Tell me about your weird religious beliefs
Let's hear about religious and spiritual (maybe philosophical?) beliefs not considered "mainstream" in the modern West.
The percentage of people who identify as "spiritual", "other", or "none" is rising at the expense of larger "organized" religions.
Disclaimer: it's hard if not impossible to draw hard lines around what is considered a "religion" verses a philosophy, culture, or mere ritual or traditional practice. If you aren't sure if what you believe fits the prompt, err on the side of sharing.
Things that probably fit the prompt:
- Minority religions
- Native beliefs/cultures
- Highly syncretic beliefs
- Non-western religions or beliefs
- "Pagan" beliefs
- Esoteric or occult beliefs or practices
Things that might not fit the prompt
- Mainstream Christian beliefs or traditions
- Naturalism or a lack of belief in any particular religious or spiritual tradition
I don't exclude these two categories because they aren't important, but because they are incredibly important, and most of what we think about religious or spiritual beliefs exist in frameworks created by the above two groups. I want to use this opportunity to learn about others, and I feel that I already know a good bit more about atheism and mainstream Christian theism than most other perspectives.
This is a sensitive subject that is tied deeply to people's sense of meaning; please treat your fellow commentor's beliefs, cultures, and values with respect. Thank you in advance for your input and perspective.
I consider my beliefs to be entirely consistent with a genuinely Christian worldview. That said, if you are in a context where Evangelical or neo Pentecostal Christianity are considered the default Christianity, you may feel that my beliefs are weird or bizarre. In my opinion, Christian sects and churches that support hate, division, and ignorance are distortions of what Christ did or said.
I will only list some of the parts where my Christian beliefs differ from what seems to be the default in English-speaking environments.
As an Orthodox Christian I find it very sad that support and love for everyone isn't part of the current mainstream....
Anyway in the spirit of the thread here's my non mainstream beliefs (in no particular order, and may not represent all accepted thought in Eastern Orthodoxy) - they're going to sound crazy I know, no criticism please just quietly assume I'm crazy thanks :)
That a body is a super important part of a human person, and not just a meat popsicle puppeted by an independently alive soul. No ghost in the shell: we are more turtle than hermit crab. It is "a nexus of powers and/or potentialities" (quote). Example, when I have broken my leg, I become this person who dwells all day on thinking about pain and a broken leg, in ways that I otherwise would not be. Things that happen to my body have a huge huge impact on how I perceive myself, what I spend my time doing, and how interact with the world: my identity is tied to my body the way it is tied to my memories and my family of origin.
That guardian angels exist and influence the world around us and provide protection to some at least some of the time. (One storey universe
That although some thoughts can originate from us, not all thoughts are from us or part of us. Thoughts that briefly occur to us, those that we don't choose to dwell on or act upon, are not part of us and we are not responsible for them morally. But we are responsible for immoral deeds and evil thoughts we intentionally dwell on.
That human beings, in our near full stature, can naturally do things like walk on water or glow or teleport or go without food and water or be impervious to fire etc. Not necessarily everyone all of these at the same time, but I believe the stories of those who have done these things. I also believe this is why it is possible for Yogis to achieve levitation and suspended animation and super low heart rate and experience no pain etc, through meditation and their practice.
I find your beliefs fascinating and hope that you will allow me to ask a question relevant to this:
How do you rationalize this or do you not need to? Like, why would guardian angels only provide protection sometimes? What do you think a person has to do to warrant receiving this protection from said angel? Do you have a sense of where this belief originates from? Personal experience or something you read/heard?
If any of these questions are too personal please feel free to ignore them, I'm just genuinely curious.
Thanks for being kind and it makes me happy that you're curious about this :)
Super long ramblings follow.
It's important for me to state, though, that belief in Guardian Angels, or even angels categorically, are not part of the central "I believe...", aka the creed, of the faith. (See point 4)
When you say how do I rationalise it, I take it to mean how this idea makes any rational sense to me, a seemingly not totally crazy person. Even flat earth, "aliens probed my butt" and antivax people believe what they believe because it makes rational sense to them: these beliefs are the most rational explanation for the unanswered questions they have around a certain topic, the best fit line they drew for their scattered plot of lived experiences. I think, the question of why we draw our lines very differently is due to an even earlier selective bias: which ones of our experiences are trivially dismissed as coincidence / statistical noise / meaningless / easily explainable by other obvious answers, and which ones are significant and require an explanation. And then, which ones that others have explanation for we insist are still unexplainable. Conspiracy theorists have a lot more dots on their board to connect than we do; a materialist has far fewer dots than I do.
The beliefs make sense to me because I accept a lot more dots on the board than you currently do, and Orthodoxy draws that best fit line for me. My conversion to Orthodoxy required me at least consider a whole bunch more dots than I grew up with and at times it was highly unsettling and disorienting, but that's a whole different story.
Why some of the time and only to some, is a branch question of why do we experience harm and pain and danger and evil in this life, isn't it? And so unevenly too, much to our grief and indignation. Entire libraries have been written on the Problem Of Pain since antiquity, but in the spirit of this thread I will add this very strange Orthodox belief:
As in, when we observe mathematics, evolution and the physical laws of the universe, we are in fact observing the behaviour of rightly behaving sentient entities. A baby whose parents diligently provide nourishment every 3 hours around the clock could come up with a theory that food always appears automatically every 3 hours; a mayfly will observe that the sun always ever only goes down. Perhaps all the laws we know today only explains a brief chapter in time, and that the observable universe is only a provincial corner of reality. (Also why I found other's answers on this thread so fascinating!)
How do miracles work? They don't work by breaking the laws of the universe: the laws of the universe bow and give way to the King. Jesus rebuked a storm and it calmed, the bible said. Dr Who can sonic-screwdriver it maybe, and we're studying diligently how to restart the AMOC when it collapses, but a rebuke involves some kind of consciousness on the part of the storm. Elsewhere it says Jesus rebuked a fever to heal. Weirdness.
The sun is told to shine on both good people and the bad; the ozone layer is there to protect us all from radiation; gravitation helps the planets and galaxies stay the course. These are some of your many guardian angels.
:) is that not the most out-there thing, crazier than flat earth?
The Orthodox tradition says when a person is baptized, they are assigned a personal guardian angel in addition to the "normal" ones in point 2. I don't know why it is that that action warrants us to one: we also baptise babies, which means consent and mental capacity to choose are not necessarily part of the equation. The model answer is that baptism is one of the Sacred Mysteries: we seem to prefer real mysteries to false certainties.
(Thread alert: possible mainstream Christianity follows)
Again, angels are not a must-hold part of the faith. Angels aren't even mentioned at all in the creed - it's about God the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit and the Church. I supposed this falls under "the Church", because the question, where this originated from, is the Church traditions (and the Bible being part of that tradition). So....I can imagine someone who super not believes in angels at all (beyond the named ones in the bible, like Gabriel who anounced Jesus' conception) and that wouldn't make them a bad Orthodox Christian or a heretic. Having wrong beliefs don't matter anywhere near as much as loving your neighbour (esp if those beliefs are used to justify hurting and hating one's neighbours): on judgement day we will be judged on how we behaved towards the most vulnerable, most needy and marginalised among us, not if we pass a multiple choice quiz on dogma.
On a personal note, I believe I have a guardian angel because of this tradition. There are no "paranormal" experiences I can point to and say, aha this was definitely a miracle unexplainable by more obvious Occam's Razor of coincidence. But there are an awful lot of coincidences in my life, and collectively they form a large scattering of plots that do seem to form a line.
Small example, when I was a toddler, one day I was playing with stuffies while my mom fell asleep from exhaustion on the couch. Apparently I gummed off one of the button eyes, and was choking on it, the non-coughing silent kind that comes before dying. My mom woke up suddenly and knew to put me on her knee and pat my back right away. As a life long super deep sleeper (a blessing I have gratefully inherited) that's the most incredible part of the story. Obvious counter: obviously I woke my mother for help, but they actually thought I might be on the spectrum because I didn't speak or interact much until later in childhood. Further counter argument: i wasn't baptised yet because my family is Protestant. Normal regular angels? My baptised mother's guardian angel?
Anyway, spoiler alert, I lived.
Thanks for sharing, in detail. I am always fascinated to hear people's explanations on things like guardian angels. I grew up in the church but I am an atheist. I could never find myself arriving at the same conclusions you have, so I am always interested to learn how someone did but it can often come off the wrong way. I appreciate you taking the time to answer my random questions.
Just wanted to say that the way you phrased your thoughts on rationalization really struck me, both in an obvious having-more-compassion way, and also in a wider context I can't quite put my finger on yet. Gonna have to hang on to it and let it simmer for a while, thanks.
You're very welcome.
It's something I had wrestled with, and continue to try to do, imperfectly. Over the past decade, perhaps we have all had people we love and respect fall into different "camps" seemingly inexplicably. I've had some time to think about why sometimes intelligent, compassionate and wonderful people come to different conclusions than myself. I'd like to be able to say I learn and become corrected if I'm wrong, but sometimes that takes a long long while.
I have to say, Orthodox beliefs often find themselves very outside the mainstream in my book, especially the current of mysticism in the Church. I honestly would love to learn more about the tradition.
I'm really interested in what you think we are, metaphysically. Is our physical bodies "us" in a sense? Do you believe that the soul or mind is at all separate from the body? And do you believe in a physical resurrection of sorts in the afterlife? Also, great analogy.
This is really fascinating; what do you think about these practices that occur outside the Orthodox church, like the practices of the Gnostics or Buddhists?
(I'll have to think about these and give it a little more thoughts, thanks for your patience ~)
Re: the body. I believe in the resurrection of the body and of the life everlasting. It will be my body but not the flesh package as I am now. Will my resurrected body be composed of these exact atoms arranged in this particular way? I think not. So what exactly is a body?
I'm still learning a lot about the ancient Christian faith (eg, older than the new testament Bible, before we split up into protestants and catholics, older than baby Jesus) so it's probably best if I quote people who know what they're talking about.
There are two particular episodes of a podcast I really like, that talks about bodies:
Part one: God's Body
And part two : "What about angel bodies? How many types of human bodies are there? Are human and animal bodies the same? And how many bodies does Christ have?"
Some ideas from the podcast:
My eyes, the physical gel orbs wired to my brain, are instruments with which I exercise the power of sight, not what grants my body the power of sight. (There's a Rold Dalh short story turned into a Wes Anderson short film, in which Benedict Cumberbatch awakens the ability to see without his eyeballs through medication. That kind of idea).
The body and flesh were talked about as two different things in the Greek (original scripture from St Paul): in Greek, “body” is soma, and “flesh” is sarx.
One of the happiest discoveries I made when I was converting to Orthodoxy is that I don't have to adopt a hardline against everything else. There is blessing upon the human race and there is divine revelation available everywhere and to every one, in portion, among every practice and belief. I'm not require to believe meditation is evil or that catholics are going to hell anymore: there's orthodoxy, and then there is heterodoxy. I believe the full revelation is in the Church, but I can also believe a partial revelation is available elsewhere. I don't need to convert a single person (only God converts) and I don't have to worry about their salvation because God is good and He looks after them. My job is to work out my own salvation: do good unto others.
I think there are con men in every sect and in every belief, but also that sincerely followed through diligence practice and love for others, it isn't the dogma that "saves": God saves. It's not hell fire insurance, and throwing others into hell doesn't give me a step ladder to heaven. For example, I fully trust that a sincere and diligent satanist/Buddhist/agnostic/atheist/anyone who busies themselves with good works and loving others daily is my moral better that I need to emulate.
In my better moments, I remember that knowing the right dogma doesn't make me a more loving or enlightened person than someone who doesn't subscribe to the same. But, it's very much a work in progress, I tend toward being a selfish and lazy egomaniac.
(Full series on what the Orthodox faith views non-orthodox doctrine)
I’m not sure how that’s possible? I’ve not heard of the Christ prior to Jesus? There were anointed people, it was common practice. But the annointed one? Please say more.
People who were waiting for the annoited one, namely St Simeon (and presumably his contemporaries who didn't quite live long enough) and St Anna the prophetess.
Edit: I should also add that Mary seemed to understand Gabriel to mean that she's going to conceive the one who saves ( Jesus/Joshua) pretty much right away as well
Thank you for the detailed reply and links. I want to ask more questions, but I think I will let this simmer in the head a bit and message you on further questions regarding orthodoxy.
As someone who was raised non-denominational Christian in a heavily Baptist area who became agnostic while growing into adulthood, I think if I were to at some point return to Christianity something along these lines would be the type I’d embrace. It’s hard to believe that Jesus would’ve wanted his followers to have their hearts and thoughts so full of hate as is encouraged by many churches.
I believe in, and try to live my life by, these seven tenets:
IOne should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.IIThe struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.IIIOne’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.IVThe freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one's own.VBeliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs.VIPeople are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one's best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.VIIEvery tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.Thanks for including the link. I feel like the branding / imagery might be considered non mainstream (shock value achieved for this Orthodox Christian! Bravo!), at least in North America, but the values themselves shouldn't be too uncomfortable: compassion, empathy, justice, freedom, reason, intellectual honesty, forgiveness for human fallibility, inspiring oneself and others towards nobility in action and thought, wisdom.... many if not all of these should always always always prevail over the written or spoken word, compassion being the chief and litmus test of all the others. I super like that compassion and empathy was the first one and repeated again on the 7th.
May I ask about the corollary, "in accordance with reason"? Is it a safe guard against bleeding heart silliness of projecting onto another, like....if I felt sorry for this goldfish not being able to sleep on my nice dry bed, it isn't compassion that stands in accordance to reason?
I think that's a fair interpretation. A more dramatic example I've heard goes something like, "Tigers are rare and majestic and should be protected, and if one is charging a person you should still shoot at it."
III would leave you without urgent medical attention in case of incapacity.
The world is an imperfect system. I don't think that attempting to poke holes is in the spirit of the post. If you asked the thread OP about that sort of situation you might have a useful discussion.
See also VII
Tone is tricky, but it wasn't obviously a joke and felt like it contradicted the intent of the OP:
Also it felt like they didn't read the entire post since the seventh tenet addresses the thought.
I think we are all connected, to everything and everyone. We are all of the same matter. We're all particles of energy, constantly forming and reforming every moment of time.
I consider all world religions like the parable of the blind men and the elephant.
I am not Catholic, but I love the expression “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
I think this helps me not feel afraid of death, in some ways. Because I don't feel like I'll ever be truly "gone" in my spiritual sense. My body is going to decompose, and I am going to return to the earth, to the planet, to the solar system, to the cosmos, to the universe.
(I am the Dr. Bronner's soap bottle reincarnate.)
Kind of reminds me of The Egg.
https://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html
I love The Egg. :)
Yup (not who you responded to) – I’m probably what classifies as agnostic, but I like The Egg’s ideas a lot too.
Narrated and animated version: https://youtu.be/h6fcK_fRYaI
It always amazes me how much I learn from folks on Tildes :)
I've never seen (or notice?) Dr Bronner soaps before. Quick google turned up this article -- sounds really good and I wish more companies has this practice of Charity and environmental stewardship! (Incidentally how is the soap-as-a-soap of their product?)
I, too, believe that full participation with the All In All is not only our destiny, and mission statement but also a source for joy! We are all deeply connected to one another, even more so than just "no man is an island" kind of way -- that even the clay that washes away from our shores are still connected, are still part of us, are still US in essence. That unity is the reality and the division/"othering" is the delusion we need to not only awaken from, but be on the alert to fight off all our lives lest we drift back into its nightmare.
:) for my part, I think that even after you return your borrowed atoms, they're going to be in the soil that grows our food, in the air that we breathe, in the water that sustains all life, and you're still going to be a participating part of the cosmos, and never fully gone. It'd be like Sir Terry Pratchett's "a man is not dead while his name is still spoken", except we leave whispers of ourselves with every atom.
Dr. Bronners is great. Peppermint can have a startling sensation in sensitive areas. Some people love peppermint but it is distinctive.
We use Dr. Bronners soap in our household.
That's a fair disclaimer. Nothing wakes you up quite like it. External use only.
I have yet to encounter a product from Bronners that isn't best-in-class.
Go with the OG peppermint hemp castile soap to start, good all-purpose. I use their tea tree sugar soap on my face and as a shampoo periodically.
Their lotions are expensive, but work better on my dry spots than anything else I've used.
All of their stuff also scores better for safety than almost anything else on Yuka.
I'll be sad if/when Bronners sells out.
I'll keep an eye out next time I'm at the store :) could always use good and safe lotions and I love peppermint scented everything
Dr. Bronners is also the soap of choice for backpackers, gardeners, and travelers. It's biodegradable, environmentally safe, and fairly concentrated. You can use it for everything from bathing and dish washing to clothes detergent to insecticide on food plants. [It's a little too harsh for use as a shampoo, on my hair at least.]
The only cosmetics you need are plenty of rest and dr. Bronners!
I have been using peppermint for ages. I don’t need deodorant as a result. It’s also great on laundry, but is a pricey solution for that, so i only use on my fancy wool socks.
Coffee grounds and dr. Bronners are the only solution i have found to cleaning bicycle chain grease off my fingers.
Older labels say it’s contraceptive; I never quite trusted it that far.
Just remember-it’s concentrated! Just drops are sufficient for most purposes! dilute! Dilute!
I'm looking forward to trying some :) especially if I can be cheap and dilute it
And I for sure don't get enough rest, that's what the cosmetics are for hahahaha
Not religious per se, but I do believe or ruminate on a number of things that err on the side of the spooky side of physics. Likely not what you are looking for, but there's a religion to be made here!
To me, there isn't any fact more certain than my own consciousness. Every other belief, when broken down to its base components or core axioms is less certain than the existence of my own consciousness.
I strongly believe the external world exists: that Earth, plants, people, and stars exist. However I'm still more confident in the existence of my own consciousness than the entire external world. I may be in a coma, dream, or some simulation or state that is beyond my comprehension.
If there's any fact that is truly beyond doubt, that I can know with 100% confidence, it is the existence of my own consciousness. Any other belief ultimately rests on axioms that are themselves less certain than this belief.
So basically, you think, therefore you are?
I'd venture that Descartes cogito is a respectable argument? I'm sure there are many good objections to it.
I could think of an alternative take
If consciousness does not exist, there seems to exist some thing or some phenomenon that causes the sensation of having consciousness. At the very least it causes the impulse to believe that consciousness exists.
One might feel compelled to say that that thing or phenomenon is, itself, consciousness. That is to say, if something produces the illusion of consciousness, what prevents me from calling the illusion consciousness itself?
I can do the same with the external world: if someone tells me that the external world is a simulation, and therefore an illusion, I might respond by saying that the objects in the world are real because they are made possible by the very forces that created and maintain our simulated world. On a simulated world, that which makes its objects real are the parameters of simulation itself.
There's a similar argument for the reality of pain, according to which, being pain a subjective sensation, a perfect illusion of pain would be indistinguishable from pain itself. So I'm reusing the format to talk about consciousness.
In that case you'd have to refer to your own consciousness sensation.
Suppose that I put someone's hand over a flame. That would undoubtedly cause genuine pain. Now I stimulate that person's brain directly, creating the same sensation of pain as before. Given that pain is inherently subjective, would you say that the first pain was more real than the other? Some would answer "no", since, for them, in regards to the subjective experience of pain there is no fake pain. I was merely asking myself, maybe the same reasoning would function for consciousness.
I want to add that I am by no means poking or making a jest, but it's interesting to me that this kind of/almost aligns this thought with a kind of ship of theseus thought-experiment.
A kind of question like:
How much of the original pain can I replace before it is no longer original?
Does it make it any less painful to know that it is a simulated act of pain?
Does it make it less real as a source of pain?
I just enjoy the read thru all of this thread. Good posting.
I'm not the creator of that argument. I read it on a Richard Rorty book, and I think he was reinterpreting someone else's argument. So you wouldn't offend me, but the ghost of a well known American philosopher may or may not knock on your door :P
For the purpose of the argument, the signals firing of in them brain everything are exactly the same. Other than that, not necessarily. But I'm talking from memory. You're likely to find good answers here.
Much appreciated, thanks! I'll check it out.
I'm sorry, maybe there's a misunderstanding going on. I believe in existence of onsciousness. That's the whole point of the argument.
I share a version if this, and it’s not unique to me, but I can’t remember where I first heard it. The notion is something like that brains are spiritual tranceivers. They reify spiritual, creative impulse, and also witness, record and “transmit” experience.
Early renaissance folks thought that divinity restrd in the male brain, and came out the weiner during sex, thus “explaining” the “importance” of male gay sex. There’s a cool illustration by Michaelangelo I believe.
Not quite the same idea, but maybe one if its presecessors.
I am much intrigued. Does one....lose divinity with ejeculation? Does one gain it from possession of someone else's ejeculate? Does it slowly re-accumulate after ejeculation, or is emission just a pressure valve for unneeded excess? Do women naturally have their own version or ...not? I don't want to giggle and be giddy here but the teenage part of my brain (right next to the lizard brain) is definitely not focused on the divinity of this idea. (Tehehehe "accumulate")
So, fun facts:
In the age of Shakespeare, it was commonly thought that a bit of a man dies whenever he ejaculates. Romeo and Juliet, Act 3, scene 2, Juliet is pining for Romeo to come, in more ways than one.
Which makes it extra funny when Robert Kennedy quoted it in a tribute to his brother JFK at the DNC in 1964.
What a funny thing to learn. thank you.
Reminds me of when a certain politician says if you exercise too much you die.
We got a lot of nearly dead walking around these days, it seems :)
Our universe is another universe's white hole.
I definitely agree with the holographic and information theories of reality, but I disagree about the consciousness one. I think the closest description of my thoughts about it is panprotopsychism. I don't believe that consciousness is emergent; rather, it is intrinsic. Information (in the sense of "the stuff the universe is really made from") has an extrinsic aspect (the physical properties which interact and can be measured) and an intrinsic aspect (some kind of "consciousness", although not necessarily any type of sense-of-self or awareness). I'm not sure if I would say the brain is conscious as much as it processes consciousness. Complex information has more complex conscious states, and brains (or brain-like systems) evolved to process and remember those states.
Okay here we go. Traditional Chinese food medicine. I don't believe in rhino/tiger/bear aphrodisiacs, and that eating things that sound like X gives you X....I think those are complete nonsense. I also think there are a ton of con men working as naturalpaths and TCM "doctors". I think Reiki and tele-accupuncture are especially attractive to scam artists.
BUT....I do believe
That drinking hot water is better for one than cold water. In general.
That foods have "types": some are "hot" and some "cold", some "nourishing" and some "poisonous". In addition, people have their own base types and based on that, different foods will interact with different people differently. Think Pokemon types: if my body is naturally of Cold constitution, I can eat a lot more Hot foods without negative effects. Whereas if I consume even small quantities of Cold foods I'm going to pay for it.
That Cold typed foods make menstral cramps worse.
That some people metabolize carbs and nutrition differently than others......
That the first month after giving birth, losing a child or after an abortion, the lady (or gent) should eat as much nourishing types of foods as possible. Not just "nutritionally complete" but Nourishing: goji berries, chicken, (Korean) ginseng, dragon eye, cloud ear fungi, sea cucumbers, that kind of thing. To restore "chi" as well as loss blood and energy.
Similarly for recovery from surgery, nourishing items that fit well with your temperament, and stay away from Poison types such as shellfish, durian, alcohol
My in-laws are very much into TCM (mainly my mother-in-law) especially the food portions of it like you described. It has been a real learning experience over the years.
I ask honest questions and try to incorporate the balance mindset into my diet. That being said I'll happily ignore it and tune out my MIL when I'm in the mood for things. I don't need a lecture on eating heaty foods because I wanted curry 2 days in a row lol, if I did it all the time I'd understand it. Respect for elders is huge in their culture and how I was raised so I just hold my peace and enjoy the delicious food.
As a whole it makes sense and now I very rarely drink cold water and can't remember why I used to enjoy drinking it so much.
Not my cup of tea, but ayurveda deals with body types and what kind of foods go along with them. Is that along the lines of what you mean?
I don't know, I've not heard of ayurveda, what is it?
To the best of my knowledge it's sort of quacky spiritual healing from Indian Hinduism, but there's parts to it that talk about certain foods being better for a specific body type. Your point made me think of that. Perhaps worth looking into?
All right, here goes.
To preface, I don't consider myself religious or spiritual at all. Any beliefs dealing with the supernatural tend to be unprovable and unfalsifiable, and don't seem very useful from any philosophical standpoint. I suppose I tend very materialist and pragmatic. The golden rule seems good enough for me from a moral and social standpoint, and gives enough meaning - pursue the things that interest me, and try to empower others to do the same.
Even if you take all that, there's still an ontological question that I don't think anyone has a good answer for: "why does anything exist?" The nature of the question seems to imply no answer could ever be provable or falsifiable, so I try not to put much effort into discussing or debating it. Although I still can't help but think and research from time to time. I'm only human. For those reasons I haven't discussed the following with very many people, but this thread seems as good a place as any to chat about it and see others' views.
So, the best answer I can come up with, the one that seems to take the fewest assumptions and assertions, is this:
The universe seems entirely governed by mathematical laws. A hypothetical simulator that takes the state of all the content of the universe, and accounts for all the correct laws, would accurately simulate my consciousness and experience. In that way, my experience is a property of those laws and state. And it is a property regardless of whether that hypothetical simulation actually runs or not, so there's no reason to assume it does. Given how complex that simulator would have to be, it's probably better to assume the simulation does not run.
Then there is no ontological question for the simulator itself: my consciousness is still a property of those laws and state, so I do experience it.
Take an analogy: Conway's Game of Life
The "state" here is an unbounded grid of cells, and each cell is either "alive" or "dead". At each time step, the cells change state according to simple rules based on its neighboring cells.
Even with these very simple rules, we still see great complexity arise. It's shown that there are states that function as arbitrarily complex computers, and it's impossible to decide whether a given state will eventually settle into a stable configuration or vary unpredictably forever. You can even construct Life in Life.
The point is this: even these very simple rules admit arbitrarily high complexity, if you consider enough states and enough timesteps. That complexity is a property of the rules. You don't need to actually run the simulation to know there's a state that computes digits of pi. Or that there's one that finds prime numbers. Or that there's one that outputs all the text that humanity will ever produce.
So here's a tough question: consider all the infinite possibilities of initial states for Game of Life. Do any of them simulate a consciousness?
I think probably yes.
And that consciousness is a property of the rules and state. You don't need to run the simulation for that consciousness to experience.
Or, if the rules of Game of Life are not sufficient to produce that complexity, consider variations on the rules. 3D versions. Continuous versions.
I figure our universe is such a system; there is some set of laws and initial state that, if simulated, would produce our universe. Then it's all - including me and my experience - a property of those laws and state.
You also have to consider all systems that could produce consciousness - not just cellular automata. Then those consciousnesses are properties of those systems, and therefore each one experiences.
So the big assumptions here are that:
Based on everything I know about physics, computation, and neuroscience - the first two seem right. Consciousness does seem to be an emergent phenomenon, and the fundamentals of physics do seem to be based in mathematics.
That last one is the one I struggle with, but it side-steps the ontological question. With this, experience is as real as any other mathematical construction - it doesn't "exist" per se, but the relationships and structure are still true regardless how you define "exist". Experiences are still properties of those structures.
And finally, we're back here:
All the above fits right here. So I don't talk about it much. No answer to a question like this really impacts my day to day - I'm certainly not making decisions based on this - but I do like the thought experiement. All I really know is that I have my own experience, and I try to make meaning from there.
The interesting thing to me about your thought experiment: it's the simulation hypothesis, but with unlimited recursion. Normally you'd expect each nested simulation to be "smaller" than its parent in some way: if not in complexity, then in terms of the storage space required by the simulation. Eventually, the recursion must end.
But if you don't need to physically evaluate the Game of Life, you can nest simulations to your heart's content. Imagine a Life pattern that implements a complete Turing machine: one property of that pattern is that it contains every possible universe that can be simulated by Turing machine, and those universes all experience existence regardless of whether you evaluate the pattern. And if your own universe is simulatable, then the pattern literally includes your own universe — not in the sense of "simulating a copy of a subset of your own universe," but in the sense of "these two mathematical objects are the same."
I can't say that I seriously believe it, but it is a lot of fun to think about.
I think I understood, at least superficially, everything else you wrote but I am struggling with this piece. I'm not trying to challenge your idea just understand the rationale behind it.
Why would you assume that the simulation is not run if you're here thinking about it? It seems like it would have to run for all the things that we observe in the universe to be present, but it seems like you're saying that they can somehow exist without running the simulation, and that's what I don't understand.
So when I say "assume the simulation does not run", I suppose I'm contradicting myself and implicitly mixing different definitions for "exist".
The sense I get when people talk about the simulation hypothesis is that, somehow, our universe does not exist in the same way as the simulator's universe. Or, that you can follow the chain of simulations up to some real universe that is somehow a better, more physical real that our universe somehow is not. This begs the question: why does that reality exist?
When I say "assume the simulation does not run" what I really mean is this: if the simulation is identical to the mathematical model, just consider the mathematical model. That has all the same properties of your experience, and each instance is indistinguishable from the other.
The construction I described necessarily includes states and rulesets that simulate other universes, but these simulations are all isomorphic to their corresponding rulesets. As @bitshift phrased it: "These two mathematical objects are the same".
My construction doesn't require any "truer" kind of existence for the simulator, so it avoids begging the question. The only kind of existence is existence in the mathematical sense: if you consider such and such axioms, then such and such structure and properties come about. Those axioms have those properties whether or not anyone writes them down.
If some axioms have the property of my experience, then I'm thinking, so I am.
I am not sure that I agree that considering the model is equivalent to considering a particular instantiation, especially given the complexity of the emergent properties of our universe model. Even something as simple as Conway's Game of Life has lots of interesting case that have been "discovered" over the years, so I don't think it's reasonable to say that merely talking about the rules is the same as considering the different instantiations. For sure, we attach a higher value (in terms of being interesting) to some instances than others, so in terms of our own existence, it seems worthwhile to me try to make our instance "better" within the constraints of the rules.
Is there a practical value that you (or someone) derives from this philosophy? In the sense that it affects how you make choices day to day? I'm not trying to be snarky, I am genuinely curious how this affects your choices, if you'd care to say.
I suppose "all emergent states are a property of the rules" might be a little like the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. That always starts to feel a little nihilistic to me if you start to think that for every "good" choice you makes there's a universe where you didn't make that choice. Even if free will is an illusion, it seems more useful to live as though you do have choices and they matter.
In my opener I wrote:
I don't think the thought experiment really changes anything compared with more typical materialist perspectives. It is something nice to tell myself at night when my thoughts get a bit too existential - I have a better sense for the existence of properties like primality or compactness or continuity, so if I can lump my experience into that same category, things feel better.
Analyzing that sense of mathematics as discovery is exactly how I came to these conclusions. You consider some axioms (the requisite definitions and rules to describe GoL), and all the properties it has already exist in some form. A mathematician can deduce some of those properties and begin to enumerate them, but they can't hope to enumerate them all. Those properties are still encoded in the axioms, though.
If consciousness are emergent properties of certain systems, and if those systems can be described by axioms, then those consciousnesses experience regardless of whether some mathematician discovers them or not.
Yeah, if you extrapolate off my premise, you come to some of the same conclusions.
All the different quantum mechanics interpretations start to feel the same, though. With Copenhagen, the outcome of wavefunction collapse seems arbitrary - just as arbitrary as the initial conditions of the universe and laws of nature. Consider the sequence of all wavefunction collapses that ever occur as part of the axioms. You can also consider different axioms; keep the laws of physics and initial conditions the same, but vary the sequence of wavefunction collapse. Any particular consciousness in those systems will observe seemingly random collapses, but really the set of valid universes is exhaustive - they just happen to be in one of them.
Compare that to Many Worlds: instead of considering the sequence of wavefunction collapse as part of the axioms, you instead consider all the results of collapse to be part of the state. The size of the state then grows exponentially over time; but that's really no different than considering all the exponentially-many sequences of wavefunction collapse implied by Copenhagen.
Critically: all the consciousnesses produced by Copenhagen are isomorphic to and indistinguishable from those produced by Many Worlds. They are the same objects. You can do a similar argument with pilot waves.
So what if there's another universe where I don't make that choice? That's not me. My experience only resides in this universe, in this timeline. If there is fundamentally no way for the actions of that alternate-reality version of myself to impact my past or future, what does it matter? That's a different person, in a different universe, that has no bearing on my reality. Only I can change my own future, and I can only do it informed by my own past. In that sense I do have free will.
Really, you can take the same argument to yourself in the past and future. There's no way for me to affect or interact with my past self, and no way for that self to interact with me. It's a different consciousness. I have (some of) the memories of that consciousness, but it's not me. My experience only occurs instantaneously, in my own present. It makes things like relativity of simultaneity seem a bit more reasonable to me.
This is actually really helpful with the nihilism, so thank you.
Except that your future self does bear the consequences of your choices, so there is an element of continuity (causality?) there that does not apply to alternate-universe-non-selves.
I suppose it comes down to one's ideas about the the nature of consciousness. My favorite treatment of which is the "pink, nerve-gas farting dragons" exchange in Anathem (one of my favorite books), which suggests that your mind is actually forward simulating a model of the universe all the time and that consciousness is the thing providing the through line between memory of past events, the present moment, and expectation of the future.
I had one semester of quantum physics in undergrad, and pretty much the only thing I retained was the explanation of the barn-pole paradox (with the doors). It is deliciously weird and I love it.
We're getting a bit off-topic from the OP at this point, but these videos are too good for me not to share.
First: a first-person rendering of these relativistic phenomena. They use rotating cubes and striped tunnels as clocks, so that as the rocket accelerates you can see different regions speed up and slow down relative to the rocket.
The simulator also handles redshift and light-delay, but for most of the video those effects are off to make things easier to visualize.
https://youtu.be/Ix1XlxF66Zk
Second: a variation of the barn-door paradox where the rocket passes through a rotating corkscrew tunnel. Naively, the rocket should not fit through the tunnel - the corkscrew winding is too tight - but due to relativity of simultaneity the corkscrew unwinds into a straight tunnel that the rocket can pass through.
https://youtu.be/dmKo74CWdps
I've been thinking about this, and I believe I've got a better way to articulate my point:
In any given instant, you're interacting with the physical world - the space around you, your own body, the memories in your brain - but the state of the physical world can come about from a variety of causes. Yes, your past actions impact this, but also the past actions of other people, creatures, and any other natural phenomenon.
Similarly, your current actions will impact the experience of your future self, but also the natural world and the experiences of the people around you, of people you have not yet met, and of people not yet born.
The only unique thing to the relationship of your present and past is that you share a body and memories. Yes, that's very important, but otherwise the relationship isn't particularly special. You can be kind or malicious toward your future self, and you can be kind or malicious toward other people. You can forget things from your past, and you never learned things from others' pasts. You can regret and reflect on the actions of your past self, and you can regret and reflect on the actions of other people. If you place all instantaneous experiences in the same category, your future and past aren't much different than the future or past of others.
However the fact you share a body with your past and future experience is uniquely pervasive to your experience in a way that your interactions with other people is not. For that reason I believe things like bodily autonomy, easy access to basic needs and healthcare, etc. are paramount.
I also mentioned the golden rule in my opener, and that comes from the same place. I know how it is to be wronged by others (by other people and by my past self), so I try my best to do better (for other people and for my future self).
Wholeheartedly agree with these points. It's interesting to arrive here by the philosophical path you/we traveled, which is the kind of insight I was hoping to gain. So thanks for the grest discussion!
I come from a hyper conservative Muslim background and genuinely believed for most of my life. But watching your community celebrate the death of a gay teen has a way of shaking ones faith.
For a few years now I've been drawn to the ideas of older polytheistic religions. The philosophy of mortals being at the whim of higher powers. I just don't like to personify these forces.
So while I don't believe in an actual storm or sea or machine god, I do meditate on the ideas whenever I have to cross the ocean. Because for all the agency and technology humanity has achieved, at any time we could be at the mercy of a vast and chaotic universe.
But this mindset is also empowering in its own way. There's nothing to stop us from trying. There's no grand prophecy to follow or petulant Sky Father which we must obey. All we have to answer to is ourselves and the standards other hold us to.
It's not a perfectly articulate philosophy but I'm working on it. Now lack of clarity about consciousness, the soul and the self just terrifies me and thinking about it is... Challenging. The only saving grace is that I already did not exist for a long time so it can't be that bad.
Brought up Roman Catholic due to father's Irish mother's requiring that when he married an Anglican, and educated by Benedictine monks all of whom that I knew were excellent men, then lapsing in my late teens into agnosticism, I studied Buddhism when I married into a "hippy-Buddhist" family. Now I'm a staunch atheist on the basis of seeing religiosity as too abstract and too absurd, and my only deep belief is that kindness matters.
That sounds interesting, what was that like?
The plainsong in our church services was beautiful.
The monks were dedicated, moral men and exemplars of a good life (at least, that's what I saw), but we were immersed in religion which left me with the usual problems, guilt for one. It was a male-only UK "public" school, a boarding school for boys from wealthy families, so rather limiting in terms of the British class system. The education was scholastically wonderful but I failed to learn how to learn by myself, so despite being immature I did well in the school exit exams and am broadly "well educated", then nosedived in university. The failings were of course mine, and other schoolmates did well.
Forgive me for veering off topic, but my inner child reacted very strongly to this statement.
I am not responsible for my shortcomings developed as a child. I deserved, even if it was not entirely practical, to be met where i was and taught to where i was. When that didn’t happen, ai am not to blame.
Neither are others, necessarily, and as i suggested, it is sometimes not practical, or even possible, to meet highly specialized needs. However, the failings that result from those needs going unmet do not belong to me. It is my responsibility to work to overcome them, to be sure, and I own that process. Their creation, and their consequences, are not on me, however.
I've become an agnostic Hindu after being raised Catholic. It does not matter if Saraswati is real; waving incense at her picture while chanting prayers for her and Ganesha to clear the path for spiritual knowledge makes my life noticeably better than not doing the practices. Similarly, I kept going to church long past the point I stopped believing the theology, and I realized the Church lost its credibility on moral teachings (mostly by being petulant about condoms being sinful) because I enjoyed the pipe organs, pageantry of vestments, and incense.
How do you like the Catholic vs Hindu incense? What are your favourite types of incense? Do you find different types (scent or format of burning/use) more helpful to your practice?
Fwiw as a former Catholic I still really like both Pine incense and frankincense. But to me pine incense smells 'correct'.
Not religious for me at this point but thought I'd share that particular scent memory.
Oh I don't think I've encountered pine yet :) usually it's frankincense and myrrh (?) for my side
Sandalwood incense is one of the nicer ones I remember as a child
I am able to get some Japanese/joss sticks of pine. I bought them a night at a campfire, poking it with my fire poking stick, which turned out to be a pine branch that was smoking just a little throughout
Functionally, at least at the churches and monasteries I know, there’s not that much of a scent difference between religions for their incense. However, there is a distinction in form. Catholic incense is loaded into the censor in far greater volumes than Hindu incense. The Hindu lineage I know uses sticks of incense that the lead speaker (typically a senior monk) waves at the altar as part of the prayers that they accurately transmit the spiritual knowledge to the students.
Oh how interesting~
The buddish incense I encountered in my childhood all smelled like "smoke", and are usually lit in groups of three.
The Orthodox Christian censers in Church has a whole bunch of bells, usually. The home ones do not. Quick google for Catholic ones don't seem to have bells either? Sometimes the incense smoke can be pretty thick during service.
I also think physical things done during prayers is great for my practice.
💯% agree. 👍🏼
If I were from some other denomination that just sat for the entire service, I would’ve had an edgy atheist phase way sooner. I hated all the movement (mostly the stand parts) as a child—wanted to just sit and zone out.
You’re correct: Catholic churches use bells, but not as part of the sensor.
Thank you for the reminder to study the 12 names of the sun to recite during surya namaskar.
Why 12 names of the sun? Sounds like there's an intriguing story there?
In Chinese mythology we started with 10 (unnamed) sun's and a dude shot 9 of them down because it was too hot.
12 names to correspond to the 12 movements in a sun salutation. I'll ask someone more knowledgeable about the mythology if there is a story explaining why there are 12 names for the sun.
I think you might enjoy this YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@Helmofphilosophy/videos
A (as he argues, historically informed) Zoroastrian Mesopotamian polytheist Stoic with a background in Reformed theology/apologetics. He has a much more interesting and nuanced perspective than your average ex-christian Youtuber.
Here is a poem I wrote a few years ago, when I was regularly meeting up with an acoustic jam at my local library. It's called "Music is my Religion," and it's an expression of the spiritual sensations I found being part of that group.
Music is my Religion
Each morning, I find myself deep in worship
There is no heresy here but silence
No "dangerous other"
Everyone is invited to sing praises to the gospel that resonates through us all
Love is a wavelength
Compassion is a time signature
And the beat of human life is carried by the supernatural power embodied in the music
I am not spiritual
I am not a believer
I am a musician
And knowing this opens my soul to possibilities beyond what any god could provide me
People bring their little ones to worship
in the hall,
in the audience,
on the floor,
wherever they can find room
To join, or to listen
To receive the melody's blessing
To take part in the communion of our spirits
with the music that surrounds us all
Nobody comes to find value,
or worth,
or validation
We gather to praise the keys and scales from which we compose our essence
And when our composition is done, we disperse
back to our normal lives
made whole again by the timbre and tone
carrying the beat with us
Until the time comes to share our song again
And we make beautiful harmony with each other
Soothing to the ear,
calming to the spirit,
the tunes ring out,
the catechism of our lives
Music is my religion
Background/Context
I was raised loosely Lutheran, then started experimenting with different spiritual and philosophical beliefs all through college, before finally settling on an agnostic flavor of hard determinism. In essence, I don't think we'll ever definitively know whether there's a god, but I think it's far more probable that if they exist they are more of an absent watchmaker than an omnipresent overseer. And I believe free will is an illusion, just our perception of the natural forces guiding our actions.
All that said, meeting up with this acoustic group was an incredibly intimidating prospect. I'd never played with other actual musicians before, just jammed around in a friend's garage. But to find such a welcoming environment, full of diverse and wonderfully talented people, was an incredible joy. It opened my eyes to the delight of playing music with others, and for the first time in my life I found myself enjoying listening to (and playing along to) Christian hymnals -- a favorite of many of the group's older members.
I remember coming back to my apartment after a session and just pouring this whole poem out in one long stream of consciousness. I haven't had an opportunity to play with a group like that since, but I'm looking into options of starting a group in my area. If I can create an environment that can inspire even one person to feel like I did when I wrote this, I would consider that very meaningful.
That was a really interesting read, thank you for sharing!
Your post reminded me of this essay (especially the last line) from McSweeney's: The Church of Johnny Cash.
It is morally imperative to be the best one can be. That does not mean everyone must be a doctor or whatever high-status profession one can think of. It means we, as human beings in a complex web of relationships and relations with other human beings, have a moral obligation to strive for excellence, not for ourselves, but for each other.
In practice, it means not accepting “good enough” mentality. It means going above-and-beyond in every endeavor (especially when it comes to positions of privilege and dependency). It means not settling for what is, as opposed to what one could be.
This isn’t perfectionism, though I do admit there are similarities.
I realize this is an unpopular view, especially in certain crowds, and yes, this is a religious and ethical belief I practice in my daily life.
If I were to believe in a god, I'd agree with Gnosticism on its nature. There, demiurge (creator deity) is separate from any other forces or deities, the material existence is inferior to even what its inhabitants can imagine, and flesh is a prison. If someone was responsible for creating it, they are evil. In fact, the evil. The First Evildoer.
If there isn't anyone, it is a fixer upper at best. Intelligences' overarching goal should be to escape it whichever way and to the greatest degree possible. Even if it's "just" building a layer of abstraction on top of materiality that frees intelligences from being bound to limited, fragile, and slowly decaying meat.
You know, optimistically.
I was raised southern Methodist, spent most of my 20s as an atheist, settling down to agnosticism by my early 40s. Somewhere in there I graduated from a Jesuit university, which seems less interested in pushing a god agenda and more interested in impressing upon me that I have a general basic duty as a human to help those less well off. All of those experiences have shaped me. These days (early 50s) I've found value in having faith in something greater than myself, and gratitude when good things I had little to no hand in occur. There's so much out there we haven't encountered and cannot yet explain. I believe in a higher power - in conversation (with both myself and others) I just refer to it as "The Universe".
Late to this party, but as I'm fixing to enter Divinity school, figure I might give it a go.
I'm some simplified version of gnostic.
I believe that the material world was created by, for lack of a better shorthand for the relationship, Jesus' sibling. This sibling became unaware, perhaps innocently so, that they were a child of the True Creator, and so felt obligated in their own impulse. But, being but a child, and as such invaluable, they were imperfect, and so created an imperfect world. In so doing, the captured a piece of the divine perfect (which is, in fact indivisible, just let the paradox lie for now, eh?) within. This divine perfect is the soul of man (and maybe of animals, plants, rocks, too. Not enough data.). Jesus, seeing what was happening, inserted himself in this world with the goal of liberating the Divine Perfect from his sibling's imperfect material trap; and rejoin with the True Creator. This is a process, which culminates in a complete reunification (we're still going to ignore the paradox of indivisibility), at which point the corrupt sibling will have their awareness restored, this imperfect world will dissipate, and we'll be left with nothing but Pure Divinity^tm.
There's ways we can participate in our own extrication, rituals we can undergo. Sadly, these rituals are hidden (lost?) from most of us, maybe all of us, now. Gnostic texts reference them, but do not describe them. Some, like Crowley, and some Freemasons and various other Hermeticists claim to have access, but I'm skeptical. Crowley's claim is probably the most credible, and he did a lot to liberate people, but I don't think his efforts were sustainable or complete (but probably a very necessary first step), or even any kind of true liberation; more like an introduction or re-enactment.
Thus, we are waiting for Jesus to return and reveal the liberation process. We can prepare by maintaining what purity we can by studying what texts we have and practicing what techniques we can discern: meditate and serve others.
That sounds very interesting, what led to you wanting to go? And what is the path that took you here?
Curiosity: are there gnostic specific divinity schools? Or do schools not take a particular stance for/against Gnosticism?
If not, and you're having to make do with mostly Protestant or Catholic type schools (as my Priest said about a different kind of making do, "eat the fish but spit the the bones"), are you worried that the "official stance" and any prejudices it might stem might be a source of concern or hinderance to your educational experience?
And why / what are your future plans / goals for going to divinity school? Congratulations for the decision as well~
Please feel free to ignore and kindly accept my apologies if I am being rude.
Not rude at all.
I am well accustomed to being in the minority and ridiculed/disrespected opinion/perspective, so however my opinions might land I don’t worry.
I’m going to a somewhat prestigious rigorously middle of the road school. I will be there, and there are also Mormons. I was told I will face consequences for disavowing the nicene and apostles creed, perhaps my charm and academic prowess will balance that out.
Gnosticism is generally disregarded among mainstream Christians, if there is any academic attention given, it usually the examination of anomaly and context, not where does it fit in the dogma.
Related is the concept, well-known but often nevertheless neglected by much of science, and but a tiny squeak in religion: all of our wisdom is but an approximation of the truth at best. Reality is far vaster, more paradoxical, utterly more profound.
I Corinthians 13:12
Thank you :) I would also agree that reality is vast and more profound.
The passage you mentioned is one of the most wonderful passages written by the Saints (imo)....I do so look forward to the day that, whatever differences we profess here, whatever beliefs we hold, eventually one day we shall see "face to face". ("Huh, guess I was wrong and you were right. Want to grab a coffee?")
I hope that your studies will be profound and fruitful, that you will find knowledge and have respect from peers, instructors and administration.
I was raised in a offshoot schism of Mormonism which claims they did Mormonism the right way and it's everyone else who does it wrong, so who knows. I'm much more agnostic as an adult, but with the understanding that there are greater forces at work incomprehensible to us, and they don't necessarily have to follow a logic or a greater plan, and if it does, we might not be a part of it. Still, there's narrative that I ascribe to the cosmos, and maybe that in some small way God is there because I put God there.
I'll start with some fundamental intuitions I have:
This is something I'm rationally fairly certain of. The question of religion is basically, how can I experience these facts as fully as possible?
I started with cultivating various neo-pagan beliefs and practices, starting with Wicca/general witchcraft in my teens, but found it ultimately bit too artificial. I then gravitated towards more traditional pagan beliefs of my culture (specifically, finnic folk beliefs/"väenusko"). Nature and ancestor worship, similar to many other natural religions, but with names, terminology and spell traditions in the language of my heart. I found very powerful experiences with this path, but lacked a community and a general sense of "what am I supposed to do with this world view".
I was also interested in various Asian traditions, perhaps most in Daoism. Through some detours I ended up looking at Buddhism, and specifically Zen. And there I found a concrete practice path that aligned very well with the basic intuitions I listed at the beginning. I also ended up finding a local group that practices Zen together, and I have found it very supportive and helpful. So what does it involve? Mostly meditating, which is studying - or rather, simply experiencing what is it that is happening right now. It is a path I now have a very strong faith in.
So if I had to categorize myself, I'd still probably call myself a pagan, but a pagan practising Buddhism.
I’m a non theistic pagan or a practicing witch, I personally prefer the later term but it makes people uncomfortable.
I believe in the power of belief both in a scientific and spiritual sense. I believe there are limits to this but those limits are much farther out than science would currently suggest. An example of this would be if I performed a ritual to aid in finding the right new home. From a science perspective you could say that the placebo effect made me trust my own judgement/instincts more and that’s why I ended up with the better home. From a spiritual perspective you could say my belief was guiding me in the correct direction in a more external fashion. And by better I mean things that you wouldn’t be able to predict such as good new neighbours moving in, having no issues with fires/flooding etc.
In essence, my beliefs can be boiled down to: I believe in what works. I’ve seen too many coincidences that have been corroborated by people unaware of my beliefs/practices to not believe.
I have no solid opinion on if god/gods exist although if they do I do have theories that feel right to me about them. In my practices there’s a thing called a thoughtform. You make an external spiritual being by pouring energy into it, it becomes its own life but cannot create its own energy and needs you to continue to feed it. Following this, there’s a theory of godforms. Basically a lot of people believe and pray to the same construct and that energy being poured into it gives it life. I feel like this answers religion throughout the ages for my own personal beliefs but I do not feel strongly about this theory and would still classify it a theory.
Do you recommend any resources to learn more about your belief system or is this highly specific to you?
I would say that my beliefs are an accumulation of lots of little things which is something I love with witchcraft, that you can chose how you practice and what you believe and that’s the right way to do it. It should become your own personal practice.
If I had to say specific resources I would say the book witchcraft therapy on Amazon, it is more based on the scientific side of the belief but that’s the core of the belief. That it works. A lot of the resources I had when I was first learning and growing are actually gone now, they were web pages and tumblr pages and they’ve now been lost sadly
Functionally, in my day to day life, I align pretty closely with TSTs seven tenets, though I don't necessarily agree with the organization or satanism in general (something something satanism is pretty closely linked to Christianity bc what is Satan without god in the Christian mythos) and frankly I don't want anything to do with Christianity, even oppositionally. I was raised fundamentalist evangelical so I'm not much for Christianity these days. I've semi-seriously studied both Islam and Judaism, but ultimately decided not to convert to either.
I don't feel like any religion is really mine. I left the one I was born to, and joining another would feel an awful lot like being adopted and to be frank, that sucks. So, in practice, I try to be a decent person, and a pray to a made up pantheon of gods from one of my favorite video game series. They feel about as real as any other god that humans have come up with, and they have the added benefit of not having any real world....anything, so I don't feel like I'm horning in on someone else's religious practices.
May I ask which videogame series? I ask because I have a friend that does the same and I find it interesting.
If not, I respect that!
Dragon age, specifically the elvhen pantheon. My personal faves are Dirthamen and Sylaise (and Fen'Harel, but he's definitely a problematic fave lol) And, I come at it from the in-universe Dalish perspective, not the uh. Actual in-universe "real historical explanation" perspective. "Historically" none of them were actually gods and they were all generally terrible horrible no good very bad people. (I include this explanation, because if you're unfamiliar and just look up say, the fan wiki page about any of them, it'll give very different vibes than if you read the Dalish page 😂)
Ty! My friend follows the Hylian faith such as it is from the Zelda universe. Thanks for sharing (I'm not familiar with Dragon Age so I appreciate the tip)
I've noticed that pantheons in well-written fiction have gods that align archetypically with the archetypes "real" gods or religious figures align with historically and globally. For a large number of reasons, I'd guess that connecting to the divine through these "made up" gods gives you the same psychological benefit so-called "real" religions give their adherents, depending on the specific practices or traditions they entail.
Many see it as similar to Naturalism, and some see it as just atheism, but my beliefs generally align with Pantheism. Quite frankly, I haven't taken the time to flesh out what I entirely believe when it comes to spirituality/religion, but I do know what I feel and what I've experienced.
I believe balance with the natural world and honoring it in your own way is a form of prayer and brings you closer to God, if you want to call them that. I believe this expands into community, and service to your community is a responsibility we all have to each other. While I do not believe in the magic that some pagans practice, I do believe that the things humans do have a spiritual impact on a place.