Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

...

#11
Seattle Offline
(Jul 23, 2019 05:21 AM)Leigha Wrote: Not sure if you've shared this on SF or not Seattle (and maybe I've missed it or forgot), but have you always identified as an atheist? Or, did you go through a 'deconversion'' whereby you left a particular religion, or faith?

I find people's opinions about spirituality, religion and faith to be really intriguing, especially if they differ from mine, as it helps me understand their worldview.

Most of my friends are atheists, a few have ''deconverted'' from Christianity, but the others have been atheists their entire lives.

I grew up in the S.E.. Everyone was religious to a degree. My mother was religious but in those days, in that culture, it was more of a personal thing than it has become with the evangelicals.

I had to go to Sunday School up until about age 15. I wasn't a believer. I just had to go to Sunday School. I guess I was a "believer" up to age 5 as I had Bible related coloring books and the Children's Bible. I knew the stories.

I might have even said "prayers" before bedtime up until around that age. That was the culture.

So, I understand the Methodist culture. I never believed it and I never went to "confirmation" classes or the ceremony. Actually my mother convinced me to go to the first confirmation class to be with the other boys and girls of my age from my Sunday School class.

Sunday School wasn't really about religion. In the very early years there were Bible stories but after that it was just chatting about our week at school, whether we were nice to new students who had just moved to our town, etc. You could call it reinforcing good morals I guess. Smile

When I went to the first confirmation training class, it was suddenly an adult "game". We were told to repeat allegiance to "the Lord", sing worshiping songs, etc. It struck me as a cult. When I got home my Mother asked me how I liked it.

I said, it's like a cult. I won't be going back. I didn't. I did have to continue going to Sunday School until I was about 15 and then she gave up with that requirement for me.
Reply
#12
Leigha Offline
(Jul 23, 2019 07:28 AM)Seattle Wrote:
(Jul 23, 2019 05:21 AM)Leigha Wrote: Not sure if you've shared this on SF or not Seattle (and maybe I've missed it or forgot), but have you always identified as an atheist? Or, did you go through a 'deconversion'' whereby you left a particular religion, or faith?

I find people's opinions about spirituality, religion and faith to be really intriguing, especially if they differ from mine, as it helps me understand their worldview.

Most of my friends are atheists, a few have ''deconverted'' from Christianity, but the others have been atheists their entire lives.

I grew up in the S.E.. Everyone was religious to a degree. My mother was religious but in those days, in that culture, it was more of a personal thing than it has become with the evangelicals.

I had to go to Sunday School up until about age 15. I wasn't a believer. I just had to go to Sunday School. I guess I was a "believer" up to age 5 as I had Bible related coloring books and the Children's Bible. I knew the stories.

I might have even said "prayers" before bedtime up until around that age. That was the culture.

So, I understand the Methodist culture. I never believed it and I never went to "confirmation" classes or the ceremony. Actually my mother convinced me to go to the first confirmation class to be with the other boys and girls of my age from my Sunday School class.

Sunday School wasn't really about religion. In the very early years there were Bible stories but after that it was just chatting about our week at school, whether we were nice to new students who had just moved to our town, etc. You could call it reinforcing good morals I guess. Smile

When I went to the first confirmation training class, it was suddenly an adult "game". We were told to repeat allegiance to "the Lord", sing worshiping songs, etc. It struck me as a cult. When I got home my Mother asked me how I liked it.

I said, it's like a cult. I won't be going back. I didn't. I did have to continue going to Sunday School until I was about 15 and then she gave up with that requirement for me.

You're lucky that you were given an option to ''believe'' or not, and to attend religious classes. I grew up in a strict religious household, and there wasn't an option, although my parents couldn't police my thoughts. 

Thank you for sharing your ''backstory.'' At the age of 5, you're saying that you knew God didn't exist? Indoctrination is not a factor for you. Kids are quite pliable which is when indoctrination works best, as it was in my case. But, I was indoctrinated into religious/legalistic beliefs, not necessarily spiritual, ''well guided'' ones.
Reply
#13
Leigha Offline
(Jul 23, 2019 05:48 AM)C C Wrote:
(Jul 23, 2019 03:30 AM)Leigha Wrote: I've always viewed spirituality and faith beliefs as subjective. We say we understand and agree with that premise, but then when we post our own viewpoints, we're told that we're wrong to think that. No, that is just ''my'' view, but I can also take in another view without surrendering my own. I think it's important to not do this to each other, in general. (online or offline)

A paradox. Both "religion" and "spirituality" are non-specific, so as such broad classifications they should entail receptivity to exploring the whole range of what's in their memberships. But once you get around to saying "I am this", then another same "I am this" or possibly even ex-"I am this" will start issuing ritual and doctrinal correctness.
Fair enough, and agree.

Quote:Whatever it is, spirituality seems to often(?) be serving today as a concept for something that's prior in rank to a systemization of practices and thought orientations for a group of people (i.e., the latter transiting such from personal/subjective territory to public, objective, or global circumstances).

Peter van der Veer contends that spirituality, along with secularism, was originally introduced as an alternative to organized practices and dogma. Historically, there was no term like "religion" until the Roman Empire derived a need for that generalization; and similarly centuries later the West seems to also be responsible, via the suffixes, for adapting "spirit" or whatever its multi-language equivalents are to sounding like yet another umbrella category for subsuming both personal experiences/views and potentially various inter-subjective schools of beliefs and philosophies.    

https://www.mpg.de/6289438/spirituality_globalisation

Spirituality is not what it once was – that much is certain, according to anthropologist Peter van der Veer. Working at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Göttingen, he has examined the significance of the spiritual and its transformation processes [...] However, many of the modern trends contradict the original idea of spirituality. ... Peter van der Veer doubts whether such [current] events in fact have anything to do with the original ideas of spirituality: "The critical elements, like those to be found in the spiritual ideas at the beginning of the 20th century, are missing."

For Peter van der Veer, spirituality, along with other secular ideas of nation, equality, the middle class, democracy and justice, is one of the core elements in the history of modernity, which were directed against the traditional social systems and moral concepts. "The spiritual and secular arose at the same time in the 19th century as two related alternatives to institutionalised religion in the Euro-American modern age", is one of the Holland-born researcher’s core theories. With this, he also rejects the commonly held view that the cradle of spirituality lies in India, in the realm of modern myths. "There isn’t even a word for spirituality in Sanskrit", he adds.

Nor was there any mention of Hinduism, Taoism or Confucianism in Asia prior to the encounter with Western imperialism. They only changed to an "-ism" as a result of the intellectual interaction with the West. Van der Veer is convinced that this flourishing spiritual exchange between East and West is a key element in the development of modernity in general and its spirituality in particular. "For me, it is part of a process that I call interactional history", explains the Director at the Max Planck Institute in Göttingen.


Okay, this is interesting --secularism and spirituality ''arose'' at the same time in the 19th century. Huh.
Reply
#14
Magical Realist Offline
Quote:Zen’s whole emphasis is on the experience of reality as it is, rather than the solution of problems that, in the end, arise merely from our mistaken beliefs.

This priority I place on experience itself over intellectualized abstractions and beliefs ironically began when I was in religion and getting fed up with the legalism of it all. I aimed for the experience of God or Christ itself without all the logical objectifying business of doctrine and creed. As I left religion I retained the guiding compass of the experiential thru various stages, going thru Jungian ideas of unconscious wholeness and existentialist concepts of meaningfulness and being in the world. Poetry and Buddhism have always sustained me in this pursuit, and to this very day I am content with the experiential aspects of life and soul in the universe over any particular philosophy or worldview.
Reply
#15
Leigha Offline
(Jul 23, 2019 08:16 PM)Magical Realist Wrote:
Quote:Zen’s whole emphasis is on the experience of reality as it is, rather than the solution of problems that, in the end, arise merely from our mistaken beliefs.

This priority I place on experience itself over intellectualized abstractions and beliefs ironically began when I was in religion and getting fed up with the legalism of it all. I aimed for the experience of God or Christ itself without all the logical objectifying business of doctrine and creed. As I left religion I retained the guiding compass of the experiential thru various stages, going thru Jungian ideas of unconscious wholeness and existentialist concepts of meaningfulness and being in the world. Poetry and Buddhism have always sustained me in this pursuit, and to this very day I am content with the experiential aspects of life and soul in the universe over any particular philosophy or worldview.

When I first ''met'' you on SF a few years back, you posted something insightful. At that time, I was falling away from my belief in God, so maybe it resonated with me differently, but you said that you hadn't felt the need to think about if a god exists or not. You simply didn't see a 'need' to believe. That stuck with me, so you know. lol

I believe in God now, and it's funny ...those same words come back to me, and I guess I do need to believe. It's weird how the same words you posted then, are just as meaningful now to me, but for different reasons.  Blush
Reply
#16
Seattle Offline
Quote:You're lucky that you were given an option to ''believe'' or not, and to attend religious classes. I grew up in a strict religious household, and there wasn't an option, although my parents couldn't police my thoughts. 

Thank you for sharing your ''backstory.''  At the age of 5, you're saying that you knew God didn't exist? Indoctrination is not a factor for you. Kids are quite pliable which is when indoctrination works best, as it was in my case. But, I was indoctrinated into religious/legalistic beliefs, not necessarily spiritual, ''well guided'' ones.

My Mothers thinking was that religion isn't something that you can or should force on someone. You expose them to it and after that, it's their choice.

She "exposed" me to it from an early age until when I said I didn't want to go to Sunday School at age 15 (I had said it many times before) she said "OK, maybe you will go back to it in collage or after collage".

At 5 I can't say that I "knew" God didn't exist. I just knew that it didn't make sense and that God didn't seem to be necessary to my everyday life and since magic carpets didn't exist, I figured it was a pretty good bet that God didn't either. Maybe I was 6 or 7. I really can't remember but the point is that I was exposed to all that but it never really took.

My Mother was religious and when I was older and I would try to "argue" in a logical way on this subject, she didn't like that, took it as either disrespectful toward her if it went on too long or disrespectful towards religion. When something didn't make sense, she would just say "That's why we need to take it on belief". Or :we can't know God's plan or that's the Devil talking" or whatever. Smile

I was actually surprised when at age 13 I "told" her I wouldn't be participating in the cult of confirmation and she just said "Ok, you might be too young, you might feel differently next year" or at age 15 (as I've mentioned) when I said I'm not going to Sunday School and she said "OK" Smile
Reply
#17
Leigha Offline
(Jul 23, 2019 09:16 PM)Seattle Wrote:
Quote:You're lucky that you were given an option to ''believe'' or not, and to attend religious classes. I grew up in a strict religious household, and there wasn't an option, although my parents couldn't police my thoughts. 

Thank you for sharing your ''backstory.''  At the age of 5, you're saying that you knew God didn't exist? Indoctrination is not a factor for you. Kids are quite pliable which is when indoctrination works best, as it was in my case. But, I was indoctrinated into religious/legalistic beliefs, not necessarily spiritual, ''well guided'' ones.

My Mothers thinking was that religion isn't something that you can or should force on someone. You expose them to it and after that, it's their choice.

She "exposed" me to it from an early age until when I said I didn't want to go to Sunday School at age 15 (I had said it many times before) she said "OK, maybe you will go back to it in collage or after collage".

At 5 I can't say that I "knew" God didn't exist. I just knew that it didn't make sense and that God didn't seem to be necessary to my everyday life and since magic carpets didn't exist, I figured it was a pretty good bet that God didn't either. Maybe I was 6 or 7. I really can't remember but the point is that I was exposed to all that but it never really took.

My Mother was religious and when I was older and I would try to "argue" in a logical way on this subject, she didn't like that, took it as either disrespectful toward her if it went on too long or disrespectful towards religion. When something didn't make sense, she would just say "That's why we need to take it on belief". Or :we can't know God's plan or that's the Devil talking" or whatever. Smile

I was actually surprised when at age 13 I "told" her I wouldn't be participating in the cult of confirmation and she just said "Ok, you might be too young, you might feel differently next year" or at age 15 (as I've mentioned) when I said I'm not going to Sunday School and she said "OK" Smile

Sounds like your mom got it right, Seattle. It's true, ''belief'' shouldn't be forced, lest what would one be believing, then? I wasn't ''forced,'' per se as a kid, but there was just an assumption to follow along.

Your story sounds similar to a friend of mine who has been an atheist most of his life. He said that ''nothing stuck,'' as a kid. Kind of like your description.

I wonder...if I hadn't been raised with religion, how would my life look right now? I'm grateful for the path I've been on, but it's just something that I ponder, now and again.
Reply




Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)