religions and creeds
religious is definitely something i've never claimed myself to be. there have been times when i've leaned against it or away from it in my skepticisms, but for the larger part i've just been neutral about it.
i've never personally felt any interaction or impression of having a soul or of angels or god or heaven, so i've never had a reason to be.
more recently, however, i've become more acquainted with my feelings about this sort of thing. i've sat before, many times, in what probably amounts to a state of meditation, and felt that there does exist a unity of life on some level. i've tried to write before, in failure, about the infinite unfoldability of all concepts in the world that i've noticed before, or on a related note, about how everything in this world, every act and object serves as a symbol for a deeper meaning, and those are in turn symbols for an even deeper meaning, and that eventually everything can be distilled down into one single impression that captures all existence.
i've tried to write about these things, i've never felt very successful. this is a good example of what i was just talking about in my last post, that is, that all religious experience is subjective.
its really something you cannot communicate through words. that would be like trying to tell me about a beautiful sunset through the use of addition and subtraction equations.
i think i've said before that i feel that most people (who claim to be religious) really have the spiritual knowledge of something like an 8th grader. this is what leads to a lot of literal translations and literal interpretations, and images that i was discussing earlier like those of heaven and hell.
if you've ever really meditated and wondered about the nature of existence, then you've realized that literal expressions of the universe are just too superficial to be true.
the reason i feel like most people aren't really that spiritual is becuase i know that people don't spend that much time actually searching within themselves, or better yet listening closely to the world at large, to have actually felt these things that they claim to believe.
i would expect that less than 20% of people attending church really have ever taken an unassuming, vulnerable look at the deeper levels of the world to discover for themselves what is true.
the use of the word religion is generally misused anyway, as Carl Jung pointed out, most people's "religion," is the passing on of whatever beliefs they've been taught, and, therefore, isn't actually religion, but in fact a creed.
i've never personally felt any interaction or impression of having a soul or of angels or god or heaven, so i've never had a reason to be.
more recently, however, i've become more acquainted with my feelings about this sort of thing. i've sat before, many times, in what probably amounts to a state of meditation, and felt that there does exist a unity of life on some level. i've tried to write before, in failure, about the infinite unfoldability of all concepts in the world that i've noticed before, or on a related note, about how everything in this world, every act and object serves as a symbol for a deeper meaning, and those are in turn symbols for an even deeper meaning, and that eventually everything can be distilled down into one single impression that captures all existence.
i've tried to write about these things, i've never felt very successful. this is a good example of what i was just talking about in my last post, that is, that all religious experience is subjective.
its really something you cannot communicate through words. that would be like trying to tell me about a beautiful sunset through the use of addition and subtraction equations.
i think i've said before that i feel that most people (who claim to be religious) really have the spiritual knowledge of something like an 8th grader. this is what leads to a lot of literal translations and literal interpretations, and images that i was discussing earlier like those of heaven and hell.
if you've ever really meditated and wondered about the nature of existence, then you've realized that literal expressions of the universe are just too superficial to be true.
the reason i feel like most people aren't really that spiritual is becuase i know that people don't spend that much time actually searching within themselves, or better yet listening closely to the world at large, to have actually felt these things that they claim to believe.
i would expect that less than 20% of people attending church really have ever taken an unassuming, vulnerable look at the deeper levels of the world to discover for themselves what is true.
the use of the word religion is generally misused anyway, as Carl Jung pointed out, most people's "religion," is the passing on of whatever beliefs they've been taught, and, therefore, isn't actually religion, but in fact a creed.