I Am Not Religious

Spirituality... Spiritual usually has something to do with the immaterial.I personally think that you can have a spiritual connection with nature and experiencing it's beauty. People get so caught up in their busy lives in their dirty desensitizing cities. I truly feel at peace just sitting at the shoreline of Lake Ontario. Understanding nature is more important then understanding the creator. If the creator is sentient, perhaps understanding it's creation will help understand this thing itself if it exists. I strongly admire the Lakota and other native Americans for their amazing connection with nature. I am atheist in the sense of a particular definition of god. that would be the Semitic Idea of god, a hateful, jealous, judgemental psychopath who claims to be love, but then requires bloodshed for forgiveness (yes, yet again I'm emphasizing the bloodshed - forgiveness issue) I have a huge problem with it. Love should not require blood, its illogical. and to make it even worse, this god plays this sick game of letting you get tempted by the evil one, and punishes you for disbelief of one of many many religions - its the more refine form of pascals wager. he seems to have left out the fact that other religions exist.you don't receive spirituality from corrupted men, you get it from understanding and experience. and to an extent you are right, out right nothingness! I don't know how to explain except as a deep connection with your natural surroundings, its a deep emotion like love.The Bible was written by man, which for me is already enough to invalidate it. man's corruption is littered all over it. The Bible and other books are static, they do not progress or benefit with new and improved societies, and they definitely do not improve bad ones True love does not mean the requirement of animal or human blood sacrifice as a condition for forgiveness. Endless torture is not a proper punishment for not accepting love. I like using this moral idea I heard awhile ago, If you were the last person on earth, is there anything wrong you could do? if you said no, then you can only conclude that morality is dependent on the social situation. there is no such think as a set solid rule for what is right or wrong.I definitely consider Buddhists to be atheists in the sense that they reject a personified god.

turtlesplash

i understand what you mean - i would only add that you can never completely separate religion and spirituality anymore than you can completely separate thought and language, for one grows out of the other - religion is certainly an historical cultural formation, but it is one that evolves organically out of, and around, the spiritual practices and beliefs of a particular people - religion isn't simply good or evil, it's just the sociological ex<x>pression of the human spirit, and complaining about it in general terms is about as productive as complaining about anatomy or the weather --- as to your vision of a vengeful Jehovah, i think it can be dangerous to take the symbolism too literally - personally i find this vengeful image of God far more spiritually satisfying than the purely loving God of Christianity which has been purged of all darkness [which is split-off into the Christian Satan, quite a sleight of hand imo] - the figure of Jesus himself deeply impresses me, but Christian theology is too black and white for me to formally call myself Christian - in my opinion evil as well as good comes from God, as anyone who has experienced terrible injustice, disease or natural disaster can attest to

turtlesplash

the personification of God as a man is, in my opinion, a symbolic simplification for the purposes of teaching and communication - the understanding of the deepest ideas must necessarily begin with a gross over-simplification

turtlesplash

and nature Herself is "red in tooth and claw" - pagan religion was even more brutal than monotheism when it came to moral philosophy