this is an important person for any person i believe

What do you believe?

 

Q:what does an agnostic dyslexic do when experiencing insomnia?

 

A: An agnostic dyslexic stays up all night wondering if there really is a dog, when experiencing insomnia.

 

not an important question for me. there's nothing i can do about it. all i can do is try to live my life as well as i can.

 

Idk, and realize I may never know.

 

Only if you can prove it, objectively (is there any other way to prove something?). Can you?

 

I must base my beliefs on what I see. I have heard of God, but I have not experienced him/her/it in the sense of a superior power shining down. So many things that we actually experience seem to contradict the concepts of that monotheistic god being there. An example of that might be the Problem of Evil.

Based on what I see, I would have to assume that if spirituality is a real thing... that in the beginning there was spirit just existing, a form of "energy". That energy formed matter, which exploded out into planets and suns and all that, and eventually people formed from that matter on this specific planet and maybe others. That underneath it all, matter is spirit, life is spirit, energy is spirit. We are all spirit, and we are all one underneath it all... but we are different forms that the spirit has taken.

This wouldn't be unlike several pots made from the same block of clay. They'd all be a part of the block of clay, but in different forms.

Good and evil (or, more properly: Pleasantness and unpleasantness) would be a part of the sensation that any particular part of the spirit (you or me) would experience. We're all the same thing underneath it all, so any evil done is self-inflicted and is passively consensual - you don't get mad at your hand if you reach up to turn your alarm clock off, miss, and accidentally smack yourself in the face... you might just feel very stupid. I have a sense that that's what violence and war looks like when seen from the outside, impartially. It'd be like someone chewing a hole in their numbed cheek after the dentist numbed it up, or a dog snarling and then crunching down on its own tail.

I often wonder that if god does exist as, say, Christianity says he does, then how could he be mad at me for me being who I am and feeling the way I feel about things if he made me this way? Wouldn't that be like me building a toaster and then declaring it an abomination because I actually wanted it to blend me a margarita - and that it should somehow form itself in a way to do that or else it is at fault for displeasing me?

On the other hand, I've heard that the actual definition of sin is "to miss the way". So sin may have actually been a way of acting against one's self and one's own being... trying to get the upper hand using subversive methods that weren't really who one is... but instead reacting to the stimulus around it like a hollow balloon bouncing in a tornado... not enacting its own naturally existing independent self-direction, but just doing whatever the outside forces willed it to do.

Why, [MENTION=3937]Divine Wannabee[/MENTION] ? What do you think?

 

Buddhist here. Theravadan Thai Forest tradition. So I believe in gods and many other levels of beings, also in Nibbana which is unconditioned. That's about it roughly.

 

Yes.
Because I have experienced God.

 

Did he touch you with his noodly appendage?

 

Flying spaghetti monster!

 

I am sad you haven't yet experienced the noodly appendage of God yet. I'll pray He tickles you with it soon

 

Note: Turn your volume down.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZK5tCY39x0"]YouTube - Flying Spaghetti Monster vs Invisible Pink Unicorn[/ame]

 

If they are objective, is it not the case then that they either do or do not exist independent of whether or not I believe in them?

 

My belief or lack of, if something exists, does not change it's status of existence so I don't bother myself worrying about it. I have faith in myself to behave correctly without something bigger peering over my shoulder. I do good for the purpose of doing good.

 

Wonders how magnets work.

 

I believe in small gods, not a creator of the universe God. Having an authoritarian God poses a lot of moral issues and causes a lot of social problems as well. Smaller gods (like patron deities, and even spirits of places and things) may be capricious, but they're fun, useful and much more personable than the Abrahamic God(s).

As for the reason I believe in them. Simply because I have experienced them. It may be a product of some special god-center in my brain giving me woo woo feelings, but hey, so is love.

I am incredibly skeptical and logically minded person, I know a great deal about history (especially religious history) and I love science and value the truth. None of these things has ever conflicted with my ability to have a relationship with what many would call the 'spiritual realm'. I see it as a creative process of self re-invention and growth. Mythology is very much like literature and art, in that it makes us more receptive to certain truths by concealing them in symbolism.