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Originally Posted by SATCHMO
You see, this is the aspect of religion that I find least appealing. There are other common bonds that one can form a community with other than that of religion. I agree that religion does seem to provide a sense of community among its adherents, but this same aspect also seems to be the foundation of everything that I hate about religion, as you said, the us-versus-them mentality aka the if-you're-not-with-us-you're-against-us point of view. I guess what I'm really getting at is spiritual practice on a personal level, i.e. prayer, meditation, rituals etc. I have a huge interest in the psychological benefits and potential physical benefits (the practice of meditation has been shown to have a few, along with the obvious stress reduction) that could possibly result from these practices. Is secular, or humanistic prayer possible, or is it a contradiction in terms? There are some people, including myself who believe that prayer is a means of influencing a deeper aspect of our own consciousness which can have a substantial impact on our reality. Others believe certain forms of prayer to be a simple directing of one's intention. I'm not opposed either of those ideas.
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I do think humanistic prayer is, while presumably not impossible, certainly pointless. My understanding is that prayer is a way of petitioning a god. If there is no god, then what you are doing is really meditation, not prayer.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SATCHMO
I think I asked about the word spirit (spiritual, spirituality) because it's a term that I wrestle with, mainly because when you speaks exclusively in terms of religion, you are speaking of a socio-political convention first, and a codified set of beliefs, or dogma second. when you strip away those two factors you still have the dynamic between the adherent and ultimate reality, be it non-existent or not. You can classify this as being psychology and I would agree, but our current understanding of psychology is one of a closed circuit system that doesn't really leave a lot of room for considering how our thoughts, beliefs, emotions, and intentions affect our reality. To me the term spiritual refers to an energy dynamic between our respective selves and the greater universe, one that our mind can greatly influence, if only to affect our own perception.
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I guess I'd just call that "psychology". I don't think there's much of what I'd call a dynamic between myself and the universe. I live there, am a part of it and am completely at its mercy. It's really a one-way street kind of relationship.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SATCHMO
As far as my own personal beliefs go, I disagree, especially in that i believe that one's internal dialogue, or the ego is the diametric opposite of what one could consider to be God, if the term God pointed toward something in objective reality, which is the ego-suspended self, that which lies beneath our internal dialogue when our minds are stilled. I can however understand internal dialogue as a definition of prayer, although I wouldn't agree with that either.
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The definition of prayer that I'm using here, like I mentioned above, is petitioning a god. If there are no gods, then I'm not petitioning anyone when I pray and am simply talking to myself. That's why, as an atheist, I view prayer as a way of externalizing an internal dialogue.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SATCHMO
The few not-so-mild spiritual experiences (much more dramatic than a sense of joy and wonder at the world around me) that I've had I can only describe as very overwhelming and completely free from me wishing them on myself. I , obviously, don't use them as proof that god exists because I understand that what I had done was tapped into a very powerful aspect of my own consciousness. That's really as suitable an explanation as I can give without attributing it to a higher power. They all occurred around 10 years ago, and they also all occurred during a very short-lived phase of my life where I was a practicing evangelical Christian, and they all, with one very minor exception, occurred while I was alone in my own home, Even though they were all immensely euphoric, I could not go back to practicing Christianity, because that would mean pretending to believe something that I did not, but if I could put those experiences in a bottle...
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I think maybe I wasn't clear what I was getting at here. I'm not talking about a conscious wish. You mentioned that your experiences all happened when you were an evangelical Christian. I don't think that's a coincidence. It seems pretty likely to me that those experiences came about because of a very Christian desire to feel close to God.