religion can be a large part of what shapes your spirituality, ultimately spirituality is more... your relationship with the world? Most or all people, the way I see it, have some sort of spirituality as part of their person, even if they don't spend time really considering it as such. I know and accept that not everyone will share my perspective on this, and that I'm not doing a great job of explaining my position, mostly because I don't really have the words to wrap the concept in.


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## Simo (Mar 20, 2019)

Fallowfox said:


> I thought they did? I'll have to ask @Simo to explain, if he feels like it.



It's complicated. Or, as this site explains, 'famously ambiguous'. I don't see the afterlife as very much of a focus: it's nothing that is really expected???

Is There a Jewish Afterlife? | My Jewish Learning

But talking about religion makes me nervous, so I'll limit it to this.

Edit:

"The Talmud contains scattered descriptions of the World to Come, sometimes comparing it to spiritual things such as studying Torah, other times comparing it to physical pleasures, such as sex."

Now this doesn't seem so bad : )


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## Misha Bordiga Zahradník (Mar 20, 2019)

Fallowfox said:


> I thought they did? I'll have to ask @Simo to explain, if he feels like it.


If I recall correctly, the short version is the souls of the chosen of god await the end of days to enter heaven. Don't quote me on that though.

Tolstoy had a perspective that he realized god and faith was irrational, but couldn't see living without them. 

Me personally, I'd love to have something to hold on to in these times of chaos and misery, but I can't rationalize faith to myself. I can't authentically have faith in any deity. So I just sort of stare into the void before me hoping to live a long and worthwhile life. 

I have a really strong moral code rooted in semi-rule utilitarian ideals and the heroic virtues of _Redwall_ by Brian Jacques. I am that is.


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## Fallowfox (Mar 20, 2019)

quoting_mungo said:


> To me I guess spirituality exists as a separate thing from religion - while religion can be a large part of what shapes your spirituality, ultimately spirituality is more... your relationship with the world? Most or all people, the way I see it, have some sort of spirituality as part of their person, even if they don't spend time really considering it as such. I know and accept that not everyone will share my perspective on this, and that I'm not doing a great job of explaining my position, mostly because I don't really have the words to wrap the concept in.



I think I understand what you mean. A sense of emotional connection to the world that doesn't necessarily require any beliefs that the world is supernatural. 

Like a veneration for natural cycles.


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## CertifiedCervine (Mar 20, 2019)

I believe that religion can intertwine with spirituality, but you don’t have to have one to have the other. I hope to achieve being more spiritual (have had colleagues say I’m rather thoughtful and spiritual) and I find the definition from huffington post one thing i’d love to be better at. 


> Being a *spiritual person* is synonymous with being a *person* whose highest priority is to be loving to yourself and others. A *spiritual person cares* about people, animals and the planet.


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## quoting_mungo (Mar 20, 2019)

Fallowfox said:


> I think I understand what you mean. A sense of emotional connection to the world that doesn't necessarily require any beliefs that the world is supernatural.
> 
> Like a veneration for natural cycles.


Something like that, yeah. Things like believing that basic human nature is good and ugliness and evil is something that comes from nurture, I would also describe as potentially tied in with spirituality. 

When people talk about beauty inside a person, I... sort of feel like spirit factors in. It's something that touches personality, emotion, and ethics, but isn't quite synonymous with any of them.


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## Fallowfox (Mar 20, 2019)

quoting_mungo said:


> Something like that, yeah. Things like believing that basic human nature is good and ugliness and evil is something that comes from nurture, I would also describe as potentially tied in with spirituality.
> 
> When people talk about beauty inside a person, I... sort of feel like spirit factors in. It's something that touches personality, emotion, and ethics, but isn't quite synonymous with any of them.



There's a video that evokes this diffuse idea of what spirituality is in me:


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## Marius Merganser (Mar 20, 2019)

Fallowfox said:


> And personally I want to ask if there's anybody who believes in a theistic religion but _doesn't_ believe in an afterlife.



I identify as a witch, a hard polytheist, but I believe any description of an afterlife is wishful thinking. I don't think such a thing exists.


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## Casey Fluffbat (Mar 20, 2019)

The nature of spirituality to me is still a part of the universe, and relates to consciousness, or even self-awareness. The way we perceive the world around is filtered in a way to be decipherable and useful to us evolutionarily, focusing on patterns and things with definable boundaries like objects, animals, and other people. All that is useful for survival and reproduction, but also limiting in understanding the abstract. Something that struck me is listening to a person explain death like a reorganization of being into new information, and that despite the boundaries and boxes we define them with, they are as much a part of the whole of the universe as everything else. I then related that to a quote I read by Alan Watts:

"_Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence."
_
My understanding of it is that we are buds of consciousness that _feel_ detached from the vast incoherent universe we can't put into exact detail and make sense of with our limited reservoirs of accumulated information, which only receive predetermined organizations of said information. The death of a person may not mean reincarnation, but a breaking down of that complex information to sprout again as part of someone or something else. In a sense I am a part of everything, even other people, even past people, but I lack the ability to capture and retain all the forms of information that are now scattered about in different states of organization, all aiding the universe in perceiving itself.

Maybe this is too long of a trip to take, maybe I couldn't explain it well enough. Perhaps my appropriately selfish brain can never fully grasp what is beyond it's scope of importance. This I can only deal in concepts, and to simplify it all is to say that dying is not the road to non-existence. The way people define this doesn't give me a position to refute.


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## Kit H. Ruppell (Mar 20, 2019)

I'm an antitheist. I try to remain diligent in stamping out the slightest flicker of spirituality whenever I notice it in myself.

41.6525 N, 70.2881 W


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## Fallowfox (Mar 20, 2019)

By the way guys, if you post your latitude and longitude I will do my best to create a map of spiritual belief among the furry posters.




Marius Merganser said:


> I identify as a witch, a hard polytheist, but I believe any description of an afterlife is wishful thinking. I don't think such a thing exists.



I didn't appreciate that witches believed in gods; is there a clear system of these gods or does it vary from one witch to another?


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## Anon Raccoon (Mar 20, 2019)

I find it difficult to believe that we are all just clumps of molecules arranged in such a way that we move around and make noise.

I remember watching the first few episodes of full metal alchemist thinking that we aren't just the sum of all our different chemicals. How depressing is that? There must be an element of a soul or a spirit however non disprovable or non provable it may be.


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## modfox (Mar 20, 2019)




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## Fallowfox (Mar 20, 2019)

Anon Raccoon said:


> I find it difficult to believe that we are all just clumps of molecules arranged in such a way that we move around and make noise.
> 
> I remember watching the first few episodes of full metal alchemist thinking that we aren't just the sum of all our different chemicals. How depressing is that? There must be an element of a soul however non disprovable or non provable it may be.



If there is a soul, could it be a product of chemical processes in the same way that our other organs are?



MadKiyo said:


> The nature of spirituality to me is still a part of the universe, and relates to consciousness, or even self-awareness. The way we perceive the world around is filtered in a way to be decipherable and useful to us evolutionarily, focusing on patterns and things with definable boundaries like objects, animals, and other people. All that is useful for survival and reproduction, but also limiting in understanding the abstract. Something that struck me is listening to a person explain death like a reorganization of being into new information, and that despite the boundaries and boxes we define them with, they are as much a part of the whole of the universe as everything else. I then related that to a quote I read by Alan Watts:
> 
> "_Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence."
> _
> ...



I guess one of the problems we face when thinking about big big topics like 'the universe' is that we're trying to do it with a brain that evolved mostly for finding tasty food. x3


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## Faexie (Mar 20, 2019)

Anon Raccoon said:


> I find it difficult to believe that we are all just clumps of molecules arranged in such a way that we move around and make noise.
> 
> I remember watching the first few episodes of full metal alchemist thinking that we aren't just the sum of all our different chemicals. How depressing is that? There must be an element of a soul or a spirit however non disprovable or non provable it may be.


That believing in something make you feel better doesn't make it true.

That being said, I sometimes adopt beliefs because they make me feel better and help me be more functioning. I don't juge and I hope I am not making you angry (I know it can have that effect when diccussing matters close to someone's heart)


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## Fallowfox (Mar 20, 2019)

Ramona Rat said:


> That believing in something make you feel better doesn't make it true



While technically right for epistemic claims, I wonder whether something feeling true can be a genuine argument for something being a moral truth. 

On the one hand there are lots of different feelings and attitudes, but on the other without anybody feeling anything, there wouldn't be any requirement for the concept of a moral truth and it would evapourate entirely.


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## Misha Bordiga Zahradník (Mar 20, 2019)

Fallowfox said:


> If there is a soul, could it be a product of chemical processes in the same way that our other organs are?
> 
> 
> 
> I guess one of the problems we face when thinking about big big topics like 'the universe' is that we're trying to do it with a brain that evolved mostly for finding tasty food. x3


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## Fallowfox (Mar 20, 2019)

Misha Bordiga Zahradník said:


>



Well, now I'm only just realising that 'ghost in the shell' wasn't just a netflix movie.


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## Fallowfox (Mar 20, 2019)

@Ckiimyir So I do wonder whether a recent increase in people talking about their mental health is actually just because there used to be a big stigma against mentioning it, and now that stigma is declining? 

Interestingly while religiosity in the western world has declined generationally over the last half century, unconventional forms of spirituality like astrology and seances increased before the second world war, and it's currently increasing in the United Kingdom. 
Modern Spiritualism: Meet the young people who believe they’re communicating with the dead - BBC Three


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## Anon Raccoon (Mar 20, 2019)

Ramona Rat said:


> That believing in something make you feel better doesn't make it true.
> 
> That being said, I sometimes adopt beliefs because they make me feel better and help me be more functioning. I don't juge and I hope I am not making you angry (I know it can have that effect when diccussing matters close to someone's heart)



Well it doesn't make it false either. The existence of a spirit cannot be proven true nor false, and the burden of proof falls on neither side. Therefore it is exclusively a matter of opinion, whatever you believe, is what it is.


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## Furrium (Mar 21, 2019)

Such conversations will always be tough, this is quite a sore subject. And even more so there is no clear framework for the topic.


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## quoting_mungo (Mar 21, 2019)

Fallowfox said:


> @Ckiimyir So I do wonder whether a recent increase in people talking about their mental health is actually just because there used to be a big stigma against mentioning it, and now that stigma is declining?


I think there's multiple factors playing in there. Somewhat decreased stigma (let's be realistic; stigma hasn't decreased as much as we as a society like to pat ourselves on the back and claim it has) is probably one of them. An increasingly fast-paced, high-pressure world that breeds mental health issues like depression and anxiety is another. Increasing rates of diagnosis for neurological disorders such as autism spectrum disorders may also play in. The fact that we're approaching a point of mental health crisis, where politicians are starting to talk about "we need to improve mental health care" (this was literally part of every single party's platform in our last election - it was bizarre to read the same thing showing up again and again across the spectrum!) is likely another factor.

I'm upfront about my mental (and other long-term) health issues online and among friends, but it's not like I introduce myself to new people like "Hello, my name is Alex, and I suffer from depression, anxiety, and chronic fatigue." I think it's important to be clear where you're coming from when communicating in text - both so that people with similar experiences can find commonality and so that other people can weigh that in when parsing what you say. And obviously, friends should have some kind of awareness of what your mental state is like. So I think it's also important to consider "where is this increase in people discussing mental health happening?" 



Ramona Rat said:


> That believing in something make you feel better doesn't make it true.
> 
> That being said, I sometimes adopt beliefs because they make me feel better and help me be more functioning. I don't juge and I hope I am not making you angry (I know it can have that effect when diccussing matters close to someone's heart)


When it comes to spirituality, and things that cannot really be proven or disproven, I'd say it's acceptable to adopt subjective truth. I wouldn't say "to make you feel better" is necessarily the motivation in all cases. Sometimes it's just about what jives with your perception of the world. What's true to my Jehovas Witnesses neighbors (who are lovely people, and I don't begrudge them their faith) may not be true to me, but there's no real way to establish which is the objective truth, so just letting each person have their own truth on the matter makes more sense than anything else, at least to me.


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## Marius Merganser (Mar 21, 2019)

Fallowfox said:


> I didn't appreciate that witches believed in gods; is there a clear system of these gods or does it vary from one witch to another?



There's an old saying that if you ask 4 witches a question, you'll get 5 different answers.  
Some are hard polytheistic (multiple gods with distinct personalities), some are soft polytheistic (multiple deities that are facets of one single god), some are strictly dualistic (only 2 gods),  some are animist (places and creatures have spiritual essences) and some don't believe in any gods.  The ones that do, may subscribe to different pantheons throughout history.  And just to make it more fun, the backstories of those pantheons varied by region and time so it would seem nothing is official.


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## dragon-in-sight (Mar 21, 2019)

My worldview is based on an animistic approach. I don't belive in an allmighty creation entity or higher powers. To me every existing thing has a spirit, and creation is an ever ongoing process emerging from their interaction. Nature itself to me composed of millions and over millions entities that can be talked to and communicated with. From my perspective, even we are just spirits inhabiting a phsical shape. A body is just a vehicle to me, and not an ultimately defining factor of what I am. Based on that I also don't think that our conciousness dies with our body. I belive in an ongoing journy of life, death and reincarnation. But in comparison to Budhism or Hinduism I don't feel an urge to break free from it. To me the journey of lifes is the goal in itself.
I also don't belive that there is a hierarchy among the spirits. To me every part of the whole is as precious as the whole of existence itself. Black & white valuations like good and evil also don't matter to me. I only see a corelation of intentions, deeds and repercussions. Something that is good for one may not be so for an other and visa versa.



Fallowfox said:


> Does it matter whether you can be confident that spiritual beliefs are true



No. To belive means to expend the limits of his own knowladge through trust. Someone who really trusts doesn't need to be confirmation.



Fallowfox said:


> Is it necessary to believe in a theistic religion if you want to believe in an afterlife



No. You can also reason it with a simple logical synecdoche:

-We live in a dynamic system where no condition can be kept up forever without changing.
-Death and unexistence are conditions within this system
-So nothing can't be forever dead or unexisting.


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## Peach's (Mar 21, 2019)

Christianity never had me feel any spirituality, only ever rationalizations for why god should exist and why I should go to church. I'm also not a big fan of the spiritual ideas that everything is consciousness and that reality isn't real, that comes off as nonsense to me, Occam's razor says that magic is actually just real.

I am reminded of a conservation I had with a Nordic Pagan friend of mine:
Him: Christianity always came off to me as bullshit abstraction, god is disconnected from humanity and intangible
Me: What about the time the guy climbed up a ladder to wrestle god
Him: shit, you almost converted me right there


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## Faexie (Mar 21, 2019)

Peebes said:


> Christianity never had me feel any spirituality, only ever rationalizations for why god should exist and why I should go to church. I'm also not a big fan of the spiritual ideas that everything is consciousness and that reality isn't real, that comes off as nonsense to me, Occam's razor says that magic is actually just real.
> 
> I am reminded of a conservation I had with a Nordic Pagan friend of mine:
> Him: Christianity always came off to me as bullshit abstraction, god is disconnected from humanity and intangible
> ...


Personally I believe that magic and supernatural things (that actually exist) are just normal things that could eventually be explained with science. And that would be pretty cool once they do


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## Pipistrele (Mar 21, 2019)

By most accounts, I'm a spiritual lyrical miracle individual


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## Peach's (Mar 21, 2019)

Ramona Rat said:


> Personally I believe that magic and supernatural things (that actually exist) are just normal things that could eventually be explained with science. And that would be pretty cool once they do


While that would be cool, I have a feeling that the world if magic relies on fundamentally different principles than the normal material world. A very relevant video example: 






For those who don't want to watch the video, Totoro relies on a fundamentally different epistemology than other fantasy. Normally in fantasy, take Lord of the Rings, we directly see the magic of the elves, wizards, and so on, if science existed in the Lord of the Ring universe, they could systematize the magic. In Totoro however, the things that happen don't have like direct real causality, yet are still real. A literal reading of the movie would say that from the evidence of the false giant tree growing scene, magic isn't real, so the kids are still lost at the end trying to find each other, seeing their mom from the catbus is a delusion; that is obviously a shitty reading. The ending is true, the kids were found, and they saw their mom, and the spirits are actually doing the things we see, so we have to conclude that the scene with the giant tree is real... and resulted in little sprouts. 

If a scientist tried to examine the spirits in Totoro, they would go mad.


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## Faexie (Mar 21, 2019)

Pipistrele said:


> By most accounts, I'm a spiritual lyrical miracle individual


What's that?


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## Fallowfox (Mar 21, 2019)

dragon-in-sight said:


> -We live in a dynamic system where no condition can be kept up forever without changing.



What about the truth of that statement?


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## Deleted member 111470 (Mar 21, 2019)

I used to be extremely spiritual a couple of years ago. I used to read about spiritual things all the time, I was deeply invested in youtube series such as Spirit Science.
Had you asked me then, I would have told you that the physical world doesn't matter at all, and that the most important things are the ones that you can't see or feel. Enlightenment, chakras, karma, spiritual ascension, zodiacs, gemstones, becoming one with nature, renouncing the material, believing in the afterlife - all of that was evident beyond a reasonable doubt to me, even though I could prove none of it.

But now I'm ghey.

But now I really only care about money, and spending it on things I love.

What made me switch sides? Declining health, years without a job, poverty, no social life, no friends, complete isolation, etc. As it turns out - you can't really heal yourself by sticking a gemstone up your... root chakra.


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## Fallowfox (Mar 21, 2019)

Rimna said:


> I used to be extremely spiritual a couple of years ago. I used to read about spiritual things all the time, I was deeply invested in youtube series such as Spirit Science.
> Had you asked me then, I would have told you that the physical world doesn't matter at all, and that the most important things are the ones that you can't see or feel. Enlightenment, chakras, karma, spiritual ascension, zodiacs, gemstones, becoming one with nature, renouncing the material, believing in the afterlife - all of that was evident beyond a reasonable doubt to me, even though I could prove none of it.
> 
> But now I'm ghey.
> ...



I hope things are getting easier for you.

and it is surprising how recurrent gems are as an idea in spiritual practices. I always found that strange. The weirdest claim I ever came across was that Malachite warded off computer viruses.


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## Deleted member 111470 (Mar 21, 2019)

Fallowfox said:


> I hope things are getting easier for you.
> 
> and it is surprising how recurrent gems are as an idea in spiritual practices. I always found that strange. The weirdest claim I ever came across was that Malachite warded off computer viruses.



Life has been getting better lately. I started a job recently, so that's good.

And gems... I dunno, I guess they draw people because they're so shiny and pretty. 

The claim about Malachite I have never heard before. But I was told, and believed wholeheartedly, that putting a rose quartz in front of your monitor "stops the negative energy" coming from it and infuses it with "positive energy", and that it also reduces the blue light glare from the display.
Yeah... that's how much in the woo I was.

Nowadays, I use glasses that have coating of some sort, which does in fact reduce the blue light. It acts kinda like flux does.


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## dragon-in-sight (Mar 21, 2019)

Fallowfox said:


> What about the truth of that statement?



Well. Have you ever seen or heared about a single thing in nature, that never changed or depleted?


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## Fallowfox (Mar 21, 2019)

dragon-in-sight said:


> Well. Have you ever seen or heared about a single thing in nature, that never changed or depleted?


I'm pointing out a paradox; in order for the reasoning to hold true we have to believe that the condition 'nothing is the same forever' has to remain true forever. 

It's possible for that condition to change, for example if the universe stops existing one day.


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## Peach's (Mar 21, 2019)

Apparently there is evidence that negative ions, which are found in natural environments are good for you, and that if you energize some stones they emit negative ions. However most stones people use has little to no negative ion release, unless you buy like stupidly expensive ones (Tourmaline). And even then, walking outside or having a mini-waterfall in your house will make more negative ions (falling water makes a lot of negative ions).


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## Misha Bordiga Zahradník (Mar 21, 2019)

dragon-in-sight said:


> My worldview is based on an animistic approach. I don't belive in an allmighty creation entity or higher powers. To me every existing thing has a spirit, and creation is an ever ongoing process emerging from their interaction. Nature itself to me composed of millions and over millions entities that can be talked to and communicated with. From my perspective, even we are just spirits inhabiting a phsical shape. A body is just a vehicle to me, and not an ultimately defining factor of what I am. Based on that I also don't think that our conciousness dies with our body. I belive in an ongoing journy of life, death and reincarnation. But in comparison to Budhism or Hinduism I don't feel an urge to break free from it. To me the journey of lifes is the goal in itself.
> I also don't belive that there is a hierarchy among the spirits. To me every part of the whole is as precious as the whole of existence itself. Black & white valuations like good and evil also don't matter to me. I only see a corelation of intentions, deeds and repercussions. Something that is good for one may not be so for an other and visa versa.
> 
> 
> ...


-circular reasoning
-faulty generalization
-accident
-Fallacy of division
-Proving to Much
--If death is a changing and impermanent state, then afterlife is a changing and impermanent state.
-Reification
Death is not a physical state, but an abstract definition of the lack of life. It's concrete functional use is entirely determined on what we define being alive as. Furthermore, since it is defined by absence, it only changes according to the existence of life and in response to life. So like the concept of dark, it cannot be changed except by external input, and it is therefore not bound to change into a new state. Rather, like all changes in nature, it is an outcome of entropy. The materials remaining from death are conserved in their decomposition and recycling in nature, rather than metaphysical conservation of states. 

All of this pre-supposes the changed state from death must be afterlife, and the existence of the metaphysical soul which cannot be rationally demonstrated.


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## Fallowfox (Mar 21, 2019)

Misha Bordiga Zahradník said:


> All of this pre-supposes the changed state from death must be afterlife,




Oh shit...undeath means....oh no.


Vampires. D:


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## Croc and Roll (Mar 22, 2019)

I briefly considered myself a spiritual atheist and felt really passionate about everything in the universe being connected, but after a traumatic psychotic episode, I've distanced myself from anything resembling that sort of woo. Even philosophy rubs me the wrong way... The world feels less "magical" now, but there's no such thing as magic, anyway. I just wish I could appreciate things that are real the way I used to...


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## dragon-in-sight (Mar 22, 2019)

@*Fallowfox*



Fallowfox said:


> I'm pointing out a paradox; in order for the reasoning to hold true we have to believe that the condition 'nothing is the same forever' has to remain true forever.
> 
> It's possible for that condition to change, for example if the universe stops existing one day.



This is an interesting philosophical question. Seen under premiss of linear time the concept of change could be indeed a causative perpetuum mobile. But do we really know if the universe follows a pattern of linear time and causative chains? We even don't know how it came to pass. The big bang theory only suggests that there was a beginning to the universe somehow. But the more interesting question is what was before this catalyst event. 

1.) If there was nothing at all then the big bang must have happened out of nothing, prooving that unexistence can form into new exsistence. So even if our universe would end the premiss of change would be consistent across the board.

2.) The second possibility would suggest that there was something before the big bang. May be even the remains of a former universe or atleast some kind of matter interacting with each other. Also this would hold up to the principle of change.

3.) The universe never had an ultimate beginning or end, because we exist in a non-causative singularity.

However you may put it. There always is an elemt of change involved.

@*Misha Bordiga Zahradník*



Misha Bordiga Zahradník said:


> --If death is a changing and impermanent state, then afterlife is a changing and impermanent state.



Correct. this is because I don't belive in something like hell, heaven, nirvana or whatever else you may call it. Under the premiss of constant change, theire can't be an ultimate destination.



Misha Bordiga Zahradník said:


> All of this pre-supposes the changed state from death must be afterlife



No death itself proofs that all things have a an end. So logic insists that unexistence at least can't be ultimate. This doesn't suggest a particular kind of afterlife, but it makes the assumption that death is just an eternaly unbeeing of ourselves quite unlikely.



Misha Bordiga Zahradník said:


> and the existence of the metaphysical soul which cannot be rationally demonstrated.



This may be ture but doese this state something about the soul or our methods of determination. In 370 BC the ancient Greek philosophers Leucippus, came up with the idea that all matter may be made up of many discrete units, that small that the human eyes couldn't witness them. He called them Atomos "the undevidables". But due to the circumstance that there was no possible way to make these units visible he also couldn't suppot his idea with a rational demonstration. Today we have the technology to do so and the existence of Atoms is proven ans accepted. So tell me were Atoms less existent in 370 BC just because nobody could rationally demonstrate them at this time?


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## Fallowfox (Mar 22, 2019)

dragon-in-sight said:


> @*Fallowfox*
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Interestingly if, the universe has no begging and end- and is eternal (I don't think it is personally), then I guess we all have experienced non-existence for an eternity before our births.


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## Misha Bordiga Zahradník (Mar 22, 2019)

dragon-in-sight said:


> @*Fallowfox*
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Having a right conclusion grounded in poor logical reason doesn't make it demonstrable by reason, and the greek understanding of the atom was woefully incomplete and poor. 

Again, your argument for the soul here is begging the question among other shortcomings of reason and logic. 

Death is, again, not a state such as hot or cold, which describes the vibration of particles and levels of energy, but is defined by the absence of life where their previously was life. Life itself is not explained as a state of nature, but by a number of characteristics of behavior of matter arranged into a multicellular structure. It is comprised of myriad natural impermanent states. Cells are replaced, and die constantly thus that wether we can be considered continueous as an entity is itself a philosophical question. What we call life is the sum of many parts, and in their later sufficient absence we call it death. But this in no way calls to higher being than physical culmination. Nor is death defined as a whole, but by lack of parts of life. It is what it is to have the matter that comprised a living organism no longer qualify as living on the whole. So in that sense, most inanimate material may be dead for all eternity by absence of life. Cold rocks in space never to know existence as part of living matter from the start of the universe till it's end. But this matter which is not living does change, but not in any metaphysical sense. Just as the corpse decomposes, so too does the dead cold rock of space undergo chemical changes and physical changes as it interacts with all the other matter of space.


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## ZeroVoidTime (Mar 22, 2019)

Misha Bordiga Zahradník said:


> *Having a right conclusion grounded in poor logical reason doesn't make it demonstrable by reason, and the greek understanding of the atom was woefully incomplete and poor.
> 
> Again, your argument for the soul here is begging the question among other shortcomings of reason and logic. *
> 
> Death is, again, not a state such as hot or cold, which describes the vibration of particles and levels of energy, but is defined by the absence of life where their previously was life. Life itself is not explained as a state of nature, but by a number of characteristics of behavior of matter arranged into a multicellular structure. It is comprised of myriad natural impermanent states. Cells are replaced, and die constantly thus that wether we can be considered continueous as an entity is itself a philosophical question. What we call life is the sum of many parts, and in their later sufficient absence we call it death. But this in no way calls to higher being than physical culmination. Nor is death defined as a whole, but by lack of parts of life. It is what it is to have the matter that comprised a living organism no longer qualify as living on the whole. So in that sense, most inanimate material may be dead for all eternity by absence of life. Cold rocks in space never to know existence as part of living matter from the start of the universe till it's end. But this matter which is not living does change, but not in any metaphysical sense. Just as the corpse decomposes, so too does the dead cold rock of space undergo chemical changes and physical changes as it interacts with all the other matter of space.


The problem is Humans as a whole are bound to their emotions and thus prone to think more with their emotions rather than think rationally. You can apply logic all you want but in the end Humans most of the time not all will think with both their beliefs and their emotions. Yes individuals can think with logic but being able to understand how others may feel is an important factor in persuading one to change their views to match your views. Another reason why souls are an important concept in religion is that it gives reason and meaning to a persons life.


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## Misha Bordiga Zahradník (Mar 22, 2019)

ZeroVoidTime said:


> The problem is Humans as a whole are bound to their emotions and thus prone to think more with their emotions rather than think rationally. You can apply logic all you want but in the end Humans most of the time not all will think with both their beliefs and their emotions. Yes individuals can think with logic but being able to understand how others may feel is an important factor in persuading one to change their views to match your views. Another reason why souls are an important concept in religion is that it gives reason and meaning to a persons life.


The only reason logic came up was because logic was being poorly employed to justify the existence of the afterlife in a way that isn't consistent with logical reasoning. 

If the soul or an afterlife does exist, it is not something that could be rationally explained, or scientifically tested. Such an approach to faith is disingenuous and potentially detrimental to both faith and reason at once.


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## dragon-in-sight (Mar 23, 2019)

Fallowfox said:


> Interestingly if, the universe has no begging and end- and is eternal (I don't think it is personally), then I guess we all have experienced non-existence for an eternity before our births.



This may be possible. And it rises another interesting philosophical question. Is unexistence really nothing or just another form of being? Unexistence is a condition you can name and describe. So it deffinetly has properties. Unexistence still holds a possibility of being. And furthermore is defined by it. Just like a hole in the cheese is defined by the absence of cheese in this place.



Misha Bordiga Zahradník said:


> If the soul or an afterlife does exist, it is not something that could be rationally explained, or scientifically tested. Such an approach to faith is disingenuous and potentially detrimental to both faith and reason at once.



I don't belive in the supernatural. If something exists it is also tangible. And anything tangible is a part of nature. Even an afterlife or spirit itself. The synecdoche was just an exemple refering to the question if an afterlife could be reasoned without a involving a theistic entity. The synecdoche itself may be debatable, but the core premiss shows that you don't need a god to reason the belive in an anfterlife.


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## Fallowfox (Mar 23, 2019)

dragon-in-sight said:


> This may be possible. And it rises another interesting philosophical question. Is unexistence really nothing or just another form of being? Unexistence is a condition you can name and describe. So it deffinetly has properties. Unexistence still holds a possibility of being. And furthermore is defined by it. Just like a hole in the cheese is defined by the absence of cheese in this place.
> 
> 
> 
> I don't belive in the supernatural. If something exists it is also tangible. And anything tangible is a part of nature. Even an afterlife or spirit itself. The synecdoche was just an exemple refering to the question if an afterlife could be reasoned without a involving a theistic entity. The synecdoche itself may be debatable, but the core premiss shows that you don't need a god to reason the belive in an anfterlife.



I agree with you by the way that believe in a 'gate keeper' isn't necessary to believe in an afterlife. Maybe this combination of beliefs is common though because people like to imagine that the afterlife will be more just than our lives actually are.


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## dragon-in-sight (Mar 23, 2019)

Fallowfox said:


> Maybe this combination of beliefs is common though because people like to imagine that the afterlife will be more just than our lives actually are



Maybe. Or it's a simple whish for controll over something that is unkown to them. When there would be someone in charge you could bribe him in life to have a better standind in the next.


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## Fallowfox (Mar 23, 2019)

dragon-in-sight said:


> Maybe. Or it's a simple whish for controll over something that is unkown to them. When there would be someone in charge you could bribe him in life to have a better standind in the next.



Never thought of prayer in that fashion before lol!

I suppose humans have historically spent a lot of time making offerings to gods and goddesses, and you could view those as bribes.


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## Peach's (Mar 23, 2019)

dragon-in-sight said:


> This may be possible. And it rises another interesting philosophical question. Is unexistence really nothing or just another form of being? Unexistence is a condition you can name and describe. So it deffinetly has properties. Unexistence still holds a possibility of being. And furthermore is defined by it. Just like a hole in the cheese is defined by the absence of cheese in this place.


Unexistence is a fascinating philsophical topic as it keep appearing its head into very strange conversations. Technically, nonexistence isn't matter or energy, so it can actually break the usual laws of physics, ie: a shadow can move faster than the speed of light.

In particular, in Philosophy of Mind, there are two schools of thought were unexistence comes into play: Functionalism and Epiphenomenalism. Functionalism holds that abstractions of form can have equally important interactions the material world: the eye of a storm exists and it in some way effects how the storm works, but fundamentally it is a lack of low pressure and doesn't materially do anything itself; the mind would be view similarly. Epiphenomenalism in contrast says there is no interaction of the mind to the material world, and consciousness is simply an delusion of the physical brain, consciousness is the shadow of a driving car.


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## Dongding (Mar 23, 2019)

Personally I feel that for there to be a reality in the first place, some sort of force outside of absolute nothingness must be in play, whatever that may be.

Humans aren't equipped to understand what that is. I personally don't think it's wise to base something incredibly important like faith upon something like an organized religion, especially when religions tend to be malleable to what's socially acceptable at the time and is a product of it's environment in and of itself.

What people practice today is not the same as what they did say 1000 years ago, so I really don't even understand what it is they think that they're actually doing.


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## Fallowfox (Mar 23, 2019)

Dongding said:


> Personally I feel that for there to be a reality in the first place, some sort of force outside of absolute nothingness must be in play, whatever that may be.
> 
> Humans aren't equipped to understand what that is. I personally don't think it's wise to base something incredibly important like faith upon something like an organized religion, especially when religions tend to be malleable to what's socially acceptable at the time and is a product of it's environment in and of itself.
> 
> What people practice today is not the same as what they did say 1000 years ago, so I really don't even understand what it is they think that they're actually doing.



Are you familiar with the verb 'bootstrapping' ? 

I think religion is often an attempt to boot-strap an argument of moral authority into existence, to justify a society's moral code.


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## Dongding (Mar 23, 2019)

I believe something beyond our understanding is in the works. However we are unreceptive creatures with only 5 of the most blatantly necessary and dulled down versions of the senses one can possess to experience the magnitude of forces at play in the universe that we even know about right now.

To think and preach to others that we understand how everything works and believe it happens to be as simple as we make various faiths out to be is incredibly arrogant in my personal opinion.


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## Fallowfox (Mar 23, 2019)

Dongding said:


> I believe something beyond our understanding is in the works. However we are unreceptive creatures with *only 5 of the most blatantly necessary and dulled down versions of the senses* one can possess to experience the magnitude of forces at play in the universe that we even know about right now.
> 
> To think and preach to others that we understand how everything works and believe it happens to be as simple as we make various faiths out to be is incredibly arrogant in my personal opinion.



You forgot the spidey sense.


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## Dongding (Mar 23, 2019)

no u


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## Abilify (Mar 24, 2019)

I am spiritual, but vehemently against organized religion.


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## dragon-in-sight (Mar 24, 2019)

Peebes said:


> Epiphenomenalism in contrast says there is no interaction of the mind to the material world, and consciousness is simply an delusion of the physical brain, consciousness is the shadow of a driving car.



As for me I wouln't go with this thesis. I belive in a strong interaction of mind and matter. Every natural structure, isn't just made of evergy and matter. Form also requires an information, determining its form and way of interaction with over natural objects and phenomena. So what generated this information? I for myself belive that we do, like it is suggested by constructivism. I belive that we are the true creators of our reallity, with every thought, idea, desire and feeling being an act of creation. Based on that I don't think that our Body has a consciousness, or that it's formed by our material self. I belive that our consciousness has a body, that's just a mere depiction of what we truely are.

To me our physical shape is just like the shadows in Plato's Cave Allegory: Plato has Socrates describe a group of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall from objects passing in front of a fire behind them, and give names to these shadows. The shadows are the prisoners' reality. Socrates explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall are not reality at all, for he can perceive the true form of reality rather than the manufactured reality that is the shadows seen by the prisoners. The inmates of this place do not even desire to leave their prison, for they know no better life.


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## Foxy Emy (Mar 26, 2019)

Fallowfox said:


> -Does it matter whether you can be confident that spiritual beliefs are true, if they are beliefs that you find comforting, for example?



I am a traditional skeptic so I can't even be confident that I am not really an icecream cone that got sucked into the matrix and made to believe it is human.

I don't believe anything can be known with any degree of certainty since our senses, memory, and logic all show themselves to be fallible by their own standards.

However, it is simply easier to believe I am a human. My life would be a lot more miserable if I believed I was an icecream cone in the matrix.

I choose to trust my senses, my memory, and my logic even though they have failed me in the past. Why? Because constantly doubting them just causes anxiety.

However, I always keep in mind that I could be wrong about anything and everything. Further, any belief that clashes with my own, no matter how silly it may appear to me, is just as likely to be true as anything I believe, no matter how logical it seems to me.

This has greatly improved my empathy and has made my relationships with others much better. At least, if my memory serves me correctly. 



Fallowfox said:


> -Is it necessary to believe in a theisticreligion if you want to believe in an afterlife?



No. Nor is it necessary to be stupid if you believe you are an icecream sandwich.



Fallowfox said:


> And personally I want to ask if there's anybody who believes in a theistic religion but doesn't believe in an afterlife.



I do... Kind of.

I mean, I believe that god is the hyperinfinity of possibilities that entire multiverse is a part of: god is everything, and nothing, and all points in between. I could fill a whole book with why I believe this. 

The premise is that god is the singularity, which contains all possibilities, that caused the big bang. A single point of infinite possibilities is both infinitely ordered and infinitely complex. Intelligence, as a function if order and complexity would make such a point all knowing. It would contain all information, ever. It is omniscient.

Since it contains literally everything, it also has infinite energy; it is all powerful. Omnipotent.

Since everything is a part of that single point, that point is everywhere. Omnipresent.

It would have the three O's of a traditional monotheistic deity.

There is no real afterlife since we are all a part of that god. We never really die since we exist in a hyperinfinite number of universes and in at least half of those, we are the hyper infinite God.

I came to this conclusion with and idea based on the unit circle.

In set theory, there are multiple infinities, and some would seem to be larger than others.

For example, the count of all real numbers between 0 and positive infinity would seem smaller than the count of all real numbers between negative infinity and positive infinity.

I asked myself "what is the largest infinity?" So I defined a new number: hyperinfinity. Hyper infinity is the sum of the union of all positive real numbers and all positive infinite numbers.

I then made a circle centered on the point (hyperinfinity, 0) with a radius of hyperinfinity.

The result is a circle which contains zero, all positive real numbers, and all positive infinities as values on the x-axis. It also contains all real numbers and infinities (positive and negative) as values on the y-axis.

Given the formula for a circle:

(x – h)² + (y – k)² = r²

The center of the circle is at point (h, k) and the radius is r.

If k=0 and r=h, then you can draw a line, L, from any point on the circle, (a, b) through point (h, k) and it will intercept the circle point (c, -b). If you then draw a line, M, with a slope of 0 from point (c, -b) to the y-axis, it will intercept the circle at a single point: (-a, -b).

Returning to our hyperinfinity circle, it gets more complicated because h=hyperinfinity.

Since hyperinfinity contains all positive infinite numbers, anything can be added to it or subtracted from it without changing it's value.

Any positive number + hyperinfinity is an infinite number, which means hyperinfinity already contains it within it self.

So, the center of the circle is really a line on the x-axis which starts in the center and extends forever on.

This means that a line can be drawn through any part of this and still be drawn through the point (hyperinfinity, 0).

It will, however, intercept a different part of the circle in such a way that we need a new way to describe -a and -b for this type of circle.

Let -a’ be a real or infinite number along an inclusive inequality between -a and zero.

Let -b’ be a real or infinite number along an inclusive inequality between -b and zero.zero.

This breaks math as we know it. All numbers suddenly become probability distributions and all operations become fuzzy in their results.

For example, let us assume that only integers exist and that each integer has an even chance of being any integer between itself and 0.

Now, let's run 2+5 as a table to see which outcomes are most likely.


```
0    1    2    3    4    5

0    0    1    2    3    4    5

1    1    2    3    4    5    6

2    2    3    4    5    6    7
```

As you can see, some results are more likely than others.

This, however, would be an oversimplification as math is not confined to integers. There are an infinite number of numbers between every integer.

It has been said that all data can be expressed as binary digits assuming you have an infinite number of digits to work with.with.

However, if we assume that our universe is made up of probability distributions, then the most basic form of data is not a strict 1 or 0 but a probability distribution function of all numbers between 1 and 0.

So, how does this all relate to some form of deity?

Well, the point (hyperinfinity, hyperinfinity) also is along then circle. That point can be, in reality, any number between hyperinfinity and zero.

If god is a point of hyperinfinite possibilities, this point represents god.

However, since 0 ≤ x ≤ hyperinfinity and 0 ≥ y ≥ -hyperinfinity, x and y, can be any number between -hyperinfinity and hyperinfinity. This is such that any number can be equal to any other number.

In other words, math breaks if you allow infinite numbers into it. You have to limit the scope of math somewhere.

More specifically, you need to define the point (0, 0) and work from there. It is not important which point is (0, 0) as long as you do all mathematical work relative to it.

It is the same thing with the Earth or the Sun being the center of the solar system. You can write the math such that the Earth is the center, but the math is way easier if written as though the sun were the center. You could even pick another galaxy to be the center, but the math built from that would be even more complicated.

To that point, if our frame of reference is point (0, 0) for us, that means our hyper infinite deity is (hyperinfinity, hyperinfinity). However, from the frame of reference for the point (hyperinfinity, -hyperinfinity), our frame of reference is the hyperinfinite deity. To whatever exists there, we are the singularity of hyperinfinite possibilities; all knowing, all powerful, and omnipresent.

To me, death is just moving on to the next frame of reference in the circle. I can't say if that next frame of reference is as a living thing or even if it is in the same universe. I don't know if it is a point nearby in spacetime or even if it is in the same universe.

What I can say is that frame of reference becomes our new (0, 0) and is hyperinfinite from some other frame of reference somewhere. It is also everything in between.

For all I know, every moment in time is a new frame so dying is almost the same thing as growing up.


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## Fallowfox (Mar 26, 2019)

@Emyrelda Seoni 
Thankyou for your thoughts!


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## Misha Bordiga Zahradník (Mar 26, 2019)

@Emyrelda Seoni 
That was an interesting take on thing to read.


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## Foxy Emy (Mar 26, 2019)

Misha Bordiga Zahradník said:


> @Emyrelda Seoni
> That was an interesting take on thing to read.



People say I math too much... >w<


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## Fallowfox (Mar 26, 2019)

Regarding mathematics, I've increasingly felt my self shifting towards the idea that maths is a human construct and that it doesn't map directly onto the true nature of the cosmos. 

I know some people have a very 'strong' perspective on maths being the fundamental language of the universe, but I'm not entirely convinced that's true.


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## Peach's (Mar 27, 2019)

As an actual mathematician I do believe that math is platonic and eternal, but I do not at all subscribe to what @Emyrelda Seoni is saying. I don't mean to pick on you, what you are saying may have spiritual truth, but there is no such classification of 'hyper infinity' as you are defining it. (I will say however that you are approaching the concept of an epsilon ball which will eventually lead you to the right path).

Fundamentally, how most people talk about the infinite from a metaphysical sense is just wrong. Infinity isn't maximal, it is simply unending. If you look at the situation in something like Zeno's paradox, one will eventually need infinite steps to get to the finish line; does that mean Achilles is a omniscient god? No.

To make this short, there are two main types of infinity when you are talking of usual numbers (but there are much more!). You have countable infinities, and uncountable infinities. Countable infinities are infinities that you could pair each object to some number between 1 and infinity, a clear example is the square numbers: 1 to 1, 2 to 4, 3 to 9, ect. From a mathematical perspective, then, both all the numbers from 1 to infinity and square numbers have the same size.

This breaks down however when asked to map all the numbers between 0 and 1. You can't do it, where would one even start? Any times you think you have a method to count them all, you realize that in the process of counting them, you have created another number (see diagonal proof). There are infinitely more   numbers between 0 and 1, than there are between the integers 1 and infinity; and none of those numbers is 2 or omnipresent. 

On the topic of spirituality, when Cantor discovered this, the local priest called him a heretic, as the concept of Uncountable numbers, and trying to parse infinity, tries to not only understand the infinite, but it suggests that there are things higher than god himself (you can then construct even more infinity -er infinities from the Uncountable infinity).

btw, if this is making your brain hurt, its all good, the person who discovered this literally went insane from it, we are approaching the Lovecraftian side of mathematics


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## Peach's (Mar 31, 2019)

I've been in a weird place ever since I realized the hammer and sickle is basically Saturn and Vulcan's sigil combined.


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## Fallowfox (Mar 31, 2019)

Peebes said:


> btw, if this is making your brain hurt, its all good, the person who discovered this literally went insane from it, we are approaching the Lovecraftian side of mathematics



Let us retreat back to ancient Greece when all numbers were positive and rational, and zero hadn't been discovered. 

I'm sure this is zero's fault somehow; somebody probably tried to divide by him.


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## Yoserfael1 (Jul 5, 2020)

My religion means a lot to me. The rituals, the texts, the prayers, the community, everything - they give me life. I couldn't live without them. Do I approach religion cool and rationally? Yes. Emotionally? Yes, too.
I don't there's a more beautiful thing in the world.


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## TyraWadman (Jul 5, 2020)

*Does it matter whether you can be confident that spiritual beliefs are true, if they are beliefs that you find comforting, for example?*
In a sense, I'd be worried if they weren't feeling confident. How can you claim to believe in something if you yourself don't entirely believe it to be true? For the convenience of being forgiven because you know you're a terrible person? But at the same time, I don't think it's right to discourage having hope, especially if its the only shred they have left. I think it depends on the scenario.

I'm sure the priest wouldn't mind either way...

*Is it necessary to believe in a theistic religion if you want to believe in an afterlife?*
No. It doesn't matter what we argue, we won't know until we dayed.

*I am not spiritual nor am I religious.* To me, life is about the journey, not the destination. I do not believe in some random in the sky and I wouldn't worship someone that is allegedly responsible for all of the chaos and tragedies that occur. Bibles get revised and edited regularly to suit ones own desires. Rubbing rocks on my skin is just rubbing rocks on my skin. With the chaos of my own life, it just seems to be happenstance and a lot of coincidence. After all, you have to factor in the individual behaviors and influences of every single person and creature on this planet.

There are some things that have happened that made me question things from time to time, however.

A co-workers mother passed and she was obviously upset. November in Canada, a few feet of snow on the ground. Everything is cold. She's talking to us about her mother's funeral and how her spirit animal was some kind of white butterfly and how she had tattoos.
*One flies by the drive thru window.*_ 
-30 degree weather, wut? All of the birds have flown south and you're still here?!_

I can't seem to remember the second one anymore...


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## MrSpookyBoots (Jul 5, 2020)

*Does it matter whether you can be confident that spiritual beliefs are true, if they are beliefs that you find comforting, for example?*
If a person does derive comfort from something, I see no reason why a person wouldn't so staunchly profess their belief in such a system. Otherwise, they would be lying to themselves.

*Is it necessary to believe in a theistic religion if you want to believe in an afterlife?*
It is not necessary. My dad, for example, does not believe in any man-made religion, but he does not rule out the possibility that an afterlife may exist. The reason for this being: Nobody has died, come back weeks later, and risen from the dead to tell us what comes after we pass on.

For the record, I do not believe in such a thing as the "spirit" or the "soul." I am not religious, either. People can choose to believe what they want. People will disagree, but it has been scientifically proven that every thought process, all five senses, and every emotion is tied to the brain. They are all a direct result of chemical processes in that organ. These are the only things that we _know_ we have without a shadow of a doubt, as there is evidence to support the physicality of such things. One could take an educated guess and assume that once the brain goes, the person goes with it. We aren't very different from computers. We grow old, we stop working, and that _could_ be the end of the ride for us.

But nobody knows if there isn't an afterlife. Likewise, nobody has proven if an afterlife exists either.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 5, 2020)

It's fitting that this thread is about spirits, given that it has itself been raised from the dead.


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## Sharg (Jul 6, 2020)

*Does it matter whether you can be confident that spiritual beliefs are true, if they are beliefs that you find comforting, for example?*

I don't believe it matters. A person has the right to believe what they want to believe and if it makes them feel better, that's all the best. The only objection I would raise is if somebody imposed those beliefs on others through brute force or committed violence based on those beliefs.

*Is it necessary to believe in a theistic religion if you want to believe in an afterlife?*
Not at all, I don't think you have to believe in a religion to believe in an afterlife.

That said, I personally do not believe in any religion and I do not believe in the existence of a soul. It is a comforting thought, but one I see no evidence for. The only evidence I see is that, I, am a sum of my biological processes and processed life experiences that make up my conscious mind.
The issue I have with the idea of an afterlife is, well, whether it's heaven or hell, it doesn't make sense.

With Heaven, it is represented as either a place where everything that we want comes true, or in a biblical sense, a unity with God where you join other souls in worship of God until the end of time. At first, a place where everything that you want will come true, may seem like a great thing. However, with eternity, you'd get bored of everything and anything you find enjoyable. In the end, you will still end up unhappy or bored, so I think, Heaven in that conception is an impossible concept.

With Hell, even eternal suffering, one will eventually become numb to it...and if Hell is meant to punish us for our sins, then the punishment will do nothing, as it will not teach anyone anything and will not allow them to make up for any of their sins, so that too, is a conception that seems impossible to me.

If anything, ideas like reincarnation make more sense, but at the same time, the idea of karma and being punished for you previous lives is also an unfathomable concept. How can anyone learn anything from a previous life, if they remember nothing of it and have been born as a completely different person?

Overall, I do not believe I have enough information to believe in any religion or any sort of an afterlife. I do not exclude it, as I cannot definitely prove otherwise, but it does not seem at all likely to me.
Religion, at least organized religion, I believe, initiated from man's desire to explain things in this world that they could not explain. They used to say God's made bad weather or sent plagues, because humanity did not have another way of explaining it. Eventually, especially with the advent of the industrial age, religion became a tool of the government to placate and control the masses. You're unhappy that your life conditions are terrible and things in the world are awful? Don't worry, just follow your religion and you will be in Heaven where you will get everything you want. Religion became a tool used for control of the masses.

That said, I don't hold offense to anyone that shares different beliefs. Anything is possible. As long as practicing your religion does not violate the rights of others, you are free to practice and worship what you want in the community of others who share your beliefs.


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## Zerzehn (Jul 6, 2020)

- *Does it matter whether you can be confident that spiritual beliefs are true, if they are beliefs that you find comforting, for example?*

No, it doesn't matter but it also doesn't matter if they are comforting. I will

I tend to be very skeptic of things, to a degree that the philosopher Pyrrho would be proud of and thus tend to see anything that's religious apologetics or arguments for divinity as suspect at best and seriously ill-formed at worst.

- *Is it necessary to believe in a theistic religion if you want to believe in an afterlife?*

A cursory knowledge of anthropology and religions outside of the Abrahamic paradigm would suggest yes. Considering non-theistic religions like Buddhism and Taoism exist, yes.

- *Extra thoughts*



Spoiler: Fair warning, I am going to say some things that be upsetting to some.



If you have disregarded this warning, you are either curious and want to understand my viewpoint in which, I applaud you. However, If you are reading this and know you are going to be angry about it, it's your fault for disregarding this.

As someone who doesn't believe in anything spiritual, I do not think there is a world that's non-physical. I don't believe in a higher power nor think purpose solely can be derived from religion (unlike JBP would want you to think) and frankly, I find the idea of spirituality to be wasteful. I do not believe in prayer when something can be done nor do I believe meditation is useful. The only thing that will save humanity is the effort of humanity, not a higher being. While the idea of divinity or an afterlife is unfalsifiable, hiding behind this is cowardice.

Looking from a solely naturalistic perspective, the universe is purposeless and does not need to justify itself to us and the idea that this universe needs one is as Camus would put it, absurd. We are alive for a short time and we waste time on uncertain paths, and sure, it may give some purpose or joy but ultimately, doesn't pay off in the end when our consciousness is beyond repair in the grave and we are dead. I much prefer to invest in the knowable, rather than gamble in a Pascalian nightmare of the unknowable. Considering this, I act as if the spiritual doesn't exist as if it wants to be known but yet makes it hard intentionally even with purposefully seeking it out, I won't frankly bother.

My best advice to anyone who reads this regardless? While you might objectively matter in the grand scheme of things, *act as if you do anyways.*


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## Sharg (Jul 6, 2020)

Zerzehn said:


> Spoiler: Fair warning, I am going to say some things that be upsetting to some.
> 
> 
> 
> My best advice to anyone who reads this regardless? While you might objectively matter in the grand scheme of things, *act as if you do anyways.*





Spoiler



That is an outstanding quote! Really well said, just wanted to say I appreciate that


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## Filter (Jul 7, 2020)

Fallowfox said:


> -Does it matter whether you can be confident that spiritual beliefs are true, if they are beliefs that you find comforting, for example?



Thoughts:
- People should be more confident about what they believe than about other beliefs that they don't hold.
- Not everybody puts much thought into this, regardless of whether they hold beliefs or not.
- Whether something is true or not doesn't depend on one's beliefs.
- People may not know for sure, but they have faith.



Fallowfox said:


> -Is it necessary to believe in a theistic religion if you want to believe in an afterlife?


I'd say no, but I do think they go together well enough if God exists outside of the simulation.



Fallowfox said:


> I've seen a lot of discussions about spirituality go very badly, so I encourage everybody who posts to try to be considerate of other's feelings, not just whether you perceive them as right or wrong.


True. There are people of every belief and non-belief, who like to think they're above basic courtesy. They think they're better than "Those terrible people who don't see the world the way that I do". The dynamic is the same whether we're talking about different religions or atheism vs theism. There's a big difference between people who are benevolent about their worldviews and people who aren't, regardless of their beliefs.


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## oappo (Jul 7, 2020)

Fallowfox said:


> -Does it matter whether you can be confident that spiritual beliefs are true, if they are beliefs that you find comforting, for example?
> 
> -Is it necessary to believe in a theistic religion if you want to believe in an afterlife?


First question: I guess it doesn't really. If it helps the person somehow, such as comforting them, that's great. A definite no in that case. But like Filter was saying, it's not like believing matters or not in this regard, won't change the truth. And it's not like anyone can truly know anyways, making confidence sort of pointless from a strictly spiritual perspective. So I'd say no. 

For the second question, I also say no. The idea of an afterlife is dependent on what you believe after all. What exactly the afterlife is will depend on your specific beliefs as well.


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## Mambi (Jul 7, 2020)

Fallowfox said:


> Since some users wanted to discuss their spiritual beliefs, and they began expanding beyond the gamut of discussion that their original threads were about, I've decided to create a thread that can accommodate all of that.
> 
> Topics that appear to be coming up frequently include the utility of beliefs.
> 
> ...




I'm Wiccan and very comfortable with my beliefs in the power of nature and our ties to it. Thus said, answering your questions:

1) No it doesn't...by definition nobody can "know" they are right, and if they say they are they are lying to themselves or you. Thus you have to find a belief that matches your view of the world, your morality and values, and has the potential to makes sense based on what you DO know. In essence, you are finding the closest path that you want to explore based on what you already noticed/believe. BUT the beliefs don't define you!!! For example, I'm not a good person because I'm Wiccan...I'm Wiccan because the beliefs allow me the freedom to be a good person. A Christian don't *need* God to be good, but their beliefs match the religions. If they are ONLY good because of the beliefs, then they have serious issues spiritually IMHO.

2) Absolutely. An atheist cannot believe in an afterlife by definition as it involves "spirit".

3) Certainly...otherwise the only point of religions is to comfort our collective death-fear. <laugh> But it's more than possible to believe in a guiding spirituality and then know you're just going to die. It still guides you and comforts you.
To put it simply, I'd rather live 80 years of spiritually-fulfilled joy and helping others and bettering myself and exploring, than 8000 years of boredom and observations without connection nor purpose. (nobody ever asks what you DO in a christian heaven for example, or what you do after the 800th re-incarnation. What are you learning to DO forever? Focus on your current life, it's more relevant...)


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## Deleted member 134556 (Jul 7, 2020)

I'm very open to spirituality and various Pegan faiths. I also admire many of them, such as Wiccans, who care about the well being of the earth, it's environment, and it's creatures, which appeals to me since I was once a wildlife major.


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## aomagrat (Jul 7, 2020)

I have experienced way to many coincidences to be a coincidence.   I believe that there is a higher force that is directing our lives, causing us to interact with each other, whether we want to or not.   For example,  if I am driving down a road and come up behind a bicyclist, it seems every time there is an oncoming vehicle that forces me to slow down before I can pass the bicycle.   It happens way too many times to be a coincidence.   Being in the wrong place at the wrong time is a cliche because it happens so often.


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## Marius Merganser (Jul 7, 2020)

Fallowfox said:


> -Does it matter whether you can be confident that spiritual beliefs are true, if they are beliefs that you find comforting, for example?



I'm a Pagan and use the label "Witch".  My spiritual beliefs do not include a list of rules and divine expectations.  It does not include promises of rewards for belief or threats of eternal punishment if you don't happen to believe.  They are all about exploring, contemplating, and appreciating the natural world and our place within it. It is an inspiration for creativity.  In that sense, I would not be arrogant enough to claim that my specific beliefs are a true representation of reality that applies to every individual that has or will ever exist.  They are a working model that works for me and if the divine truly cares, it will meet me halfway.  Your mileage may vary.



> -Is it necessary to believe in a theistic religion if you want to believe in an afterlife?



I don't see why holding the beliefs of a particular religion is a requirement for the belief in an afterlife.



> And personally I want to ask if there's anybody who believes in a theistic religion but _doesn't_ believe in an afterlife.



I believe the afterlife is really just wishful thinking.  It serves a psychological purpose.
I believe we only get one go around, so have to make it count.


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## ZeroVoidTime (Jul 7, 2020)

Why Necromancy of course........... (Seriously though another thread necro'd at least it is not the one from the video game forum......)


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## Deleted member 134556 (Jul 7, 2020)

ZeroVoidTime said:


> Why Necromancy of course........... (Seriously though another thread necro'd at least it is not the one from the video game forum......)


The only thing I don't like about this post is that I didn't think of it first. Bravo


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## Glossolalia (Jul 7, 2020)

I've always felt a sense that spirituality was important to me, but I never felt a connection to any particular religion. In the past few years I've been trying to develop my spirituality in my own way.

It feels kind of cheesy when I describe it in words, but I believe that everything is a part of god, and that existence as a whole is inherently right and meaningful (even the unpleasant parts). I guess you could call me a pantheist- I think everything is another facet of the same consciousness, and I think that this consciousness is essentially a loving one.

I believe this because believing it changes the way I think and the way I live my life, for the better. I feel a deeper appreciation for my surroundings and my loved ones, I'm able to be more patient with difficult people and situations, and I find it easier to structure my life. I don't know if it's anywhere close to the objective truth of reality (if an objective truth even exists) but things sure work better for me when I treat it like it is!


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## Rayd (Jul 7, 2020)

1. i think this can actually be positive if it's for comfort or a variety of other psychological benefits, especially if it doesn't hurt anybody else. i sometimes humor astrology, animal spirits, chakras, etc. to give me some sort of peace or psychological benefit despite me ultimately not believing any of it exists. so it just goes to show that you don't necessarily even need to believe in something in order to derive some sort of comfort from the concept.

2. absolutely not. for example, the 2 afterlifes that i personally believe are plausible is A.) souls and "spirits" are a real thing, they're just nothing like how they're depicted in media, not being able to affect the physical realm at all, or being transported to an entirely different "spirit world" altogether. souls in this case are a natural element of our being and therefore do not require a god or an almighty being to create. or B.) ascension is real, and there's a concept outside the bounds of existence itself that we only experience when we die. not necessarily a "simulation", but a concept we cannot even begin to comprehend because it is impossible to describe as it's something outside of what it means to exist. think of existence and everything we are capable of understanding within it as a concept we can grasp, and the limits of our comprehensions is the concept we are bound to, in this case, existing. i often wonder.


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## Yoserfael1 (Jul 8, 2020)

1) It's a difficult question, because it depends on what you're measuring it by. I'm too tired to expound on it rn.
2) I don't think a religion necessarily needs a god for an afterlife in theory. In practise, I don't think there are any religions per-se that hold like this.
Personally, however, I believe that belief in G-d (best defined as a Monad) is necessary for "afterlife," as  all afterlife really is | is henosis. Without it, there's nothing. Although, I need to research this topic more.


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## Deleted member 82554 (Jul 8, 2020)

I think, therefore I am.


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## Mambi (Jul 8, 2020)

Mr. Fox said:


> I think, therefore I am.



But what if you only *think* you think? My computer can think as well but it is not alive, right? The only reason you can come up with thoughts (according to science anyway) is your neurons got programmed with instincts and experiences...so from their POV you and the computer are identical, you're just more complex and run on chemicals.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 8, 2020)

Mambi said:


> But what if you only *think* you think? My computer can think as well but it is not alive, right? The only reason you can come up with thoughts (according to science anyway) is your neurons got programmed with instincts and experiences...so from their POV you and the computer are identical, you're just more complex and run on chemicals.



'I think therefore I am' remains true.

You could be a computer simulation, or a brain floating in a jar, or a character in somebody else's dream. Those are all states of being- so you can still conclude I 'am'.


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## Mambi (Jul 8, 2020)

Fallowfox said:


> 'I think therefore I am' remains true.
> 
> You could be a computer simulation, or a brain floating in a jar, or a character in somebody else's dream. Those are all states of being- so you can still conclude I 'am'.



_<ponders a moment> _Actually no they aren't though...a character in someone's dream is just an extension of *their* state of being...making you a puppet to their consciousness. 
In that sense you would not be...you would merely think you are but your thoughts and movements are all the result of another being. By that logic, Pinocchio was alive *before *the fairy zapped him when Gepetto was playing with the strings..


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## TyraWadman (Jul 8, 2020)

Mambi said:


> _<ponders a moment> _Actually no they aren't though...a character in someone's dream is just an extension of *their* state of being...making you a puppet to their consciousness.
> In that sense you would not be...you would merely think you are but your thoughts and movements are all the result of another being. By that logic, Pinocchio was alive *before *the fairy zapped him when Gepetto was playing with the strings..



Well _I_ sure as hell didn't put you all here. So there must be something to it.
Who the hell put _me_ here? 
I'll kill the bastard.


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## Skittles (Jul 8, 2020)

Something put us here. But I don't think they care anymore.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 8, 2020)

Mambi said:


> _<ponders a moment> _Actually no they aren't though...a character in someone's dream is just an extension of *their* state of being...making you a puppet to their consciousness.
> In that sense you would not be...you would merely think you are but your thoughts and movements are all the result of another being. By that logic, Pinocchio was alive *before *the fairy zapped him when Gepetto was playing with the strings..



If Pinocchio could _think_, then yes he was. To think is to be aware of your own existence, so it is to be certain you exist in some form.


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## Mambi (Jul 8, 2020)

Fallowfox said:


> If Pinocchio could _think_, then yes he was. To think is to be aware of your own existence, so it is to be certain you exist in some form.



WE know he could think after the fairy, but before that we don't know at all. Could he? We have no outside way to know while Gepetto was tugging the strings. Just like our dream person has no outside way to confirm his sentience to the dreamer. 

(p.s. this is a fun thought experiment BTW!)


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## Fallowfox (Jul 8, 2020)

Mambi said:


> WE know he could think after the fairy, but before that we don't know at all. Could he? We have no outside way to know while Gepetto was tugging the strings. Just If he could think, then he would be certain he existed.
> 
> .



That's the point of Descartes' 'cogito ergo sum'.

To think is to be aware you exist. The nature of that existence may be unknown, but the _fact_ of it is known.

Only Pinocchio himself in this situation would be able to confirm his own existence- and only to himself. He could never persuade anybody else with total certainty that he is 'real'.
The same applies to all of us.
You might think I'm real, but maybe this text is just a hallucination you're having and it doesn't come from 'me' at all


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## Mambi (Jul 8, 2020)

Fallowfox said:


> That's the point of Descartes' 'cogito ergo sum'.
> 
> To think is to be aware you exist. The nature of that existence may be unknown, but the _fact_ of it is known.
> 
> ...



That's possible...catnip is a harsh mistress after all. <LOL> So basically nobody can prove anything...which makes sense as at some point everyone's brain is just taking things on faith. 
"I think, therefore I am confused" might be more appropriate lately.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 8, 2020)

Mambi said:


> That's possible...catnip is a harsh mistress after all. <LOL> So basically nobody can prove anything...which makes sense as at some point everyone's brain is just taking things on faith.
> "*I think, therefore I am confused*" might be more appropriate lately.



Definitely! 

If you continue to follow Descartes' approach you can prove a long list of other things must be true. Comments about the structure of internally consistent sets of statements can still be proven- so that's mathematics, for instance.


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## MaelstromEyre (Jul 8, 2020)

My family was "Christmas/Easter Catholic," though we went to public school instead of the local Catholic schools.  We did all the indoctrination stuff - baptism as infants, First Communion, Confirmation.  I just never really had any interest, my parents followed "the rules" but it's not like we read the Bible or said the Rosary or anything.

When I was a teenager, I went to some youth group stuff at a local Presbyterian church and got involved in a ministry group called YoungLife, went to their meetings and camps.  It was more of a social thing, though.  I heard how all these people's lives were so dramatically "changed" when they found God, and I guess I wanted it, too. . .but it never really happened.  So, I put any faith stuff on the backburner until after college.  Started going to a local non denominational church and really liked it - because it wasn't "churchy."  It was welcoming to all kinds of people.  It was small and friendly.  I stuck with it for several years. . .but in that time, it grew. . .and it became another "big church" that was all about promoting marriage and family and kids, and if you were a woman who didn't aspire to be a housewife and mother, they didn't know what to do with you.

I did try.  I led an Outdoors ministry.  I volunteered heavily in their artist community, and also led a Young Adults' ministry.  I read books and went to Bible studies and tried, because I thought that would make me happy, maybe less alone.  But it made everything worse because it was clear I simply didn't "fit in" there.

During that time I was also dating a guy who was heavily KJV Baptist, but only on his terms.  He was also a manipulative, controlling, jealous asshole.  Long story short, he tried to get me pregnant so that I'd have to stay with him (apparently he thought sex before marriage was okay if it benefitted him).  It didn't work, I broke up with him.

In all those years, I had so many negative experiences with followers of that religion that I decided I was done with it. I define myself as an atheist for simplicity, because I really don't have enough interest in any other belief systems to pursue or practice.

But. . .the most spiritual I've felt when I was out in nature, seeing beautiful places.  I don't care about buildings or group prayers or lengthy sermons, I want to go see waterfalls and rock formations and hear birds and walk through an autumn forest where the sun in the leaves is brighter than any stained glass window.  That's where I feel my "connection."

One of my defining moments in leaving the Christian belief system was hearing others call my love for nature "earth worship."  They said it was evil.  They said it was man's God-given duty to dominate nature, to develop the land and bring everything into civilization.  Nature, to them, was "evil."  I guess they forgot about the whole thing in Genesis where their god is the one who CREATED that stuff.

There are aspects of it I miss - mostly the people in the artist community.  They were more "normal" about stuff - they were fun, they weren't uptight or judgemental.  I am still in touch with a few from Facebook and none have ever talked down to me about my choice to leave the church, nor have they tried to change my mind.


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## TyraWadman (Jul 8, 2020)

MaelstromEyre said:


> "earth worship."  They said it was evil.



*record scratch* Wut? 

I always liked the idea of religion for its community aesthetic. People smiling and welcoming each other... then I have to remember that it's almost always the propaganda. They're showing you what you want to see and then you get crazy shit like what you mentioned- and then some.


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## sshado (Jul 8, 2020)

Spirituality is large motivating factor in my life. It used to be more of a core part of my external identity when I was a kid but I went through many periods of reconstructing my beliefs growing up and ended up in an unorthodox place.

I would describe what I believe in to be radical spiritual humanism. The focus is on people and their needs, finding rational and practical ways to meet those needs within a framework. That framework is pursuing actions which strengthen experiences relating to:
* Truth
* Contentment
* Empathy
* Humility
* Love

I believe in radical acceptance of individuals. When I look at someone, I would like to tell them "_I know who you are, I know what you are, I know how you serve_". Now, obviously I'm not going to go around telling people that randomly but I can convey that through how I engage with them. Being fully in the moment with that person, actively listening, and seeing them for who they are deep down allows them to define for me who they want to be instead of who the world has decided they should be. This informs how I do business, how I interact with friends, how I acknowledge strangers.

I believe in a higher and lower self. I do not believe that we have any conscious communication with our higher selves nor do I believe that I can interact with them in any way because they are not physical concepts. My higher self is an expression of myself which has always existed and will always exist. If I choose to align myself to that expression then who I am is fundamentally different while I hold onto it. If I could align myself to that higher expression all of the time then I gladly would, but it will take me a lifetime to grow and mature that much. In the meantime I can only try my best and try to help others reveal their own inner truths.

I believe people can have shared-experiences and moments of synchronicity and that through mass-synchronicity we can perform actual miracles through completely practical and human means.

I believe in expanding the mind beyond known boundaries. The type of work I do involves working with laws of physics for which we have no concrete theories yet, so it is not uncommon for me to hear someone say they don't believe what I'm doing is real. Reality is something that people put a little bit too much faith in. I take a slightly different approach and I try to push the boundaries of my reality as often as possible. Any time they give a little, I take that as a cue I need to investigate and find a way to see past those walls.

I believe we should always be looking beyond what we know and trying to acknowledge the impossibly vast boundary of _everything_ that we do not yet understand.

I consider myself a follower of Satanism, Chaos Magick, and pursuit of Mastery.

Lastly, and *most* important, I believe we should all touch fluffy tail and I'm here to tell you that paws are so gosh darn cute.


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## VeeStars (Jul 8, 2020)

While I personally am atheist and not a very spiritual person in the slightest, I do find it interesting to learn about what other people's worldviews and what they believe in. ^^


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## Simo (Jul 8, 2020)

All that matters is that skunks are worshipped, revered and obeyed.


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## Kinare (Jul 9, 2020)

*-Does it matter whether you can be confident that spiritual beliefs are true, if they are beliefs that you find comforting?
*
For me, truth and comfort go hand in hand. This is partially why I left organized religion. There are many "truths" they feed you that are in fact just their opinion on a matter.

---

*-Is it necessary to believe in a theistic religion if you want to believe in an afterlife?*

Nope. You could be on the outskirts like me, no organized religion involved, and still believe in the afterlife and other aspects that might be part of theistic belief systems.

---

Overall, I am spiritual and believe in an afterlife and other forces being out there. There are too many things science can't fully explain, at least not yet. Some things will only ever remain theories put forth by people who are trying desperately not to believe in anything. My reasoning for believing, despite being a truth based organism, is due to something that happened to me as a child. Now, had it only been me witnessing it I would have shrugged it off as a dream or hallucination, but a friend of mine at the time witnessed it as well. Any other "experiences" I've had, while weird, most I could find a possible answer for and the others I think there could be (just out of my wheelhouse). While a believer, I'm heavily a skeptic when someone claims to have "evidence" because I also know there's people on the believer side who will do anything, including twisting facts, to try to prove there's something more out there.


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## MaelstromEyre (Jul 9, 2020)

TyraWadman said:


> *record scratch* Wut?
> 
> I always liked the idea of religion for its community aesthetic. People smiling and welcoming each other... then I have to remember that it's almost always the propaganda. They're showing you what you want to see and then you get crazy shit like what you mentioned- and then some.



It's disturbingly common among many of the evangelicals - somehow nature is "the enemy" that needs to be controlled in order for humans to prosper.  Obviously not all - I did make a few friends when running the Outdoors ministry, we'd do hikes at different parks.  They felt the same way I did - that we were most connected to the deity when we were outside, in nature, enjoying "creation" instead of sitting in a church.


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## Kit H. Ruppell (Jul 9, 2020)

MaelstromEyre said:


> One of my defining moments in leaving the Christian belief system was hearing others call my love for nature "earth worship."  They said it was evil.  They said it was man's God-given duty to dominate nature, to develop the land and bring everything into civilization.  Nature, to them, was "evil."  I guess they forgot about the whole thing in Genesis where their god is the one who CREATED that stuff.


It's this attitude that drove me to antitheism. How much cruel and entitled exploitation has Abrahamic creationism informed over the ages? I vowed never to touch a Bible again after I tried to read Genesis.


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## Pomorek (Jul 9, 2020)

Spirituality is very important topic for me so the story will be long and complicated.

I received very strict Catholic upbringing and it fucked my mind _really hard_. We're talking lasting emotional damage that doesn't entirely go away even as I released myself from the shackles.

Theoretically speaking, this should have made me a raging atheist, especially that I turned to science and was studying it with quite a zeal. I've seen such things happening. But there were two main issues which didn't allow for that in my case.

First is that finding some joy in life is very important matter to me. I don't even think I'm such a hedonist – but as my life has been rather sad, filled with trouble and deficiencies, any scrap of joy I can get becomes many times as precious. And so, as Nietzsche once said, "I would believe only in a god that can dance".

Surely, there's no way to have any joy or happiness when you're living under the watchful eye of the angry Catholic God who will cast you down to hell not even for doing something bad, but for merely _not having suffered enough_. This God doesn't dance at all.

But from my own personal perspective, there is little "dance" in the scientific materialism either. I find it very hard to find joy in the setting where the universe, with all its staggering natural splendor, is essentially said to be a meaningless, chaotic pile of dirt, and the mind, constantly filled with increasing understanding and compassion, is headed to nothing more than becoming a splattered pool of rot. Maybe others are not so sensitive, but for me such view is both emotionally repulsive and intellectually outrageous, and sad above all.

Now, don't get me wrong: science is irreplaceable in its own domain of operation, that is figuring out all the fascinating mechanisms of the world, and putting them to use where possible. But I didn't find it useful in organizing the deepest, core interior of my being.

Another matter that kept me from going down that path is that I just happen to be (mildly) psychic. With premonitions and synchronicities happening to me pretty regularly. You may laugh all you want, and call it a delusion and a statistical fluke. I would be skeptical myself. But when the "delusions" turn out to be correct time and again, and the "statistical fluke" follows me around for years and stubbornly keeps showing up – it would be quite _unscientific_ in itself, to disregard my own reoccurring experience; quite childishly vehement, to call it illusion simply because it does not conform to theories accepted by others.

Well, the end result was that I couldn't make heads nor tails of it all, indeed! For many years I lived quite happily in the situation of "spiritual homelessness", even as I know for a fact that this can be unbearable state to some.

The thing that ended this "homelessness" was happening upon a body of writing known as "the Seth material". The funny thing is that I knew about this very obscure matter for years (more than a decade?...) before but I never cared to check it out. At the face value, this thing appears awfully woo-woo and new-agey, as it is supposedly obtained via channeling messages from a non-material consciousness. I'm _usually_ not into this kind of stuff. What made me stop and look was the style of it: measured, mature and logical, strongly reminiscent of an actual university lecture, and completely unlike various other intellectually frivolous "spiritual" writings I've seen... And then, bingo. All fields checked for me.

It's very hard to put this whole "material" in a few sentences and there are going to be distortions if I try – but in a very compressed and oversimplified nutshell, the world is a sort of "game" that all the various consciousnesses (not only human ones, far from it) are playing. It's not meant to be any silly, vapid, pointless game though – it also serves for learning and betterment of all of them. But there is no heavy-handed seriousness in such a world, and the life is primarily meant to be one of zest and joy; indeed, finally a "god who can dance" seems to be the one who fashioned all of it! And as we are all learning, among others how to direct our creative energy – there are simply bound to be mis-directions and mis-application of it. If we already knew how to apply it better, we would have no need to learn. And from these mis-applications, all the manners of bad things arise. But then, in the wider perspective even these are "redeemed", not only as necessary learning tools, but also because they make the game and the story of the world so much more engaging.

As the material was written mainly throughout the seventies up to early eighties, this analogy is not included in it – but it helps to think of the world as a "virtual reality game for spirits" (kind of like the simulation theory, but benevolent one and spiritual rather than technological in nature). And how boring a game or a story would be without adversities, sometimes extreme?

What needs to be stressed that there is nothing cultish about the whole thing, no attempt to establish a new faith, in fact there exist some concerns that some people might want to take it this way. Also, no rituals, no codes of morality being handed down. One could argue that it is more of a philosophy than traditionally understood spirituality. The breadth of topics covered in those dozen or so books is staggering, it's not just immaterial consciousnesses and afterlife. Science, established religion, nature, animal consciousness, human psychology, sexuality, terrorism, epidemics - all this and more has been commented upon. And so, even if we assume that this whole thing was written in the most plain way, with no supernatural influences involved, the depth of philosophical insights alone makes the "material" worth its salt for me.

But then, for me personally, it sort of logically completes my "spiritual homelessness" phase, as I found many of my own insights and ideas formulated during that time to be present in the "material" as well. So, I call it to be my working hypothesis about the world-and-beyond, and quite literally I choose to believe.


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## TyraWadman (Jul 9, 2020)

Pomorek said:


> Another matter that kept me from going down that path is that I just happen to be (mildly) psychic. With premonitions and synchronicities happening to me pretty regularly.



I've had situations like this, but it doesn't seem to happen nearly as much as it did when I was younger. I don't know if it was just my bodies way of acting as some kind of 'growing tool' or what, but as I learned more, the less I experienced it. Not that I missed it completely. The situations I saw/experienced were usually nerve-wracking.

Now I'm just 50% intuition and 50% logic. If I can't trust my brain, then I trust my gut and vice versa.


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## Deleted member 132067 (Jul 9, 2020)

@Pomorek thanks for writing all of that down, it was interesting to read and probably took a bit of effort as well. Some parts certainly resonated with me, especially "[...]Nietzsche once said, "I would believe only in a god that can dance"" [...] But from my own personal perspective, there is little "dance" in the scientific materialism either. I find it very hard to find joy in the setting where the universe, with all its staggering natural splendor, is essentially said to be a meaningless, chaotic pile of dirt, and the mind, constantly filled with increasing understanding and compassion, is headed to nothing more than becoming a splattered pool of rot."

I haven't had similar, bad experiences with religion in the past, especially Catholicism. That being said, nothing back then resonated with me and a logical, reasonable approach wasn't doing the trick for me either. And while I too am a person who rather relies on facts and evidence, especially since I am studying to become a therapist, with religion it brought me little happiness. And being happy is, in my view at least, the final goal of at all. I think the newer concept of optimistic nihilism is a funny way to approach that, and it's certainly better then Catholicism or cold, fact based atheism. Again, it's not my cup of tea either, I found a religion that clicks for me, but I am still glad it exists. There's so many good ideas hidden within views, other religions and ideologies, it can never hurt to look a bit beyond ones own perspective.

However I am sorry to read that you went through a pretty rocky road to finally reach your current status quo. At least you're comfortable now, so that's nice.


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## Yoserfael1 (Jul 9, 2020)

TyraWadman said:


> *record scratch* Wut?
> 
> I always liked the idea of religion for its community aesthetic. People smiling and welcoming each other... then I have to remember that it's almost always the propaganda. They're showing you what you want to see and then you get crazy shit like what you mentioned- and then some.



Living in a rather religious community myself, I'm not really sure what to make of this. Whatever we show is us doing what we always do - if we ever show it.


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## Pomorek (Jul 9, 2020)

TyraWadman said:


> I've had situations like this, but it doesn't seem to happen nearly as much as it did when I was younger. I don't know if it was just my bodies way of acting as some kind of 'growing tool' or what, but as I learned more, the less I experienced it. Not that I missed it completely. The situations I saw/experienced were usually nerve-wracking.
> 
> Now I'm just 50% intuition and 50% logic. If I can't trust my brain, then I trust my gut and vice versa.


If these experiences were bad, then I'd say, it's a progress for you that you no longer have them. For me, they are usually neutral or positive. But some could have been disturbing, if I wasn't so calm about the whole thing. Like the most recent case: on the 11th of June, I woke up in the morning having strong feeling that _something _has happened. I had some very strange dreams before waking up - not really nightmares, nothing negative, but unusual enough to notice. And I normally don't remember having any dreams at night. I'm still trying to keep some healthy skepticism, so I chalked it up as "just a dream" and moved on. But then, the next day I was informed that my uncle had died - in all likelihood in the early morning on June the 11th... And it's not even the first time it happened, I remember I had very similar situation about my late grandmother's neighbor.

@ClumsyWitch Thanks for appreciating. To clarify, I did not mean to attack Catholicism in general. But it can be hard to separate my personal feelings on it from more general picture. I realize that great many people find their spirituality there, and it works well for them. I don't think it could have worked for me in any case, as I'm too much of a "free thinker". But at least it could have been presented to me in a less damaging way, than all this "fire and brimstone"/"you're going straight to hell unless you're lucky" approach...


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## Deleted member 132067 (Jul 9, 2020)

Pomorek said:


> If these experiences were bad, then I'd say, it's a progress for you that you no longer have them. For me, they are usually neutral or positive. But some could have been disturbing, if I wasn't so calm about the whole thing. Like the most recent case: on the 11th of June, I woke up in the morning having strong feeling that _something _has happened. I had some very strange dreams before waking up - not really nightmares, nothing negative, but unusual enough to notice. And I normally don't remember having any dreams at night. I'm still trying to keep some healthy skepticism, so I chalked it up as "just a dream" and moved on. But then, the next day I was informed that my uncle had died - in all likelihood in the early morning on June the 11th... And it's not even the first time it happened, I remember I had very similar situation about my late grandmother's neighbor.
> 
> @ClumsyWitch Thanks for appreciating. To clarify, I did not mean to attack Catholicism in general. But it can be hard to separate my personal feelings on it from more general picture. I realize that great many people find their spirituality there, and it works well for them. I don't think it could have worked for me in any case, as I'm too much of a "free thinker". But at least it could have been presented to me in a less damaging way, than all this "fire and brimstone"/"you're going straight to hell unless you're lucky" approach...


Even if there was a willingly bad connotation to it, I'm neither a Catholic, nor do I care. Though I appreciate the open mindedness towards those who might be.


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## TyraWadman (Jul 9, 2020)

Pomorek said:


> If these experiences were bad, then I'd say, it's a progress for you that you no longer have them. For me, they are usually neutral or positive. But some could have been disturbing, if I wasn't so calm about the whole thing. Like the most recent case: on the 11th of June, I woke up in the morning having strong feeling that _something _has happened. I had some very strange dreams before waking up - not really nightmares, nothing negative, but unusual enough to notice. And I normally don't remember having any dreams at night. I'm still trying to keep some healthy skepticism, so I chalked it up as "just a dream" and moved on. But then, the next day I was informed that my uncle had died - in all likelihood in the early morning on June the 11th... And it's not even the first time it happened, I remember I had very similar situation about my late grandmother's neighbor.
> 
> @ClumsyWitch Thanks for appreciating. To clarify, I did not mean to attack Catholicism in general. But it can be hard to separate my personal feelings on it from more general picture. I realize that great many people find their spirituality there, and it works well for them. I don't think it could have worked for me in any case, as I'm too much of a "free thinker". But at least it could have been presented to me in a less damaging way, than all this "fire and brimstone"/"you're going straight to hell unless you're lucky" approach...



Yea. The main ones I remember off the top of my head involved dreams about things taking place.
One involved me being in a specific room at my school, not one typically used for class, and there were a small handful of students, some I knew by name. Then the wall had been blown in and I woke up.
Next day at school, boom. Bomb threat (low risk) and we're in that same room with those same students working on the same chart paper I saw in the dream.

Another was with my own dad. I got off the bus and opened the door. On the stairs was a large Sears bag and a coffee mug. My dad was downstairs. He starts chasing me down the road with a machete.
Reality, I come home, same bag, same white coffee mug in the same position. Dad comes out at the bottom of the stairs so I start to act really weird. He's confused and I'm just like 'HAHAHA CAN I GET THAT MUG FOR YOU? HERE LET ME TAKE IT TO THE SINK HAHAHAHAHA'. It didn't help that my dad often expressed how he was going to kill his own kids.

They all happened- just not that last part. And it was so unsettling to be in that moment, fearing the inevitable. XD

Editedit now that guests are gone: I also had a similar experience with the passing of my grandpa. My dad called and made it sound like he was going to pass within the next few hours. I was devestated. Cried for 4 days nonstop. Before this, though, there was this explosive anger I kinda felt and then a sudden drop. Like the world suddenly went gray.

Then one night I just uttered my last goodbyes to him from afar and within the next few hours I got the call confirming his death.


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## VeeStars (Jul 9, 2020)

Simo said:


> All that matters is that skunks are worshipped, revered and obeyed.


Now _that _sounds like a mighty fine religion.


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## Fallowfox (Jul 9, 2020)

VeeStars said:


> Now _that _sounds like a mighty fine religion.



Sounds like it _stinks_ to me. ;}


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