Spiritual but not religious?

Proletariat wrote: James wrote: This leads back to the original query about Spirituality. Yes, you can be "spiritual" (which is not the correct word) without being religious, as you rightly say.  You can indeed experience a high-state of consciousness, whether via drugs or something else (such as music, prayer, yoga, politics &c.) and therefore reach a transcendental state.  I would not say this has any link to religion and/or the belief in a God though. However, I am not one to follow a religion or philosophy and if I were, I would never do so blindly.  I follow myself. I would not call myself "spiritual" though.  I rarely feel a sense of higher purpose (I used to slightly) and I can visit churches, forests, beautiful places or indeed, listen to great music and only rarely will I feel any form of higher purpose or any kind of enlightenment. so, ubermench, you are like nietche your own diety with no reverence for what others revere, this does not make you unique necesarilly. your higher person then is yourself.   correct me if i missunderstood

Except I'm not my own deity either.  I don't believe in deities and I also do not follow any philosophy.  I am sure Nietzsche had similar views to my own but I am fairly sure he was not an atheist (correct me if I am wrong).

Also, it's not about being unique.  I just (try to) live my life without even thinking about religion or philosophy.  I would probably be an existentialist (or something similar) if I did follow a philosophy though.

Don't get me wrong though.  Philosophy does interest me and I do plan to read up on it all eventually but that does not mean I want to label myself as anything.

James wrote: Proletariat wrote: James wrote: This leads back to the original query about Spirituality. Yes, you can be "spiritual" (which is not the correct word) without being religious, as you rightly say.  You can indeed experience a high-state of consciousness, whether via drugs or something else (such as music, prayer, yoga, politics &c.) and therefore reach a transcendental state.  I would not say this has any link to religion and/or the belief in a God though. However, I am not one to follow a religion or philosophy and if I were, I would never do so blindly.  I follow myself. I would not call myself "spiritual" though.  I rarely feel a sense of higher purpose (I used to slightly) and I can visit churches, forests, beautiful places or indeed, listen to great music and only rarely will I feel any form of higher purpose or any kind of enlightenment. so, ubermench, you are like nietche your own diety with no reverence for what others revere, this does not make you unique necesarilly. your higher person then is yourself.   correct me if i missunderstood   Except I'm not my own deity either.  I don't believe in deities and I also do not follow any philosophy.  I am sure Nietzsche had similar views to my own but I am fairly sure he was not an atheist (correct me if I am wrong). Also, it's not about being unique.  I just (try to) live my life without even thinking about religion or philosophy.  I would probably be an existentialist (or something similar) if I did follow a philosophy though. Don't get me wrong though.  Philosophy does interest me and I do plan to read up on it all eventually but that does not mean I want to label myself as anything.

im not necesarily saying you must glorify yourself. i was just going off of "i follow myself"

James wrote: JJLehto wrote: My Deity is James Which one?

There's only one James as far as I'm concerned!
Ever since you hit 25,000 posts I knew you were my God

JJLehto wrote: James wrote: JJLehto wrote: My Deity is James Which one? There's only one James as far as I'm concerned! Ever since you hit 25,000 posts I knew you were my God

I was going under a pseudonym back then though.

I meant my forum name.  That was not as it is now at 25,000 posts.

James wrote: It's the same with atheism for me.  There's those atheists who preach or try to convert others.  There are atheists and agnostics who have web sites with their own commandments on.  I do not want to be associated with them.

I think that many people who follow these discussions here would say that I'm one of "those" atheists. But I don't actually think that I am. If you read my posts, you'll see that I'm usually simply challenging arguments put forward by religious people. I might also say that they have no good reasons for their belief, or describe the Atheist position(s). I might also say that I think that the Atheist position is better, or at least more logically sound. But I don't preach or ask people to become Atheists.

Have a look at this definition of "preaching":

1. To proclaim or publish tidings; specifically, to proclaim the gospel; to discourse publicly on a religious subject, or from a text of Scripture; to deliver a sermon. [1913 Webster]

Preaching is closely linked to Scripture. It has nothing to do with logical arguments. A preacher has listeners, he doesn't expect them to object or question the validity of whatever the preacher is saying. In contrast, I always invite objection, and I'm always disappointed when people don't object to my claims, but rather simply cop out of the discussion or attack my stance, or my writing style, or some particulars that I may have gotten wrong about Scripture.


Being an "Atheist" simply means, for me and for most "modern" Atheists, to choose not to believe in any concept of supernatural entities (Theist/Deist God(s)) without sufficient objective evidence to do so. There are some definitions of Atheisms that go further and may for example state that Atheists claim that they know that there is no God. That's not the case for me or for most Atheists that I know, nor for any of the popular Atheists that I often quote. Not even Christopher Hitchens (one of the most "militant" atheists, he also prefers to call himself Anti-Theist) would claim to know that there is no God. Claiming knowledge in the absence of evidence is a marking of a Theist, or indeed a "fundamentalist Atheist".

Mike, my comment was not aimed at yourself.  Just to clarify.

James wrote: Mike, my comment was not aimed at yourself.  Just to clarify.

I'm glad to hear that - my answer is aimed at those who would think that it might be aimed at me.

Mr ProgFreak wrote: Epignosis wrote: I believe God is a physical, extra-dimensional being.  I don't know too many who would call God that, but I think it makes sense.  You can't see God any more than a 2D creature would be able to see you.  Yet if you put your hand near the 2D creature, the 2D creature could "feel your presence" without seeing you.  Also, you (as a 3D creature) would be able to see everything inside the 2D creature's home and body. Taking it a step further, let's say you wanted to perform some "miracles."  Think of all the amazing things you could do in a 2D world as a 3D being.  The 2D creatures would have no idea how you made "Carl the Square" vanish and reappear in the next room, for example.  But was scientific law violated?  No...you simply exist in a higher dimension. That's IMO a facile analogy. We humans and all the other animals and plants could be seen as 2D creatures, too - we're all living on the surface of a sphere - yet we see 3D objects. a 4th spacial dimension does not imply that beings which can move through that dimension could see us, or that we could not see them. But I'm getting what you're trying to say. Still, I have objections: a) Even if it's like you described, why should such an extra-dimensional being care about us? We obviously don't care about 2D creatures. As a matter of fact, we wouldn't even know where to look for real 2D creatures in our 3D world. b) Even supposing that extra-dimensional beings exist, can see us and can interact with our world, *and* are interested in us, why would they only appear to us in bronze age palestine? If they also transcend time, it's also odd that since then they haven't visited us again ... today we would have means to record evidence of their existence, making it much easier to believe in them.

I'm not sure I am understanding how people and animals are 2D creatures.

Now both objections are questions of "why?" and not "can?"  This is asking about the motivations and plans of a being higher than me.  I can't fathom why my wife would love and care about me, much less someone I've never seen.  Now the Bible offers reasons about "why God would care," but I won't burden you with that (especially since we'd have to talk about the major difference between the concept of love now and the concept of love in biblical times).

Here's a thought: Maybe extra-dimensional beings do exist...but whenever they manifest, scientists explain them using a 3D paradigm (hallucinations, tricks of light, etc).  Ancient people used bizarre imagery, metaphor, and other (limited linguistic) tools available to them to explain what they witnessed.  Such people would have no sophisticated notion of extra-dimensionality.  The question is, how would scientists today recognize the presence of an extra-dimensional being?

Let me offer an example from the Bible if you don't mind.  But first, think about this: If I interacted with a 2D world...let's say I touch the 2D world with my finger...what will the 2D people witness?

Something like this:

O

That's the imprint of my fingertip.  A small part of me.

The Lord, speaking to Moses in Exodus 33:

 ¹⁹ And the LORD said, "I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. ²⁰ But," he said, "you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live."

 ²¹ Then the LORD said, "There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. ²² When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. ²³ Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen."

I have no idea what that must have looked like, but if God is extra-dimensional, then this "partial revelation" of God's "body" kind of makes more sense, I think.  Moses got to see a cross-section of God.

None of that disproves anything I said.  An extra-dimensional being is not obligated to show himself to you.  And if he did, you'd explain him away using whatever explanation was most convenient for you (hallucination, trick of light, etc).

I believe in the Bible, and you do not.  I, however, am a materialist.  Therefore, the God of the Bible is a physical being, and I think extra-dimensionality makes perfect sense.  Many Christians will not agree to this simply because the Bible calls God "spirit," but they just assume that "spirit" means "not physical," when that's simply not what the Hebrew and Greek words meant at all.

As to "why is God interested in us," that does nothing to question God's existence.  Deists believe God created the world and left us alone.

This world got here somehow, and life exists.  People posit the big bang and how life evolved out of non-living material, yet I think that it is less probable than an extra-dimensional creator.  A big bang doesn't account for the creation of matter, does it?  It merely accounts for a change in matter, which leaves us to ask, "Well, where did that matter come from?"