Posted by Worker Bee at 7:44pm Dec 6 '07Never went to church, except occasionaly with relatives. And then it was going because i happened to be with relatives, not because i believed. I still occasionally go to the Christmas service, because i tend to be with christian extended family then, and singing songs is fun, and being with my cousins is nice. i think i'm planning to not go this year though.
...I go through phases where i'm intensly interested in religion. One of those phases was when i was in ninth and tenth grade. At that point i think i found that i had a lot in common with liberal Quakerism or some such thing as that. ... at least according to the internets. And i'm still fairly fascinated by the Quaker religion. But I've never actually attended a Quaker meeting, although i do intend to ... someday.
I'm now kind of in a slight religion phase again due to reading parts of the bible here at school. It really is a fascinating work. I don't believe the god aspects, but it is still a great book, and i love the jesus of the gospels. Or rather, i love the message of love, which is what the primary preaching of the gospels, at least the ones i read, is. I don't intend to become christian because of this, but I would rather like to translate more of the new testament. I only translated a bit of it... But it would be wonderful to translate more of it. It really makes you think about the content when you are encountering it in a language that you are not native to.
At this point i'd consider myself a spirtual/mystic agnostic. spiritual because i definitely do believe in a connection between all things in a way that is somewhere between intellectual and metaphysical ... a sort of oneness between everything, and that while there isn't a greater plan from god, that things can still fall into place ... not sure what i mean by this. I also associate spirit with the intellect. Not a dry-uncaring intellect, but the intellect none the less. That the world of spirit is something to both think about and to contemplate. Mystic ... well, again, for similar reasons as the spiritual i think.
I might even believe in souls, not souls created by a god, but somehow a plain of the universe that is not part of the material plain. the material and the ethereal interact with each other ... but are seperate from each other. And i believe that the ethereal may be able to exist without a god. this new found belief in the ethereal, in the soul without a god, might throw a wrench into my disbelief of free will, but it might not. i haven't decided yet. but it just might be that a soul is needed to have free will, and that with a soul free will is possible.
agnostic, because well, i have absolutely no idea whether or not god exists. let alone what form of being god is. i don't pretend to have any way of knowing. This isn't a refusing to take a position type of deal ... it is me deciding that there truly isn't any way to know. for me personally, that is. i may make an exception if i have a direct encounter with god... but then again, i do not trust my mental stability, so if i saw god talking to me, say like how moses saw the burning bush ... i would first need to rule out the possibility of hallucination. i mean, half the time i'm barely sure of what i'm seeing as is. throw in something that i've never experienced or seen before ... This is simply me being of a doubting nature. i doubt the existance of god, but i also doubt the nonexistance of god. but obviously, either some greater being exists, or some greater being does not exist. for while i doubt both the existance and the nonexistance, i don't believe that we have a Schroedinger's God situation going on... its not simultaneously both being and not being... or wait. if it is an omnipresent god and an omnipotent god ... would it both exist and not exist at the same time? that would be way cool...
Anyhow, i haven't really detoured from one path to another. Been agnostic my whole life. But my agnosticism has become more developed as the years go by, and my spirtualism has certainly become more developed, and my belief in the possibility of a soulor plain without the existance of god is entirely brand new. Not sure if the rest of my family is agnostic or atheist.
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also, in a recent conversation with my mother, it came up that she sometimes regrets not raising my sister and i as church-goers, not because she believes in the religion (in fact, that is why she didn't want to do church with us, she doesn't believe the jesus miracles), and not for the sense of morality i'm sure (both my sister and i have quite a strong sense of morality) ... but for the sense of community that a church can bring. And while i agree that a church can bring a sense of community, I'm glad that i didn't get brought up in a religion for the sake of having the community.
By occasionally with relatives, i really just mean christmas services, now that i think about it.
and now i'm really into this Schroedinger's God idea, though i haven't yet figured out what i mean by that.
and i just wanted to clarify that i don't BELIEVE in the soul / ethereal... just that i'm closer to believing in the soul than i am to believing in god. but it might just be that i quite badly want the soul to exist, and thus i'm tempted to believe in it...
...I go through phases where i'm intensly interested in religion. One of those phases was when i was in ninth and tenth grade. At that point i think i found that i had a lot in common with liberal Quakerism or some such thing as that. ... at least according to the internets. And i'm still fairly fascinated by the Quaker religion. But I've never actually attended a Quaker meeting, although i do intend to ... someday.
I'm now kind of in a slight religion phase again due to reading parts of the bible here at school. It really is a fascinating work. I don't believe the god aspects, but it is still a great book, and i love the jesus of the gospels. Or rather, i love the message of love, which is what the primary preaching of the gospels, at least the ones i read, is. I don't intend to become christian because of this, but I would rather like to translate more of the new testament. I only translated a bit of it... But it would be wonderful to translate more of it. It really makes you think about the content when you are encountering it in a language that you are not native to.
At this point i'd consider myself a spirtual/mystic agnostic. spiritual because i definitely do believe in a connection between all things in a way that is somewhere between intellectual and metaphysical ... a sort of oneness between everything, and that while there isn't a greater plan from god, that things can still fall into place ... not sure what i mean by this. I also associate spirit with the intellect. Not a dry-uncaring intellect, but the intellect none the less. That the world of spirit is something to both think about and to contemplate. Mystic ... well, again, for similar reasons as the spiritual i think.
I might even believe in souls, not souls created by a god, but somehow a plain of the universe that is not part of the material plain. the material and the ethereal interact with each other ... but are seperate from each other. And i believe that the ethereal may be able to exist without a god. this new found belief in the ethereal, in the soul without a god, might throw a wrench into my disbelief of free will, but it might not. i haven't decided yet. but it just might be that a soul is needed to have free will, and that with a soul free will is possible.
agnostic, because well, i have absolutely no idea whether or not god exists. let alone what form of being god is. i don't pretend to have any way of knowing. This isn't a refusing to take a position type of deal ... it is me deciding that there truly isn't any way to know. for me personally, that is. i may make an exception if i have a direct encounter with god... but then again, i do not trust my mental stability, so if i saw god talking to me, say like how moses saw the burning bush ... i would first need to rule out the possibility of hallucination. i mean, half the time i'm barely sure of what i'm seeing as is. throw in something that i've never experienced or seen before ... This is simply me being of a doubting nature. i doubt the existance of god, but i also doubt the nonexistance of god. but obviously, either some greater being exists, or some greater being does not exist. for while i doubt both the existance and the nonexistance, i don't believe that we have a Schroedinger's God situation going on... its not simultaneously both being and not being... or wait. if it is an omnipresent god and an omnipotent god ... would it both exist and not exist at the same time? that would be way cool...
Anyhow, i haven't really detoured from one path to another. Been agnostic my whole life. But my agnosticism has become more developed as the years go by, and my spirtualism has certainly become more developed, and my belief in the possibility of a soulor plain without the existance of god is entirely brand new. Not sure if the rest of my family is agnostic or atheist.
----
also, in a recent conversation with my mother, it came up that she sometimes regrets not raising my sister and i as church-goers, not because she believes in the religion (in fact, that is why she didn't want to do church with us, she doesn't believe the jesus miracles), and not for the sense of morality i'm sure (both my sister and i have quite a strong sense of morality) ... but for the sense of community that a church can bring. And while i agree that a church can bring a sense of community, I'm glad that i didn't get brought up in a religion for the sake of having the community.
added on 2:03pm Dec 7 '07:
By occasionally with relatives, i really just mean christmas services, now that i think about it.
and now i'm really into this Schroedinger's God idea, though i haven't yet figured out what i mean by that.
and i just wanted to clarify that i don't BELIEVE in the soul / ethereal... just that i'm closer to believing in the soul than i am to believing in god. but it might just be that i quite badly want the soul to exist, and thus i'm tempted to believe in it...
Raised in no religion. - Worker Bee