Enjoyable article that both makes some great points & also benefits by the included bits of your personal journey.
There’s another aspect to this discussion that may hold some interest. While religion & either atheism or agnosticism are generally seen as the two options, they are not. There are quite a number of us who are more difficult to define, not being religious, yet being deeply “spiritual,” for lack of a better word. We ground into something deeper, something underlying, which leads some into religion, but we don’t go that route.
In a way we’re analogous to the atheist or agnostic, in that we reject the religious systems of belief — yet we don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater, finding something deep within that resonates that may be called spirituality, minus the doctrine & dogma, the ritualized forms.
We may try various ways out along our trek, spending time in this or that belief system, only to eventually discover ways it doesn’t jive with our inner sensing, doesn’t resonate with what we just sense as truth — our truth, perhaps. So we move on, keeping the heart lit, enjoying that inner fire, yet abandoning all conventionally accepted beliefs around it.
As an example, I hold no belief in a creator God — a being who brought everything into existence. The part of that that doesn’t work for me is “a being.” I see that more as — & this is tough to put into words — a principle, the underlayment of both all & nothing, somehow woven throughout. In order to ditch the baggage (Belief Systems) attached to such words as “God,” I call that Source, sometimes the “Is-ness.”
So there’s a whole group of us out here not represented in the discussion as it’s usually laid out — perhaps a larger group than many yet realize. Perhaps we were disappointed along our way by some religions (or their adherents). We’re sensing something much deeper, willing to walk our own way to discover it — not feeling any need to conform.
I enjoy reading your articles. Always something to ponder, there. 👍
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Wasn’t going to include this, but here’s a rather radically different take on What Is Truth? that you might enjoy — not at all within the mental realm, BTW — just FYI. 😉
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