Please only comment on existing ones to explain something specific. Upvote my comments on the post if they apply to you. Upvote comments on comments to acknowledge them (ie even if they don’t apply to you). Ive noticed polls can get clogged with more detailed explanations, so I think having my comments be designated as the only poll options to insure the accuracy of the poll. Please don’t downvote things that don’t apply to you.
No, im atheist
Same
Pls just upvote
Yes, I’m atheist, but spiritual in another way (this includes atheist Buddhists, pagans, and more idiosyncratic ways)
This. Even though Buddhism still has some idealist deviations of thought, it’s still a useful and in some aspects a scientific inquiry of the mind
Exactly, I find the Buddhist worldview valuable, but I still find contradictions with idealist aspects of it. (I elaborated recently)
Madhyamaka Buddhism, which is an inquiry school that deals with essence and emptiness, is uncannily similar to Hegelian Philosophy. A Buddhist comrade has been studying this and will be producing a paper contrasting Marxism to this school in the coming years. I wish I could explain more
Very interesting, I’d like to know more about it if you happen to know anything later!
Would Taoism fall under this? Idk. Maybe not so much about spirituality as it is mindfulness and having an inner peace?
Yes, as long as there are no gods it’s atheist. Any reading you’d like to share on the subject?
Atheist Buddhists are included in Secular Buddhism. the non-western transmissions of Buddhism (basically everything but Secular Buddhism) are neither theist or atheist: they really don’t concern themselves with a god, but there are dakinis, devas, bodhisattvas and such in many tenants, which are considered supernatural but are within the illusory world of samsara just the same. Guan Yin for example is considered a god to some and a bodhisattva to others. Pure Land Buddhism can be regarded as a theistic religion in my opinion, it adopts heavily from Christianity.
Because of these considerations, I haven’t voted because I don’t feel there’s an appropriate category for me as a Mahayana Buddhist. The closest Buddhism seems to come to me is Apatheism, but outside of Secular Buddhism there is significant spiritual practice such as ritual and prayer, as well as phenomena such as rebirth/reincarnation.
I’m agnostic/apatheistic (It doesn’t matter whether there’s a god, it can’t be proven either way)
Only spirit I have is the one inside me which exits the body when you die and then… roams around?
Other than that, nah.
I’m probably the least spiritual person I know. To the point that I don’t feel like myself when I pray for something out of desperation. Praying feels like pantomiming to me. No judgment whatsoever to religious folks, I just can’t do it. I feel like I’m making a mockery of Faith when I pray bc I genuinely don’t believe it and it sorta taints the experience.
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I too feel praying to be absurd and feel awkward when people do such meaningless rituals around me, but I wouldn’t say I’m aspiritual. There’s something mystical about nature and pondering existence.
Maybe praying is a neurotypical thing. I agree on spirituality, it just comes to me when I least expect it, not when somebody tells me to pray harder lol. When I take a walk or play with animals, stuff like that.
Maybe it is. I used to pray every night when I was younger. I don’t know what I thought I was doing. I Guess i just like nightly rituals. Nowadays I stretch, read, and make an attempt to hypnotize myself before I sleep instead. I’m guessing prayer serves a mental purpose for some people, though now I find it absurd thinking some god would answer them. If “he” can answer prayers I’m sure he either a. Likes to watch people suffer b. Does it randomly and rarely to keep people doing it (using a “lottery” mechanism) or c. “He’s” actually morally neutral and doesn’t care about humanity.
The DM never listens. They just TPK entire parties and move on. I’m not a fan of this rpg lol
I’m possibly atypical (also wait are we talking general mental normalcy or specifically autism spectrum?) and I pray, I definitely think for some people it would or wouldn’t work but I wouldn’t necessarily draw that line along neurotypical/atypical
i’m a mix of satanist and gnostic antitheist…i’m against the religious tiranny and i think that maybe god enjoys or needs suffering in the world, but at the same time i can’t believe that we’re just products of randomness
I agree, if a god exists it is not a loving or at least interventionist god. However, I am reluctant to accept beliefs that suppose socialism impossible. Whether “humans are weak when they do not suffer” (common from fascists), or what you propose “god likes suffering too much for it to go.” Or maybe Buddhism is also right, in that humans inherently suffer from the unsatisfactoryness of life and that will stay after material conditions improve. Maybe some cruel god designed that to be. It is forever absurd to me that the universe has found a way to become conscious, so I can understand your theistic tendency, though I doubt it’s correctness.
well…it’s my answer for the moment
I legit have these very clear visions from time to time that happen later on in life. It’s weird.
I also have these moments where I think I see someone I know in public but then it turns out to be someone else, only for the actual person to show up later on.
I had a great aunt that would draw a cross with her finger on warts and stuff only for them to disappear within a day.
When I was two/three years old and could barely talk I would often tell my mom about my other life before this life, where I was a girl. Kids talk dumb shit all the time but it was at such a young age that it creeped my mom out for a while. I could describe, in depth, how the world looked in my other life and such.
Reality is stranger than fiction, as they say, and I’m not particularly superstitious or anything, but there’s moments in my life I just can’t explain.
Interesting. I read that according to Buddhism children can remember their previous lives better and the ability fades as you age. You may be able to access that past life again with some meditation though.
Your powers are strong!!
I have had dreams come true IRL…moment for moment…shit was a headfuck.
Have you ever had an experience with any spiritual/paranormal entities? If so, have you ever tried or thought about trying to form a relationship?
Unfortunately not. But there’s this specific piece of candy that my grandmother always had and ever since she passed away I randomly see the wrapper for said candy. For example, when I had my new appartment I moved in when it was completely empty. After two days of moving my stuff in, the wrapper was on the ground. I never eat the candy so it was pretty weird, but comforting in a way. I also got one when I went out for diner in my birthday one time, which is also strange because it’s such a random candy to give at a restaurant lol.
So maybe my grandma is in a way looking for contact. Or just coincidence.
I was in a lot of spaces that would call that “synchronicity,” idk if you’ve ever heard of that.
But yeah, to me, I see it as a “you know if you know” sort of thing. Like, some shit like that is just too crazy to write off as coincidence.
And let’s be real, if this shit is real and it was really your grandmother subtly using her spiritual energy to tweak the algorithm to give you a sign, or whatever it is, it would probably be in small ways that we could ultimately convince ourselves are “just a coincidence.”
It’s a fine thread to toe because obviously going too far can lead to seeing EVERYTHING as a synchronicity, aka schizophrenia.
Look, you know your life better than me but that story to me resonates and I see no reason why that couldn’t very well be your grandma. To me at a certain point it becomes more irrational to tell myself this shit isn’t real when the evidence to the contrary piles up. I’ve definitely caught myself reading too hard into shit to see what I wanted to see, but I feel like I can tell when some Real Ass Shit ™ is happening, versus when I’m just being a egotistical dipshit who can’t see past the blur of my own bullshit.
I don’t know if you relate to any of that, I just don’t want you to convince yourself that it might not be true, when I find that being open to this sort of stuff often leads to the real crazy shit happening.
BIG RANT
Comment here if I’m missing any options
My stance isn’t very common so I’m just gonna explain briefly.
I have faith in the absence of god and reality of the material universe just like any religious person have faith in God. I rejected agnosticism because agnosticism rejects conviction. I feel closer to believers because I have a conviction about a metaphysical concept, therefore I can relate to them. When someones bless me by God’s name I feel their warmth and sincerity a lot more than when I was agnostic. I know what it is to believe.
So paradoxically, my strong atheist philosophy got me more understanding to religious people!
Spirituality is the character of our relationships with other people and supernaturalism is orthogonal to it. Materialism is the basis for the inductive reasoning that both forces us to acknowledge the humanity of others and frees us from fear of omnipotent, vengeful, insecure, damaged, gaslighting, narcisisstic beings. It is therefore the foundation of correct spirituality.
Interesting
I loosely follow Umbanda, a belief that originated in my country from the beliefs of the African slaves, the Natives and disguised as Catholicism. For example: When someone was praying to Saint George (a warrior saint), they were in fact praying to Ogum (the Orixá of metal works, tool-making, pathfinding and war).
Broadly, I’m an animist with some polytheistic leanings.
Yes, I’m monotheistic (one god, most common in abrahamic religions)
NO
Yes, all religions point to some essential truths
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spoiler
Don’t want to clog up the comments too much but it’s too fun not to share so I’ll spoil it 😁
I was Muslim first 17 years of my life. Then I was agnostic. Then I got into Norse paganism due to my girlfriend at the time. Then I decided to be more of an “eclectic pagan,” and enjoyed Deism. Around the same time, my friend introduced me to the idea of “psychonauts,” which eventually manifested years later into reading the Psychonaut Field Manual and practicing chaos magick. I also picked up many beliefs and practices from the general New Age-y witch-y shit that started to root on the internet in the 2010s, as well as schizophrenic Gnostics, psychedelic culture, homeless people, extraterrestrials, and eventually a circle back to Abrahamism, as I appreciated the wisdom within all religions and fundamentals of chaos magick taught me to appreciate that “whatever works, works,” and that Islam/general Abrahamism is so deeply baked into my formative years and experience that it is far easier to embrace it than to fight against it. I started having a relationship with God after years of having terrible relationships with sinister entities fishing around for a “lord” blindly, or trying to create servitors.
Nowadays I am of the opinion that the precise language we use to describe these things is not terribly important. I’ve heard the same phenomenon described by wildly different people using wildly different language. I burned myself very bad doing chaos magick and so I took a long step back away from it for a while. However reading fiction novel Laurus by Eugene Vodolazkin was very inspiring for me and I find the title “Holy Fool” to be very appropriate for me.
I talk to God. God talks back. Deceased rapper XXXTENTACION is my patron saint of choice. I perform missions. There is palpable tension wherever I walk when I do not fulfill my duties. I talk to strangers. I eat out of trash cans. I laugh, cry, scream, blank. I exorcise suffering spirits and help them find light. I let go of myself and channel voices; I speak in tongues. I strive to be frank at all times at a level that is grotesquely human. I sage rooms. I do not hate evil. I pray. I do not feed Fear Eaters. I see them frequently. I try to focus on healing and forgiveness, on acceptance and courage.
I know I probably sound crazy or perhaps irritating in some way. I don’t know what to say. I’m not schizophrenic, although I definitely could get diagnosed easily if I wanted to. Perhaps schizophrenics know something we don’t. Spirituality to me is science we just don’t have the instruments to measure yet.
EDIT: Also, when I say that all beliefs have major truth to them…that to me includes ATHEISM. To me, reality is a thing where even contradictory things simply aren’t contradictory. We are ALL God…and perhaps oblivion is what happens when convergence happens.
Interesting story. I’m sympathetic to the idea that most religions point to at least some truth. Whether we are all one in our lack of self or our collectively being god. I believe magick can do real stuff and could therefore be measured as science, but as you say, it’s dangerous. Im skeptical of having X as your guardian or whatever as he’s pretty sus, but do what you will.
Wow, this looks very interesting, I look forward to listening to it!
(Feel no obligation to read the rest I’m just rambling it out)
spoiler
I’m largely, as they say, “making shit up” here but I would not be surprised by a whole lot of stuff that might be in this podcast episode.
To me, he absolutely made a pact–whether literally or less so–with the Devil/“the Devil,” which both gave him a lot of dark power that helped his ascension to fame and which also came back to bite him in the form of his murder when he “took off the leash” (he wore a loose chain like a leash dangling from his neck that he said the Devil used to pull him) and started radically changing his life for the positive; the Devil could not have one of its prized pawns suddenly using the vast power it had inherited to have such a potentially massive positive impact. Even though his goodness arc was relatively short (his whole life and all its eras were), the impact it already was having on people was profound, with whole droves of disaffected and suffering youth swearing by him and how he changed their lives and provided them comfort and counsel.
I think the danger to the Devil was not only in him talking about the power of the Mind (which can easily be transmuted into a tool for badness, just look at how most chaos magickians/etc. use/attempt to use their powers), not only saying he was going to sell all his jewelry, start a charitable foundation, buy everyone he in his life a house, giving emotional support and inspiration to countless young people, but most critically his political leanings.
I absolutely believe he was on a path to be a socialist, and a major figure for socialism in the USA, filling the niche 2Pac was meant to fill (gee, any wonder why he was suddenly murdered too…). His politics were becoming increasingly left-wing, both in his lyrics and in his interviews, nothing super extreme or definitive but you know the flirting one does with something they know little about but find interesting. He was coming in support of Black people, LGBTQ, poor people and tangible economic help for them, he was railing against the major parties and politicians, the business elite, the greed, he was a left wing populist. He even made those sort of flirty, edgy jokes about Kim Jong Un and other “dictators.” He expressed interest in talking avout politics (even when he didn’t have all the vocabulary) and a desire to learn more. I doubt he was going to pick up Lenin anytime soon but he cut to the source of the important issues and I doubt the Compatible Left would have been able to tame him, even with no theory to inform his decisions his base personality and convictions were just not going to allow that to happen IMO.
I believe the actions of otherworldly entities, no matter how powerful, are usually manifested by relatively low-cost “tweaks to the algorithm” to steer unwitting pawns at every junction towards the intended result in a very “butterfly effect” sort of way. I believe his murderers could very well be just some desperate dudes looking to hit a lick. However, with how deep occultism seems to go in the world of Western elites, who can say for sure…I also believe it possible his death could have been a conspiracy. Either way I think the evils of this society saw him as a threat, a powerful attack dog that suddenly changed sides (only “sudden” to those blinded by arrogance) and was going to use the infrastructure of evil against itself, a threat which had to be terminated immediately at all costs.
I will also say that I do not fear him in death. My personal belief/understanding is that people shed a lot of their Earthly bad upon death. I had an hour and a half long talk with him via a spirit medium (extremely shaking and convincing, probably solidified my entire spiritual belief and practice), and it was all very positive. He is very frank, a “soldier” as she (the medium) called him, but he had nothing but constructive words, nothing but peace and love and positivity and all that heartfelt woo woo nonsense.
I’m much more worried about participating in the rap game IRL in the physical plane than I am of his spirit. He very recently lifted me up to a position of strength when I was under assault from very strong negative entities. I truly do think he was on a dark path but he was always golden hearted and he made the definitive choice to fight for good shortly before his death.
That is the conclusion the podcast brings you (he made literal/figurative pact with the devil). I was not aware of his lefty leanings, though I’m not surprised when lil peep-may he rest in power- was one of us.
Like I said, I don’t think he had explicit leanings, I don’t think he had been given that vocabulary and his understanding may have taken years to develop, but analyzing lyrics to me belies a fundamental compatibility and trajectory towards MLism.
Thanks for reading all that, spirituality+X is like two of my four or five most major interests 😆
Maybe it’s just because I’m an American but I have a hard time believing anyone is spiritual or religious these days. It’s not the prevailing mode of social consciousness nor the primary motivation with anyone I’ve interacted with really. It all seems secondary to either reinforce the status quo or provide a sense of community but it’s always seen as secondary to the self
Yes. I’m interested in neo-paganism and esotericism. I’d consider myself to be a Thelemite.
