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Old 07-21-2015, 01:02 PM
 
2,826 posts, read 2,360,304 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TroutDude View Post
I don't follow any religion either but aspects of Animism resonate within me as true. It is nature-based and aligns with much of what many indigenous peoples believe. It may be worth your while to explore it.

I hope you find a way that feels right.
I like animism too. It's a path that is very much DIY. Unity church is also very good, but I didn't connect with it. Wicca is also a good fit, if you like the whole nature thing.
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Old 07-21-2015, 11:19 PM
 
Location: Not-a-Theist
3,440 posts, read 2,632,759 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Continuum View Post
The first point to be considered in choosing a religion/spirituality is one must match one's current and potential spiritual & psychological profile with the range of religions/spirituality [from kindergarten to grade school to PhD] out there.
In general, another point is the matching of personality profile. Just like how the Briggs Myers personality profiling is used to match one's personality to one's career, to ensure effectiveness, something similar is necessary for religion.


In Hinduism, it is very particular about matching personality types to spiritual approaches, e.g.

Jnana: Jnana Yoga is the path of knowledge, wisdom, introspection and contemplation. It involves deep exploration of the nature our being by systematically exploring and setting aside false identities

Bhakti: Bhakti Yoga is the path of devotion, emotion, love, compassion, and service to God and others. All actions are done in the context of remembering the Divine.

Karma: Karma Yoga is the path of action, service to others, mindfulness, and remembering the levels of our being while fulfilling our actions or karma in the world.

Raja: Raja Yoga is a comprehensive method that emphasizes meditation, while encompassing the whole of Yoga. It directly deals with the encountering and transcending thoughts of the mind.


The above point is critical because if one's chosen spiritual path do not match one's spiritual personality then the results will be disappointing.


Thus [in general] if one's spiritual drive is more of devotional inclinations, then the knowledge and intellectual approach is not suitable.
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Old 07-21-2015, 11:30 PM
 
646 posts, read 463,321 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Continuum View Post
In general, another point is the matching of personality profile. Just like how the Briggs Myers personality profiling is used to match one's personality to one's career, to ensure effectiveness, something similar is necessary for religion.


In Hinduism, it is very particular about matching personality types to spiritual approaches, e.g.

Jnana: Jnana Yoga is the path of knowledge, wisdom, introspection and contemplation. It involves deep exploration of the nature our being by systematically exploring and setting aside false identities

Bhakti: Bhakti Yoga is the path of devotion, emotion, love, compassion, and service to God and others. All actions are done in the context of remembering the Divine.

Karma: Karma Yoga is the path of action, service to others, mindfulness, and remembering the levels of our being while fulfilling our actions or karma in the world.

Raja: Raja Yoga is a comprehensive method that emphasizes meditation, while encompassing the whole of Yoga. It directly deals with the encountering and transcending thoughts of the mind.


The above point is critical because if one's chosen spiritual path do not match one's spiritual personality then the results will be disappointing.


Thus [in general] if one's spiritual drive is more of devotional inclinations, then the knowledge and intellectual approach is not suitable.
I did not know that. Interesting. I wonder what kind they'd tell me to follow. Sure wish there was a test for this. BTW, I did the Myer-Briggs test a few times and always was an INFJ. I never did know what to do with that information but I liked doing the test.
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Old 07-22-2015, 12:35 AM
 
Location: Home is Where You Park It
23,856 posts, read 13,686,526 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cliksder View Post
I did not know that. Interesting. I wonder what kind they'd tell me to follow. Sure wish there was a test for this. BTW, I did the Myer-Briggs test a few times and always was an INFJ. I never did know what to do with that information but I liked doing the test.
Yoga is a pretty old tradition.

In America, people concentrate on hatha yoga because of its health benefits. But its original purpose was to better condition the body for long periods of meditation.

Meditation was (and by many, still is) thought to confer extraordinary powers, like levitation. But most modern American teachers emphasize the mental and physical health benefits. Which, interestingly, is something the buddha agreed with. The story is that he spent years in yoga practice, including extreme fasting, in order to reap both karmic rewards and extraordinary powers. But ultimately, he rejected both reasons for yoga and meditation practice, seeing those promised benefits as distractions from the real purpose - shedding illusions about the human place in the universe.

I would look askance at a teacher who told me which yoga (or any) path to follow. You need to develop your path on your own. It's not an obedience process, rather it is an unfolding.
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Old 07-22-2015, 06:41 AM
 
Location: Florida
90 posts, read 104,231 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Continuum View Post
In general, another point is the matching of personality profile. Just like how the Briggs Myers personality profiling is used to match one's personality to one's career, to ensure effectiveness, something similar is necessary for religion.


In Hinduism, it is very particular about matching personality types to spiritual approaches, e.g.

Jnana: Jnana Yoga is the path of knowledge, wisdom, introspection and contemplation. It involves deep exploration of the nature our being by systematically exploring and setting aside false identities

Bhakti: Bhakti Yoga is the path of devotion, emotion, love, compassion, and service to God and others. All actions are done in the context of remembering the Divine.

Karma: Karma Yoga is the path of action, service to others, mindfulness, and remembering the levels of our being while fulfilling our actions or karma in the world.

Raja: Raja Yoga is a comprehensive method that emphasizes meditation, while encompassing the whole of Yoga. It directly deals with the encountering and transcending thoughts of the mind.


The above point is critical because if one's chosen spiritual path do not match one's spiritual personality then the results will be disappointing.


Thus [in general] if one's spiritual drive is more of devotional inclinations, then the knowledge and intellectual approach is not suitable.
That's really interesting! I learned about the different schools of yoga but it was very brief.

I will look into wicca. Ironically, when I was super duper Christian, I had a friend that's basically going through the same journey as me, and he decided on wiccan. I didn't understand it and shamed him for it. I have my regrets, but you live and learn. I was young and naive.
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Old 07-22-2015, 03:20 PM
 
9,678 posts, read 9,971,995 times
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I surrendered to Lord Jesus and know Jesus , and He takes care of my life and leads a path where life is easy , But I don`t consider myself religious at all , as I see religion as a form of godliness but have No power and no presence of God and with the truth of God
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Old 07-22-2015, 11:08 PM
 
Location: Not-a-Theist
3,440 posts, read 2,632,759 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by xRedd View Post
That's really interesting! I learned about the different schools of yoga but it was very brief.

I will look into wicca. Ironically, when I was super duper Christian, I had a friend that's basically going through the same journey as me, and he decided on wiccan. I didn't understand it and shamed him for it. I have my regrets, but you live and learn. I was young and naive.
As I had stated, preferably there should be a match between one's spiritual profile and the chosen spiritual path. If Wicca or any other spiritual fit into your spiritual jigsaw and it has been chosen reasonably [not merely jumping into it] then it will be a match for you.

However there is one caution -nothing personal but based on rationality and objectivity - avoid Islam no matter what and how much you have fallen into spiritual love with it. It [in part] has a malignant potential that has worldwide impact and is a threat to humanity as we note now and worst in the future.

I would have no qualms with any one veering and adopting a BDSM lifestyle [it has evil potential but] as long as it is private & personal and there is no worldwide ideology to support it.
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Old 07-23-2015, 07:30 AM
 
Location: Florida
90 posts, read 104,231 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Continuum View Post
As I had stated, preferably there should be a match between one's spiritual profile and the chosen spiritual path. If Wicca or any other spiritual fit into your spiritual jigsaw and it has been chosen reasonably [not merely jumping into it] then it will be a match for you.

However there is one caution -nothing personal but based on rationality and objectivity - avoid Islam no matter what and how much you have fallen into spiritual love with it. It [in part] has a malignant potential that has worldwide impact and is a threat to humanity as we note now and worst in the future.

I would have no qualms with any one veering and adopting a BDSM lifestyle [it has evil potential but] as long as it is private & personal and there is no worldwide ideology to support it.
See, I don't really understand what you mean by spiritual profile. What exactly does that mean?

Do you mean like what i'm drawn towards? Or what best matches my lifestyle? Or something else entirely?

Also no worries about Islam, it doesn't appeal to me in the slightest. I was to find a religion where it doesn't center around an almighty God, so no Christianity, no Judaism, no Islam. I do believe in a power greater that myself, but I don't believe in a God in the sense of those religions. I believe in a God that watches over us, I guess, not one that controls us and claims to love everyone but people die all the time...just doesn't add up. I don't like the God that is depicted in the bible, Koran, or Torah. I would like to read them though one day.

That's why I am drawn to pantheism, because it's God is the universe. It doesn't control us, it's apart of us and all around us. That seems like such a cool notion.

And Buddhism doesn't technically have a God, to the best of my knowledge. But, there are some things I don't like about Buddhism, and I'm not going to go into a religion picking and choosing which parts I am going to follow. That's what a lot of Christians do, and one reason I don't follow Christianity anymore. But, I'm not crossing it off my list completely either. I want to learn more about it.


Also..curious...why did you bring up BDSM? What does that have to do with religion? I actually do like it a tinny bit in the bedroom because I'm a kinky kind of gal, but that is such a tangent unless I'm missing something lol.
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Old 07-23-2015, 09:38 AM
 
Location: Northeastern US
19,824 posts, read 13,361,179 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by xRedd View Post
That's why I am drawn to pantheism, because it's God is the universe. It doesn't control us, it's apart of us and all around us. That seems like such a cool notion.
It strikes me that most of metaphysical beliefs hinge around control issues. A fundamentalist from one of the Abrahamic religions wants to cede control and options largely to their deity. A liberal theist tends to want to cobble some belief system together from bits and pieces of choice, and tends to see the universe as avuncular, friendly, indulgent, and maybe even actively loving and caring in some way.

It isn't for everyone I suppose but I see the universe as relentlessly indifferent to anyone's (un)happiness, which sounds sterile and depressing but actually has not proven to be so for me. Once I got over my need to be at the center of some me-centered narrative, but saw myself as simply existing in the midst of things that were simply happening, and got rid of all the false connections to me, myself and I, I could quit taking random happenstance personally and become more flexible and adapted to the environment I actually found myself in. No more struggling to shoehorn an ideology or metaphysics into actual observed reality. That proved a lot of work for me, and caused a lot of suffering.

Actually "indifferent" is still not the best word because to some people it implies "uncaring" and I use the word more in its meaning of "neither for nor against" me. Caring or refusing to care requires a quality of agency which I believe we are not justified in conveying upon the universe. According to everything we know at this point, the universe simply IS. It doesn't think or have a personality. I am not trying to convey an indifferent god here, but no god at all. I am not trying to convey an agency with objectives at odds to mine, rather, I'm trying to convey a universe where there is transference of energy according to certain mostly universal rules, events without intent behind them, and sometimes those events happen to be neutral or positive in helping me achieve MY intents and purposes, and sometimes negative.

I say all this not to argue in favor of my unbelief ... that is something you can only arrive at for yourself. But I am simply suggesting that what you are, I presume, hoping to arrive at eventually is a belief system that doesn't have a lot of cognitive dissonance for you in terms of what the belief system predicts and what you actually observe and experience. You can save yourself some trouble if you keep some sort of ultimate goal in mind and keep asking yourself as you examine each ideology, "does this have explanatory and predictive power?"

It may well be that your personality and thought patterns allow you to rationalize a lot of things in life that I simply cannot. Indeed, if my Rationalizer (tm) had not broken some decades ago I might well still be some flavor of theist, and quite contentedly so. And on my bad days I wish I were capable of such mental feats. Alas, I am not. You may well end up a pantheist or panentheist or pagan or Wiccan of some sort, and find it entirely satisfying. And that's fine ... such theists seldom seem to crusade for imposing their particular views on society at large and are "live and let live" types. I can get along with such folks.
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Old 07-23-2015, 10:08 AM
 
Location: Florida
90 posts, read 104,231 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mordant View Post
It strikes me that most of metaphysical beliefs hinge around control issues. A fundamentalist from one of the Abrahamic religions wants to cede control and options largely to their deity. A liberal theist tends to want to cobble some belief system together from bits and pieces of choice, and tends to see the universe as avuncular, friendly, indulgent, and maybe even actively loving and caring in some way.

It isn't for everyone I suppose but I see the universe as relentlessly indifferent to anyone's (un)happiness, which sounds sterile and depressing but actually has not proven to be so for me. Once I got over my need to be at the center of some me-centered narrative, but saw myself as simply existing in the midst of things that were simply happening, and got rid of all the false connections to me, myself and I, I could quit taking random happenstance personally and become more flexible and adapted to the environment I actually found myself in. No more struggling to shoehorn an ideology or metaphysics into actual observed reality. That proved a lot of work for me, and caused a lot of suffering.

Actually "indifferent" is still not the best word because to some people it implies "uncaring" and I use the word more in its meaning of "neither for nor against" me. Caring or refusing to care requires a quality of agency which I believe we are not justified in conveying upon the universe. According to everything we know at this point, the universe simply IS. It doesn't think or have a personality. I am not trying to convey an indifferent god here, but no god at all. I am not trying to convey an agency with objectives at odds to mine, rather, I'm trying to convey a universe where there is transference of energy according to certain mostly universal rules, events without intent behind them, and sometimes those events happen to be neutral or positive in helping me achieve MY intents and purposes, and sometimes negative.

I say all this not to argue in favor of my unbelief ... that is something you can only arrive at for yourself. But I am simply suggesting that what you are, I presume, hoping to arrive at eventually is a belief system that doesn't have a lot of cognitive dissonance for you in terms of what the belief system predicts and what you actually observe and experience. You can save yourself some trouble if you keep some sort of ultimate goal in mind and keep asking yourself as you examine each ideology, "does this have explanatory and predictive power?"

It may well be that your personality and thought patterns allow you to rationalize a lot of things in life that I simply cannot. Indeed, if my Rationalizer (tm) had not broken some decades ago I might well still be some flavor of theist, and quite contentedly so. And on my bad days I wish I were capable of such mental feats. Alas, I am not. You may well end up a pantheist or panentheist or pagan or Wiccan of some sort, and find it entirely satisfying. And that's fine ... such theists seldom seem to crusade for imposing their particular views on society at large and are "live and let live" types. I can get along with such folks.
Yeah, basically that's the kind of belief system I want. I'm very much a "everything happens for a reason, everything has a purpose in life" kind of person, it brings me peace to believe it's not a coincidence and life has a purpose. I can see nature. I can see everything around me. It makes it real. That's why pantheism is so intriguing. I'm not worshiping something I cannot see or cannot feel, nature and life and everything around me, the universe, is real. And it has no agenda..I like the word indifferent. It is neither good or bad. It just goes with the flow.
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