Sensitive Topic: Atheists being good at reasoning.

[wordy]

Very sensitive. Those who easily get very angry should close their eyes now!

I thought that "we" atheists was more clever and intelligent and good at reasoning compared to Christians and other pathetic fools.

That was me from me 10 to me 40 years old.

At 40 years old the embarrassing experience did happen that I woke up to how foolish I had been and how I lived a lie all those years.

I had been a proud atheist that thought I knew everything and that I knew myself from inside out and all they way. Ten Turtles down to the bottom of the abyss :D

Little did I know. I totally lost it. I felt so embarrassed over how lacking in reason and self knowledge and social skills and a lot of things.

I even felt bad about me lacking skills in producing music.

I had bought the "progressive" notion that it only takes determination and practice and a set mind and being at it and out would come creative music.

No way, if you fail to have talent then no amount of practice can take you over the build in constraints by your brain and body limits. Some of us simply lack the motor and ears and brain structures that allow for talented music making.

Yes sure I sing better now and have a bit better "pitch" recognition but it is not on a level that anybody would accept to listen to. Tomatoes and eggs would hit my head in no time if I tried to do anything in public.

I miss the notes the tones all the time.

And worse I fail to be a good thinker and that was supposed of me as an atheist activist.

Yes most atheists are much better than me but still they totally fail to do even the most simple things. I've tested this on IIDB and the total silence tell that they have no clue on how to handle even thinking on my rudimentary levels of reasoning.

Ok there could be other explanations. They find my questions too banal or too non-coherent or ill formed or not consistent or confusing or whatever.

But the reasonable reaction then is to say. "What are you trying to ask here?"

No total silence instead.

Another explanation could be "Cognitive Dissonance". it is too painful to deal with somebody as confusing as I am. Maybe it is memetically contagious. They fear it will get a habit their body take over and them too look as foolish as Wordy does. So they shun the topics?

What I ask? I am not sure. Their silence makes me unsure of it I get what I ask. So I feel afraid to ask it again. Cause then I could be treated with total silence here too.
that is too painful. I die a little each time it happens.

I sometimes guess it could be the famous "altruistic punishment". They punish me cause I ask a taboo question and the most effective punishment is to ignore the badly behaving fool.

Do you get at all what I try to say?

[Brother Daniel]

I thought that "we" atheists was more clever and intelligent and good at reasoning compared to Christians and other pathetic fools.

That was me from me 10 to me 40 years old.

At 40 years old the embarrassing experience did happen that I woke up to how foolish I had been and how I lived a lie all those years.

I had been a proud atheist that thought I knew everything and that I knew myself from inside out and all they way. Ten Turtles down to the bottom of the abyss :D
I don't think atheism has much to do with intelligence. (I'm tempted to say that it has a lot to do with honesty, but that's a different topic.)
Yes most atheists are much better than me but still they totally fail to do even the most simple things. I've tested this on IIDB and the total silence tell that they have no clue on how to handle even thinking on my rudimentary levels of reasoning.
Hmmmm.
Ok there could be other explanations. They find my questions too banal or too non-coherent or ill formed or not consistent or confusing or whatever.
That's more likely.
But the reasonable reaction then is to say. "What are you trying to ask here?"

No total silence instead.
Speaking only for myself: I don't go systematically through all the threads of any forum. I jump around from one to another, without being conscious of any consistent rule for why I participate in one thread and ignore another. It seems to be a matter of gut feeling: Do I (immediately) feel that I have something that I want to say on this topic? Do I (immediately) feel that this thread will reward my efforts in some way? If the answer is "no" to both, I'll probably skip over it.

I would guess that there is something peculiar about your writing style that makes people feel (sometimes) that too much effort is required to engage you, with too little reward being likely.
Another explanation could be "Cognitive Dissonance". it is too painful to deal with somebody as confusing as I am. Maybe it is memetically contagious. They fear it will get a habit their body take over and them too look as foolish as Wordy does. So they shun the topics?
I don't believe that.
I sometimes guess it could be the famous "altruistic punishment". They punish me cause I ask a taboo question and the most effective punishment is to ignore the badly behaving fool.
I don't believe that either.
Do you get at all what I try to say?
I think so.

Please don't take it personally when you're ignored.

I think people sometimes don't see the value in your words. (I'm sometimes guilty of this myself.) But that's their loss.

[DMB]

People are atheists for different reasons, just as people are believers for different reasons. Reasoning skills for most people have a lot to do with training or education.

So if I know someone is an atheist, and that is all that I know, I ought not to have any expectation that that person will be either good or bad at reasoning.

[Christina]

Hi Wordy : )

I think that you're very welcome here. One thing you should remember is that a lot of posts don't receive any responses. All of us notice when our own posts are ignored but often we don't realize that it happens to everyone else once in a while too. Lots of your posts are appreciated and get responses but maybe you forget that now and then.

Sometimes I do have a bit of a hard time understanding what you're getting at but I usually understand eventually. I've never seen you behave badly, and there are no taboo questions here. I think that you get your feelings hurt because you see atheists as one group that you have to fit in with. We're all different and interested in different things. None of us fit in with everybody. You aren't being left out of a club. And besides, you got an invitation and not everyone did ;)

[Eudaimonist]

I thought that "we" atheists was more clever and intelligent and good at reasoning compared to Christians and other pathetic fools.

We might be this. However...

High intelligence isn't the same thing as wisdom. It doesn't guarantee that one will live a carefully self-examined life. Intelligence is just a capacity. How we choose to use this capacity is a different matter altogther.

And this is one reason why I prefer to call myself a Eudaimonist rather than an atheist -- I have chosen to live a self-examined life. By itself, atheism is not worth much, even to one of high intelligence.

So your epiphany is worthwhile. As Socrates pointed out, there is wisdom is knowing that one has lacked wisdom. It seems to me that you are at least at the level of Socrates. :D


eudaimonia,

Mark

[Ray Moscow]

There's no reason to assume that atheists are smarter or more rational than anyone else - other than their skepticism about "gods" and presumably other woo-woo ideas.

[wordy]

I would guess that there is something peculiar about your writing style that makes people feel (sometimes) that too much effort is required to engage you, with too little reward being likely.

that could be right on the money indeed. I have a too confusing style.

Thanks Christina. So true. It is so much more obvious to me when I get the no attention and I forget when I don't attend to others.

I think that you get your feelings hurt because you see atheists as one group

Very true. I have renamed me from atheist to Togetherness Reimaginist.

Just to show that I am skeptical to the word atheist. There is very little togetherness into the label atheist.

DMB,

yes I expect too much that is most likely why I feel so bad about it all.

I guess it is my Asperger features showing up. Some of us Aspergers takes words very dramatically. To be able to reason means something particular to each Asperger I guess.

I thought it meant that they would be able to reason about everything religious.

I know almost no atheist that has been able to reason about my religious feelings.

It confuses them and me too much. Either they say they are banal or a misunderstanding or if they are angry they tell me to go to a Church as if that would be a good thing for an atheist to do. Like sending a Lamb to the Wolf's Den? Talking about being good at reasoning.

Maybe it is lack of training too? I lack both formal education and training but even those who are Professors at Phil Dep at Uni fail to talk about how one can feel religious despite being very atheistic intellectually.

I feel like a freak. I am not supposed to feel religious so why do I feel them.

[Ray Moscow]

I feel like a freak. I am not supposed to feel religious so why do I feel them.

Religious feelings are common, even among those who don't have any particular religious beliefs. That's one reason that religious beliefs follow so easily.

[wordy]

Eudaimonist, I envy your term Eudaimonia if that is a proper spelling. It sound bold and something to strive for. But I am not on that level. That was obvious when I made phone calls to you. You had things under control while me was confused in my thinking.

Have you contacted other Eudaimonists here in Sweden or still just thinking about it?

There has to be at least a handful of them, I am sure of that. Ayn Rand has some fans here locally.

Ray, yes I agree. And maybe my style come in the way too.

what do all of you think about this text of mine?


I feel like a freak. I am not supposed to feel religious so why do I feel them.

I mean apart from the disagreeing what the words stands for.

I don't mean religious in that I feel awe looking up to the night and seeing all the stars. Sure I do this too and see it as natural awe and not something religious.

To me religious is like when Roy Rappaport try to explain why we humans are religious.

Ritual And Religion In The Making Of Humanity

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0GER/is_1999_Fall/ai_56457599

Rappaport proposes that ritual and language have Similarly coevolved, with ritual providing, from the very beginning, a necessary corrective for language-created problems that may otherwise be lethal.

Language permits lies and permits any statement to be contradicted or opposed by alternatives suggested by experience or self-interest or speculation.

However, by participating in ritual, in which invariable words and actions recur, men and women assume wider commitments which are forged at deeper levels of the psyche. Rappaport calls these invariable words and actions Ultimate Sacred Postulates.

This does not necessarily mean that the participants believe the postulates. Indeed, they are ideally untestable and without immediate consequences: "In God We Trust." "Hear Oh Israel, the Lord Our God the Lord is One."

But these postulates that cannot be questioned hold a key position in the governing hierarchies of ideas that Rappaport calls Logoi (the plural of Logos), and they have consequences for social life.

The simplest example of ritual implementation of them would be the use of oaths to create metatruths that are more reliable than simple reports.

The sanctity of the Ultimate Sacred Postulates underlies the authority of convention and of leaders, teachers, and priesthoods. It is what makes action possible as part of a larger social or ecological whole.

Now that review had less abstract words than Roy himself had. He left us around that time. I think the book came out after he had died. Sad indeed.

So many years has gone and so utterly few care about his ideas.

I am not sure if I get what he says but there seems to be something important in what he says. At least to me.

I am not sure. Was his book some 500 pages and still he fail to explain it on my level despite so many words. Don't buy it ask a library to get it for you. :D

I wish some intelligent atheist would read it and explain it to all of us.

He describe what it is to be religious.

[wordy]

Religious feelings are common, even among those who don't have any particular religious beliefs. That's one reason that religious beliefs follow so easily.

But Ray, very few of us atheists admit we have them. Even former x-ians say they long for to be in a community. They rather hate it instead.

[wordy]

Roy Rappaport try to explain why we humans are religious in "Ritual And Religion In The Making Of Humanity" book

what do you guys think of those views I cited?

[Christina]

I feel like a freak. I am not supposed to feel religious so why do I feel them.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by 'feeling religious' but I can tell you some of the things that still trip me up sometimes. If I read something terrible about how cruel people are to each other it makes me feel sick inside and I just want to howl and cry and rage at something about how horrible we humans are, but I know intellectually that there's nothing out there to howl to but myself. Other times when I look at something beautiful I want to be thankful for it - but who am I thankful to? There is no one to thank so what I really feel is just happiness and awe at how beautiful our world is and how wonderful we can be sometimes. I think that we all, theists and nontheists alike, feel a lot of the same things but interpret them differently. Theists attribute them to religious experiences and atheists see them as part of the human experience.

Is those the kind of religious feelings that you mean, or am I missing your point?

[Eudaimonist]

I feel like a freak. I am not supposed to feel religious so why do I feel them.

It just isn't true that atheists are somehow immune to feeling religious. I don't know who told you that atheists "are not supposed" to feel religious, but they were mistaken. (Yes, the consensus can be mistaken, in violation of Jante's law!)

So why do you feel religious? Probably for no other reason than that you are a human being, and most human beings have at least some inclinations to feeling religious.

If it helps, I, the self-declared Pope of Atheism, give you permission to feel religious! :)


eudaimonia,

Mark

[The Barefoot Bum]

Do you get at all what I try to say?

Not really.

I sometimes guess it could be the famous "altruistic punishment". They punish me cause I ask a taboo question and the most effective punishment is to ignore the badly behaving fool.

First, ignoring someone isn't "punishment". Second, atheists don't usually ignore posts or ideas we disagree with. We ignore ideas we find banal or uninteresting.

More intelligent (or clever or wise or honest or whatnot) doesn't mean perfectly intelligent. (Being more intelligent than the average christian is not that high a bar.)

Getting things right the first time is not the mark of intelligence, it's evidence of lack of ambition. The mark of intelligence is learning from one's mistakes, instead of endlessly repeating them.

[Ray Moscow]

But Ray, very few of us atheists admit we have them. Even former x-ians say they long for to be in a community. They rather hate it instead.

Most people enjoy community of some sort. That's why we're on message boards!

[Brother Daniel]

Why are your religious feelings something to be concerned about?

Why do you feel that something needs to be done about them?

[Brother Daniel]

what do you guys think of those views I cited?
Rappaport? To be honest, I don't think I understand what he's saying.

[DMB]

Wordy, have you read Sam Harris's book, The End of Faith (http://www.amazon.co.uk/End-Faith-Religion-Terror-Future/dp/0743268091/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236780961&sr=1-1)?

He deals with feeling religious.

[wordy]

I think that we all, theists and nontheists alike, feel a lot of the same things but interpret them differently. Theists attribute them to religious experiences and atheists see them as part of the human experience.

Is those the kind of religious feelings that you mean, or am I missing your point?

I guess you are on the right track. But there is more to it too but it is a good start.

Maybe what you say now is more like individual spirituality and what I talk about is collective expression of individual shared spirituality that a group support.

The Barefoot Bum, I think that you are right about this one:
We ignore ideas we find banal or uninteresting.

Ray, yes community of some sort is what I look for too. Togetherness as I name it.

[wordy]

Why are your religious feelings something to be concerned about?

Why do you feel that something needs to be done about them?

I am not sure of how to respond.

Suppose you have string "musicious" feelings. Many who have such start a Rock band or Hip Hop or whatever kind of style of music and they play together.

This is something similar. I simply long for to express these feelings together with others who share them but I can not go to the Churches cause they believe in supernatural things.

is that less confusing hopefully

[wordy]

Brother Daniel

Rappaport? To be honest, I don't think I understand what he's saying.


A big stone fell from my heart. I felt so embarrassed to be the only one not getting him. He has an abstract academic style.

DMB, Sam Harris's book, The End of Faith? Yes I have it within two yards in reach here in my room.

No that is not what I mean. Roy Rappaport is what I mean. Does Sam Harris comment on Rappaport?

No Harris are into "spirituality" more. He has had "Mystic" experiences of being one with the Universe and such. Or to experience total emptiness or experienced "Mindfulness" to see things as they really are and similar feelings.

No that is not what I mean with religious.

[DMB]

Can you please explain a bit more then about what you mean by feeling religious?

[Christina]

Hmm. Wordy, what I'm getting out of this is that you want to be part of a community of atheists, and you have that here. Many people don't have many atheist friends in real life so we get that feeling from participating on secular message boards. Additionally, you want people to discuss the particular ideas that interest you in depth. That's not something that can be guaranteed to anyone. For example, I love to think and talk about homelessness but no one on these boards is ever interested in going into it in depth about and I can't discuss it easily on a simplified surface level. That doesn't mean that the people on the board have difficulty reasoning but they just aren't all that interested in that subject. If I want to talk about it I go to a forum for community management and social justice issues. They aren't all atheists but we share that interest. I think that maybe you have your desire for feeling part of a community mixed up with the desire to talk to people that are interested in the things that you are, and both mixed up with the desire to want people to agree with you. I'm not sure that any of us are understanding what you mean by 'religious feelings'. Can you give us a few specific examples?

[Ray Moscow]

Can you please explain a bit more then about what you mean by feeling religious?

If you mean a feeling of deep awe, connectness to other beings and the universe overall, or some other profound feeling that is hard to describe: most folks would call that "religious". And lots of skeptics and nontheists feel like that from time to time.

Or at least I do.

[wordy]

Can you please explain a bit more then about what you mean by feeling religious?


Yes I try that maybe within 4 hours. Must take care of tiding up here and food.

Christina. I try to answer later ok

[Christina]

Mmmm food. I finished working out and now I want breakfast. See you later : )

[Alethias]

Regardless of if they are atheist or god-believers, I think people take shortcuts in their reasoning. Sometimes that is ok. When people have thought out the issue and repeatedly dealt with it, they skip steps, assuming the other party will know them. But sometimes they skip critical steps that lead them astray. This tendency to take shortcuts is the failure of many arguments, regardless of someones atheism or christianity or other belief system.

It seems to me that there is a common need to feel connected through ceremony and ritual with other likeminded people. This need is often met in many societies through things like churches and synagogues temples and such.

Secular Humanists somewhat meet this need through Humanist Celebrants, but it falls kinda flat in many places. Atheists don't really have all that much to unite them in the way that churches do.

Is this kinda along the lines of what you are talking about, wordy?

[wordy]

If you mean a feeling of deep awe, connectness to other beings and the universe overall, or some other profound feeling that is hard to describe: most folks would call that "religious". And lots of skeptics and nontheists feel like that from time to time.

Or at least I do.

Yes that is religious too. At least language allow it to be religious.

I talk about the social togetherness that evangelistic churches sometimes have. They don't achieve it all the time but often enough to be known to be known to strive to accomplish it.

I don't know what to name it. "Warm" is sometimes used here in sweden.

I guess it is about feeling connected too but not the impersonal connectedness that Pantheism have and maybe some buddhists feels it too and hindus? But they usually don't strive for social connection for the group that meet once a week.

Now Christians too has Jesus or God or Father or Lord or such symbol as a mediating figure. So every member of the Church focus on the Jesus and the indirect result is that it allow them to feel love for each other cause they share their love for Jesus.

One can see Jesus as a kind of virtual Placebo Pill. The Pill has no effect in itself but the real effect is that it makes the Doctor and the Patient sharing in that both what a positive outcome and that shared social agreement works on the body and maybe set the inner natural healing going and the body heal itself.

such is going on all the time. Each second the repair try to heal genetic defects that get noticed and at night it is even more repair going on.

So the body has a certain ability to do healing. Not supernatural or woo woo or Chi or such. Biological healing.

Now what I try to say is that I don't mean to feel at one with the Universe I mean that religious too but when I use the word religious here that one do a ritual together that is religious but not about the supernatural.

I find it likely that maybe the fans of Elvis who do "pilgrim" travel to Graceland maybe are very close to what I talk about. Some of them have something close to religious relation to Elvis where they listen together and remenishing and so on. At least some sociologists see it as a New Religious Movement.

I am not that good at music to be part of such. I had that relation to Buddy Holly maybe 1962 or so.

But what I want to be part of make use of rituals and music and dances maybe and words we say together and other religious things like texts that we care about and so on. To share things that one care and value much is part of it. And to express collectively using voice recitation and music is important for it to works.

The Amida Buddhism could be a kind of "model" to learn from. But them really do believe in Amida as a real entity and what I talk about can not be supernatural like that.

But there are friends of Amida that see him as a symbol but they seems to believe in other things that for me is woo woo. Karma and such.

Is it more clear now what I mean? Maybe I should give link to a youtube with typical such religious behavior?

The problem seems to be that if I do then my fellow atheists totally misunderstand it and think I link to the content what they claim they do there.

I talk about the behavior not the intellectual claims that they have for what they do.

[wordy]

Alethias Secular Humanists somewhat meet this need through Humanist Celebrants, but it falls kinda flat in many places. Atheists don't really have all that much to unite them in the way that churches do.

Is this kinda along the lines of what you are talking about, wordy?

Yes I have asked our secular humanists here in Sweden if we could have ritual singing and dancing and reading recitation of texts and touching link holding hands or on shoulders and so on showing care and compassion collectively and what ever would work.

It is not easy to know in advance what will work for non theists. We have another setting cause there is no God there so not easy to talk to something collectively.

Maybe one could talk to the future generations or to those who are not with us anymore or to humanity at large or an idealized symbol of us humans.

[Christina]

I find it likely that maybe the fans of Elvis who do "pilgrim" travel to Graceland maybe are very close to what I talk about. Some of them have something close to religious relation to Elvis where they listen together and remenishing and so on. At least some sociologists see it as a New Religious Movement.

I think I get what you mean here so I'm going to try to draw an analogy to something in the US that is a bit like that, but with a bit more woo involved. There was a group in the U.S. that called themselves "deadheads" because they followed a band called the Grateful Dead around. They dress like crazy hippies in wild colors and floaty clothing and did a lot of psychedelic drugs together and shared those experiences. They danced wildly and ecstatically to the music, they drummed together and chanted together and see themselves as a 'tribe' that shared those ritualistic experiences. Lots of time groups lived together in communal situations. To someone that didn't have an ounce of woo in them to scrape together it appeared to be mostly a lot of drug-induced perceptions, good music and a whole lot of fun, but to them it felt like the kind of thing that it sounds like you're describing. They feel a spiritual sense of connection and shared experience with a central idea that has nothing to do with a god*, and it felt warm and like being part of a family. Do you mean something like that, but without the drugs and music and all the trappings of those things?

*Dumb "Jerry is God" bumperstickers don't count.

[wordy]

Hmm. Wordy, what I'm getting out of this is that you want to be part of a community of atheists, and you have that here.

Many people don't have many atheist friends in real life so we get that feeling from participating on secular message boards.

Additionally, you want people to discuss the particular ideas that interest you in depth. That's not something that can be guaranteed to anyone.

For example, I love to think and talk about homelessness but no one on these boards is ever interested in going into it in depth about and I can't discuss it easily on a simplified surface level.

That doesn't mean that the people on the board have difficulty reasoning but they just aren't all that interested in that subject. If I want to talk about it I go to a forum for community management and social justice issues.

They aren't all atheists but we share that interest. I think that maybe you have your desire for feeling part of a community mixed up with the desire to talk to people that are interested in the things that you are, and both mixed up with the desire to want people to agree with you.

I'm not sure that any of us are understanding what you mean by 'religious feelings'. Can you give us a few specific examples?

Yes I get what you say. Nothing works as one want. One can have great expectations that one have much to share but atheism is too diverse to allow us to have enough to share.

I am a bit interested in the Shelter that one can afford and that is allowed to dwell in and how to make them safe for burglars and Storms and Hurricanes?

Now I am safe from being homeless but when I failed to get a job from 1986 to 1996 then I was almost there. Had I not got the notion that something was very wrong with me cause I failed to get along with every Boss I met at every job so something was wrong. I did not knew about my Asperger. I only knew me had been seen as a Nerd and Loser and got Bullied from day one in School cause I behaved so differently. Extremely shy and odd. Little Professor like. So when they diagnosed Asperger then I though they had got it all wrong. But the more I learned about it the more reasonable it seemed.

So they gave me a small pension that I could live on to survive cause I failed to do work. I just sat staring in the wall or talked to everybody without working and I had no control over it either.

[wordy]

I think I get what you mean here so I'm going to try to draw an analogy to something in the US that is a bit like that, but with a bit more woo involved. There was a group in the U.S. that called themselves "deadheads" because they followed a band called the Grateful Dead around. They dress like crazy hippies in wild colors and floaty clothing and did a lot of psychedelic drugs together and shared those experiences. They danced wildly and ecstatically to the music, they drummed together and chanted together and see themselves as a 'tribe' that shared those ritualistic experiences. Lots of time groups lived together in communal situations. To someone that didn't have an ounce of woo in them to scrape together it appeared to be mostly a lot of drug-induced perceptions, good music and a whole lot of fun, but to them it felt like the kind of thing that it sounds like you're describing. They feel a spiritual sense of connection and shared experience with a central idea that has nothing to do with a god*, and it felt warm and like being part of a family. Do you mean something like that, but without the drugs and music and all the trappings of those things?

*Dumb "Jerry is God" bumperstickers don't count.


Yes maybe, but not the drugs but with music and recitation and texts and a lot of things.

I am rather puristic I don't even do alcohol cause I know how easy I fall for anything. I was extremely dependent on music for many years but fortunately I am less like that now.

Maybe I am dependent on feedback on forums?

[Christina]

Yes maybe, but not the drugs but with music and recitation and texts and a lot of things.
I think that I understand what you're envisioning, but maybe that sense of warmth and community comes from shared emotional and spiritual experiences and not from shared intellectual ideas. "Atheist" or "Secular" don't create that kind of bond between individuals or groups.

Maybe I am dependent on feedback on forums?

Then you're in good company with lots of other people : )

[wordy]

I think that I understand what you're envisioning, but maybe that sense of warmth and community comes from shared emotional and spiritual experiences and not from shared intellectual ideas.

Well yes that sounds logical and that is what I am wanting to have. Such a group where I live.


"Atheist" or "Secular" don't create that kind of bond between individuals or groups.

I kind of agree. But if there was more people like me who already feel religious without being religious then we had much in common if we referred to same kind of feelings.

So logically I only have to find the right words that make them find me or me find them by those words that would give us something that we recognize to be about us.

[Christina]

I kind of agree. But if there was more people like me who already feel religious without being religious then we had much in common if we referred to same kind of feelings.

So logically I only have to find the right words that make them find me or me find them by those words that would give us something that we recognize to be about us.

I think that we're all having a hard time understanding what you mean by "feel religious without being religious". What does "religious" feel like to you?

I think that you're right and the problem is finding the right words. I'm sure that some of us will have the patience to keep trying to understand what you mean if you keep trying to explain it.

[wordy]

The embarrassing fact is that I have tried to find the words for it since 1983.

That was when I first felt religious feelings. I had thought that I was totally immune to such feelings but 1983 I got aware of that I had had them all the time but that my body had kept them hidden to my conscious knowledge due to that was totally taboo to me to feel like my enemies.

I don't know how to describe them. It it not more dramatic than musicious feelings.

there are some people that don't feel for music at all. They change channel when there is music. They say it is noise. It annoy them so they live a life without music.

Very similar to religion in that there are people who simply don't have religious feelings and I fail to get how one can explain to them what it feels like.

[Christina]

Well, that sounds to me like you're still a theist at heart who is trying to force yourself to be an atheist because intellectually you know it can't be true. Why are they your enemies and why is it taboo to feel like them? Maybe you just haven't finished deconverting and need some help figuring out how to stop straddling the fence.

Can you try to explain it without using the word 'religious" at all?

[wordy]

I spent some time yesterday to try to answer this question but failed.

while me searching I found this guy?

http://p2pp.com.au/blog/towards-a-true-religion-based-on-science-51.html

Towards a true religion based on science

Introducing Neo-religion, Part 1

I don't trust he has succeeded but I wonder if his notion that one could use value instead of belief as the base for religion.

There is something true about that values is what religion is about.

Science is about knowledge. About evidence and more of less accurate models of reality while religion is about how to value life.

But his science of self? Has he evidence for that one?

What I found interesting is that he use the term "Neo-religion".

I coined that word combination too last night but realized that most likely it already exists.

But I hope to be first with "Reimagined Religion" or "Religion Reimagined" I am not sure what is most grammatically correct.

"Religion Reimagined" seems the most correct way to say it.

Could one not make a "Religion Reimagined" to be about faith in human values instead of about faith in beliefs about supernatural gods?

[wordy]

Well, that sounds to me like you're still a theist at heart who is trying to force yourself to be an atheist because intellectually you know it can't be true. Why are they your enemies and why is it taboo to feel like them? Maybe you just haven't finished deconverting and need some help figuring out how to stop straddling the fence.

Can you try to explain it without using the word 'religious" at all?

Still a theist?

You have to remember that I have never been a theist at all. Emotionally I have never had faith in Jesus or God. Intellectually I chose to be atheist at ten years old and have been atheist since then.

I dearly hope you will not accuse me of have being a believer before ten years old. I think children that young fail to be mature enough to decide on if gods exists.

I was not a theist 1983 either. I just felt religious.

My best explanation is that my body mirrored or mimicked and took in or imprinted my Mothers religious feelings but also my Fathers feeling of social justice which was very much like religious righteousness despite him Communist.

Why are they your enemies and why is it taboo to feel like them?

Because they exploit natural feelings and make right wing or left wing politics out of them. As I get it these feelings are byproducts of being a human being and result from evolution of big groups some 6 thousand years ago.

Enemies cause they abuse people. They lie to people. They create institutions that make that lie accepted by society. Enemy cause they support Intelligent design and are against Evolution taught in School and because they are against Abortion and Stem Cell research and so on.

I don't want to feel like such bad behaving people. It is embarrassing.


Can you try to explain it without using the word 'religious" at all? You mean describe what the word means? I have the view that I use it in the correct way. Why would it be impossible to feel it without believing in it?

I can feel scared by Ghosts without believing such exists cause the Ghost can be a real human being that pretend to be a Ghost to harass you cause they love to see people being scared.

I can feel for music that I have no faith in. They make a lot of claims about that music to be in certain ways and I feel with the flow of the music but have not intellectual faith in that the claim is true.

Feelings is one thing and beliefs about what they refer to or the source of them can be something else.