It is clear I am being unfairly targeted for my views by you and this community.
You happen to disagree with what I am saying and are not creative or brave enough to come up with a meaningful response. Be honest with yourself.
Ive said nothing abhorrent. I defended my religious and spiritual beliefs against a community which is clearly very pro atheist.
Dont tell other people what to do and stop disrespecting others’ religious beliefs. Let’s start with that.
Incidentally, it's generally a bad idea to identify the community as hostile. That comes from a cognitive bias which we all seem to have: we place greater emphasis on the things we dislike, and are more likely to notice them in the first place. The things that we consider favorable end up getting far less emphasis. This leads to false feelings of generality, and a negative sense of being surrounded by enemies. The people who disagree with you feel the same way, because they have the same bias (like I said, we all do).
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Not necessarily, obviously, but there are spiritual atheists, and if OP asks "what are your spiritual practices" then "I have none" is a valid answer.
>It is clear that atheism and consumerism in modern society do not make people happy.
The least happy people I know are religious, and almost all the Atheists I know are pretty happy with their lives. I don't think Atheism makes people happy, but I don't think Theism makes everyone happy too. It works for some, and doesn't work for others.
“Spirit”ual. You cannot be Spiritual without belief in Spirit. It is in the word itself.
You can be a good Atheist however that is mostly in line with good spiritual practices.
Atheists seem to want it both ways. To believe in nothing but also define themselves as “Spiritual”
How would you define "Spirit"?
Languages evolve over time and I'd argue the word "spirituality" is morphing into something with a very broad definition of "spirit", one where, for example, an atheistic Buddhist can practice and still be considered "spiritual".
Buddha was not an atheist.
The belief is the other half of this thing. Your benefits of practice will be very limited if there is no belief in it.
It will be mechanical Buddhism which isnt really Buddhism. It’s just someone making the motions.
There is deep meaning there and I have a feeling that you in particular are closer to it than you think.
Call God an alien if you want. I think many simply take issue with the names and symbols. The word God itself evokes controversy in many.
Myself, I find the concept of an omni-powerful "being", "God", force exceptionally far-fetched, without any concrete scientific evidence that I'm aware of. I'm ok with the understanding that humans are simply animals that evolved exceptionally large brains. It was inevitable that we'd use start using those brains to ask, "Why the fuck are we here?" followed by the birth of thousands of various religions and beliefs over the millennia.
Yes, I could be wrong but this general philosophy makes sense to me at this point in my life. I don't believe there is any objective meaning to life aside from creating my own meaning, and so far it's working out well.
They will remain closed to the possibility of true spirituality because ultimately they believe only in material things and they take themselves to be the real thing, and the Spirit to be more or less a dream.
Sure they may have some interesting experiences but often they turn away from these experiences and dismiss them as no more real than dreams.
If the belief in the heart is absent so to will It be absent. It is a game of hide and seek but you must have the belief in that which is being sought. Otherwise the whole thing falls apart.
Intellect alone is not enough.
For example:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160818051131/https://www.samha...
You can argue that this isn’t true spirituality, but I think the way neurons fire during it is the same way a spiritual person’s neurons fire when having their own moments.
The experience happens outside of the meat puppet.
It is your belief in the reality of your body and your mind that prevents you from realizing the full potential of those “spiritual” experiences.
Those experiences will have little impact if the belief in them is lacking.
It is not that those experiences are more real, it is that they are no less real than what you call reality.
If you see the experience as nothing more than a dream then that’s what it will become.
If you see it as something at least as real as this waking reality then the experience has impact.
Without belief in it, your experiences are meaningless. You will learn very little from them.
They are invitations that you have outwardly rejected in labeling yourself an atheist.
Atheists would take a research paper as truth over their own direct experience. They hold Science as most dear and most important and they label faith and beliefs and spiritual experiences as make believe or pretend fantasy.
I see how you are trying to define atheism: "Atheists would take a research paper as truth over their own direct experience. They hold Science as most dear and most important and they label faith and beliefs and spiritual experiences as make believe or pretend fantasy."
Again I remind you that atheism is a very broad term. As an atheist I follow the most common definition and have no belief in god as I have not seen any evidence they exist yet. If I have some sort of personal supernatural experience and god reveals themself to me, I see no reason why I wouldn't believe in them. Especially over some flimsy piece of paper.
I can also believe in something without evidence and still be an atheist. For example I believe in the supernatural to some extent because it brings me comfort and because there is so much that we still do not understand.
Reality is subjective, you will get what you believe.
In one sense you are right because ultimately reality can only be expressed in the negative. It is not in the class of perceivable objects.
No, they don't. I understand how you'd like to imagine there are a bunch of atheists out there coveting something you have, but that isn't the case. Reread the root comment and try not to take "spirituality" so literally.
You are the one who thinks that you own the ‘I’ all to yourself. You see yourself as a separate individual. That is clear.
Spiritualism is spiritual of Spirit. You call yourself an atheist. Do I then say that Atheists believe in God or some form of it? Ridiculous. Come off of it.
We can change the words to make it easier on people and stop wasting time with petty semantics.
Lets call it people who believe in nothing and then there are people who believe in something, a higher intelligence or a soul or spirit.
Enough of the semantics.
I think Buddhism and Taoism are atheistic as well. This is my assumption though and I will be happy to be corrected.
Hinduism believes in God. Many gods in fact and the concept of a cosmic intelligence.
Have you not heard of Bhakti or devotional yoga?
But what you have just stated here is that you are not an atheist at all. In fact quite the opposite. You are that.
Yes but it is a path equally of the mind and the heart.
You seem to believe that it is only a path of the mind. This is a misconception about Advaita.
The mind cannot reach the goal by itself. The goal is beyond mind.
You will never reach it without the heart. Advaita is very clear on this.
One’s lack of belief in it will pretty much guarantee they never get that invite.
Although in reality we are only spiritual. Call it a very good haptic VR system if you will.
Our society is mainly atheists consumers. You wont find God on CNN or Amazon Prime