Sorry, I was a bit garbled, wasn't I, and mixed in a lot of different ideas in a soup.
First, atheists in christian countries seem to define atheism in terms of a lack of certain beliefs or faith or conviction. This is far from the only way to formulate religiousness. A major other way is in terms of those who undertake a set of religious practises, without much regard to belief. I think the closest could be seen as a creative (or destructive) act with value per se and in rem.
Second, religion and atheism alike seem obsessed these days with casting religion as a kind of personal salvation: all the stories are in terms of a kind of drama that's being played out within different aspects of a personality within each person. If there is a true divinity (is there?) then it seems that this might lead to certain practise (or belief) even if it had no personal aspect at all (You might acknowledge the divinity of the sun, for example, without the belief that the sun is aware of you, or will shine more on you than your neighbour as a result, or that it is in battle with the moon, or that it has the characteristics of a person or animal or living thing). In fact, if you worship the divine because it will benefit you, you're not acting with whatever the religious equivalent of Jus ad bellum is, and you need to be very careful. Sometimes this plays out as if religion represents a kind of geriatric lifeboat, sometimes as a kind of self-torture or self-support, but the religious debate on all sides is all very my, myself, and I, which is bloody irritating.
Third, I find arguments about Occam's razor very hard to accept because I don't know how you establish, is this metaphysical world where all bets are off, at what level "empty" is. With a particular axiomatic notion of a devoid world, an atheist's ledger of entities could be full of all kinds of necessary explanations to describe what another peson would call "nothing".
Would Occam have preferred a donut with a hole in it, or one without? In terms of unnecessary multiplication of pastry, he'd have preferred the former; of description and specification he'd have preferred the latter. S.'s hell is very like the hole in a donut, as it has a lot of characteristics of absence as a hole does and it's not clear to me whether conjouring hell or diminishing it takes more work.
Feri has among the most beautiful creation myths I have encountered. Incredibly disturbing, too, but so is creation. It has a lot of powerful exercises (powerful in the sense that everyday Grounding and Centreing rituals are powerful, not in the sense of melting zinc with lasers shining from your eyes sense). The iron and pearl pentacles (essentially balancing exercises and meditations) which much of US-influenced neopaganism uses are originally from Feri, and it has seven watchtowers (rather than N, S, E, W) in a centred octohedral arrangement, which brings up interrelationships I've not seen elsewhere. In all, it's the most richly creative tradition I've encountered, by a long way, and is dripping with beauty. I don't think ritual is particularly important, particularly metaphysical ritual, but this seems to be the one for me right now. The GD stuff is mainly historical. Some of the earliest useful exercises I encountered were GD, so things like the Middle Pillar, etc, still have a special place despite the woo bringing me out in hives.
I've been increasingly attracted to Zen over the years, particularly for its lack of doctrine, and Koan meditations, for example, give you a really strong sense of the constructedness reality (mainly of duals and zeroes).
None of this really amounts to anything of consequence, though it's incredibly important to me.
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Date: 2013-05-22 01:36 am (UTC)First, atheists in christian countries seem to define atheism in terms of a lack of certain beliefs or faith or conviction. This is far from the only way to formulate religiousness. A major other way is in terms of those who undertake a set of religious practises, without much regard to belief. I think the closest could be seen as a creative (or destructive) act with value per se and in rem.
Second, religion and atheism alike seem obsessed these days with casting religion as a kind of personal salvation: all the stories are in terms of a kind of drama that's being played out within different aspects of a personality within each person. If there is a true divinity (is there?) then it seems that this might lead to certain practise (or belief) even if it had no personal aspect at all (You might acknowledge the divinity of the sun, for example, without the belief that the sun is aware of you, or will shine more on you than your neighbour as a result, or that it is in battle with the moon, or that it has the characteristics of a person or animal or living thing). In fact, if you worship the divine because it will benefit you, you're not acting with whatever the religious equivalent of Jus ad bellum is, and you need to be very careful. Sometimes this plays out as if religion represents a kind of geriatric lifeboat, sometimes as a kind of self-torture or self-support, but the religious debate on all sides is all very my, myself, and I, which is bloody irritating.
Third, I find arguments about Occam's razor very hard to accept because I don't know how you establish, is this metaphysical world where all bets are off, at what level "empty" is. With a particular axiomatic notion of a devoid world, an atheist's ledger of entities could be full of all kinds of necessary explanations to describe what another peson would call "nothing".
Would Occam have preferred a donut with a hole in it, or one without? In terms of unnecessary multiplication of pastry, he'd have preferred the former; of description and specification he'd have preferred the latter. S.'s hell is very like the hole in a donut, as it has a lot of characteristics of absence as a hole does and it's not clear to me whether conjouring hell or diminishing it takes more work.
Feri has among the most beautiful creation myths I have encountered. Incredibly disturbing, too, but so is creation. It has a lot of powerful exercises (powerful in the sense that everyday Grounding and Centreing rituals are powerful, not in the sense of melting zinc with lasers shining from your eyes sense). The iron and pearl pentacles (essentially balancing exercises and meditations) which much of US-influenced neopaganism uses are originally from Feri, and it has seven watchtowers (rather than N, S, E, W) in a centred octohedral arrangement, which brings up interrelationships I've not seen elsewhere. In all, it's the most richly creative tradition I've encountered, by a long way, and is dripping with beauty. I don't think ritual is particularly important, particularly metaphysical ritual, but this seems to be the one for me right now. The GD stuff is mainly historical. Some of the earliest useful exercises I encountered were GD, so things like the Middle Pillar, etc, still have a special place despite the woo bringing me out in hives.
I've been increasingly attracted to Zen over the years, particularly for its lack of doctrine, and Koan meditations, for example, give you a really strong sense of the constructedness reality (mainly of duals and zeroes).
None of this really amounts to anything of consequence, though it's incredibly important to me.
-- d