...random thoughts while digesting.
Some random thoughts I churned out while waiting for my lunch to go down so I could go to the gym.:D Note, extremely stream of consciousness here.:D
Atheist. Am I an atheist? Do I believe that 'God' exists? ...What is God and how does he/it exist? How can I prove it exists?ö Queer. However, I can't discount the fact of virtually all peoples throughout history believing in...something. Let's not use God, it's too contextually loaded already. Let's say that Divine Reality. Or that Ineffable Reality. Is it a reality? Is existing in people's inds and beliefs enough to make it a reality? Is it like love, hope, justice, abstract things swirling and eddying in people's minds that become 'real' as they are given names, as they are given form by these labels? Is that the existence of God (or Divine Reality, Ineffable Presence, Wonder, Transcendence, etc.)? Is talking of the existence of 'God' outside and independent [sic] (yes, we must always correct grammar.:p this is verbatim.:p) of human beings just silly?ö God is, after all, a human name. A name we humans through countless ages gave to that...wondrous, ineffable, transcendent, immanent reality.
Or is it that we only ascribe to this 'reality' things we do not yet understand, or have not yet conquered with our vast scientific accoutrements and rationality? Sure, not we know why volcanoes erupt, really. But who cannot agree to the feeling of wonder we experience, at one point or another? (comment: or am I a deist then?ö) That barest glimpse of eternal realities, out into infinity and within? Of course it is horribly simplistic to take one look at that 'reality' and say, Ah, how great God's creation is. Really, that kind of God has a loaded definition already. (comment: God as creator? God, do I ramble on.XP)
Where was I? Ah. Albert (comment: This would be the Albert whose YouTube videos give a nicely refreshing atheist POV. I'll put the link when I feel like it.XP) does not believe that supernatural beings like God don't exist. Therefore, atheist. Could 'God,' (again, strip it away of its loaded meanings)--as the name humans ascribe to that other reality--exist outside humans' minds, that is, if it is humans who gave the name--and meaning--to it in the first place? (Think Terry Pratchett's gods, who are given existence through people's beliefs. They exist, don't they, but not as 'objectively' as hardcore people would want...(comment: ...or something.:D you get what I mean, it's 00.30 and I'm too laggy to muddle through my thoughts.:p))
I'm certainly not 'simply' a rationalist. I believe humans are rational, but are above reason. So many of the greatest things we do, of the greatest things we become, stem from some driving force that is far more compelling than, and truly over [and] beyond, reason. Where is it that we draw meaning from? Where do we draw answers for our 'why' questions? Reason is not the sole criterion of truth. Reason can't take you to higher planes of being the way music, art, dance, meditation, being 'in the zone' can. (comment: WELL. I know men of science have reportedly been taken to states of rapture through sheer...science.X> and the use of the faculty of reason.:D oh well.:D) Religion (or spirituality, however you want to call it) is, I believe, integral to people and has always been so. (Again, drop the loaded meanings of religion--Christianity, Church, praying to a god, etc.) here and stick with the generics: spirituality, that which binds together one's life, to 'read' one's life, and so forth. (comment: That which gives meaning, I suppose.))
...Aaaaaand that's it.:D And then it was time for me to go lift some weights in a vain effort to put some meat into the dry little sticks I laughingly call my appendages.XP
theHERETICisIN.
o come, all ye faithful.