It's not simply a world view absent of supernatural forces. Yes, it is that, but at the same time it is much more.
It's a world of discovery. It's a world of curiosity. It's a world of wonder and imagination. It's a world of exploration.
And the way to properly search for questions is first to stop pretending we already have all the answers, like religion does. I find almost every religious comment and answer so... reductionistic, so simplistic, so pompous, so pretentious, it kind of kills the mood of discovery and curiosity.
I grew closer to God through just observing the natural world, and my natural relationship (affection, friendship, etc.).
My hypothesis is that so many of these (incredibly genius, and logical) people maybe dug a little too deep into man-made reality. Numbers, computers, etc. Everything that goes through a processor is the result of a human invention. It's easy to think you are God, or at the very least, see YOUR creation and totally discredit and influence of God as a result. However if you just look away from the pixels or numbers for a second. The seemingly random, yet beautiful grain, in wood. Or the way tree leaves rustle in the wind.. etc etc, you can see an immense beauty and goodness, not possible without a divine, all-giving power.
No malice on my end towards Atheists, just my opinion (faith) <3
That is quite the statement on the nature of reality, yet it’s entirely based on personal opinion. You don’t know from observation if the “beauty and goodness” of the world is impossible without a divine power, you choose to believe so.
I also pay close attention to the natural world and my relationships, yet don’t feel the slightest inclination to believe in a higher power. If anything, I share Richard Feynman’s view that being analytical about the world makes its beauty shine more, not less: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbFM3rn4ldo
I would say the atheist view is actually the same as yours with the exception that "god" isn't a man in the sky.
The way I see religion is as a coping mechanism for dealing with emotion.
When things get hard or tough who can you turn to? What can help ease emotional pain, give you hope when there is none or look out for you when noone else will?
It's simple, let's create an imaginary figure that always has your best interest at heart => God.
Let's now utilise this to help drive the behaviours we want in our tribe => Religious scripture / Church.
Personally I find it much more satisfying to simply admit that we don't know what's out there. Noone on earth has the answers because we're still learning, and we're also stuck in our bubble which we call the universe. Death is just a part of life and a way to recycle our bodies, we're not all that special and that's OK.
Anyone that finds it emotionally helpful to believe in fairytales is free to do so, but I feel like you're missing something even more magical if you can bring yourself to search for it, which is reality itself.
I also know a number of engineers who are deeply religious, perhaps encouraged by recognizing "design" in nature, seemingly requiring a designer.
In my conversations with these people, their faith, while socially speaking is Christian, the specifics have hardly anything to do with traditional or orthodox theology. It's, as I perceive this, the only acceptable social structure available to them to live out these deep feelings of beauty and harmony in community.
I cringe at phrases like that. It's empty theologically and technologically. It represents a complete inability in imagining what God could be, and a naive, childish pride in our little creations, these computers. While in his internal driven world view it might make sense, to me it has no more or less truth than "maybe God is a big steam engine"
Aren't all religious statements just like that?
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/494183-i-don-t-know-why-we-...
The mandate of 'controlling the creation'. The parent-child relationship with the deity. The excessive focus on sexual and parental relationships between humans. All these are human activities, and religion seems to care too much about humans and too little about the rest of the species living on the planet.
Reality is different from religion. It is indifferent to us. Any meaning is just some myth in our heads to try and explain it.
I bet you anything that you read those 2 books back to back and it will shake the foundation of your worldview to the core... of course that's if you actually feel like it can be challenged.
Fractals, my friend.
Could you elaborate on this? I don't consider myself religious or atheistic, and in general, I think religion and science are fundamentally two different things. Although, science in practice and as a human social structure can behave as a sort of religion, whether scientists want to believe that or not. (see Feyerabend). There is also spirituality, which is distinct from religion. A religion is often more of a social structure than it is a belief system.
To me, getting an answer to the existence or non-existence of a god or gods is would be as meaningless as an answer to what created the universe. Both answers, if even possible, would be about as meaningful as "it's turtles all the way down", because I don't see any end to the line of questioning of "so what came before?".
The Biblical view is that God has always been. There never was a "before". And there is no "cause", either - you can't really have a cause without a "before".
It made me realize that viewing the world through a narrative structure was far more interesting than the materialist portrayal of the New atheists.