In times of peace, I'm agnostic. In times of christofascism, I'm militantly atheist. People go to church or talk to God because it is an existential crisis. They are just scared of dying. Momento Mori.
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It's not about belief. I don’t believe in Jah the same way I don’t believe in gravity. Gravity just is, and so is Jah. Look around. Breathe. Existence itself is the evidence. I’m not here to convince anyone or convert anybody. Jah doesn’t need followers, He just is. Whatever you call it, it’s all the same current. I walk with Jah because I recognize Him in everything.
DMT
I think I believe in something more like… biology and physics working together in some way to create our existence. I had a near death experience once when I was in ICU for several months. I met, a… thing, it was like a large glowing spark but its light didn’t travel away from its self, its glowing was contained to its “body”. I asked “is that me?” and the “room” we were in was filled with a sense of “no” it’s taken me ten years to process that experience and be able to talk about it, idk what that spark was but I’ve come to accept I believe that is the All Thing, it’s the eternal spark all sentient life stems from, I do believe access to long term memory is critical for being a part of the All Thing not simply being animated biology, like a mosquito for example.
I think the All Thing animates biology as a way to experience the physical world because it must “live” somewhere and we are all avatars, our thoughts are only important in the sense that they lead us to experiences and forming memories. I believe in nonduality and that physics is actually the closest humans will ever get to describing a god, an All Thing
I'm LDS some people might call us Mormon.
The short of it is I asked God and I felt his presence. Not like any earthly feeling, more like the burning the bible / new testament describes.
But even without any of that I'd still have believed / known. I just, always have if that makes sense? I might've gone a different direction in my beliefs but I'd still have known he's there.
I have always wanted to ask someone who has this opinion how they confront the knowledge that people from every religion have felt the same thing? Some people have felt this way multiple times about mutually exclusive faiths.
That's one of the largest things that led me to be an agnostic atheist (meaning I don't claim to have knowledge, and I hold no belief in a god; I don't disbelieve, it's the ascence of belief). I was raised non-denomination Christian, but I had a good Buddhist friend in high school. It made me curious about other faiths, and they're almost all mutually exclusive, yet every one has people certain they're correct. What are the odds I was born to a family that believed the correct one?
I'm not self-centered enough to believe I'm special and all the other people are just unlucky, so the result is that it's most likely I wasn't born lucky, and neither was anyone else. So many religions have faded out of existence, so the odds are if any are correct they don't exist anymore. Why would I think I happen to find the right one?
I know this is unlikely, but I'd be interested to hear an actual opinion about how that feels, not hearing about what you're supposed to believe (which I've heard before). I think it's interesting to know if it makes others feel the same way I once did or not.
This is why a "feeling" should not be the reason you convert to a religion. You should be skeptical of Christians that argue their conversion on feelings alone. I certainly had feelings that I attribute to the Holy Spirit when I was an inquiring Christian but I frankly tried to ignore or diminish them to stay sober minded. Relying entirely on emotionalism or charism is historically discouraged as you could just as easily be swayed by demonic forces (e.g. prelest). It's one of many critiques of charismatic Protestantism and the LDS church.
So, for the sake of this post isn't "I'm trying to convert you to my religion" I'm going to try and summarize our points of belief while more or less answering your question, and I'm not doing it out of a debate, but merely to answer you :)
It's not really "we think we're lucky or better than anyone else" hell we actually believe that God is a God of fairness that doesn't value one person over another. Ie. "We are all his children and he loves us equally" is a core belief we hold. And as apart of that belief, we firmly hold it true that God will ensure that all his children who lived or died without hearing his gospel will have the opportunity too. That's point 1
Point 2. Yes you can most certainly have spiritual experiences outside of the LDS faith or any faith for that matter. We tend to refer to that as "The light of Christ" but for a summarized explanation. We basically summarize that as, a testimony of truth wherever it may be found God will bare witness of it.
And I also tend to lean towards a lot of Buddhist tenants myself btw. The concept of a state of being called Nirvana, that life is suffering (Though I know that's not exactly what he said) and a few other ideas they hold I agree with.
It's not really "we think we're lucky or better than anyone else" hell we actually believe that God is a God of fairness that doesn't value one person over another. Ie. "We are all his children and he loves us equally" is a core belief we hold. And as apart of that belief, we firmly hold it true that God will ensure that all his children who lived or died without hearing his gospel will have the opportunity too.
I'm going to question this a bit if you don't mind. Doesn't the LDS church teach that there are different "degrees of glory" and only the followers of the church's faith can reach the celestial kingdom? Yes, there's exception for those who haven't heard, but those who have and didn't follow the teachings are left out, even though there doesn't seem to be anything different about proofs of faith provided by followers of the LDS or any other religion. They seem to be the same veracity as followers of any other religion.
And I also tend to lean towards a lot of Buddhist tenants myself btw. The concept of a state of being called Nirvana, that life is suffering (Though I know that's not exactly what he said) and a few other ideas they hold I agree with.
Yeah, I think it's great to learn about other religions so we can take pieces of them that help us. Even if I don't believe any are any more likely to be true than the others, there's "truths" in all of them that apply whether you follow the faith or not.
Also, thanks for the excellent questions! I love having friendly discussions with other people who believe differently. It really opens up my perspective. Hell, I served an LDS mission in Seattle Washington. If there's one thing I cherish, it's my conversations with those of other faiths and learning more about their perspectives.
Does it feel correct that there are levels of heaven, better and worse heavens on other planets? I always felt this is disturbing to me, but it makes sense what you are saying
I do not and i believe that religions are the number 1 problem in the world. The things people do for their "Gods" are stupid and cruel af
Because it sometimes makes me feel better about there potentially being some purpose to us if we were created intentionally, provides a placeholder explanation for what's out there besides the universe, makes life more fun, and does not harm anyone (I'm not religious).
If you look at it very very loosely, many major religions are reaching toward the same general concepts and have enough similarities to suggest a consensus that there's a "something" up there.
We probably all have an imperfect idea of what that "something" is, but there are enough similarities (or echos of the same ideas) across many religions to suggest they're looking at the same indivisible thing and interpreting it differently.
I do not, no proof. If there was a god such as in the Bible why give us reasoning abilities when they give no proof? And if so, then I put forward the idea that if there is such a god, they don't care if we believe so why bother?. Not to go all gamer but like the Sims, they made us and took out the pool ladder and saw what happened.
If there is a god that has such powers and cares, well fuck them cause they ain't helping us it seems. If they are well we're too far off course for it to matter, this playthrough is spiraling and it doesn't matter if we believe or not cause we may be circling the drain.
So seems easier not to believe because if you do it's more depressing.
There are definitions of "God" that I feel are hard to prove, but others that are easy. For example, of your definition is "God is the ultimate cause of the universe" then it's pretty trivial that if everything has a cause there must be an end of the chain. Of course, this the could be a computer program running the universe simulation or even just the laws of physics themselves if those are truly causeless. But nonetheless, it's still a somewhat satisfying definition of "God" so I'm comfortable saying I believe in God. Harder definitions include "God is an omnipotent being" (which most of God's traditional attributes can be derived from) and "God is the being described in the Bible/Qu'ran/other religious text" which I feel like are unprovable.
A lot of religious apologists will make arguments in favor of the easier definition and then try to claim that this means their specific view of God is real. Personally I think that's insane. Like "there must be some end of the chain of causality therefore God became a Jewish carpenter in the ancient Roman Empire." Even if you're Christian that should be a bad logical jump.
I believe in God because I don't believe knowledge is possible without a transcendent being. (e.g. the impossibility of the contrary) Otherwise you are dealing with infinite regress or axiomatic circularity. Materialism breaks down with origin theories. Metaphysics aren't substantial yet exist. Math and logic aren't descriptors of the world but integral to how the world is structured. The Orthodox view is that these principles are a reflection of the divine mind.
(I am an Orthodox Christian)
For most, it's indoctrination.