Agnosticism: Does it Work?

[Unclean]

I've heard many reasons why people are agnostic. The most powerful argument I've heard thus far is a modified version of Pascal's wager:

 

If a god exists, and it is a reasonable god, then that deity will treat the person that remained neutral more favorably than the one that chose the wrong god.

 

Basically, remain neutral, and you'll be ok. Choose the wrong god (and there are over 2600 documented religions, so you have a 1/2600 chance already), and you're in trouble.

 

The first flaw I can see to this is pantheism (all paths lead to god). If they don't choose any of those paths, then they're dooooomed.

 

The second flaw I can see is the "you had enough information" idea. Some religions have worldwide exposure -- there was plenty of evidence for them, but because you ignored it and wanted to "play it safe", you lose.

 

Thoughts?

[ishmael]

old philosophical idea that the greeks use to use to prove the exsistence of god. basically it went like this.

===============is real========is not real

believe in god======check=========check

dont believe=======crap==========check

 

75% chance you should believe in god, the problem comes when you add the other religions in. i brought this up to a street preacher trying to sway me to the way of the southern babtist. i was discussing the ideas behind choosing the "correct" religion, as you mentioned there are tons of gods, documented and even more undocumented. not to mention the historical collection of gods that exsist throughout the world over the last, say 10,000 years. so, to get to the funny part, he started to quote this method of deterining its better to believe in god. i asked him what happened when you added all the religions in, what if there were 3 columns, that catholics were added in there. he told me it didn't matter and that the catholics were wrong anyway. i thought that summed up the irony of organized religions to begin with.

 

i'm a highly spiritual and highly religiously minded person. i've done a ton of research on close to a hundred religions. i've read every religious document i can get my hands on, the bible 7 times cover to cover. i've read the satanic bible, the quran to some extent, the gnostic gospels, book or mormon, and various translations of each as they are avaliable. i consider myself somewhat educated on religion and i think the irony of organized religion is one that many intellectuals find striking. that is that at the pit of power in, for instance, the christian church, in order to continue preaching their word, they split, forming a new religion or branch thereof. as a result, 13 men derrived tons of renditions of the same ideas, the same words. add to that the fact that almost all religious texts have in them the exact same ideas, that any man of any faith can imbrace. islam, christianity, satanism.. all very different religions based on the same people and on the same god have had people killed, wars waged, and crimes commited in their names. the irony is that organized religion seems to break apart the religious basis and destroy the ideas that are so sacred to begin with. good will, helpfulness, kindness. its all there. but its easier to break apart, struggle for power, struggle for money, and struggle to be "truely god's people".

 

i'm agnostic because the choices are painful. i believe in a god merely because i believe it is more than likely true that there is another force, it seems to make sense and by all accounts can't hurt. i also believe that religion has been misused and is misused on all corners of the globe, not to further the teachings of that religion, but to gain power as a conglomerate. after the catholic priest scandals in america, because of how the catholic churches were setup, there were several high level priests who suggested that to avoid paying those abused they should have each church declare bankruptcy, and then reopen immediately. avoid paying? avoid helping those that became hurt? the ideas are lost, and becomming more involved with an organization doesn't help find them.

 

i also found many of the ideas a bit confusing. without jesus you are unable to find redemption in the christian faith. Well, before the world shrank and became a global playground, communication was amazingly difficult. even as america was being founded, you are talking about an amazingly hard to accomplish task of convincing me that everyone in the world had a chance to know jesus in their own way. not to mention the people who lived before jesus. now, what i would choose to believe is that the ideas that jesus preached(repeated by various prophets and sons of gods and gods in variuos other religions) have indeed been presented worldwide. acceptance and following of those ideas would tend to suggest to me a holy acceptance.

 

any god i willl come to belive in must not be a calious and spiteful god. if i am to believe that we are made in the image of god, i hope that it was not our greed, our easily corrupted hearts, and our sinful nature that we were modeled from, but instead decency and the rest fell as time passed. thats the only hope i have for religion, thats why i'm agnostic. i'd rather believe that god would want people to be good than to make his ego huge.

Edited June 23, 2005 by ishmael

[Nimon]

I've heard many reasons why people are agnostic.  The most powerful argument I've heard thus far is a modified version of Pascal's wager:

Interesting. I strongly oppose Pascal's wager; it strikes me as false belief, and I think motivation is important. That's not a problem for the agnostic version. However, consider this possibility: if a god exists, and it is a reasonable god, then that deity will treat the person who actively searched for it and failed more favorably than the one who gave up or didn't search at all. Would you say that is an equally reasonable argument?

 

i think the irony of organized religion is one that many intellectuals find striking. that is that at the pit of power in, for instance, the christian church, in order to continue preaching their word, they split, forming a new religion or branch thereof. as a result, 13 men derrived tons of renditions of the same ideas, the same words.

I'm sorry, but I'm having trouble following what you said. Could you rephrase it?

[ishmael]

the religions fight and war so much, even within the same sects, splitting apart and leaving one another, killing one another, and having a divine hatred for one another, all in the name of "brotherly" love. every time the babtists can't agree on something inside the church, half of them leave and go start a new church. it seems odd that a organization devoted to brotherly love who can't get it right should be the organization to dictate my morality. 13 men created the plethera of christian sects and not to mention churches within each of those sects, many of which broke through violence, anger, repression, or various other less than fitting actions for a loving religion.

[Ak0Mg0]

I myself am agnostic. Many reasons why, but mostly because there are so many religeons out there and I really can't believe one if there are so many. As you stated in the original post, there are over 2600 documented religeons. Most of those are probably easily proven false, but there are still too many to realy believe that one is, indeed, the true path.

 

Defenition of an agnostic person: Someone who neither accepts nor rejects the fact that their is a higher agent (commonly referred to as "God(s)").

 

If there is a higher agent(s) I feel that they are watching us, but not watching over us. That feeling rules out many of the mainstream religeons. However, it is just a feeling and not really a belief because I know that I may be wrong.

 

It is not really a matter of "playing it safe" by being neutral. That probably makes up a good number of agnostic people, but not all of us. We do not choose the path of Atheism because we concede the possibility that there may, in fact, be a higher agent. Instead, a large number of us really have no belief structure. In the end, it is ultimately free will that decides the fate of most people.

 

I would include some people who have very broad beliefs and cannot identify with any religeons out there, as agnostic people. People who listen to themselves and not others is probably the best way to put it.

 

Humanity will probably never know for sure what religeon is correct, if there is indeed a correct choice out there. Religeon just seems alot like a mass hysteria to me and it has turned me off to the whole idea.

[Unclean]

Interesting. I strongly oppose Pascal's wager; it strikes me as false belief, and I think motivation is important. That's not a problem for the agnostic version. However, consider this possibility: if a god exists, and it is a reasonable god, then that deity will treat the person who actively searched for it and failed more favorably than the one who gave up or didn't search at all. Would you say that is an equally reasonable argument?

I'm arguing that the first argument is not reasonable. This modified argument also fails if the deity believes it has provided suitable evidence/reasons to choose correctly.

[Wounded Cheesie]

The problem with the argument is that it is focused on afterlife. Why Agnosticism does not work has nothing to do afterlife but life now. As I search for God what I have found gives me comfort and peace in my life now. Statistically Christians live longer. People with some sort of spiritual connection claim to be happier, at peace and are generally healthier. Most religions are based on connecting to the Creator/Nature or whatever they call it. Real or Imagined, I feel a connection with a higher power that shapes my life and guides me. That is something an agnostic does not have.

 

I understand the fustration with organized religion, most tend to be politacally or ethnically driven. However giving a gaming analogy 90% servers/communities Ive played sucked (cheaters, ingnorant peeps, etc) but if I just decided not to play I would miss out on great communities like this one and a few others Ive enjoyed.

[Unclean]

I understand the fustration with organized religion, most tend to be politacally or ethnically driven.  However giving a gaming analogy 90% servers/communities Ive played sucked (cheaters, ingnorant peeps, etc) but if I just decided not to play I would miss out on great communities like this one and a few others Ive enjoyed.

That's a REALLY great analogy!

 

...assuming that there is a "right" gaming server to be on (obviously GC in this case).

 

But then, some servers are better suited for certain types. Perhaps the people that like to watch trash TV also like to visit trash servers. For them, the trash servers are "right". Is there a universal "right" server or universal "right" religion? I believe that's the problem most agnostics face.

 

I'd like to hear more input before continuing on this one.

[ishmael]

so, i'm going to expand a little on the issue of god to me. god seems like a wonderful idea, ideally, its a person/being who is all loving, all caring, all knowing, and forever who will love you without end and without exception. the problem comes when you involve people into it, whenever we involve people, we make the whole thing hypocritical and full of exceptions. he's all loving, except when you dont believe in him. he's all knowing, except about what our actions are going to be(and as a result becomes angry/violent/insistant on punishment). from a christian perspective, he asked where adam was in the garden, he became angry when they ate from the tree, he became angry at people of old(hello turn to salt & flood), he became angry in egypt, ect ect, even though he knew good and well that that was going to happen and was happening. not only that , but he has involved himself in such a greedy and amazingly way that it begins to fade as a god and begin to become a human, a flawed, emotional human. god is not the image i debate i should say, i more or less accept a "god", even if that means a simple one-ness, which is easily supported via science and the boils of being all part of one energy wave. i just take issue with having a flawed ideal ruling over me.

 

i dont think i really expanded so much as half heartedly ranted a bit, i doubt you guys want to see me really get into this, cause i love writing religion papers. it would just end up a 10 or 12 page, maybe a good bit longer depending on if i get into talking about specifics instead of generalities, term paper.

Edited June 28, 2005 by ishmael

[Ak0Mg0]

i dont think i really expanded so much as half heartedly ranted a bit, i doubt you guys want to see me really get into this, cause i love writing religion papers. it would just end up a 10 or 12 page, maybe a good bit longer depending on if i get into talking about specifics instead of generalities, term paper.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Go for it. If you have the time feel free to write to your heart's content. We will read it =)

[ishmael]

alright. i'll get around to it over the next week or so. i'm not sure which religions you guys are familiar with, so i'm probably going to base most of it off of the christian based religions, save myself getting into all the funky other smaller ones.

[Nimon]

I'm arguing that the first argument is not reasonable.  This modified argument also fails if the deity believes it has provided suitable evidence/reasons to choose correctly.

My bad. You said it was the most powerful argument you'd heard, and while you provided counterexamples, I didn't get the impression you thought it was a weak argument. I agree that it is unreasonable. Any argument that assumes a likely response from a deity is in trouble.

 

the problem comes when you involve people into it, whenever we involve people, we make the whole thing hypocritical and full of exceptions.

Then don't. Is it safe to assume that, if God exists, people are incapable of truly understanding the nature of God? If so, why try to figure out God based on how various believers behave?

 

Go for it. If you have the time feel free to write to your heart's content. We will read it =)

Of course. But can I request appropriate capitalization and spell checking? It would make it easier for me to read.

[ishmael]

Then don't. Is it safe to assume that, if God exists, people are incapable of truly understanding the nature of God? If so, why try to figure out God based on how various believers behave?

the problem comes down to what religion and spirituality is based on. religion is based on the books and historic practices of certain figures, through which "god" is defined. if i doubt the believers, i am forced to doubt the books, stories, and historic relics. as a result of that, i am unable to involve myself with any organized religion. that still leaves spirituality, but without any proof, any supporting facts(even if they are just books, such as bibles, ect), i am little more than assuming and guessing about the nature of god. for that, i'm pretty much, by definition an agnostic, unsure of god or his nature becuase of a lack of knowledge on the issue. spirituality as a term is generally related to, in popular society, an all loving god, very christian ideas void of the organized element. much of the same structure that appears in the bible and through christian teachings as far as moral ideas and principals. its more of a disorganized monothestic religion branching from christianity.

[appalachian_fox]

Ish, if I may? If a bunch of people run around with a science textbook, screaming "It says RIGHT HERE that evolution is a THEORY!!!" do you throw out the textbook?

 

Well, you might because you might not want to touch the same book, but seriously: Just because you disagree with how people interpret a source material does not mean the source material is wrong. I'd argue your beef is with the people in the organized religions.

 

Now I agree with you to an extent, if I understand you right, in that religion is a community-based experience and spirituality is an individual experience. So, on that level, I understand why you wouldn't want to practice religion with a group of people you disagree with: I wouldn't.

 

And I also recognize that earlier you mentioned some issues you have with the source materials. Those are valid and need to be addressed.

 

However, I'd ask you not to throw out the baby with the bathwater, to borrow an overused cliche. I'm only trolling in here because I see you're involved, and I enjoy discussing things with you. Oh, and I also hope you do want to write a paper. That'd be fun to read.

[ishmael]

the arguable points with the religious texts are different and i was hoping to skirt that issue, but i'll address that one too. the reason that i fail to find the bible or any religious text as reliable is that, short of divine interferance-which is the arguing point, inspired by faith in god, i fail to see the possibility of it being in a pure form. that doesn't mean that what is in it may not be wrong, but it means that you have to question everything that is stated. not all the religious books can be right because they decend from seperate gods. that means that i am forced to either rely on faith, which is one of the things that spurs me not to become religous, that it is right and the others are wrong, or that i should discount all of them for perfection and instead draw from all of them a universal likeness. religion teaches kindness, honesty, forgiving, mercy, kinship. those are the value you can find from almost every religion i've ever seen. this is because they are "good" values. the way in which some of those, honor for instance, are defined may vary quite a bit. but it is still there.

 

the things that are drawn from all religions.

god(s) is all knowing

god(s) is all powerful

god(s) is very good

 

exceptions for older humanistic religions- greeks and romans for instance had gods that did not portray a constant "god" figure, instead just a human with more power. the values it taught remained the same though, the stories are a prime example.

 

virtues drawn from all religions that we should enact

mercy, honesty, kinship, devotion, forgiveness, kindness, love, patience

i'm aware some of those are repeated in various styles, that is in part due to each religions take on certain issues. mercy/forgiveness/patience vary from islam,christianity, and down to daoism.

 

without knowing anything particular about the god, that may or may not exsist with equal chances, it is impossible to persue a relationship with him. it is however quite possible, in my mind, to assume a few things.

 

if that god were to exsist, he would be fitting of the ideas that are universal, the exceptions, and the nitpicking in the stories could be related to humans or however the true history unfolded.

 

if that god were to exsist, he would not be able to directly interfear because he believes in a free will. the idea of a free will is a almost universal one, the reasoning may vary- from us being all one, to god wanting us to explore. but it is still present.

 

that kind of leaves me with

1) a god that i can't see, touch, or relate to

2) a god with no proof

3) a lack of understanding of the "correct" god from faiths

4) holding only the generic idea of a god or gods

i really am going to work on writing the paper, i promise, its just a matter of time and energy. i have to dig out all my old religious materials. i use to have so many books and bibles and everything. i wonder how many i still have in the moves and the years its been.

[Wounded Cheesie]

What most people want is something to tell them take 3 steps forward spin around and theres God. I dont believe you'll find any religion that can do that although most try.

 

that means that i am forced to either rely on faith

 

Knowing God isnt completely based on blind faith. Jesus, for example, said that you will know true believers by two things love and power. If you have a connection to God you have a connection to Supernatural things. Healing, prophecy all kinds of wild stuff. That is why Jesus imparticular made such a historical impact was because of the things he was claimed to do. I personally have a friend who was born deaf who hears perfectly because he was prayed for. Ive seen, with my own eyes, things that are proof to me of God.

 

Most religions are false and dont have these evidences, so they discredit them or some fake them. But Religions by and large are bad. Unfortunitly thats why there are so many agnostics. We have that gut feeling that there must be more but the choices given to us are not so good.

[ishmael]

yes, knowing god is based purely on faith.

if it wasn't, they wouldn't call religion 'having faith'.

 

no religion has evidence that their god is the correct one.

 

ps. i swear, i'm going to write that paper. i'm getting to it. heh.

[appalachian_fox]

Ish,

 

I understand that you take issue with the perfection of a single book. I don't know if that is important to the whole argument, but if it is to you, you can't take n books and say the odds of one book being correct are 1/n. Well, you can, but it's not entirely accurate. If I were to start a lottery, and I say every single religious text is a potential winner, all you have to do is select the correct one, and after all the tags are in I pull one book's name out of a hat full of names, that's a 1/n chance of being right.

 

If there is one right religion, however, and it has been around since the existence of time (presumably), we've left the analogy and the way of calculating odds. It seems the same to humans, but only because of our frame of reference. So, there can be n claims to uniqueness (the unique trait being the Word of God) but only one can be right, and it's not a 1/n chance...It's a solid probability of 1 (again, assuming it is right).

 

How is a discerning person to tell the difference? Good question...However, claims alone cannot be the complete solution, as you seem to agree. Indeed, I can write a sentence and claim it is the unique Word of God. There have to be other factors. One factor I propose is to look at older texts through the lens of a Classicist. How much of the text can be corroborated? How many copies exist? How different are they? How do you claim difference? If two letters are transposed, is that really substantially different? Or, does it count as two differences because there are differences in two letters?

 

This is an oversimplification of the method, and corroborating evidence helps us with certain things (e.g. numismatic evidence for Caesar in Britain) but if we can believe other historical events through literary evidence there needs to be a system to test the literature.

 

I'd propose as a first step setting up a "literary sieve" of sorts, so that all texts have to pass a certain number of tests to be able to be verifiable. Then, you can take the remaining texts and shoot them down or verify what they can tell you based on other parameters. There's a chance of making a mistake, but it gives you a place to start instead of throwing up your hands and saying, "I only have a 1/n shot!"

 

---edit---

 

P.S., I agree that no religion has incontrovertible evidence they are the true path...But is spirituality science? I wouldn't think it should be this way. However, just because you have to "guess" does not mean you have to make an uneducated guess. Faith and knowledge can be complementary, though I agree that I have not seen a totally knowledge-based proof for a specific religion, so I agree that belief must be based on faith, but only to the extent that it can most certainly be based on some knowledge, too...Of course, perhaps this is the realm where the postmodernists have it closest to right, because truth is hotly contested in this realm, but what an individual accepts as "truth" is not necessarily concurrent with absolute truth.

 

And then there's the nature of the existence of absolute truth. Sticky.

Edited July 13, 2005 by appalachian_fox

[ishmael]

Oh, i absolutely agree that large amounts of work could go into various texts and various religions. You could study the changes and the underlying theories behind the religions, perhaps looking for a relavant theme that has been historically present(as i mentioned earlier), what this does not do is answer the question "is this correct". you could undoubtablely eliminate some religions as verifiable. you could also keep some in with long standing ties.

 

the biggest question about historically verifying things is the absolute validity of issues. for instance, why does the church keep so much locked away in the vatican? How can we verify that religious texts as we have them now, assuming we wont be granted unrestricted ability to examine every little peice of evidence, weren't changed or tampered with? How do we remove the historical bias present from wars or whatever else? Very few will touch on the issue of adam and eve, and aside from what is written, how will we be able to verify that for instance? We aren't able to trace it to a location, we dont have fossils, we dont have anything else. We have a story.

 

All in all, the quest to find the truth by cross checking and verifying all the religous material runs accross many hard ships.

 

The biggest hurdle to over come, in my eyes, would be the shift from polythiestic religions to the monothiestic ones. how would that relate to the presence , shape, and form of "god" if he does indeed exsist. That and perhaps many of the religions who are in the oral tradition.

 

In the end, no matter how much studying you do, and no matter how much luck is lent to you, short of god showing up and saying "hey, listen, i'm real, follow XXXXXX" there will be a matter of faith brought into question, a matter of unknown , and a large guess on the issue. Am i right? well, we'll never know for sure.

 

I agree that spirituality isn't science, but i would also argue and the mundane and pointless nature of it if it isn't true. its overall a waste of time, imho, to attempt to pick the right one.

 

pick a door, 1 thru N, if you pick the right one you live, otherwise, you die. on each door is a hint that its the right door. good luck.

[Wounded Cheesie]

yes, knowing god is based purely on faith.

if it wasn't, they wouldn't call religion 'having faith'.

If I tell you fire burns you may have faith in my words but once you touch the flame it is no longer faith.

 

no religion has evidence that their god is the correct one.

That is pretty arogant. You've tried them all? In buddism, for example, you must reach enlightenment before seeing the evidence. Have you reached enlightenment?

[appalachian_fox]

Again, Ish, I agree with you...You can't conclusively prove it. If you could...well, you're a reasonable guy. We wouldn't be having this conversation!

 

The point is, collaborative evidence can go a long way if you look for it to give reasonable doubt to some texts or claims (e.g. David Koresh) and give more credence to certain books than others. Does that necessarily support a single religion? Hehe, not at all. For example, how many sects of Christianity pull on the Bible as their book?

 

I think we see the same thing, but we're taking different sides. Also, I'd like to separate spirituality and religion. Spirituality I would like to define as an individual's quest for the intangible and inherently unprovable: Less airy-fairy, the Existence question and "what God looks like". Religion I would like to define as a collaborative group of spiritual believers who has a set of tenets that are unique. Note that believers may have additional tenets or feel that certain things (the flood story, for example) aren't as important and so are willing to flex on them. So, as far as picking the right religion, sure...the right one by definition would be the one that matches your spirituality.

 

However, is spirituality a waste of time? I'd argue not...If there is a truth out there (God-extant or not), why would you abandon the search? Simply because it doesn't fit the scientific model? That doesn't seem very fair in the interest of advancing knowledge. That seems more like a cop-out: I don't like other methods, so I specialize in the Scientific Method. I refuse to look into other methods, since because I can't prove them through the Scientific Method they therefore aren't real issues.

 

Is there a truth out there? Almost certainly. Can we use the Scientific Method to prove the truth? No. Absolutely not, at least not with the information we have. Otherwise, like I said: You're a reasonable guy, if it were possible and supportable we wouldn't be talking here. However, it's not as simple an issue as 1/n so don't bother.

 

That's like me saying there are millions, nay, probably billions of pens in the world...why should I write anything? First off, there's probably only a few dozen to a hundred in my office. After that, there's only a few on my desk right now. Half of them don't work (I'm too lazy to throw them out). It really narrows down my choices. Perhaps that's a bad analogy, but let me set that out there.

[ishmael]

If I tell you fire burns you may have faith in my words but once you touch the flame it is no longer faith.

right.. but when the argument is about something that can not be verified- it isn't an argument. if there was proof there was a god- it wouldn't be so difficult for religions to exsist, much less it would be impossible to convince people to change their religions.

 

you're "fire" was that your friends eye sight became beter/begin to work.

what you said was proof was that he was prayed for.

that is not a correct corrolation because many things that are prayed for do not happen, accepting one that does as proof of god does not equate or legitimize your claim.

 

please understand, i'm not discounting a god, nor am i discounting divine intervention because of his failure and lack of planning(and yes, that would be why he would have to intercede- direct proof of god's lack of power), i'm simply saying that your argument is not convincing on a logical plane and doesn't make sense. it has many holes in it to be blunt.

That is pretty arogant.  You've tried them all?  In buddism, for example, you must reach enlightenment before seeing the evidence.  Have you reached enlightenment?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

god? buddism? i'm a bit perplexed.

please explain that a bit more- generally speaking, buddhism doesn't have a god.

 

and yes, i've been involved in taoism, very similar to buddhism. i've met the dali lamma in a closed door session with several other people. when i tell you i've been very well versed in religion, i didn't mean it as a joke.

Edited July 14, 2005 by ishmael

[ishmael]

i understand where you are going fox, and i would much prefer spirituality to religion on any day of the week. i appreciate the comment about me being resonable. the only thing is that spirituality, that i can seem to grasp, is one that is based on or about a religon or set of religions anyway. The new fad is not to be religous, but to be spiritual. the problem stems that it is simply a self interpretation of the bible or whatever other holy book/books are out there in use. It revels from others teachings, often from long dead mentors. Some of the eastern religions are an exception to this, but their entire setup is somewhat of a different one- more or less, they aren't based solely on a central god figure. that brings me back to the argument i had about the reliability of books and even words- stories that are passed down and unarguablely changed if only by accident and only slightly.

 

The only branch of spirituality i would be able to follow would be one with universal ideals. One that seems to stretch accross time and space around the world and encompass all of the ideas. for example, its fairly easy to deduce that its a almost universal truth that god wants you to be a good person. no stealing, no killing, ect. guidelines not set by a single action or a single sect, but by all of them in a massive comparison. of course, i simply dont have the time to do all of that.

 

i'll continue to peddle and carve out the ideas as i go, slowly and surely.

i'll pick apart and adapt the beliefs i have about what were a god to exsist and what it would be like.

 

so far, i have picked apart the human from the god and left the superhuman. it seems that many religions place into them a image of themselves as god due to a lack of understanding, a lack of an ability to understand, dreams, or because of the misconception that we are exactly that. for instance, were god in the bible called anything but god, he would seem a tempramental, irritable, and not all knowing in any way. a human who has gained vast power.

 

then it is on to the morality, but thats a lot of work, so its going slowly.

[appalachian_fox]

I think I see where you are going with spirituality, and I propose one last thing for this line of reasoning: What popular culture thinks is spirituality doesn't make it spirituality in my terms. Spirituality can by my definition be a following of some religious teachings, but it doesn't have to be: I tend to think of spirituality as a non-empty set of deistic or paranormal items (leaving out Agnosticism...it IS a belief, I just don't know if I'd call it spirituality...but that's for another day). So, anyone with a set of axiomatic beliefs, whether they come from a book or twenty or none, gets to be spiritual. The other added benefit is you don't have to believe what anyone else believes to be spiritual: spirituality is based on the individual.

 

Now, am I saying all that's important is being spiritual? I don't know. I certainly am not the creating force of the universe. Heck, I can't even do more than the most basic maintenance on my car, and even then sometimes I end up with old oil all over me and the garage floor (Thank you, epoxy garage floor sealants). However, being spiritual does not require books, it's merely a search to put things in order through any system, and in fact spirituality by my definition can abandon any text smacking of religion completely (that seems a bit of a stretch for someone really searching for an absolute truth, but what do I know? Again, I scald myself on antifreeze).

 

So, in that way, I could say a person can be spiritual by believing a god(s) exist and want humans to be "good people" by obeying a basic list of "good people" traits (Don't kill, steal, etc.).

 

Does it have to be done slowly? Sure! Will a spiritual person ever find out that things they thought they knew have to change? Isn't that called growth? Maybe people will find out things they believed were totally wrong or contradictory with other fundamental tenets of their faith. That's all part of the process. Let's face it, if we could know everything...well...we'd have all the knowledge of whatever force created the universe (be it God, god, gods, the laws of physics, etc.). I doubt we'll ever know a human (exclusively human, for those who want to pick on me) who will have this perfect knowledge. Spirituality as I see it is a lifelong quest, it is never done, and it is never perfect.

 

Ish, from how I see it (and let's face it, I am the authority on your life...oh, who am I kidding, I've managed to spill half a gallon of gas at the pump) you've got a spiritual side going...just not a mainstream spiritual side. That's alright, as long as you (1) decide that the question of the existence / substance of a god is a good question to answer and (2) you pursue that question with a reference in mind. For what it's worth, I think I agree with you about your feelings regarding what is reported today as spirituality...but don't let a few bad apples spoil the bunch, to borrow a cliche. Whatever you want to call it, *shrug* I think I agree with you.

 

---edit---

 

On a re-read, this seems a bit condescending in some ways. I don't know, I'm not an orator, don't intend to be one. The last part is trying to say I think you are approaching the questions in a pretty logical format, and all anyone can ask is for a relatively consistent approach. I'm not trying to tell you you'll end up with one religion...that's none of my business, and quite frankly, I don't care. I'm just trying to say you sound consistent in answering the questions you ask.

Edited July 14, 2005 by appalachian_fox