God's law or private law?

[HappySkeptic]

I don’t believe in mythologies. I seek some deeper meaning in these stories.

I like that I can always find at least one thing in your posts where you seem to have it exactly right. If true religion is irrational, then reason isn't applicable to religious ideations. We could still study it rationally, we could still study people who hold them rationally, but there would be nothing rational about the religions themselves or the reasons for peoples beliefs in them. A revealed faith tries to fit that that bill.

What would that make religions that are rational, though? Or a rational religion made entirely of true statements? False religion? What do you think of your own, does it fall in the true religion or false religion category? Takes us right back to the opq, doesn't it?

I am not saying that religion is a science. It is not. And being some sort of scientist myself I hate the idea of mixing these two things. There is this guy called Erich von Daniken who claim that ancient pyramids were built by aliens etc. and he claims to have scientific evidence to prove it. There is also this Joseph Selbie who has much more logical archaeological theories and some Quatum physics theories that are much more acceptable in nature but I don’t like that either. You must have heard of Deephak Chopra. He is a MD. Who likes to mix his Hindu Beliefs with modern medical theories. Although some of these guys may be right at some places, I don’t like the idea as a whole. I think science should be left to scientists and mysticism should be left to the mystics. Personally I see no coming together of these two approaches to life in the foreseeable future.

 

My idea of being reasonable while believing is about keeping your eyes open when you believe. Believing means thinking that something that is not proven can still be true. It doesn’t mean unconditionally following whoever it is that told you whatever nonsense about God and Religion as a whole. You have to be careful and you have to invest some energy in to it if you want visible results (like an increase in spiritual understanding for instance).

 

An I will repeat myself on this one: Being an atheist is the best way if you want to keep it simple.

 
Because just look at world: I don’t want anyone to join the “pro-life” movement because of anything I said either. You must have understood by now that my vision is deeper than some superficial dogmas that people are still referring to as “religion”.   

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It seems you believe in a poetic mysticism.  You don't care whether your beliefs are true - just that they "may" be true, and they add some sort of beauty or positive feeling to your life.

Is this a fair summary?

I also find poetry, meaning and beauty in the patterns and complexity of nature and the universe.  The problem with religion is that the poetry is lost amidst false dogma, political and cultural coercion, harmful ideas, and admonitions to place faith over reason.

I am starting to write down the bits of poetry I see in nature - what inspires me, and what "value" I see in life, each individual and each moment.  Eventually, I'll have some sort of writing that will show my family what I believe.

I just can't find any of that in any Abrahamic religion (and I'm done with "trying" to believe what reason tells me isn't true). I would be interested in knowing how you can.