I'm an atheist that prays in desperate situations.

[december_solstice]

You're probably thinking -- She's been born again! God has spoken to the poor girl!.

Er...not exactly, fam.

Actually, the exact opposite has happened.

I think embracing (more like humoring) the idea of faith pushed me further towards the reality that our lives are very much our own and there is no outside force leading the world in which we live in. That our reality has ultimately been created by us. Our reality is of our making.

I realized humans reach out for faith, for comfort, in a time of great need. In a moment of desperation, when we feel powerless, when we believe ourselves to be weak, we want it so desperately for God, religion, and such to be true -- that a higher power will save us. Will love us. Will make us IMPORTANT. Will make us MATTER.

Similarly how we want so desperately there to be life after death, to be forgiven for our sins, that there is more to our existence than this -- that we are NOT insignificant in this great wide indifferent universe. A universe that has thrived without us for billions of years before we entered the picture, and ultimately, will thrive without us, for billions of years after we are out of the picture.

This is a hard to swallow. No human heart wants to feel this way -- wants to accept that life goes on once we're dead. That the plants, trees, planets, and so on are unaffected by our existence.

And, I get that. I can understand why faith exist. Why gods have been a part of our lives for hundreds of thousands of years. Why we worshiped the sun. Why we worshiped the stars. Why we worships gods. Because life is hard. Because we're HUMAN. We feel things. Because feeling obsolete is difficult. Because hope feels good. Because God is a beautiful delusion.

Comments

Con't

[airmarshall.livejournal.com]

The Pythagorean's and most of the orientals accepted the symbolical meaning, namely that the individual that lived below the level of his own humanity would return, not in an animal body physically, but on an animal level of human existence as an untutored, undisciplined, unmoralized creature. The next point that would come into focus would have to be what the theologian is concerned about namely what is it that moves through these bodies, is there a life that moves through races, nations, creatures, orders of existence, like a thread moving through a string of beads. Is there one life behind all apparent diversities of life, some theologians including Aquinas have been of the opinion that there is only one life, and that finally and ultimately that life is the life of deity. That there is only one source of life and one source of universal energy, and that is this intangible mysterious being, power or principle which we call God. Science has no substitute for this concept. Some scientists have attempted to explain the matter by assuming that life in its own nature is eternal, has no beginning and no end, that there never was the creation of the divine principle of things, which was a kind of great sea of eternal energy in which everything exists, has existed and will exist throughout eternity. This however does not satisfy a number of human concerns because this one energy has to be in some way conditioned, or various types of living things could not emerge from it. So it has been generally assumed, by the more thoughtful minded people, that in truth and substance the divine being consisting of complete, unconditioned, consciousness, intelligent energy has been at the source of existence. What this is in absolute definition we do not know, but we find it convenient, possible, and almost inevitable to regard it as deity, the one final, ultimate fact of existence. In order to determine the nature of deity, we would have to in one way or another become aware of its own existence and the purposes and motions which are innate in it, this brings us into philosophical speculations which are also rather difficult for modern science to accept. The problem is that to science the ultimate is a completely impersonal energy, to the theologian the ultimate is a purpose conscious energy, it is something that is alive, meaningful, and purposeful, it is not like the petrol or gasoline in a fuel tank, something simply to be used to move a machine, this life is the sovereignty of all things and we can return to Pythagoras to find out something about ancient knowledge about this subject. To the Pythagorean's and in their school of thinking there is, and always has been, only one life in space. This one life in space manifests to an infinity of differentiation's with everything that is conceivable or inconceivable to man is part of the potential of this one life, this one life is all and one, all as a total of everything that exists. In one life all things live and move and have their being.

This one life cannot be analyzed by any of the fragments of itself, but it is the source of all fragmentation, this one life is not only the source of all bodies, but of the minds, of souls, of spirits, and of every type of differentiation that exists in space. This one life then is the totality of all of the manifestations of itself, plus the nature of its own identity, which is known only to itself.

RE: Con't

[outerspace-bae.livejournal.com]

Very very interesting! Thank you for taking the time to write.

This is the first time I've heard anything in-dept about the Pythagorean's. Off to the library I go!

Indeed, we can learn a lot from ancient civilizations. I've always felt there was a higher level of "truth" or at least thoughtful, honest and well established concepts these civilizations can teach us. Just because it is not modern does not mean it is less "developed" than what we have come up with and evolved to know today.