I have long tried to find other people who think like me but I have been unsuccessful. The reason for this is I wish to discuss my ideas with people with more wisdom than myself, to help me to refine my own very specific ideas about how the world works and how I should live my life. If you could give me some kind of label then I would know what to look for.
In my case this question may be somewhat religious but I think it fits better in this forum.
Grew up in a Christian household but read alot. I was always interested in other religions and when I read about Islam and I discovered the wisdom in that religion I started to doubt the divinity of Christ. The turning point in my life was realising that it didn’t matter what I believed, as long as I was willing to accept wisdom from any source, be it the Bible or the Qu’ran, although I do not believe in these literally. I am agnostic.
I am trying to live my life to have as good an influence as possible on other people. I don’t think it is healthy to evangelise what I’m doing. I say to noone that this is how they should live because people who change to what I have become must do it on their own terms.
Is there a label to what I am? I am not someone who ignores the big questions. I have just accepted that some questions will have no impact on the way I live my life, whichever way they are answered.
Forgive me for my long post. It’s very hard to get my ideas in order. I am very lonely at the moment because people are telling me that I am wrong, and the majority of people around me say that I am going to go to hell because I have no faith. I do not believe that a god would condemn me for my actions and praise people of faith who do nothing for the world. But I feel that I would be alot happier if I had someone to talk to, who agrees with me.
Your veiws remind me a lot of the Unitarian Universalists. They belive there is truth in all religions and there is no hell, and some other stuff. They study a wide range of religious traditions as well as incorperating poetry and secular music into their services. I find them a little relativistic and woo woo for my tastes, but they seem to be generally nice people, and their nothing if not accepting.
If you want to maintain a more Christian bent, the Quackers have similar veiws. They think every human being contains some wisdom about the divine. Their meetings, as I understand it, consist of people sitting in a room quietly and waiting until someone feels moved to speak.
Your bit about accepting some questions will have no impact on your life puts you in leauge with a lot of philosophers. The pragmatist and Wittenstein come to mind. I reccomend highly a study of philosophy for someone in your shoes. It will allow you to examine the big questions that matter to you in a rigourous way. Just don’t expect it to help you get a job.
As for the people who say you will go to hell for having no faith. I’m afraid there is only one solution best summed up in a punk rock song: “Come and join us on the coasts.” Blind-Faith is not a virtue. Critical Thinking is. Openmindedness is better that the one, not as good as the other, and is practiced a lot on beaches.
Welcome to ILP, Thistleryver, I think you’ve come to the right place. There are people here with just about every approach toward faith and philosophy, and most are generous about sharing their ideas and opinions while remaining respectful towards those whose views differ.
The only thing I would add to LostGuy’s response is that you don’t have to move to the coast to find acceptance, even those of us with no ocean views can have open minds.
Thanks, LostGuy. We do have over 10,000 lakes, so there are some beaches to be found here - well, not right now, but during our 2 weeks of summer - we’re just short on actual ocean coastline.
Do you really want a label? If so, I label you agnostic. That’s not much of a label as it is pretty generic, but it certainly divides you from a majority of people who are pretty sure about what they believe (religious, atheist, whathaveyou) - and there are plenty of them here at ILP.
Unless you’re outright rebelling against your Christian upbringing, I recommend looking into gnostic Christianity. It squares pretty well with your new disillusioned outlook of Christ as a man of wisdom but not necessarily divine.
You must be young. I think you just need a bit of financial independence, and then you can survive on your own and meet the kind of people you like. But at least you’ve taken a first step by joining ILP. Welcome.
Thank you all. You have given me a good direction to search in. Unitarian Universalism sounds interesting and is probably the closest I have found in organised religion to what I believe in. I may go to a meeting and check them out. Fortunately there is one congregation in New Zealand where I live.
I appreciate the time you have taken to read my slightly convoluted post.
Well just by reading that i can tell that your on the right track. Just the fact that you are curious and calm. But you wish to label yourself? why would you do that? What will that do? It’ll categorize you for yourself, thats for sure, and you can compete and argue with other peoples categories of beliefs. Like 2 coutries at war . But seriously, be careful with picking what you believe.
Not saying this will happen to you, but with people in general it’s common. If you pick something, and think it’s true, you then accept it as complete (inless your self curious, and thats not common. A person can know a truth, but simply be mimiking what they heard), and when you know something, whats the point of learning more when you know you know? Your mind will stop the curiosity and you will get an intellectual block that will start seperating you from others, learning, and start competition. So try to avoid labeling, or at least don’t take it serious when doing it. It is fine to put a word to something, kind of like a “savepoint” in knowledge to which you can tell to others being “hey, i’m right here” and they, if they havent labeled themselves, will either try to get to that point, or help you to theres (keep in mind you must help another to yours, all intelligence is mearly awareness and then perception). And there is no difference in calling yourself a Unitarian Universalists, to calling a bird a bird. And if you ask someone what a bird is, they will probably say “well… it’s a bird” and thats circular logic, nobody knows what the fuck a bird is. NO different then stairing into space saying “i know what that is”. People can only learn the function of objects, not what they are. That applies to a lot of things.
SO BASICALLY what i’m saying is be curious and neverending. Faith didn’t end in religion, people still have much faith in words. Any questions, then ask. I often forget to check these sites, and sometimes i do, so it may time to reply. sorry for the rambling lol.