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i try to read threads in this forum, but i usually just can't get beyond the first few posts, not sure why, just some sense of the imagery getting way too familiar and i'm looking for something new. something else, something real.
like somewhere i read some version of 'all atheists are angry', or was that all christians are angry, or muslims or jews or mormons. even though i can barely manage a skim most days, i see angry everywhere i turn, on this message board and others and irl. everyone seems to be angry and in denial everywhere i look, am i imagining things, or projecting, could be i'm projecting, as i fully admit i sometimes stumble upon this anger in me, rarely do i get 'mad', but i do get judgemental, i admit i can act out in sarcastic denigration. i sometimes am reminding of a person i can only call the ex, and i allow myself to get dragged by the memory, and in an instant, i'm pissed off at something i was too stupid to see for what it was, then. who doesn't have some deeply seeded anger in them, i can say with reasonable assurity (i do not think that is a word? possibly spot on lol) that i've never met anyone that is not enslaved by some deeply entrenched vibration of anger. manifested as boredom, perhaps most commonly.
i don't entertain any imagery whatsoever, about an afterlife divided into good and bad, reward and punishment, heaven and hell. i find your dialogue intriguing, arequipa. possibly because even though i miss most of what most people here are talking about, it is a rare experience to be aware i've missed and thus curious about what the hell did he/she just say there. if you have some thoughtful intention to lead me...somewhere or somehow.....lol, trust me, it is beyond my capacity to recognize what you're on about, its gone over my head.
you know that feeling when someone tells you something when you're distracted, and you heard the words but they don't compute. in that state of consciousness, someone could yell FIRE and i would nod while absent, and then swear nobody warned me of my impending doom. and then a while later, you think back to the moment and wonder how you could have been so asleep, so not even there for it.
i am in the process of pinpointing what i'm so angry about. finding root cause in a labrynth of self delusion.....how is it we can all so well imagine what it's like to look for a needle in a haystack, even though it's unlikely anyone has ever really done that. how hard it is to reinvent that imagery.....which is what i'm trying to do. i am aware enough to know the imagery is stagnant, but not aware enough to imagine something new in it's place. i just don't know what new looks like....yet i guess.
It sounds to me like you are sure that you need something in your life more than just live, but you are not sure what. Many people find the answers to the big question about the meaning of life in religions.
I think they are false answers and in fact this frustrating drive to progress in some sort of abstract way that we can't quite understand is, I believe, an evolved drive that enables us to compete. Iur curiosity and love of exploration is what enabled us to survive against bigger and stronger animals with a lot of sharp bits, just as our problem - solving, tool - making and fear of unknown and possibly dangerous things in the dark -and of course, an aversion to death, in common with everything except veg. is all evolved survival mechanism.
That doesn't mean that exploration and curiosity has become explained and pointless if we suppose that it has no point other than as an evolutionary drive. We like it, it interests us and we think it is very important to understand our universe and that plenty good enough reason for me.
I don't know if that helps you to deal with these feelings that are bothering you and are driving you (it seems) to Find Something - but you can't believe religion. I'd suggest that you write down a list of what you like most, what you consider important and what you would like to be remembered for after you die and maybe get an idea of what would fulfill your life.
As to the anger, the intensity of our convictions and the earnestness with which we try to drive our arguments home can be mistaken for anger but is all done in a spirit of perfect amicability and mutual respect.
Even we we get an award -winning twot of a theist slung off the boards for trolling, it is all done with the greatest possible forbearance.
forgive me, it's not that i'm unappreciative of your efforts, or your interest.......but advice? nothing else strikes a chord with you, huh. well that's perfectly ok and fine and all that, i have no real expectation for responses, and i hope this does not come across as rejection of any kind....just hoping for something....pretty much anything other than advice. i do understand how it looks....really i do. you see i cannot speak like this to anyone i know, i guess for obvious reasons.....i do understand how it looks that i am 'bothered' by these feelings, and am driven to seek something. ah but then wishes are for pennies, and hope is.....designed to reveal desire not fulfill it.
i actually don't care to be remembered at all after i die, can you imagine that. just as the pain of a broken heart does not qualify or quantify real love, neither does remembrance qualify or quantify a purposeful life, imo.
Well, Ok. I'm sorry that I couldn't help much and my suggestions were off the mark. It's a bit difficult to understand problems that other people are dealing with. Still, it sometime helps to just talk.
nah it's ok....really i should have known. like i said, i know how it looks because you're not the first to see 'problems', or think i'm looking for help of some kind. i understand how it looks to others when i speak of these things. there is a purpose to this, one that i guess is just so personal it doesn't make sense to anyone else. every once in a while i feel some desire for someone to respond in a way that...i dunno....how to explain it. probably in a way that doesn't look anything like a conversation, just an exchange of reciprocally inspired tangential stuff that has everything and nothing to do with the topic.
i've always said the the events and circumstances in my life are not what matters.....except for their contextual significance, that is. the conversation i'm looking for and have never found is one that doesn't matter for it's content.....but has everything to do with what it points to.
sorry my bad. this is all looking rather pretentiously esoteric, not what i want to offer you, or anyone.
really i'm fine and well, and just......should know better by now than to attempt something i can't explain.
apologies never necessary here, i do know that your intentions are well placed, thank you.
I think many (if not most) people are trained to think institutional religon IS spirituality. They can't divide the two in their minds.
I certain many, many people pay lip service to their religion too, especially in places where it is illegal to NOT be a member of the dominant religion.
There are some (maybe many?) adherents of traditionalist, indigenous religions such as many Native Americans, European indigenous reconstructionists, Shintoists, etc. who fall under the description of religious, but not spiritual. Those religions usually do not have a dogmatic requirement of 'Faith', and thus are fully functional as religions without demanding a literal belief in their mythologies or hypocritical rationalization.
Nevertheless, a rationalization must be met and this seems to be tied to the fact that the actual mystery or superstition of these religions is but a small part of an encompassing worldview, which is to say, you can't have the worldview without the religion, but the religion is a small part of the worldview. To a lesser degree, some Catholic Christian societies approach this state but for the requirement of Faith mandated by the religion, thus making its religious, but not spiritual folks hypocrites.
Spirit is in my own mind, and Religion is something that is imposed from outside. There is no connection between the two. They are completely unrelated concepts, but the purveyors of religion are very adept at hijacking the spirit of their intended converts.
Religions are in power groups hands, all the religions have a group of rich ppl on top who drive " domina " by the holy books ..the poor masses , through, the religion cause, they can stand any kind of forein political affair.....today ...as in the past...so it will be tomorrow
it's so hard for me to convey what i'm getting at. i will try again, and probably fail again, but it does generate things of interest to me anyway. i know what i mean, but i can't easily convey it so that it means the same thing to others, does anybody else ever feel that kind of frustration, it is entirely of my own lacking, appreciate any patience offered if you care to read this at all.
it's the sponsoring motive/thought behind how/why anybody would use such a phrase to describe themselves....project an image of themselves more specifically.
like....if i were to say to you that i am a woman. but i'm not a black woman. i wonder what kind of reaction that generates when i say it as example, what kind of response would there be if i said that in all serious desire for you to know that was an accurate description of me. what would be the assumptions if i said that. that i must be white? i must be racist? again, just as example.
i'm spiritual. and quick to say i am not religious. because it is important to me somehow, that you know that although i am a woman, i'm not black. not a really accurate relationship in metaphor, and probably not even a metaphor, does that impact my credibility as intelligent, its probably an axiom or some such other thing, i honestly couldn't say. i suppose that makes me dumb to some? you see it's the assumption in the qualifier, whether protagonist or antagonist, speaker or listener that i find so intriguing, where does that come from? how pure is the sponsoring motive behind the action/reaction sort of thing. i am not here to say i know yours. i just want to ask if anyone really knows their own? or has any interest in knowing their own, to the point where the conversation itself is of little meaningful value, except for providing context from which to truly see and hear.
oh geez, probably now i sound pretentious huh. do you see what i mean? what sponsors that assumption?
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