Religion, Spirituality or Science

[barefootgoddess]

I start this thread to get an idea on people thought son those three things.

I have never been into religion organized or otherwise for a few reasons.
I was raised by my mum who said she was raised Pentecostal-which I have no working idea of because when she mentioned that in a conversation we were having once at that point she didn't go to church or read any bible. She liked to hang out in cemeteries and living in haunted houses believed in spirits, even going so far when I was a teen to have a team sent out by the Warrens to see about incorporeal that were tormenting my younger brothers. And then she wants to start saying prayers to chase spirits away and for protection.

My father on the other hand I spent weekends with and he was a preacher in his church. Believed in god and all that went with it and took me to church with him on the weekends. Where I would have to wear the patent shoes I couldn't scuff without getting fussed at and a dress. (let me tell you I refused to wear a dress unless forced to for a long time in my teen years because of that) But overall going to church with him didn't seem as bothersome as when I would go with an Aunt to her Baptist church were the kids were sent downstairs and separated from the adults for like the first half of whatever sermon they had and then we kids were allowed to go up for the last 30-45 min.

Then there was another Aunt who did drugs, abused her kids in ways I won't get into. Even going so far as to beat someone she was seeing who was so sick when Aids fist came out because he didn't clean up something. Who claimed an about face reversal because she became a Jehovah Witness.

Now in my teen years I went for about 2-3 months to Jehovah Witness meetings with a girl from school. I was 13/14 at the time and I couldn't take it seriously in the least even though I tried to keep an open mind. But any belief system that tells you dinosaurs are not real and the world was only a few thousand years old when I had at the same time learning about dinosaurs a the planet evolution in school how can you take it seriously and realistically?

At the same time going through that teen I'm different phase which in my case was a desire to be away from people in space or on another planet to get away from them as you body changes ect. The only thing that made sense to what I was experiencing was in mythology. By the time I was 15/16 I had read so much history on mythology but rationally couldn't equate mythology to everyday life and yet felt more comfortable identifying myself as a pagan. Now at this time the hype for those were two categories goth or new age. And I didn't agree fit with either of those. I would read and watch shows where they would tell you and mind you this was 1989/1990 and before, that the subculture of witchcraft was harmful to youth mentality, leading them to be goth or new age. Now I have my own prejudiced against new agers at times that I won't get into here.

So personally while I was looking for my spirituality at a young age the only thing that I could relate to was considered essentially fake and unsubstantiated by science if not slandered with misconception and superstition of generations.

I believe in science and the things that have evolved from it but at the same time I resent the superstation and conditioning that people take for granted when they forget that the science you use today is based initially on what some would consider magic. The study of herbs and plants used for home remedies discounted today are the base of your chemistry creating the pills and antibiotics you take. That ancestors study of the stars over generations creating calendars and star maps of our system with their naked eyes verified by astrologers with their tech. Just two examples.

So are you personally religious or spiritual not the same thing and how do you relate that to science. I am aware that there are those who don't believe in deities or religion and feel that science is the end all be all. If it's not validated as true through scientific experimentation and documentation it's not real somehow. Yet how can concepts passed down through generations and repeated enough to be reoccurring because science hasn't found a way to validate it. But the very fact that it's a concept which is carried through generations well doesn't give it credence should make one wonder at the origin.

 

[mutile]

Spirituality is ill defined and usually meaningless nonsense, religion is a waste of time and money and science is the only reliable method for finding out truth about the world we live in.

Ideas aren't special because they are old or because they endure.

 

[Pixel42]

I believe in science and the things that have evolved from it but at the same time I resent the superstation and conditioning that people take for granted when they forget that the science you use today is based initially on what some would consider magic. The study of herbs and plants used for home remedies discounted today are the base of your chemistry creating the pills and antibiotics you take. That ancestors study of the stars over generations creating calendars and star maps of our system with their naked eyes verified by astrologers with their tech. Just two examples.

I don't think you'll find many people here who fit this description. Most sceptics are well aware that there are effective herbal remedies; what the invention of the scientific method did was provide us with a reliable way of finding out which ones worked and which didn't. Likewise the information gathered by astrologers and alchemists is generally accepted as having been useful and the methods for collecting it the origin of the scientific method, even if the original motivations and interpretations were fanciful and have since been disproved.

 

[dlorde]

... That ancestors study of the stars over generations creating calendars and star maps of our system with their naked eyes verified by astrologers astronomers with their tech.

Fixed that for you. Astrology ≠ astronomy.

So are you personally religious or spiritual not the same thing and how do you relate that to science.

I'm not religious, though (because?) I was brought up Roman Catholic.

I have moments of awe and wonder at life, the universe, and everything, which some people might label 'spiritual'. Many here think that's an abuse of the word. As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing mystical, paranormal or supernatural about my experiences; if you want to call them spiritual, understand that it's just a label for a particular sort of pleasurable emotional response. It relates to science in as much as science is a source of these moments of awe and wonder.

Yet how can concepts passed down through generations and repeated enough to be reoccurring because science hasn't found a way to validate it. But the very fact that it's a concept which is carried through generations well doesn't give it credence should make one wonder at the origin.

Appeal to antiquity doesn't go well around here. We have evolved tendencies towards magical thinking, superstition, attribution of agency, etc. That's why ideas based on these tendencies are so persistent. The success of critical thinking and the scientific method is partly because they give us rules and techniques for avoiding or minimizing the errors and biases introduced by these innate tendencies; they encourage a more productive blend of Type 2 (deliberative) and Type 1 (intuitive) thinking.

 

[Bikewer]

"Spirituality" is one of those words... Ask 100 people for a definition and you'd get a 100 answers.
Everything from explicit belief in a particular supernatural mythology to "being nice to people"....
So fuzzy as to be essentially meaningless.

I've stated my own tongue-in-cheek definition before:

"How people think about and react to things that they only imagine to exist."

 

[Slimething]

The definition of "spirituality" is flexible. Religion is the gathering of people with similar spirituality and, unfortunately, prone to abuse from cynical or misinformed leaders. It's also expensive and, in my view, illogical. (Who needs others if the god is personal?)

I believe in science and the things that have evolved from it but at the same time I resent the superstation and conditioning that people take for granted when they forget that the science you use today is based initially on what some would consider magic. The study of herbs and plants used for home remedies discounted today are the base of your chemistry creating the pills and antibiotics you take. That ancestors study of the stars over generations creating calendars and star maps of our system with their naked eyes verified by astrologers with their tech. Just two examples.

It's a poor scientist who does not know and appreciate the beginings of their discipline. You are correct that modern pharmacology owes a lot to time-tested herbal cures and that astronomy got its leg-up from astrologers. Moreover, chemistry owes much of its existence to alchemy and all of science owes its operating method (our venerable Scientific Method) to philosophers. (Science was once called Natural Philosophy.)

 

[sowhat]

I congratulate you. Given the up-bringing you describe, I am amazed that you are still capable of rational thought.
The problem is the human brain. It is influenced early, and once a pattern of thought gets established, its very difficult to change.
The fact that these absurd ideas have been handed down for so many years means nothing.
Parents and priests merely keep perpetuating the same old things that they have learned from their parents and priests. Its a vicious cycle, thankfully beginning to crumble a bit around the edges under the weight of ever accelerating scientific knowledge.
I would hope for your own happiness that you would be able to rid yourself of all of these imaginary ideas. It just makes life so much more enjoyable.

 

[barefootgoddess]

Spirituality is ill defined and usually meaningless nonsense, religion is a waste of time and money and science is the only reliable method for finding out truth about the world we live in.

Ideas aren't special because they are old or because they endure.

Money and science are the only reliable method for finding out truth about the world we live in.
I agree science is a stepping stone to comprehension but when you close out everything else because science doesn't validate it you loose something. The fact that you link money and science shows that the priority of the culture and unknowing religion is money and science. Which is why people are so spiritually empty and look towards religion or communistic consumerism to fill that gap of inner self. Religion is a flaw of practice rather than waste. Because if you need a religion to tell you that you shouldn't do things such as steal or kill well the problem isn't religion as much as a lack of common sense on the part of those following.

Really ideas are not special because they are old and endure. Well you let me know how well that square tire works rather than a round one the next time you get a flat. I consider that a special and enduring idea that people have expanded on for centuries in the uses they made from it. I'm sorry has science improved on the circle idea not that I'm aware of they can streamline something aerodynamically to make that race car have less wind resistance but the base concept of that circle has remained all but unchanged.

 

[barefootgoddess]

I don't think you'll find many people here who fit this description. Most sceptics are well aware that there are effective herbal remedies; what the invention of the scientific method did was provide us with a reliable way of finding out which ones worked and which didn't. Likewise the information gathered by astrologers and alchemists is generally accepted as having been useful and the methods for collecting it the origin of the scientific method, even if the original motivations and interpretations were fanciful and have since been disproved.

I agree such as turning base metal to gold. Never accomplished yet a base for a field of scientific study still utilized today.

 

[barefootgoddess]

Fixed that for you. Astrology ≠ astronomy.


I'm not religious, though (because?) I was brought up Roman Catholic.

I have moments of awe and wonder at life, the universe, and everything, which some people might label 'spiritual'. Many here think that's an abuse of the word. As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing mystical, paranormal or supernatural about my experiences; if you want to call them spiritual, understand that it's just a label for a particular sort of pleasurable emotional response. It relates to science in as much as science is a source of these moments of awe and wonder.



Appeal to antiquity doesn't go well around here. We have evolved tendencies towards magical thinking, superstition, attribution of agency, etc. That's why ideas based on these tendencies are so persistent. The success of critical thinking and the scientific method is partly because they give us rules and techniques for avoiding or minimizing the errors and biases introduced by these innate tendencies; they encourage a more productive blend of Type 2 (deliberative) and Type 1 (intuitive) thinking.

Thanks for the correction sometimes I admit I get my words and concepts crossed.

I am aware that I am prone to appeal to antiquity as examples yet that is because I am personally looking for a correlation between the concept and science. Without what I am coming to see as disparaged by some as woo on the site the science they tote wouldn't be. So because no one has found that connection or anyone with enough woo to back their claims it is considered a touchy subject to say the least. I have just come to see in the last few years that people use the scientific method as a club when it come to the denial of it at all.

I personally am not one who would say that it is misuse or abuse of the word. I asked religion, spirituality or science because the individual concept is different then the group perceived definition at times and yet at others the same. Like all the people cultures in the world that evolved separate from each other and yet the sky remains a constant blue no matter the language or culture when you ask. Was there a group get together and everyone was like ok instead of just calling it sky we're gunna say it's blue. Which is part of my appeal toward the antiquity at times= constant concepts abused by frauds in the relation to woo topics but there are also other factors besides the lack of science that disproves more than proves things. Perception is a big one in my opinion even when using a scientific method.

 

[barefootgoddess]

I congratulate you. Given the up-bringing you describe, I am amazed that you are still capable of rational thought.
The problem is the human brain. It is influenced early, and once a pattern of thought gets established, its very difficult to change.
The fact that these absurd ideas have been handed down for so many years means nothing.
Parents and priests merely keep perpetuating the same old things that they have learned from their parents and priests. Its a vicious cycle, thankfully beginning to crumble a bit around the edges under the weight of ever accelerating scientific knowledge.
I would hope for your own happiness that you would be able to rid yourself of all of these imaginary ideas. It just makes life so much more enjoyable.

What imaginary ideas do you mean exactly? Your right the problem is the human brain and I have always said that perception is one of the bigger problems with people when it comes to some subjects. Ego is a close second.

What do I feel about religion personally I feel it is destructive and stagnant in our culture, when someone is more concerned with telling you your wrong and pointing out ideas from the bible to justify things I would hope people would know was wrong and yet that they need a commandment to tell them what's what. It's more like you have a lack of common sense and gullibility and desire to be told what to do so here you go.

Do you know what makes life enjoyable because that's another thing that is subjected to the individual and yet we are told what to think it is anyway. Which is why so many people have body issues, eating disorders and general all around unhappy with their life and the world around them.

Personally what's always made my life happy is simple things. Music, writing, creating be it a wood carving/painting. Being alone and having privacy away from people is a happy thing if this was 150 years ago I'd likely be living on a mountain in a cave or a shack away from civilization lol-doing my own thing. I walk barefoot everywhere to keep myself grounded and there has to be snow on the ground before I wear something other than a flip flop. Swimming and being in the woods all which makes me sound horribly hippy even when I'm not sounding woo-ish. But the perspective of my own personal perception tends to be woo-ish and I can't help that so what I do is look for or toward science that doesn't have the answers, not because as suggested I cling to something out of blind faith but because even without science there are some things that are to coincidental to just be a mere happening of coincidence.
To sound woo perception of the pattern. Our biggest pattern is life and death two constant factors that do not change. The larger patterns in between those get lost in the perception of here and now. Tied to a moment we see with the blinders our society/culture places and it is the skeptics and the dreamers who alternately tell those moments for future generations.

 

[barefootgoddess]

Oh and I think: organized religion stunts you by conditioning you to believe in something other than yourself to accomplish things.
Spirituality allows you to explore the inner workings of yourself to evolve a high understanding of yourself, others, and our world.
Science allows you to break from the conditioning of religion in seeking how things are and do what they do, allowing an understanding of how things work in our world in trying to comprehend and recreate.

 

[dann]

Money and science are the only reliable method for finding out truth about the world we live in.

Sometimes money and science are a a very reliable method for producing and spreading lies about the world we live in. The purpose of science is to find out the truth. The purpose of money is accumulation of money, and very often lies serve that purpose much better than truth does.

 

[slyjoe]

Money and science are the only reliable method for finding out truth about the world we live in. I agree science is a stepping stone to comprehension but when you close out everything else because science doesn't validate it you loose something. The fact that you link money and science ...snip

That wasn't what the original quote said and your changing of the quote has changed the meaning. Why did you do that?

 

[meg]

I guess you can count me as one of those who don't believe in deities or religion and feel that science is the end all be all. And I don't think you lose anything of value at all by discounting everything that can't be measured or studied or validated by the scientific method.

I was raised with religion, and I jumped head first into spiritual woo and happily swam there for decades, certain that if I just looked hard enough, read enough, studied enough, that I could find the Truth with a capital T that I was sure lay beneath all religions and beliefs. The only Truth I found was that people use beliefs as a tool to exploit believers and gain wealth, fame or power.

I do not forget that the study of herbs and plants has led to some discoveries in modern medicine. I also do not forget, though, other medical "concepts passed down through generations and repeated enough to be reoccurring" included such horrible ideas as bleeding ill patients, wrapping open sores in unwashed sheeps wool, cauterizing hemerroids with hot irons, or soaking one's stockings in urine and wrapping them around your neck to cure a sore throat. I harbor no notions that any ancient wisdom is any wiser than modern wisdom.

I, too spend a great deal of time alone and out in the country (I live out in the country), and I also spend a great deal of time in flip flops. These things also make me happy. I don't see what any of that has to do with woo or spiritualism, though. Exactly what is your perspective of your perception?

Do you believe in spirits?

 

[tsig]

I guess you can count me as one of those who don't believe in deities or religion and feel that science is the end all be all. And I don't think you lose anything of value at all by discounting everything that can't be measured or studied or validated by the scientific method.

I was raised with religion, and I jumped head first into spiritual woo and happily swam there for decades, certain that if I just looked hard enough, read enough, studied enough, that I could find the Truth with a capital T that I was sure lay beneath all religions and beliefs. The only Truth I found was that people use beliefs as a tool to exploit believers and gain wealth, fame or power.

I do not forget that the study of herbs and plants has led to some discoveries in modern medicine. I also do not forget, though, other medical "concepts passed down through generations and repeated enough to be reoccurring" included such horrible ideas as bleeding ill patients, wrapping open sores in unwashed sheeps wool, cauterizing hemerroids with hot irons, or soaking one's stockings in urine and wrapping them around your neck to cure a sore throat. I harbor no notions that any ancient wisdom is any wiser than modern wisdom.

I, too spend a great deal of time alone and out in the country (I live out in the country), and I also spend a great deal of time in flip flops. These things also make me happy. I don't see what any of that has to do with woo or spiritualism, though. Exactly what is your perspective of your perception?

Do you believe in spirits?

I do and I have the proof right here in my hand, in fact, it says on the bottle I have 100 of them.

 

[sowhat]

Godess, I guess my "imaginary ideas" comment was based on the perception I got from the over all tone of your OP. I have re-read that, and your later response to me.
After reading them, it seems to be that you are someone who really has a good handle on life. I really like the life style you describe, except for the flip flops. Lol.
You describe yourself as "wooish", but you seem to wear your wooishness lightly.
I used to amuse myself by pretending some of the ancient Gods existed. Wind on my face, thunder, etc. I see no harm in that. So long as people don't spend their lives worrying about possible punishment from some mythical being, why not?

I was raised in a religious household, but we didn't really attend church regularly until I was about the age of fourteen. Then I became quite involved in the Congregational church. Sang in the Choir, eventually became a Senior Deacon. Worshipped with my wife and kids there for a number of years, until we moved to the suburbs. Then we just sort of fell away.
I gave religion a really good shot, but for some reason it never took. I guess, like youself, the scientific evidence was just against it all. I too, can remember in confirmation class asking about the dinosaurs, and just being waived off without an answer. I am now a complete non-believer.
Its interesting how so many accept the whole "God is watching over me" thing, and some of us, even when immersed for years under the influence, do not.

 

[sowhat]

Oh and I think: organized religion stunts you by conditioning you to believe in something other than yourself to accomplish things.
Spirituality allows you to explore the inner workings of yourself to evolve a high understanding of yourself, others, and our world.
Science allows you to break from the conditioning of religion in seeking how things are and do what they do, allowing an understanding of how things work in our world in trying to comprehend and recreate.

I wonder if what you call "Spirituality" couldn't be described as thinking about thinking, or about how you, yourself, observe the world to be, rather than how others try to tell you it is.
Although, not religious in any way, I have recently come across some great quotes of Buddha. "The way is not in the sky, but in the heart".
Some really good stuff worth checking out on the Web.

 

[John Jones]

I start this thread to get an idea on people thought son those three things.

I have never been into religion organized or otherwise for a few reasons.
I was raised by my mum who said she was raised Pentecostal-which I have no working idea of because when she mentioned that in a conversation we were having once at that point she didn't go to church or read any bible. She liked to hang out in cemeteries and living in haunted houses believed in spirits, even going so far when I was a teen to have a team sent out by the Warrens to see about incorporeal that were tormenting my younger brothers. And then she wants to start saying prayers to chase spirits away and for protection.

My father on the other hand I spent weekends with and he was a preacher in his church. Believed in god and all that went with it and took me to church with him on the weekends. Where I would have to wear the patent shoes I couldn't scuff without getting fussed at and a dress. (let me tell you I refused to wear a dress unless forced to for a long time in my teen years because of that) But overall going to church with him didn't seem as bothersome as when I would go with an Aunt to her Baptist church were the kids were sent downstairs and separated from the adults for like the first half of whatever sermon they had and then we kids were allowed to go up for the last 30-45 min.

Then there was another Aunt who did drugs, abused her kids in ways I won't get into. Even going so far as to beat someone she was seeing who was so sick when Aids fist came out because he didn't clean up something. Who claimed an about face reversal because she became a Jehovah Witness.

Now in my teen years I went for about 2-3 months to Jehovah Witness meetings with a girl from school. I was 13/14 at the time and I couldn't take it seriously in the least even though I tried to keep an open mind. But any belief system that tells you dinosaurs are not real and the world was only a few thousand years old when I had at the same time learning about dinosaurs a the planet evolution in school how can you take it seriously and realistically?

At the same time going through that teen I'm different phase which in my case was a desire to be away from people in space or on another planet to get away from them as you body changes ect. The only thing that made sense to what I was experiencing was in mythology. By the time I was 15/16 I had read so much history on mythology but rationally couldn't equate mythology to everyday life and yet felt more comfortable identifying myself as a pagan. Now at this time the hype for those were two categories goth or new age. And I didn't agree fit with either of those. I would read and watch shows where they would tell you and mind you this was 1989/1990 and before, that the subculture of witchcraft was harmful to youth mentality, leading them to be goth or new age. Now I have my own prejudiced against new agers at times that I won't get into here.

So personally while I was looking for my spirituality at a young age the only thing that I could relate to was considered essentially fake and unsubstantiated by science if not slandered with misconception and superstition of generations.

I believe in science and the things that have evolved from it but at the same time I resent the superstation and conditioning that people take for granted when they forget that the science you use today is based initially on what some would consider magic. The study of herbs and plants used for home remedies discounted today are the base of your chemistry creating the pills and antibiotics you take. That ancestors study of the stars over generations creating calendars and star maps of our system with their naked eyes verified by astrologers with their tech. Just two examples.

So are you personally religious or spiritual not the same thing and how do you relate that to science. I am aware that there are those who don't believe in deities or religion and feel that science is the end all be all. If it's not validated as true through scientific experimentation and documentation it's not real somehow. Yet how can concepts passed down through generations and repeated enough to be reoccurring because science hasn't found a way to validate it. But the very fact that it's a concept which is carried through generations well doesn't give it credence should make one wonder at the origin.

TL;DR

 

[dann]

Sometimes money and science are a a very reliable method for producing and spreading lies about the world we live in. The purpose of science is to find out the truth. The purpose of money is accumulation of money, and very often lies serve that purpose much better than truth does.

More about the relationship between money and science: misrepresentation of research results