spritual

[neonico]

what are your sprital belives i no i shouldnt ask.

[baht habit]

Rationalistic Sun Worshipper

[heartofdavid]

First there is a mountain.
Then there is no mountain.
Then there is.

[godisinthesilences]

well instead of giving a smart a** remark to the question I thought i'd answer it honestly.

I'm not really religious... I feel religions are entirely a man made function. I am however a spiritualist. I do enjoy learning different philosophies and can find comfort and nurturing in many of them.

I was a practicing wiccan for many years, but just felt it didn't fulfill me completely. I started doing reading and study of Buddhism and most recently Hinduism.

Obviously this is a personal topic and can create a great many avenues of debate and anger I hope the manner in which Neonico's interest in this can be interpretted as out of curiouslty and love. She is a darling of a person and means no disrespect.

I hope we can keep this topic from getting full of anger and intolerance

[heartofdavid]

I thought i'd answer it honestly.

So did I. I wasn't being facetious with my answer to her question.

Edited my comment to lighten things up.

[godisinthesilences]

i wasn't speaking to anyone directly... just clarifying neonico's reasons for asking....

[Adrian]

from
to
and back
or not

and not

---------
no two snowflakes are alike
yet every snowflake is a snowflake
and two snowflakes is snow
---------
i meditate and practice Reiki

i try to let love in
and out

sometimes i even succeed

[Melaszka]

I don't really have any spiritual beliefs. I was an evangelical Christian for some years when I was younger, which was a wholly negative experience and one which I would really like to be able to totally delete from my life, so that's put me off religion and spirituality in a big way.

I know many people who've found spirituality a very beneficial influence in their lives and it's made them a much better person. For me, though, it's always had the opposite effect - I've got quite a wishy-washy, passive personality, anyway, and I've found that following any kind of spiritual belief system just magnifies my unfortunate tendency to avoid taking responsibility for my own life or making the world a better place.

[proggrl]

You could say I am a spiritual person. Born and raised on Christianity in which I find a lot of solace and beauty. I also find merit in many other religions/spiritualities, things that I like to incorporate into my life and thoughts.

Church(es) I have entirely different views on, however.

[Tin Bird]

Not to get all heavy and everything, but this is actually a question that's been on my mind a lot lately. Not exactly sure why...I have two children (Nathan and Leo) and I have developed some health problems (non-life threatening) at age 39. All of these things perhaps have stirred up thoughts about religion, souls, afterlife...etc. Suffice to say that while I generally consider myself an agnostic (which in my case simply means "I have no idea"), I am searching for a bigger meaning, a higher truth, a calling...my heart is open...but, so far all I've found has not inspired me enough to take a leap of faith. To me, honestly, the closest I've felt to heaven, besides the birth of my two boys, is listening to music.

[Bern]

Wasn't it Lennon who said "God is a concept by which we measure our pain"? I was brought up a strict Roman Catholic which is in my opinion just a form of child abuse, institutionalised religion is for people who need someone to lead them and think for them, I believe if you do good things then good things will happen to you and my children have been brought up with this Karmic view, there are good people and bad people and their religion either way is immaterial

[Melaszka]

I believe if you do good things then good things will happen to you and my children have been brought up with this Karmic view

I think bringing your children up to treat other people well is admirable and I wish all parents were like you in that respect. However, I can't agree with the karmic view, because I know so many good people who give and give and still get cr*p in their lives (and vile people who treat people like sh*t and yet always come up smelling of roses).

One of the many reasons that I'm so glad I no longer have a religion is that when something bad happens to me, I'm no longer surrounded by people who add insult to injury by telling me that somehow I must have brought it on myself - whether that's the fundamentalist Christian "you must have undeclared sin in your life" or "you can't have had enough faith or God would have saved you from this" or the Karmic "what goes around comes around", I think that's one of the cruellest things you can say to someone who's already suffering .

In my view, cack just happens. It's totally random, and I find that oddly comforting.

[Slope]

I'm very interested by, and find a lot of value in some Buddhist teachings, although I don't really label myself as anything.

[Tin Bird]

In my view, cack just happens. It's totally random, and I find that oddly comforting.[/quote]
I think that's right...I feel the same way...and it is liberating. I steer clear of ANYONE who knows the way cause I don't think anyone truly knows anything more about God than I do. I don't deny anything, but I do not see the hand of God working in the lives of people. Good things, bad things, mundane things...it's all as if by chance and nature.

[Slope]

In my view, cack just happens. It's totally random, and I find that oddly comforting.

Yep - and that's also one of the teachings of Buddhism, for what its worth. Not those EXACT words, lol - more a "bad things sometimes happen to good people, for no reason" angle.