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Salutations, Godless Ones

Started by Michael Reilly, March 25, 2012, 08:24:38 PM

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MadBomr101

Quote from: No one on April 03, 2020, 02:00:00 PM
Everyone is normal, for themselves.

I like this. It's deceptively deep for its simplicity.
- Bomr
I'm waiting for the movie of my life to be made.  It should cost about $7.23 and that includes the budget for special effects.

Michael Reilly

Man! 14 freaking years ago! I am about to turn 55 and I still don't have the Jesus thing out of my head. Is there such a thing as a secular exorcism? I think I might need one.

Tank

If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

Asmodean

Secular exorcism... The closest I can think of is incarceration. Wouldn't recommend it, frankly. ;-)
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on July 25, 2013, 08:18:52 PM
In Asmo's grey lump,
wrath and dark clouds gather force.
Luxembourg trembles.

Michael Reilly

I try to cultivate a healthy sense of curiosity about myself, and I have to tell you all: I do not understand why I can't extricate the whole God thing from my head. Not god as a metaphor for the unknown, but God as in the Bible God. Does anyone have any advice on how to get this crap out? Meditation? Therapy? Scotch?

Asmodean

Just learning, I'd say.

Scotch may aid or hinder the process, which... May or may not be helpful.

You can, of course, try to "turn around" the way in which you consider the world around you. At the end of the day, God is just a lazy explanation for something that you either do not know - yet - or something that you know, but have not looked at closely enough to see its natural patterns emerge. Doing so shoves god into an ever-shrinking set of gaps, to a point where you have to ask; "is it even a god anymore?"

That said, I was never a believer, so... Take it for what it is. If meth or gambling addiction are anything to go by, it may be difficult to un-learn something, even if you are motivated to do so and know better.
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on July 25, 2013, 08:18:52 PM
In Asmo's grey lump,
wrath and dark clouds gather force.
Luxembourg trembles.

Michael Reilly

I really do wonder if all of this God business isn't deeply ingrained into my neural pathways. I have not raised my own two children in any kind of faith tradition, so if they do decide to explore that path, they will have a pretty clean slate. But man! This shit is in deep.

Asmodean

Yeah... I can only answer that from an intellectual understanding as I'm "not put together that way." Even when giving up smoking, I just... Woke up one morning and didn't smoke. No struggles or particular cravings. I think part of it is actually that I never decided to quit - just decided to smell a little better in public, if that. It may have been harder, had it been a conscious decision revolving around the act of smoking.

But I do digress. People are creatures of habit, and some are harder to break than others [habits, that is, not people. Although... Yeah. It holds whichever way]. There is a reason religions have, as a whole, survived and even thrived in the age of science. When ideologically-Atheist (as in, atheist as a part of their overall ideology) Soviet Union collapsed after seventy-or-so years (as in, multiple generations) religiousness and organised religion resurged, until today the church is a political and social force, power and institution over there.

I don't think there is any shame in finding it hard to shake - but maybe if you "know better," you don't really have to?
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on July 25, 2013, 08:18:52 PM
In Asmo's grey lump,
wrath and dark clouds gather force.
Luxembourg trembles.

Dark Lightning

Being brought in a religion, the brainwashing can go mighty deep. But consider that there are religions that don't have a hell equivalent. Which one is right? None of them.

billy rubin

there are religions that dont have any gods.

theravada, for example.


"I cannot understand the popularity of that kind of music, which is based on repetition. In a civilized society, things don't need to be said more than three times."

Michael Reilly

Most forms of Buddhism are atheistic, aren't they? I know the Tibetans have a polytheistic belief system called Bon grafted onto the Buddhism.

billy rubin

the tibetans are weird. i dont know much about them. its theravada that is explicitly atheist, afaik

indochina mostly.

they treat buddhism the way westerners treat physics.

just this is how the universe works . . . add a god if you want . . .



"I cannot understand the popularity of that kind of music, which is based on repetition. In a civilized society, things don't need to be said more than three times."