The possibility that I am inventing for myself and my life is the possibility of being generous–someone who has made a difference, is making a difference, and whose future is filled with contribution to everyone around me and to the future of humanity itself.
There is no scarcity; in fact, there is an abundance of the difference I make.
I saw this and thought you might be interested:
website: http://www.secularhumanism.org/
If you’ve rejected traditional religion (or were never religious to start), you may be asking, “Is that all there is?� It’s liberating to recognize that supernatural beings are human creations … that there’s no such thing as “spirit� … that people are undesigned, unintended, and responsible for themselves.
But what’s next?
For many, mere atheism (the absence of belief in gods and the supernatural) or agnosticism (the view that such questions cannot be answered) aren’t enough.
Atheism and agnosticism are silent on larger questions of values and meaning. If Meaning in life is not ordained from on high, what small-m meanings can we work out among ourselves? If eternal life is an illusion, how can we make the most of our only lives? As social beings sharing a godless world, how should we coexist?
For the questions that remain unanswered after we’ve cleared our minds of gods and souls and spirits, many atheists, agnostics, skeptics, and freethinkers turn to secular humanism.
Additional Resources
What Is Secular Humanism?
What Are Secular Humanist Values?
How Can I Get Involved?
Thanks Kenton.
But what if, after we clear our minds of these things, the what's so of the universe continues as though it didn't really care what we believe or not?
God is there. I will not further define Him, but we are clearly of His nature. But we are absolutely free to not believe it or accept it.
Certainly, much of what is believed about Him is just plain silly, and can't all be so the way it is believed.
Awareness is worth more than understanding and acceptance more than reasoning. I'll say no more, unless you invite it, except that I wish you great joy and success in your way.
Beautiful declaration David. You are a very powerful being, and I've no doubt that remarkable things will arise in being that possibility. I am completely aligned with you being it. How may I help?
"But what if, after we clear our minds of these things, the what's so of the universe continues as though it didn't really care what we believe or not?"
That's exactly what it does. The universe doesn't base its operation on what we believe.
"God is there." Where? With which test for reality to you check for his existence?
The only one that exists outside of language.
*cough* bullshit.
Deny your own experiences in this area if you wish. I've no doubts about it, but no need to prove anything to anyone.
You can be as "right" as you'd like about it. What's so remains what's so quite aside our petty view of it.
I submit that the only reason we have any hope at all of transcending the narrow scope of our machinery is the God-nature within us. Thank heavens that hope exists!
Allow me to elaborate.
Despite your earlier statement, the test for reality that you're using for God does live in language.
There are no tests for reality that exist outside of language. "Real" and "unreal" arise out of language. Without language, there is simply what's so, and what's not so doesn't exist. What's so, absent language, only covers those things which pass the Ultimate Test for reality. God only exists in language.
Don't accuse me of denying my experiences. I don't deny them. I had the experiences I had, and my experience of them was exactly what it was. All that has changed is my interpretation of my experiences.
(Combining from the other thread) "When you relate to others as being on it, you are also on it." Really? So a Landmark Forum leader is on it when they show someone else their story? Did a Landmark Forum leader tell you that?
You are the one who keeps bringing up being right and being wrong. You are the one who keeps relating to interpretations as being the truth or not. That is all over there on your side.
You have committed a simple error in thinking: you have collapsed What Happened with your Story about it. You are relating to your Story as The Truth and quietly, politely being right about it, and making me wrong. And then at the end of your self-righteous diatribes you say "well maybe I'm wrong about all this" as if it undoes what you've written. If you really mean that, why do you still refuse to try on a different point of view?
I've only a moment (I wish I had more).
1) The reason for not defining God further lies in the experience of Him being outside of mere words. The word "God" and many words that grope at expressing the experience of Him (including the word "Him") exist absolutely in language. The experiences themselves transcend any language I have yet to learn or use. I am more certain of His existence than I am of my own. You are free to interpret your own experiences any way you like, and what's so will continue to be exactly what's so. Note that I have an easier time accepting your experience/belief (you've collapsed the two) than you have accepting mine.
2) To parody one of the better political lines of my lifetime, I've known Landmark Forum leaders, and you're no Landmark Forum leader. (Well, not yet anyway — it could happen!) And neither am I. Which is why I am very cautious in pointing out another's rackets. I'd much rather deal with my own, which are legion.
3) The conversation for truth is something you keep bringing up. I play along, but it hasn't been where I've been living here. I will grant that in allowing that I may be wrong, I am trading in the conversation of right and wrong, which is no improvement. I'll cease doing that now. Thank you for pointing it out.
4) I'm very clear about the distinctions between what happened and what I made it mean. I apologize if that clarity is not expressed particularly well. I submit that your experience of it being collapsed contains greater judgment about it than it itself contains.
5) I've not made you "wrong" yet. I've no intention of doing so. I agree that you've said what you've said, and i've not been aligned with all of it, and that is what it is. Your point of view continues to be a valid one, but then so does mine. I will observe that I've yet to refer to your point of view as being a "self-righteous diatribe", and I can practically promise that I won't, ever. This has been an area of intense inquiry, and continues to be an area of inense inquiry. I've tried on many points of view along the way, including your own. Time and space here does not permit a full accounting of it, so I respectfully request that you accept that as being what's so.
6) Pretty much everything I've said runs the risk of being completely made up and completely disconnected from what's so. While I doubt that to be the case, I'm certain that it only poorly connects with what's so at all.