I did not hate this post, but I also spent much of my time thinking it felt like one of the many threads all over the internet discussing would Boromir from LOTR do this particular thing or how come Saruman didn’t do this other particular thing.
It just seems, like most theology, a lot of discussion based upon the rules and structures of something that might as well be LOTR. That is not to say I’m just right out asserting some strict atheist position and “lol religion and spirituality”. However, this all mostly seems to hang on an a set of conceptions about the world that doesn’t obviously seem to exist...at least particularly to the most of the audience this essay is going to reach.
Of course, this stems from my point of view that questions the very existence of spirituality as something to be pondered over as anything more than memetic hazards traveling through time and quirks of brain construction.
Nietzsche said that after Man killed God*, the angels in their grief carried on trying to worship God—they didn’t know what else to do. That’s how non-religious Western spirituality seems to me. On the one hand, many people** find the idea of a personal God to be incompatible with science—it is impossible to reconcile the Beatitudes with the Red Queen’s Race. The trouble is that ideas like “all men are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights” and “the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice” are load-bearing parts of our culture but these ideas are based on theology and make no sense at all once that foundation has crumbled.
Fortunately, we have one saving grace***. Most people are not greatly bothered by these contradictions. Human thoughtlessness FTW.
I did not hate this post, but I also spent much of my time thinking it felt like one of the many threads all over the internet discussing would Boromir from LOTR do this particular thing or how come Saruman didn’t do this other particular thing.
It just seems, like most theology, a lot of discussion based upon the rules and structures of something that might as well be LOTR. That is not to say I’m just right out asserting some strict atheist position and “lol religion and spirituality”. However, this all mostly seems to hang on an a set of conceptions about the world that doesn’t obviously seem to exist...at least particularly to the most of the audience this essay is going to reach.
Of course, this stems from my point of view that questions the very existence of spirituality as something to be pondered over as anything more than memetic hazards traveling through time and quirks of brain construction.
Nietzsche said that after Man killed God*, the angels in their grief carried on trying to worship God—they didn’t know what else to do. That’s how non-religious Western spirituality seems to me. On the one hand, many people** find the idea of a personal God to be incompatible with science—it is impossible to reconcile the Beatitudes with the Red Queen’s Race. The trouble is that ideas like “all men are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights” and “the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice” are load-bearing parts of our culture but these ideas are based on theology and make no sense at all once that foundation has crumbled.
Fortunately, we have one saving grace***. Most people are not greatly bothered by these contradictions. Human thoughtlessness FTW.
*by rendering God implausible
** including me
*** so to speak