My beliefs.
Nov. 13th, 2003 08:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gridloreThe comments over my posting about getting nominated for the AQOTM made me realize that I've never really defined them. So here we go,
I am an atheist. I see no evidence for a god, or multiple gods, or any other supernatural entities exerting any control over daily events. As far as I am concerned, there is now such thing as the supernatural, just the natural that we have yet to understand. The major religions I dismiss because they are built on older faiths, and borrow entire mythologies from them. To take two from the Bible, Moses being abandoned and found by Pharaoh's daughter is as old as the legends of Perseus and Gilgamesh. Apollonius of Tyrana's career contains many elements of the later Jesus story, healing the sick, raising the dead, and a mysterious death and rebirth. The dying and reborn god is a common theme in many religions that predate Christianity and even Judaism by centuries. So I reject so-called Holy Books as the works of man.
I do believe that people can affect the material world through force of will. The importance of attitude in dealing with cancer made this clear to me. Now, many people use ritual and communal efforts to focus this force, from a full Mass to magikal rituals. Whatever works for them, as long as what they do harms no one (in a non-consensual way.) As far as I am concerned, if some one gets comfort from their religion, then it is a good thing for them. what annoys me is the ones who use faith as a bludgeon, forcing it on others. They can go and do anatomically impossible things to themselves.
From what I've seen, groups like the Wicca and the OTO are closest to getting it right, focusing more on the potential inside themselves to create change than begging for intervention from an outside source. However, "faith-healers" aside, I think that within ourselves we have untapped reserves of power. Some people learn to tap that power, even if only at an unconscious level.
I believe in things like ghosts and hauntings. I have no idea what causes such things, but after having worked in the Winchester Mystery House, and seen a ghost at the Kole-Kole pass on Oahu, I have too much personal experience to dismiss them. I am ambivalent on UFOs. There is something happening, but I can't say what. The subject of the unknown fascinates me.
As an atheist, I don't lack faith, totally, I just place it in different places. In my own strength of will, in my friends, and in my belief that eventually humanity will get beyond myths and legends.
I am an atheist. I see no evidence for a god, or multiple gods, or any other supernatural entities exerting any control over daily events. As far as I am concerned, there is now such thing as the supernatural, just the natural that we have yet to understand. The major religions I dismiss because they are built on older faiths, and borrow entire mythologies from them. To take two from the Bible, Moses being abandoned and found by Pharaoh's daughter is as old as the legends of Perseus and Gilgamesh. Apollonius of Tyrana's career contains many elements of the later Jesus story, healing the sick, raising the dead, and a mysterious death and rebirth. The dying and reborn god is a common theme in many religions that predate Christianity and even Judaism by centuries. So I reject so-called Holy Books as the works of man.
I do believe that people can affect the material world through force of will. The importance of attitude in dealing with cancer made this clear to me. Now, many people use ritual and communal efforts to focus this force, from a full Mass to magikal rituals. Whatever works for them, as long as what they do harms no one (in a non-consensual way.) As far as I am concerned, if some one gets comfort from their religion, then it is a good thing for them. what annoys me is the ones who use faith as a bludgeon, forcing it on others. They can go and do anatomically impossible things to themselves.
From what I've seen, groups like the Wicca and the OTO are closest to getting it right, focusing more on the potential inside themselves to create change than begging for intervention from an outside source. However, "faith-healers" aside, I think that within ourselves we have untapped reserves of power. Some people learn to tap that power, even if only at an unconscious level.
I believe in things like ghosts and hauntings. I have no idea what causes such things, but after having worked in the Winchester Mystery House, and seen a ghost at the Kole-Kole pass on Oahu, I have too much personal experience to dismiss them. I am ambivalent on UFOs. There is something happening, but I can't say what. The subject of the unknown fascinates me.
As an atheist, I don't lack faith, totally, I just place it in different places. In my own strength of will, in my friends, and in my belief that eventually humanity will get beyond myths and legends.
