Here.

[Sibling Chatty]

I do not fit.

It's been building for a long time, I don't fit. I love you all, but the ground assumption is that there is a unifying 'we're not into that Jehovah God thing' and I'm the fly in the ointment.

It's not any one person, it's not one topic, it's me. Round holes, sextagonal peg. Square holes, sextagonal peg. I've thought it through lots of times. I'm not rounding down the edges or cutting off any corners...but I don't fit.

Wanna discuss religion, religiosity, belief, whatever?


http://atheismblog.blogspot.com/2006/12/religious-memes-and-rational-autonomy.html

I got no problems.

Hell, let's get into it deeper.

http://www.religionlink.org/tip_070507.php

But put it where anybody here can have the 'benefit of our wisdom'.

[Opsa]

I do not see how you do not fit. Hardly anyone here believes as I do either (if anyone), but I very much appreciate the opportunity to talk with you here where at least we try to communicate, even if we mess up sometimes.

I aint going to no atheist site. They'll shout me down and rip me a new one and none of us will learn anything from it. They will feel smug and superior and fashionable (like I haven't heard the same tired arguments all my fifty years of life) and I will feel like the flake I am for having some doubt that God doesn't exist, kicking myself for exposing my heart to people with minds that are precisely as closed as any fundie. Not that all atheists are like that, but the people who are at those sites waiting to tear me a new one are. I know better than to go there.

You do too, fit.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

Is this after the Barber discussion?

Chatty, I don't think it's possible for all of us to fit in every way around here. Religion, I think, is not the most important thing around here, its comradery.
Its friendships that are important here, as well as learning. We can't all be the same and learn.

"We find comfort in those who agree with us, growth among those who do not."
That was Frank Clark, I think.

[Sibling Lambicus the Toluous]

I do not fit.

It's been building for a long time, I don't fit. I love you all, but the ground assumption is that there is a unifying 'we're not into that Jehovah God thing' and I'm the fly in the ointment.

Unless someone here is planning to rub the Monastery all over their body, we can stand to have a few flies in it.  

I'm not really into the "Great Everything" mindset that seems to have resonated with some folks here either, though I recognize it's probably for different reasons than yours.

I got the impression from your posts here that you don't see eye-to-eye on many issues with the churches you've been part of.  I think sometimes it's hard for us to tell what parts of Christian belief and faith you do share; without knowing that, it can be hard to know what's important to you.  I don't think anything that's happened here to cause division has been intentional, and I feel safe in saying that the folks here do want this to be a place where you feel comfortable and accepted.

Personally, I'm "not into that Jehova God thing" as a belief (though the more I read the Bible, the more I find wisdom in it), and it's fair to say that a number of the other members here aren't either, but that doesn't mean that this is any sort of requirement for membership.  A forum with non-Christians in it is not the same thing as a non-Christian forum, and so far, the only labels that I've seen anyone apply to the forum membership as a whole are "humble" and "tolerant".

[Griffin NoName]

I don't get that you don't fit.

I don't have any interest in atheism as a non-belief-faith system. I am not here to support it. I don't have any issue with your faith either.

If it was the Barber email, I posted that because it was trite.

But I am guessing it's more the Ingersoll quote and if more than that (your reference to been building) the way atheism is trotted out. 

The beauty of this place ought to be, if you are feeling unhappy about something, we sort it out.

So let's sort it out.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Chatty

I think I understand what is going on (you'll correct me if I am wrong) and it is that often there is an intangible but general feeling of uneasiness about Christianity that sometimes shows up in certain posts. I my self I'm guilty of that at times and in all fairness it is too easy to generalize (in my case toward organized religion) when you feel strongly about them, but we are all here to learn; your discomfort is warranted and while it may be too much to ask for unlimited patience, we sometimes need a reminder when we are crossing that line.

So far we have had little need for moderation because we ourselves try to moderate our own posts but that doesn't mean that we don't need moderation and as much as this free form has been comfortable it's apparent to me that we need some guidelines and enforcement on them.

In any case I am convinced that you fit here as much as someone can fit in here.

[Sibling Chatty]

It's not the Barber discussion. That is answerable with an ACK, NO GLURGE if nothing else.

Solipsism isn't argumentation, and the whole "loopy analogies" story-time of that thing is easy to refute.

I understand the issues, I really do. I'm probably more likely than anyone here to take on a pushy obnoxious Christian that finds it their prerogative to tell others how to think.

I'm just saying that if we're going to discuss it, lets go from a more currently informed position.

Opsa, the blog entry that I linked to first is quite interesting. It does not say one single thing that I can really disagree with.

First two paragraphs:

Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that some evolutionary story about a powerful disposition towards religiousness in humans is right. That is to say that there are features of our cognitive constitution that arose in our evolutionary history that made us prone to seek out sweeping metaphysical answers to our ultimate questions, or disposed us to derive satisfaction from religious explanations of the world, or some other biological grounding that is responsible for the powerful appeal of religion. What's interesting and inflammatory about these theories is that they are charging that we don't believe in God because it is true and because we possess good, justifying reasons that support the belief. Rather we are caused to believe by some aspects of our neurobiology.

Dawkins argues that evolution selected for human offspring who would respect, believe, and revere wisdom imparted to them by their parents. Listening to advice about how to get by in a world you know very little about from someone who has become an expert has obvious survival advantages. This advantageous tendency to accept guidance from them also makes us poor at distinguishing between sense and nonsense. So once religious ideas get a hold in culture, parents pass them along with all of the other things they think are true, and the kids readily take them as truth. So they can't discriminate between the usefulness of "Avoid the bend of the river with crocodiles," from "Sacrifice your best livestock to insure an abundant harvest from the gods."

Last three:

If our cognitive constitution made us predisposed to have certain types of beliefs, then that that disposition is a direct obstacle to our being rational about them. And that is serious cause for concern, particularly since we wouldn't treat that belief as if it is irrational. Quite the contrary, it would probably seem to us that we were being perfectly rational. Just like a lack of coffee makes me irritable, but I blame the imagined social slights on my coworker. And we'd continue to tell others and ourselves that we are believing because it is true and because we have good reasons for believing it. So if natural selection hypothesis about religion is right, then we are wired to be irrational but not know we are being irrational about a set of beliefs that affect our moral views, our political views, our social behaviors, what we teach our kids, which wars we choose to fight, which people we decide to tolerate and which ones we decide to kill.

So we need to know, maybe more than we need anything else, whether or not this is true about us, and we need to take measures to control it.

What the religious meme hypothesis makes clear is that there will likely by ideas out there (not just religious ones) that will exploit features of our cognitive constitutions and that threaten to undermine our rationality, our safety, and our futures. Religious memes are potentially the most important and potentially dangerous ideas like this in human history.

The second link is more of a gathering of info and links from all directions, although done on a site called ReligionLink. It's run by the Religious Newswriters Foundation, and there are a good number of religion writers that are NOT particularly religious--indeed many are specifically NOT religious.

One of the links in it is to a pretty good article in the Christian Science Monitor. http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0104/p13s01-lire.html

Many nontheists <portion pertaining to previous prargraph deleted> have decided that keeping silent in religious America no longer makes sense. They are astonished that a majority of Americans question evolution and support teaching intelligent design in the science classroom. They are distressed over polls that show that at least half of Americans are unwilling to vote for an atheist despite the Constitution's requirement that there be no religious test for public office. And they contend that in recent years, Congress has passed bills and the president has issued executive orders that have privileged religion in inappropriate and unconstitutional ways.

As a result, seven organizations of nontheists - including atheists, freethinkers, humanists, and agnostics - began the Secular Coalition for America (SCA), a lobby seeking to increase the visibility and respectability of nontheistic viewpoints in the United States.

Excellent idea...

Last sentence:

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, calls for a truce: "We've suffered enough from religious intolerance that the last thing the world needs is irreligious intolerance."

I'm no big fan of "organized religion" (talk about your oxymorons when it comes to so many of them) and I'm no big fan of unkindness toward any person, group or creed/lack of creed.

I do believe that there's a non-confrontational way to discuss it all.

[Darlica]

Isn't one of the purposes with this place to be a haven for us oddly shaped pegs and misfit cogs of the general belief machinery?

Please stay!

And for the record I don't believe in atheism either, I'm a searcher, a cynical, misanthropic one, but I'm a searcher, and I want and need people with other views on life around me so I have someone to discuss these matter with. I thought this was the place, but if you feel unwelcome, who the H*** is welcome?

[Bluenose]

Dear Chatty,

If you truly feel that you should leave this place, then as one who is trying very hard to take the Toadfish principles to heart I will try to accept it and to understand that you have your reasons.  I will not be happy about it, however.  You are a certainly a square (or octagonal, or whatever) peg in a roundish hole, but then so are so many of the siblings.  For me you are part of the glue of this place, part of its very fabric and if you do choose to leave, we shall all be the poorer for it.

So, I ask you to stay, not for our sakes or indeed even for my sake, because try as I might to accept I would be devastated if you left, but in the end please stay because you want to.  I cannot give you reasons to stay.  I can only hope that you find those reasons yourself.  I mean that most sincerely.

Your friend,

Sibling Bluenose

[Sibling Chatty]

Thanks guys.

But I need some input from the links, the articles, something.

I need to see how far off I am. I can't work just from emotion, because I can't trust emotion.

Talk to me about the concepts, the ideas, something...I need to know if my beliefs are relevant. I love you all, but this isn't the issue.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

I admit that I'm a bit lost. The links and quotes suggest that religion is an unintended consequence of other evolutionary features. I guess the first question to me is: is this about religion as a structure or about spirituality? Many anthropologists have found links to a very early belief in an afterlife (spirituality), but the beginnings of structured religion aren't that clear (to my knowledge).

I am pretty much at a loss as to how the subject is germane to your feelings (and I am sorry for it. Think of me as a clueless male when it comes to female's feelings  ).

[Opsa]

Wait a minute- you're having problems with what was said on another site, so you're leaving ours?

Why can't we just discuss what you want to discuss?

I thought the whole problem was that you and someone else here locked horns and managed to offend ONLY eachother but absolutely no-one else here. Things have been blown out of proportion.

This is the absolute darkest part of the year here in the Northern Hemi and people tend to have a harder time communicating due to the subtle extra stresses even if they don't have other major worries to contend with as well.  I am stressing out about this and I didn't even see the argument until yesterday. My heart is hurting and do I ever feel clueless.  The solstice is on Saturday. Then the daylight begins its return. Why am I mentioning this? Because I can't find any other reason for why I feel so blind about this conflict. I hope to find enough light to see by very soon.

[anthrobabe]

What did I miss?

You do too fit---

Religion is such a difficult topic-- I don't know what to answer.

It makes no difference to me at all what anyone believes--- it is not irrelevent because it matters to YOU ----

I don't know what else to say......

cept-- do love you

[Sibling Chatty]

No, Opsa, it's nothing from another site. That link is to bring up the proposed discussion without filtering it through some antiquated claptrap about cancer.

It's the need to discuss the "not WARM and FUZZY" aspects of the Whatever-Everything (with or without caps) that seems to come up like clockwork.

99% of the time, there's no problem, but when it comes up, there's a problem.

I don't think anyone here needs to change their views on spirituality, on whether or not there's an afterlife, reincarnation, a deity of any sort or anything else. I thought it was about ACCEPTANCE of one another's differences and beliefs. (That, by the way, is EX-FREAKING-ZAKLY what the author of the first referenced article is saying.)

What I want to know is: Is the professed tolerance, inclusion, etc. REAL, or does it only extend as far as "everybody but the Christians, Muslims and religious Jews"?

===================

So, anybody READ the first article?

How do you, personally, respond to the idea that a respect for authority, impressed into humans by their parents might have evolved into a mindset that accepts religious input as valid?

Do you (any of you, anybody?) see the article as a definition of some of the WHY so many people have spiritual leanings?

=====================

Of course, the one person that was uncomfortable with warm and fuzzy and 'great everythingism' and that wanted to discuss our tendencies toward that is not here, and is not participating in this discussion.

I though that THIS article would be more relevant to the actual discussion of WHY some people feel the way they/we do, and whether or not in is a 'realistic' thing (as if anything spiritual can be totally realistic.) The second article I linked was more of a compilation of other sources from which to inform the discussion.

Obviously, this isn't a problem for everyone.

Personally, I am not so much a 'great everything' person as much as I am an "unnameable everything" person. I don't see "it" as a spirit or a deity or whatever, I see it as the coalescence of all that is a part of each of us, the collective thoughts, consciousness and essential goodwill of each of us, expressed together.

So, that's ME.

W h a t    d o    y o u    t h i n k?

Does the Toadfish Philosophy stretch to include all the warmness and fuzzythought?

Does the concept of an evolved tendency toward a respect for (or belief in) some sort of spiritual/deistic/theistic being or belief make sense in a non-God-believing sort of way?

Could the above mentioned tendency be the reason that some people can look at the science facts, the evolutionary facts, the Reality Based World, and still have some sort of faith?

Is that an acceptable reason to believe in 'whatever'?

[Griffin NoName]

Personally, I am not so much a 'great everything' person as much as I am an "unnameable everything" person. I don't see "it" as a spirit or a deity or whatever, I see it as the coalescence of all that is a part of each of us, the collective thoughts, consciousness and essential goodwill of each of us, expressed together.

So, that's ME.
W h a t    d o    y o u    t h i n k?

Well that is ME too.   EXACTLY.

I expressed it somewhat differently in the Interfaith thread but you can read it in between the lines if it doesn't leap out at you.

I said Great Nothing, there, but as I have said before, Unnameable will fit just as well.

Does the Toadfish Philosophy stretch to include all the warmness and fuzzythought?

Does the concept of an evolved tendency toward a respect for (or belief in) some sort of spiritual/deistic/theistic being or belief make sense in a non-God-believing sort of way?

Could the above mentioned tendency be the reason that some people can look at the science facts, the evolutionary facts, the Reality Based World, and still have some sort of faith?

Is that an acceptable reason to believe in 'whatever'?

I just wrote in the Interfaith thread, I am atheist. That does not mean I have no belief system. I don't believe in Science, for example, as some kind of alternative explanation. Do the experiments, do the sums, but at the end of the day we still can only agree we saw the same results. We believe we see the same results as someone else perusing the same experiment or data. That could be a massive massive collective unconscious/conscious ERROR. I believe in US as we are HERE and NOW as we perceive ourselves and others. I do believe in us. That is a sort of faith, Yes.

I can do warm and fuzzies, or I can take or leave warm or fuzzies, or I can absolutely not want to go near any warm and fuzzies. I have moods.

I'm answering in another of your questions in the Thought of the Day thread so as not to dilute this.


EDIT I just want to add this. No way would I be doing what I am doing - counselling - if I didn't have faith. It is ONLY faith that has kept me going since I got cancer. It is faith that has kept me alive. It is that stark, I have to believe it matters that I interact with others or I would just stop. I cannot know what comes of those interactions, that does not matter. It matters that I do it. It matters that it might Just Make a Difference to them, and after that yes to me.