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Originally Posted by SATCHMO
I am an atheist.
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You must be intellectually lazy then.
But seriously, I'm an atheist too, and like you I'm of the soft variety of atheist that so many people seem to enjoy misrepresenting. Like everybody else, I do not have absolute knowledge, but what I do understand about the world around me does not seem to point to a god or gods of any kind and I live my life under the assumption that there aren't any.
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Originally Posted by SATCHMO
Is it possible to distill the positive aspects of religion/spirituality? To objectively explore spiritual practice as a mental hygiene tool, one that has positive benefits to it's practitioners?
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Maybe. The biggest benefit I see to religion is its ability to organize people and create a sense of community. It would be great to be able to use that in a positive non-religious way that manages to remove the us-versus-them mentality that seems to plague religion.
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Originally Posted by SATCHMO
Can we come, will we come to an objective understanding of what spirit is and understand it's dynamic?
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I think it's sort of a meaningless word to be honest, unless you're just using it as a synonym for moxie or something.
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Originally Posted by SATCHMO
When people speak of God, is there something that exists in reality that word points toward, not necessarily an anthropomorphic, autonomous deity, but something else entirely?
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Yes. I think when believers say "god" what they are really referring to without realizing it is simply their own internal dialogue. I view prayer as a way of externalizing internal thought processes. For whatever reason that seems to help some people think things through.
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Originally Posted by SATCHMO
What do we make of the religious experience? Is it simply a psychological aberration because it's subjective? If it's an induceable state and it brings joy, is that not a strong argument for trying to attain it, or duplicate it?
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I don't know that I'd call it an "aberration" since so many people apparently experience it, but I do think it's case of people trying really hard to convince themselves that something is happening. Feeling a sense of joy and wonder at the world around you is great thing that we all should seek to attain but as far as I've seen that's not something religion gives people. Honestly it seems to add more stress to people's lives than anything else.