Murmur

But because truly being here is so much; because everything here
apparently needs us, this fleeting world, which in some strange way
keeps calling to us. Us, the most fleeting of all.
Once for each thing. Just once; no more. And we too,
just once. And never again. But to have been
this once, completely, even if only once:
to have been at one with the earth, seems beyond undoing.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke
(from The Duino Elegies #9)

ComestibleVenom

There are many worlds we don't live for ourselves. Have some faith, I don't think we should assume they are dull while ours is the creme de la creme.

Murmur

Oh, I don't deny that other worlds & ways of being & living in the world have all sorts of potential value -- each person has to figure out that for themselves. And the result is a diversity from which we can all learn from.

But when anyone can definitively say, 'This is what It is all about' (be it a religious view or non-religious) then they close themselves off to that in favour of having all the answers in advance.

murmur

ComestibleVenom

Which is again why I think that God and "all the answers" have a lot more to do with ourselves than anything else.

The principle of charity suggests that perhaps when people talk about the big question they mean themselves. The truth is ourselves we do know a lot about ourselves, even though it is so close under our noses we tend to miss it.

Murmur

Yes, agreed. We all have to create our own 'meaning'-- there is no objective 'meaning of life'-- each must create their own so-called 'meaning' or purpose-- life has no meaning except insofar as we are willing to create it for ourselves-- the universe will not hand it to anyone on a silver platter.

That's exhilerating & its scary sometimes, but its well worth the venture I think. 'The unexamined life is not worth living...'

murmur

Tubby Lardmore

Tangiellis, I have read a post or two by you about how you were brought up. If it isn't getting into something overly private, I wonder if you could tell us whether you broke the news of your deconversion to your family members back at the time it happened, or years later, or never. If you did speak to them about it, how did they take it? Have you been pressured by anyone to get back onto the "straight and narrow" path of Christianity?

Jobar

Utterly marvelous thread.

(clears throat)

I'm singin' this note 'cause it fits in well with the song I'm playin'
I can't pretend there's any meaning here or in the words I'm sayin'
But I'm in tune
Right in tune
IIIIIII'm in tu-u-uuune
And I'm gonna tuuuune
Right in on you!
-The Who

Now, with that as my keynote- I want to talk about the only two places where it seems to me that tangiellis and I are out of tune.

It's certainly true that words aren't objective or unchanging. However, I'd argue that they aren't subjective, but intersubjective. Words, language, isn't some solipsistic game that we can play all by ourselves; the purpose of language is to allow us to exchange ideas, from the simplest imperatives- "Watch out for that sabertooth!"- to the most subtle and complex intellectual concepts- "The universe is/is not created by an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, and omnipresent God." For it to work at all, we must make mutual agreements as to what our words mean, so that we can meaningfully associate patterns of sound (or patterns of printed letters) with things and events in the external world, or with concepts in our individual inner worlds.

IOW, we can't arbitrarily assign our own idiosyncratic meanings to sound/letter patterns being used by others who speak our language, and expect to convey the ideas we wish to convey. Sure, we can create neologisms, and specifically state that we aren't using a word in the common sense; I see tangie doing that here, with the words 'god' and 'theism'. However, I think that her definitions of those words are at such extreme variance with what most people associate with those words, that instead of facilitating communication of her ideas, they hinder it. It requires a radical re-definition, such that she'll always have to write a mini-dissertation to explain what she means by those terms. This seems to me counterproductive, and pointless since there's already terms extant which can convey her concepts. It's closely analogous to the problems Anitra had, when she called herself a Christian, yet when she explained her beliefs, they were basically no different from my own. (Anyone who didn't read the several long exchanges with Anitra should do a search for her posts- I'll try to find one of my own posts to her and link to it here, later.)(Later- On whatamores)

From there, to the second discord I noticed:

Now, as the friendly neighborhood atheist/pantheist, I've been looking for points where my worldview is at significant variance with tangie's; and y'know, save for these two statements, it looks like there aren't any! Tangie, what "stance[s] on some metaphysical aspects of reality and "rejection" of the irrational" in particular do you object to, re pantheism? I think you've read at least some of my own numerous expositions on pantheism, and how that doesn't conflict in the least with my atheism; given the things you've written (beautifully and well!) in this thread, I'm extremely interested in discussing this matter with you.

0

It took some time for me to come to terms with the fact that Christianity was no longer for me. I waited until I got out on my own to fully explore other religions and philosophies as my grandmother (and guardian) was a religious nut.

I've mentioned here before that there were numerous occasions growing up where she attempted to "beat Satan out of me" for my own good.
So for my own safety, I kept the process of my deconversion to myself and inside journals, which I hid in my room. If she had come across certain books in regards to religion that were not Christian-positive, I would have been beaten pretty badly.

Not good. I have been pressured from Day 1 to "come back to the fold" by members of my family, especially my grandmother.

The worst it got was when I was living in Massachusetts back in 2000. I was studying occult practices and philosophy at the time. I happened to have a deck of tarot cards that particular day when my grandmother came over the my aunt's house (where I was living). My cousin informed her of this.

My grandmother screamed at me for well over an hour about how my soul was in danger, to which I responded just as hotly that her religion had not made her a better, moral agent, nor had anything she did to me while I was in her care have the slightest bit to do with God. Over her accusations, I stated that if God could reward the likes of her with eternal bliss after all the hell she'd put me through, then I wanted nothing to do with that particular God.

She became so enraged that she attacked me. She knocked me clear over the washing machine (knocking it over in the process) and proceeded to strangle me. It took one uncle and another cousin (both hefty men) to get her off me. After this happened, I was told by my family to leave the premises, not her. When I returned later, I was told that I had been disrespectful to her and should not have said anything to the tirade and accusations she hurled at me.

I went to work that day with strangulation marks and scratches all over my face, neck and arms for no other reason than because I did not subscribe to her Christian beliefs. Soon after this, I relocated to NYC where I took a job in the WTC and began to cut off the majority of the ties I held with my family.

Because of these experiences and others, I am well aware of the dangers of religion. I have been physically attacked and ostracized because of it just as others have here. I am a solitary Pagan. A witch, to many people because of the rituals I observe. I have been harrassed on at my place of employment as well as by my family because of the beliefs I hold.


My two cents,
Tangie

0

The use of these words as hinderance depends on who I am addressing when discussing religious matters. At IIDB, the language I use is often considered either "too flowery" or "not direct enough."
I find the opposite true in real life.
This is why I do the following: All That Is/The Tao/The Balance/God. I make correlations between terms so people can follow what I am saying depending on the viewpoint the other party holds.
The only place that I refer to myself as a theist is on this site because 1)I believe in God and 2) I worship God, which doesn't put me in the catagory of atheist.
Explaining my belief structure will always entail a mini-dissertation regardless because there is no all-encompassing way to state everything that I believe in a single term or sentence. Contrary to most conversation here, a lot of people don't know what "pantheist" or any of these terms mean in everyday life.
Thus, I do not get into my religious stance unless I am having an in-depth discussion with someone else.

I'm not overly familiar with your stance on pantheism. A few links, perhaps?

I don't feel that pantheism addresses the main question that led me on my journey in the first place: why I can do/see/sense the things that I do and what I'm supposed to do with it.
That is the question to my own matrix, which everything I have studied thus far has failed to fully answer.

My two cents,
Tangie

Jobar

You got 'em.

Similarities of atheism and pantheism
The divine You
Pantheism opposed to atheism?
Pantheism vs. atheism (lecture on Zen)
Pantheism, and doing quantum mechanics in Chinese
Pantheism vs. naturalism- and discussing it in English
From Relevance of evidence for God
The monist problem of evil
The spirituality of atheists
Robert Ingersoll, pantheist
Unum's axiomatic god
Why dost thou prate of God?
Jobar's Pantheism

That's in vaguely chronological order.

I concede that anyone who thinks independently on theological/philosophical subjects will have to go into detail to put across their opinions and ideas clearly. As you can see from the length of my list of links, I've spoken about mine extensively. Most of it, though, is about the 'pantheism' part; my (weak) atheism is pretty standard around II, and I've only had a couple of people who asserted that it's impossible to hold both stances simultaneously. Which just goes to show that most people don't really know a lot about pantheism.

Most of those links are pretty short; two or three pages. Please, as you read, look for places where you disagree with me. My own position is that it's not right to equate the Tao with God; Chinese, the language of the Tao Te Ching, didn't even have a *word* for God, until Catholic missionaries coined one! 'God' contains extremely strong connotations of otherness, which aren't at all part of Tao. Very few Western religions consider pantheism as anything but heresy; I've argued with Chili (who's a Catholic mystic) over the correctness of calling the Ground of Being, God.

I'll look forward to talking more with you after you've had a chance to read some of my own mini-dissertations.