Thank you for your reply, inuk.
I have enjoyed reading your replies here. In specific response to your reply to me I would agree that the flavours of atheism are indeed diverse. For me it is simple, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and there is none. Indeed I have yet to encounter anything remotely like real evidence and that whole line of enquiry is soiled by countless frauds. Most of them staged and very deliberate.
This is where I find distinction between religion and spirituality. When one has spiritual experience, one can hardly stage it for oneself.
The extraordinary evidence you require is, in my life, already there and has been there since the beginning- if what you mean is the evidence of a spiritual life, a Spirit World, if you will. But if you mean the evidence for a particular religion, then no- that is not what I have found. Instead, I have found many religions are suitable for a variety of people- and what fits with whom seems to be more about the way we learn and process information and even our preferences in aesthetics than in correctness, which of course is impossible to know.
However, that does not negate the spiritual life or experience.
That I can open up to the unity of all life and feel the energy of the Divine through Zen meditation, Druidic ceremony, or taking communion doesn't negate the efficacy of any of these religions, but to me points to them being
methods and not
the Only Way. The diversity in how I can get there doesn't make the reality of where I am headed any less obvious to me, which is why I grow frustrated with religious difference as a cause of human division.
But for me, to deny my spiritual life and experience would be akin to denying that I ate breakfast or that I see that the sky is blue. Everything in human life is necessarily subjective and filtered through our brains, conditioning, and so forth (though I think the "I" that watches "me" do this is the real "self" and able to wrestle control if I so choose). But that we live in a subjectively experienced world doesn't mean we have no tie to reality whatsoever. To treat all of life as "data"
except the vast majority of people who have spiritual experiences seems like faulty methodology, to be honest. It is to pick and choose what of the human condition is "real" and what is "imagined" from one's own vantage point, which hardly seems honest scientifically and certainly seems ethnocentric.
That said, the divergence between spirituality and religion is experienced by some such as a myself, and that is part of the difficulty- to reconcile my spiritual journey with any form of social institution, when careful assessment seems to indicate that it doesn't exactly fit anywhere, but could potentially fit in many places. I can be very comfortable practicing as a Christian, a Druid, a Buddhist, and so forth... if I am alone. The practices and scriptures of all, I find very useful and beautiful. The problem is how others in these groups would view me, and the associated social malaise that comes with dancing around to music only I seem to hear while the rest march to the same drummer...
Every church, however widely affiliated, is of itself almost an independent cult and some are more welcoming than others, and some more suspicious than others. Each has a complex history of gossip, alliances and all too human, yet none too Christian, petty squabblings.
Actually, this made me realize something... well, yes, I want a social institution that is perfected and doesn't carry with it the stuff of usual human social institutions. No wonder it's hard to find. I suppose such a group
exists, but of course it will be a challenge to find somewhere that people have learned to behave less like people and more like the Divine. It's a tall order. However, perfection is not necessary- just awareness of our imperfections and a striving toward something better...
Perhaps as a result of your depth of knowledge in anthropology and your ever expanding inclusion of the variances of the human condition you are simply tuning into the fact that very many of these Christians are mind numbingly ignorant and patently a million miles from the Christian "ideal" that attracts you? Put simply perhaps you just do not like many of the people that call themselves Christian?
To be honest, I don't think it has much to do with Christianity. I find that most people in the States do not choose idealism and will not work toward perfection. It isn't that I don't like people, but rather that people play different roles in our lives, and the role of a spiritual colleague is one that I find tough to fill under such circumstances. But mostly, I think people just are what they are at this moment. I believe the Divine is infinitely patient, so everyone will get to union and working toward the ideal eventually. It's just that to feel replenished and accelerate this work, I'd like to find people who already are focused on this.
And perhaps on a more individual level the reason no group seems to appeal directly to your personalised vision of the spirit is because it is in itself intangible, unreal and only held together by the repeated use of a series of repetitive mantras you have developed over the years? Perhaps in some corner of your self you are really very like me and know that all the belief in supernatural ideas is just something we humans have evolved and has no reality outside of our imaginations? Maybe you are a closet atheist
No, I really don't think so. Just being honest.
Imperfections in human beings don't say much of anything about the experience of the Divine Spirit. I've had too many experiences of the Divine to ever be an atheist. All of them rocked my pre-defined ideas about what God was, but in so doing, only solidified for me that I am on a journey toward constant union with the Divine. They assisted me in letting go of my ideas of God and becoming open to a much wider experience of It. As intangible and unreal as that may be to you, an atheist, it is very tangible and real to me.
I could just as easily say that your love for your family is intangible and unreal. You would struggle just as mightily to prove that it exists. Either we say that all of the human condition is imaginary, or we accept that others' experiences that we ourselves have not had are as valid as our own. Any other way is hypocritical and not scientific, for it is based on qualifying others' lives based on our own judgements, which is poor practice.
And I have no repetitive mantras... I'm very bad at such things and have a great tendency (when alone) to have my spiritual ceremonies be quite spontaneous. The joy I feel when I am connected with all life and with the Divine makes me just want to dance and sing with the happiness of being.
The reason I suggested a study of a complex biological ecosystem such as can be found in a soil sample was to get you away from an anthropological mindset. So that you might be reminded that there a billion billion little dramas being played out that require no notion of spirit and that are provably evolved and evolving from simpler beginings. No gods, deities or spirits required.
How do you know? I actually find that trees, little organisms and such do have spirit. As one native Californian said, "The rocks are people too. They are just slow-moving, quiet ones."
I think it is an ethnocentric Western mindset that insists that those organisms "below" us are spirit-less and consciousness-less.
I respect the diversity of human thought, and that means respecting the ancient earth-based animistic religions in which these life forms also have spirit and consciousness, have something to teach us, and deserve our respect and gratitude.
You propose that there is no spirit, no Divine. And so it is natural you would think that by investigating what you take for granted as "spirit-less" (so obviously) would cause me to chuck out my spiritual experience thus far. The problem with that is that I have always experienced all of life- even mineral beings and stars and so forth- as spiritual beings. My baseline assumptions, from my own experience, are entirely different than yours. It is the history of Christian doctrine and Western philosophy that paves the way for atheism, by separating the spiritual life from nature to begin with. This is partly what I'm getting at with atheism- Western atheism is largely dependent on Christianity. It is the foil, the counterpart, to the Christian notion of God.
The only truth any religion has is the truth the believer bolts onto it. You will know very well that few people think with logic and reason.
Likewise with atheists. I've seen no difference, to be honest. I've talked with lots and lots of atheists and they've never had more logical or reasonable explanations than I have for my own experiences. The best assessment I can give is that atheists, for whatever reason, have chosen to define God in a certain way (just as most theists do) and in a way that they themselves have not experienced or observed. They then declare that God does not exist (along with, generally, the lack of belief in spirit or anything immaterial). But then they rail against the same logic being used to deny other immaterial things, such as human emotion or ideals. They are as attached to their conceptualizations of the spiritual world and their beliefs about it as ardent Christians are... they just have different concepts.
I want to move beyond concept and get over it, already. Why bother with labels when you can have experience and growth?
And why do the atheists try as hard as the Christians to change me into what would fit their own little group??? I've experienced it time and again, and I find it laughable. The Christians have an excuse- they believe my soul's fate is at stake. But with the atheists, it is just obvious that they would feel much more at ease if I could step into "their camp" and affirm, with one more scientist's nod, the validity of their point of view. They do not like the open-mindedness that I demand any more than any other religious group does. I suppose few people like a person that consistently challenges every worldview and sees their own as fluid.
In other words we use illogical ideas to validate our own equally illogical presumptions. Rather than search for the flaws and inconsistencies in our own reasoning we come and pretend to discuss and bolster our own preconceptions.
Indeed.
Perhaps this is why you find yourself at Christian meetings and why, because of your depth of understanding of what humanity is, you feel fraudulent.
I feel fraudulent because although I experience Christ, I do not hold to doctrine. So my attendance says I am "inside" while others would see me as "outside."
Why do I come here? I am drawn to do so. I come here to think slowly, (my typing rate assures this), and to make sense of my own thoughts through interaction with the thoughts of people I, on the whole, like a lot. But in truth I listen with only 1 ear, the other constantly relates it to my own experience as a whole. What others say only has validity when it resonates with what I already think I know or, more rarely, suggests a way of looking at something I had not previously encountered.
How else do we learn, except through experience and a willingness to be open to others' new, unique ideas? Sounds like a good plan to me...
The people here help me develop and confirm my own individuality and this group is thus both of great value to me, but also akin to a personal plaything for my intellect, such as it is. Maybe you are like me, a part of you wants to fit in and be accepted, yet your individuality is always in conflict with that? Maybe your dualistic needs are beyond resolution for you to be who you are? That they are what make you that person we all love to read.
Well, that's certainly the case. As an introvert and a person who was both conditioned and instinctively likes to challenge everything and stand my own world on its head regularly, you might say I operate best in solitude. But as a human being, I am a social creature, no matter how introverted I am... and sometimes I feel lonely and want someone that isn't my family that "gets it." I want to feel that there is a society that can work differently, more humanely, more lovingly and compassionately. I am very much dualistic in many ways, in terms of my personality and how I process information. I'm an introvert fascinated by people. I'm an intuitive, mystic type who happens to be good at analyzing data (but I find my intuition serves me better than analysis
). My brain is almost OCD and longs for routine, security, and stability... while I would say my spirit is a total wild child that longs for art, beauty, new experiences, and the adrenaline that only comes when you can flip your world upside down and see what new ideas come out of the process.
I'm happiest as the wild child mystic- that comes with a whole lot of joy, even as I have to take in a lot more of the world's suffering in a much more personal way. The analytical OCD stable side brings boredom and depression. I've been gradually learning how to use the analytical, detail-oriented side but it is
not me. It's how my brain works. My "self" is whatever driving the vehicle and brain around- the artistic, shamanic one that is my spirit- that talks to the trees and the wind and rain. And that "self" is what I find brings other people joy and awakens their sense of love, that serves others consistently, that adores life itself for the sake of living, that cares not about where I go tomorrow. And it is the side that brings creativity to what would otherwise be a very dull, routinized approach to science. It is what allows me to see my entire life and all I do, as art.
