There are religions (or whatever you would call them) that aren’t theistic. Over the years I’ve been drawn to Theravada Buddhism sans reincarnation. Read a book called “Buddhism Without Belief” after reading about all the meditation research and decided to give it a try. But there are others besides Buddhism, if you really are looking for ‘purpose’
Whats the aversion to reincarnation? I had the same aversion until I got deeper into buddhist practice. Buddhist beliefs regarding reincarnation aren’t similar to how its popularly conceived of in the west. Since one of the core beliefs of buddhism is that of ‘no self’ its not you as you see yourself that is actually coming back to life. Since buddhists don’t believe in a concept of soul or self the idea of reincarnation doesn’t mean that you are really coming back to life as a fish, person or devas. It’s more easily conceived as similar to the law of conversvation of energy/mass. When you’re dead and gone you don’t simply stop existing you simply change forms, i.e. your body becomes food for worms.
Consistency is irrelevant. What I can’t get over is that, as far as I can tell, all forms of mysticism are arbitrary in that they have no verifiable connection to observable reality. Because of this fact it is completely irrational to believe in it.
Irrational is a stretch…
People always seem to take what is wrong with Christianity and apply it to all the World’s religions:
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BTW, Theravada (I mentioned earlier) is the ‘oldest’ form of Buddhism. This isn’t to say Buddhism was able to avoid the pitfalls that Buddha warned about – it is people carrying on the traditions, after all. And I’m not trying to recruit anyone, just letting you know there is more than Christians out there in the World.
But Buddhism isn’t the only option out there, but to me Buddha was the strictest empircist I’ve come across. Plus neuroscience is finding plenty of benefits of the teachings. I have a fondness for research.
I’ll come back to this later. My views on it are interesting and would love to hear your take
if all this is indeed true, then by definition it is not mysticism and my comment holds. i have not looked into buddhism, but the denial of the ‘self’ is a big strike one.
You’re 100% correct, but that’s what faith is all about. If you can observe it or prove it, you don’t need faith. I’m not sure if you’re married or not, but if you are, do you have a private detective follow your wife while she’s not with you so he can observe the reality of her day, or do you trust that she’s doing what she says she’s doing and not sleeping around, murdering random homeless people for the thrill of it, or something else that I assume you would find objectionable?
I just realized–I’m the only person on here who has professed to be religious. There are some who have said they are “drawn to” a religion, but have hesitated to say whether they are “followers” of that religion or not. Everybody else has either professed atheism or agnositcism or has remained silent.
Is there anybody else here who considers themself religious? Either practicing or non?
your analogy doesn’t apply for reasons that should be obvious.
so religion requires faith in something that cannot be verified. the issue of arbitrariness of what exactly you’re supposed to have faith in is still there. in the realm of faith, scientology, voodoo, magic pants, pastafarianism, and christianity are all equally valid.
and we wonder why people who accept this mishmash philosophy are so confused.
I don’t view Christianity as any more valid than other religions. Whether or not something can be verified in the life we currently exist in doesn’t matter, faith and trust are essentially the same thing. The fact that you trust your wife instead of verifying her actions is not materially different than having faith in a religion. I’m not deeply religious, but I would argue that I can verify my faith upon my death. I could kill myself to verify it now, but I choose not to just as you choose to not hire a PI to tail your wife.
again they are nowhere near the same thing, that should be obvious. one example, i’ve spoken to my wife and she has spoken to me before i decided to marry her. you’re assuming the “you” exist upon your death. please tell me how you know that’s the case.
Turd wins. I declare victory over you.
Turd, Jesus turned water into wine. That is better than all the science in the world. Prove to me that science exists, please. Please, prove to me that human senses can be relied upon. What’s that? You can’t? I declare victory over science.
really BW? if ‘science’ can’t be proven, then why not live as if it doesn’t exist. go ahead and jump out a window or walk in front of a speeding bus, please.
scienced.
“Faith” or “trust” is variable and depends on the information you have. For instance, if your wife has always been faithful, you have a strong reason to trust her - maybe 9/10. If your spouse shows signs of infidelity, maybe the trust value goes to 5/10. For religions like Christianity, the trust value should be like 1/10 or lower based on available evidence. So if you ask me, yes, both religion and spousal fidelity are measured on the same scale. However, the values that lie on the scale are vastly different.
if you’re putting them on the same scale it doesn’t go to 10, more like 10 trillion.
Nothing in science is proven. It’s just theorized with a high degree of confidence.
You’re assuming the “you” doesn’t exist upon death and that only the existence you currently know and think you can verify matters. I disagree. You can take issue with specific analogies all you want, as they are obviously never going to be exactly same otherwise they would not be analogies. My main point is that faith and trust are essentially the same thing and you have faith in many things that you can’t verify. Have you verified the Big Bang, or do you just have faith in the scientists who tell you that’s what happened? Could you verify it? Have you verified the fact that you are not actually sitting in some pod serving as an energy source for the machines ala the Matrix, or do you trust that the reality you believe you exist in is real? Have you verified the fact that the sun is indeed the center of our solar system, or do you just trust the scientists who tell you that it is?
Science and religion are really not that different when you think about it, and unlike a lot of other Christians I do not view them as mutually exclusive because I do not consider the Bible to be a literal history. For example, I don’t believe that the Big Bang Theory conflicts with the notion that God created the universe. There had to be something before the big bang, right? Why is it impossible that that something was God?
I can’t prove that my consciousness will exist after my time here is over, but I have faith that it will. No one in your life can prove that they exist as anything other than a figment of your imagination, but I believe that you have faith that they do.
how do you function in reality with this belief system? why not kill yourself? that’s no different than getting up and going for a run. if nothing can be relied upon as real, why do you do anything? do you eat and breath or trust that eating and breathing are constructs of your imagination?
This is not my belief system, it’s yours because you claim that you only believe things you can verify. I don’t kill myself because I enjoy my life here and don’t want to spend eternity in hell. Once again though, you either miss the point or refuse to accept it - you cannot verify or prove anything you believe to be true but you have faith that it is true. That is no different than religion. Prove to me that your consciousness ceases to exist when you “die” - you can’t but you believe it to be so. Verify that the Big Bang happened - you can’t but you believe it to be so. Prove to me that there is no life in the universe other than on earth, or that there is other life in the universe - you can’t but you have to believe one or the other (for the record, I dont’ think the belief in God means that life cannot exist elsewhere in the universe). Prove to me, hell prove to yourself, that you exist as a physical being on a planet you call earth and are not a sentient being from another time and dimension who is just having a livid dream - you can’t but you believe it to be so.
You obviously believe that you are here and that you exist, but how did you get here? How did the first Ferguson get here, or the single celled organism that eventually evolved into the first Ferguson, or the atoms that made up the single celled organism, or the protons and electrons that made up the atoms, etc. Hell, how did here get here? You honestly have no f’ing clue and neither does anyone else. Take all that crap off the table and it really comes down to one thing: You believe that when you “die”, your consciousness will cease to exist. I believe that when I “die”, my consciousness will continue to exist. I can’t prove or verify my belief and you can’t prove or verify your belief.