Divine Benevolence

[Sibling Chatty]

Yep. Texas Gulf Coast, this is a Christmas treat. Otherwise, it's 'spotty' as to gettin' it made.

(It's also the best 'frosting' for a banana nut cake EVAR...!!!11!1!!)

[Griffin NoName]

As to measuring Divine Benevolence, I suggest a straw poll on folk's expectations of St Peter as they approach the gates to Heaven.

<snip>... Besides, if it existed and was benevolent it wouldn't need gates.

What's the provenance for those gates anyway?

.............. I'm sure that God gets enough 'memos' from the Faithful every day that he's got a bunch of Recording Cherubim on overtime sorting it all out.

If He is anything like Gordon Browne, expect a phone call early morning.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

All these wonderful thoughts, and the only thing that prompted me to comment was Chatty's [accidental?] acronym:

S/H/IT

She-He-IT.

Lovely, isn't it?

The depth and dimensions of possible puns in that little word alone has me giggling like a little kid.

Okay, so tonight, I'm about as deep as the film of water on a windshield on a frosty morning....

.... or, perhaps as deep as Bevis and/or Butthead....



So?  I take 'funny' when and wherever I can get it....!

Life's simply too short to skip or miss out on any 'funny' opportunity.

_{(maybe I'll comment on the actual topic later, after I've contemplated a bit....still giggling...)}

[Aggie]

I promise a soft-shoe shuffle, with a top hat and cane, and a joke or a song...

I'm holding you to that.  I'd settle for a pun, if it's a REALLY good one, but a funny song with puns in it would be best. 



Acknowledging my WIDE definitions of divinity, god and all...   that life exists is divine.  That it continues is benevolence enough.  As a science-minded person, I identify with chemistry most closely, and life is a beautiful self-propagating chemical reaction.

Otherwise I think I am very similar to Bluenose in my sense of spirituality, although I won't necessarily discount the role of an external force somewhere in our capacity to find, recognize and create spiritual experiences (don't need one either, but I don't feel that involving one diminishes the experience; neither does analyzing the physiological processes involved in such experiences).  Coincidences can be beautiful and spiritual, even when they are completely coincidental; building on coincidences or even orchestrating them can be equally beautiful.  I believe we all have the potential for divinity in at least a small way, and if we all made an effort to be more benevolent, we'd see more divinity in the world (Autotheist background, eh?  Some folks prefer to draw on divinity to explain the experience of benevolence; I'd rather use benevolence to create the experience of divinity.  Malevolence is certainly the easiest way to create the illusion of evil, why not flip the concept?).

Mero, I tend to find spirituality in joy.  Joy to me seems less obviously connected to the physical compared to most emotions (anger, sadness, contentment, frustration, others?) hence it's more 'spirit' based.  That's my experience, anyways.   

[Darlica]

Bluenose described my POV on spirituality better than I could do my self, thank you!

Chatty:  

[beagle]

I started out suspecting the ability to be able to believe in divine benevolence, as defined here, stems from the fact that for most Westerners, most of the time, the World is relatively stable. By that I mean free of earthquakes, typhoons, floods, hunger or serious disease.
Consequently it's possible for some to sustain the point of view that we're being looked after, rather than just a moderately advanced organism surviving in a niche accidentally provided by nature. Where those stable conditions don't pertain I suspect it's more likely that communities will create deities in a more capricious image; the kind that require someone to be lobbed into the volcano once a year to keep them on side.

I'm not sure that "divine benevolence" as an artefact of medium term stability is an entirely satisfactory explanation though. It might be that where conditions are particularly bad there's a psychological drive to impose a benign rationality in order to cope.

For what it's worth I suggest Griffin talks to her friend about the weather instead.

[Bluenose]

Mero, joy is definitely what I am talking about.  It has taken me a long time to consider that this feeling I am describing is what I believe other people call their spiritual side.  I have used here before Carl Sagan's concept of a sense of the numinous.  That is definitely what I feel when I think about things deeply.  The incredible majesty of the universe is the greatest thing that induces that feeling in me and I feel that trying to put a human face on it, that which I believe many people call god, is a way of making it understandable to limited human perception, but IMHO in doing so this view actually limits our perception of reality.

Of course, I understand that I derive this POV from a basic premise that there is no cause to the universe.  Other people have the opposite view.  I just know that for me, in the depths of my being, there is an insatiable and inquisitive child that just wants to ask questions, that strives to know the answer to everything.  That child looks at the stars and tries to imagine just how far away they are and then to consider how far away the things that he cannot see must be and how long ago they are.  I like to lay on the ground at night and imagine I can feel the Earth rotating under me.  Of course, I cannot, but it is only a little conceit that I can.

It also gives me joy to learn that my Siblings can relate to my odd little way of seeing things.  For so much of my life I have been an outsider.  Sure, I am able to make friends easily and I am not trying to paint myself as some sort of lost soul.  I have a great family, wonderful kids that I am very proud of.  I have led and am still leading a very full life.  It is just that finding the TFM has been such a gift.  Here is somewhere that I can say what I really think and find that others take me seriously.  Sure we do not agree on everything, but if we did, where would be the fun in discussing things?  No, the thing is people here accept that I have a valid POV.  Some even agree with some of my funny ideas.  Do you have any idea how unusual that is?  The idea of a non-supernatural or divine spirituality probably seems ridiculous to most people.  In my experience most people simply do not want to think about things in any great depth.  Yet here I find people saying that I have said something that expresses some of their own feelings.  Wonderful.  It gives me a sense of the numinous all on its own.

I know I am gushing, but too bad.  I love you guys.

[The Meromorph]

Bluenose,
Oh man, you talk about yourself, and I could swear you're talking about me. 

Sometimes, I just sit and look at a tree, and it just glows with an invisible inner light.
And the Friday Cephalopods...
And have you seen that video of an octopus with a body two feet across getting through a one inch circular hole?

It doesn't bother me when other people have a different idea of how or why. I know I'm right. I know they're right. too.
FWIW, the fact that I agree with you 100% just adds another joy to the world...  Just? JUST?   

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

  
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I started out suspecting the ability to be able to believe in divine benevolence, as defined here, stems from the fact that for most Westerners, most of the time, the World is relatively stable.

Interestingly enough I was talking to my sister (who has decided to travel as much as she can) and she suggested that agnosticism and atheism are easier in the 1st world than the 3rd precisely because of that stability (and safety) you mention. She reminded me the constant fear of being robbed, mugged and in the worst cases killed because the justice system is inoperative or absent. In such cases people find themselves literally praying to be spared.

IMO that fear hypothesis (which was also mentioned in Bowling for Columbine) explains quite a bit about the American psyche regarding god & guns.

[Griffin NoName]

The idea of a non-supernatural or divine spirituality probably seems ridiculous to most people. 

Nail on the head. This is what I want to address with my friend. That I can hold a spiritual approach to life without believing in divine benevolence.

Beagle, the weather strikes me as a dangerous topic. What about all the rain we get here as a direct result of all those people doing rain dances in drought areas?

[beagle]

Interestingly enough I was talking to my sister (who has decided to travel as much as she can) and she suggested that agnosticism and atheism are easier in the 1st world than the 3rd precisely because of that stability (and safety) you mention.

I wonder if anthropologists have ever attempted a worldwide correlation between social conditions and the benevolence of local deities. Probably the big religions wiped out most local variations long before anthropology was invented.
I can only think of The Golden Bough, but I'm not sure how well that has worn in anthropology circles. The sort of thing Swato or Pieces might well know...

Also, it wouldn't be in the interests of the local shamen to say, "Actually God's pretty cool about most things." Just look what it's done to the Church of England.

The idea of a non-supernatural or divine spirituality probably seems ridiculous to most people. 

Nail on the head. This is what I want to address with my friend. That I can hold a spiritual approach to life without believing in divine benevolence.

(S)he might accuse you of adopting a pick & mix approach if religion is the basis of her view. There's a tendency to believe it's an all or nothing package. Have your defence ready.

Beagle, the weather strikes me as a dangerous topic. What about all the rain we get here as a direct result of all those people doing rain dances in drought areas?

Cricket?