First things first

[Whateverist]

You want to know what I my to explain my personal religious definition... Well, that is tricky. The simplest way to explain it is I feel a deep connection with the world. I enjoy religious studies, meditation, the acts that make life seem spiritual. I find no proof of god, but I find no reason to attribute any spiritual phenomenon to one. The world is a magical place.

Good on you, girly. The world does not have to be the drab, valueless, wonder-less place theists attribute to atheists. Atheism does not have to be nothingbutism.

[Bad Writer]

First, to answer pocaracas: You are absolutely right, sir. My avatar is Vernon Fenwick from the 1980s TMNT series, April O'Neil's Cameraman.

I realize nowadays that it was a logical fallacy to do so, that saying, "I heard strange sounds, so it must have a been a ghost" was akin to saying "I don't know how the universe has such strict laws of physics, therefore God".

For me, it's a sense of wonder that I find compelling to find out more. How did "God" do it and, more importantly, how can we? Terraforming, going to the stars, it's all part of our potential, I believe. Further, I believe that was the intent, part of the divine spark of reason.

I suppose there's no rational reason to assume that God exists or there is nothing to "intend" anything. Perhaps all that came together in our evolution that made our civilization possible was just us winning the cosmic lottery. Still, it's an instinct I can't seem to get rid of (I went through roughly two weeks of trying. Seriously. I was asking myself what was wrong with me, why can't I be a normal atheist. I guess it was a crisis of non-faith).

Deism for me is just a truce between those instincts and my skeptical brain, a way for me to keep such a sense of wonder about the natural universe safely and strictly grounded in the natural.

I don't think you can put any one Atheist in a box with all the others. The love of free-thinking will produce varied results.

And so I fundamentally disagree with you, as I am allowed to do. I don't believe in trying to prove God. Saying that there is so much unknown out there that there had to be some kind of "spark", as you put it, is an unsubstantiated claim, however likely you may want to convince others that it seems. Since there is no evidence for that to begin with, we should not assert that God or anything else is the case. Investigating the great mysteries of the Universe is always a good idea, and if our studies produce an overwhelming supply of evidence that points towards something "supernatural", as you defined it, then there would be more reason to believe in it.

You brought up the point that it is our instinct to discover the wonder. I submit that the wonder is not necessarily god...it may not be the cosmic lottery either. For instance, if our planet was seeded by an ultra-advanced and intelligent alien race from another universe, should we label them as gods, or, if evidence was brought forth to prove their existence, should we instead concede the logical conclusion that they were just more advanced and understood more about the universe than we did? Reason (should) dictate the latter.

[Whateverist]

I suspect you'll find that DeistP is not a deity-of-the-gaps kind of guy. The more important question might be do you belong in the nothing-but (at least until it has the good-science-doing seal of approval) box of atheists?

Still, I appreciate the first line of your post.

[Brian37]

Deism for me is just a truce between those instincts and my skeptical brain, a way for me to keep such a sense of wonder about the natural universe safely and strictly grounded in the natural.

Skip the deism and leave it at "sense of wonder" or "sense of awe", I get that. Reality does not need woo to be appreciated.

There is lots of neat stuff in the universe, both in its constructive and destructive nature and one can only be humbled by knowing our unimportance in all this. But "deism" is nothing more than watered down superstition people cling to out of some needless fear of "missing something".

The universe is a thing, not an entity. It is simply one giant un cognitive and uncaring object much like seasons don't need a cognition to change. We are simply part of one giant weather pattern. I feel lucky to be part of this cosmic ride, but in no way feel it is mysterious or magic.

[Bad Writer]

You want to know what I my to explain my personal religious definition... Well, that is tricky. The simplest way to explain it is I feel a deep connection with the world. I enjoy religious studies, meditation, the acts that make life seem spiritual. I find no proof of god, but I find no reason to attribute any spiritual phenomenon to one. The world is a magical place.

I hear "spiritual" all over the place, and there is never one, concise definition to it. Before I can understand why you believe in spiritual things or a magical world, I want to know how you define these words because I'm lost in translation.

[Whateverist]

..leave it at "sense of wonder" or "sense of awe", I get that. Reality does not need woo to be appreciated.

With you so far.

The universe is a thing, not an entity.

Starting to lose me. Even if I concede that the universe is not "an entity" (which is actually more than I know), I don't see how that constrains it to the inert alternate mode of being as we humans understand it. "Man is the measure of the universe" is fine if you're only interested in understanding the universe as it relates to men. We may have no other choice in some sense, but as with the effort in science to leave aside personal bias, we should at least try to remain open to a non-speciesist understanding of it all.

I feel lucky to be part of this cosmic ride, but in no way feel it is mysterious or magic.

Found it! Here is where we part company. There is definitely mystery. Lots of it. It is fundamental in fact. Everything we know is based on at least one premise of which we are not aware. Our conscious minds serve an advisory role to a being that could function without it, at least in simpler times. There is so much we do not know! That doesn't mean you need to be wary of ghosts, worry about unicorns or be careful not to offend gods. Fuck em if they can't take a joke. (They can. At least they could if there were any, which I doubt.)

Magic? What's that? I define it as any action whose mechanism has not been discovered. So what is magical in one setting becomes mundane in another. We don't know the extent of what we don't know so we can rarely predict what may yet bear an explanation and what may be forever out of our grasps. Just don't expect every question to have a trivial answer or to conform to your preset categories. You've got just one important choice regarding the mystery. Leave it wide open or seal yourself off into a limited chamber of your own design.

[Bad Writer]

You've got just one important choice regarding the mystery. Leave it wide open or seal yourself off into a limited chamber of your own design.

I agree to a certain extent. I actually think there are two choices here, and I'd wager you will like them both, whateverist. The first is the one you proposed in the quote above. The second, which is to dive into the mystery head first, does not leave it wide open, but there is also no promise of limiting someone to a chamber of his or her own design. If the mystery is explored and consequentially produces results, then that, in my book, is a success, and no such imaginary box that keeps new ideas out is created or even considered.

I'm not one to leave things be.

[Rahul]

Well BadWriterSparty, you definitely have the ability to get people rolling on a long discussion. You've only started two threads and they are both multiple pages long.

Good job.

[Savannahw]

Ok, lets see. Spiritual is defined as
1: of, relating to, consisting of, or affecting the spirit : incorporeal <spiritual needs>
2
a : of or relating to sacred matters <spiritual songs>
b : ecclesiastical rather than lay or temporal <spiritual authority> <lords spiritual>
3
: concerned with religious values
4
: related or joined in spirit <our spiritual home> <his spiritual heir>
5
a : of or relating to supernatural beings or phenomena
b : of, relating to, or involving spiritualism : spiritualistic
So all of those to some extent.

[Brian37]

You want to know what I my to explain my personal religious definition... Well, that is tricky. The simplest way to explain it is I feel a deep connection with the world. I enjoy religious studies, meditation, the acts that make life seem spiritual. I find no proof of god, but I find no reason to attribute any spiritual phenomenon to one. The world is a magical place.

I hear "spiritual" all over the place, and there is never one, concise definition to it. Before I can understand why you believe in spiritual things or a magical world, I want to know how you define these words because I'm lost in translation.

I love Sam Harris who unfortunately calls himself a "spiritual atheist", and it makes me cringe that he is attempting to adapt theistic language to compete with theism. Just call it what it is "a sense of awe". No need to conflate reality to wooish standards.