Believing

[liveonearth]

I don't believe in believing. I don't believe in anything, far as I can tell. I certainly don't believe in the white guy in a sheet being the boss of all that is. I have a whole lot of working theories about how things are, and those can be revised given new information. I'm not attached to any particular story about why things are the we they are. I'm not even sure that I am seeing things the way they are. My consciousness is a dirty filter.

Falwell was a true believer. He had faith. He was sure that he knew the truth. Anyone who believes in things without having a reason for them is a lazy fool. Traditional bigotry does not count as a reason. Anyone who believes in things in the face of a mountain of facts to the contrary is a pig-headed idiot.

I have sensations that tell me things about the world. I am even skeptical about those. People who say they just "know" that they have had previous lives (or whatever), because they can feel it in their bones, are giving more credit to those feelings than they rate in my life. I feel that "God" is everywhere, in everything. My friend Terry tells me that's because I have an over-active amygdala (brain part). Who knows. I feel it, but I don't believe it. I just don't know. It appears to me that a great number of people are utterly deluded.

I have a sticker on my truck that says MILITANT AGNOSTIC: I DON'T KNOW AND YOU DON'T EITHER.
That pretty much sums it up.

Comments

Pagan

[marijkab.livejournal.com]

I believe in nature and the natural world. I believe that having a belief can be a handy excuse to behave in unacceptable or harmful ways, and get away with it. Perhaps people who can't take the natural world as fact feel they need to make up fantastical fiction to cope, but that's just plain silly, to me. But you know me.

Re: Pagan

[liveonearth.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the reply!! So the question is, are you THEIST? As in, do you think that there is god/are gods in nature? Or is nature just sacred as it is, without any big daddy attached?

I think that if we could get all the pagans, wiccans, "pantheists" and "polytheists" to come out and say "we're atheists" we'd be making progress toward a peaceful world. Theism is a big daddy of a troublemaker.

Re: Pagan

[marijkab.livejournal.com]

I've been trying to find time to respond, because this is a subject I love hashing out. time is short, however, so suffice it to say that I believe nature needs no gods, and that worshipping gods/goddess is just like believing in GOD, (you know, the one everyone's so worked up about). I worship natural beauty, the unpredictability of nature, and the uncaring, inhuman ways of the natural world. I love that we have no say in the matter when nature takes it's course.
The world is magical enough all on it's own without me needing to believe that the arcane exists.
I'm a simple gal.

Re: Pagan

[liveonearth.livejournal.com]

Simple and it sounds like you ARE an atheist pagan. If there is such a thing. It is a fun subject, I agree. As long as you don't get a sabre through the heart over it.

Re: Pagan

[marijkab.livejournal.com]

True. There is, after all, another holy war in progess as we speak over in the middle East...

Re: Pagan

[liveonearth.livejournal.com]

Far as I can tell, all wars are "holy". No one could justify blowing people away without thinking that god was on their side. God is the bad guy.

Re: Pagan

[marijkab.livejournal.com]

People who use god as their excuse are the bad guy. God is only a figment of the imagination of those who have limited imagination. Maybe that's backward's though, maybe they have TOO much imagination. Either way, it's amazing to me how long it's (war in the name of a god) been going on, and mind boggling to think of how long it could continue... What's interesting is that I'm the only one who responded to this original post, or am I?

God echoes

[liveonearth.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you're the only one who cared to venture into these swirling and muddied waters.....no surprise there. Most people don't like to talk religion. It's confusing.

I honestly believe that we have innately programmed in us a kind of religious impulse. Dan helped me to understand it, from his knowledge of psychologcial studies of the rudimentary human brain, which EVOLVED during a time when we lived tribally. The survival of the tribe was completely dependent on the non-individual actions of the members: the solitary will was subjugated to the group will. He told me about research involving a tribal form of communication, in which the consensus will of the tribe was echoed in part of the brain. The echo was like god. I think of it in term of "must" imperatives. Must protect home, must guard family, must kill the predator, must gather food, must dance, must harvest, or must fuck, those kinds of echoes. They're still in there, and people think that it's god talking to them. When in fact it's just ancient brain-programming.

What do you think of THAT idea?

Shrub prays regularly, after all, and we KNOW he's delusional.

Re: God echoes

[marijkab.livejournal.com]

Huh. Well, that may be the case, but then what of those people like you and I who question the religion concept and have 'evolved' beyond that? I'd like to flatter myself and say that we're higher beings, maybe more enlightened and awake are the words?
The only people who freely discuss religion tend to be the extreme lefts and rights- the non believers like you and me and then the over-believers. Everyone in the middle seems content to go along with a muddled idea of what they think they're rooting for, or against...

Re: God echoes

[liveonearth.livejournal.com]

I agree, most people are just going along. I mean, look at all the people who want to talk about it on LJ? Not here.

But let me get this straight. Are you saying that you don't have any echoes at all? Are you saying that you don't ever just get high on some notion of sacredness or unity? Because I do.

I FEEL something that I could call GOD all the time. And I just choose to name it something else. Energy. Life and the all the matter that becomes life and then dies again. To me it's all sacred. I choose to make it sacred. And if that isn't some kind of an echo, I don't know what is. Life respecting life.

Too many people on this planet, regardless or religion, don't care about LIFE in that way. And I think it is a lack of spiritual/religious training that causes this disrespect.

So I contradict myself. Religion is the bane of human existence, but also possibly the salvation. Can there be a life affirming religion? One that does not cause war?