Christianity IS (always) Religion. Religion is (always) Bad. But True Spirituality Is Good.
Originally, I responded with "come over to atheism; where it's ok to be gay :)". In reply, Thomas wrote: "Athiests: "you just wanna believe in god because you find it comforting" Also Athiests: "Be athiest so you can be gay" Since when does wether or not God's existence depend on what I or anyone else wants? kind of irrelevent. " -- Continuing this new conversation, I offer this: Hi Thomas Thanks for responding; and for doing so in a civil and productive way. To further elaborate on what I meant, ... How about "Be Deist"? or "Be Pantheist". or "Be Native American Spiritualist", etc? I realize you don't know me. I realize you've never been to my channel. So you wouldn't know this about me, but, ... I don't identify as an "atheist", in the broad sense of the term. I am certain that "The God of Abraham" is mythical. All qualified scholars think so too.
By "qualified", I mean:
Everyone who
a.) has the necessary current academic credentials to be considered an experts in a field, where that field itself equips someone to know the actual history of how the idea of "Yahweh" developed,
and whom
b.) does not have a personal religious or professional obligation to defending Yahweh as being literally real.
However,
I'm only an atheist/antitheist about proven-false and proven-abusive religiosities.
*There is "something".*
I call it "The Great Mystery" and "The River".
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I recognize that "spirituality" *can be* a legitimate domain of exploration, discovery, and growth. I recognize that the Abrahamic religions have each called 'dibs" on that domain; posturing as-if it "belongs" to them. When, in fact, they are clueless about it. Allan Watts tried to explain this to them. But so few really listened. Even fewer understood.
As such, those religions (including the Christian religions; plural) made a great many humans literally SICK about words like "spirituality"; so that those people want nothing to do with even just the basic notion that there "is something" to it. All religious doctrines are man-made. All religious stories that try to "tell us" literal facts about a spiritual domain are just made-up stories that are trying to create (the illusion of) a literal space for the spiritually-thirsty to mentally project themselves into. Every time that happens, a crucial facet of the enticed-person's journey is being hijacked. They're being wrongly informed about spirituality, and they're letting other fallible humans dictate their hijacked-mind's narrative of identity. With non-moral-authoritarian religious narratives, the damage is limited to mostly only "secondary effect" harms; like compromising people's ability to reason rationally, and giving imaginary super-powers to people who never learned a real way to gain personal empowerment. But with moral-authoritarian religions, the damage is much greater. Angry atheists want to see all religion torn down. And they have good reasons for wanting this. But once they heal past that justified anger, they start to realize we need to be building each other up. And we must include all Christians in this project.
.jpeg)
I recognize that "spirituality" *can be* a legitimate domain of exploration, discovery, and growth. I recognize that the Abrahamic religions have each called 'dibs" on that domain; posturing as-if it "belongs" to them. When, in fact, they are clueless about it. Allan Watts tried to explain this to them. But so few really listened. Even fewer understood.
As such, those religions (including the Christian religions; plural) made a great many humans literally SICK about words like "spirituality"; so that those people want nothing to do with even just the basic notion that there "is something" to it. All religious doctrines are man-made. All religious stories that try to "tell us" literal facts about a spiritual domain are just made-up stories that are trying to create (the illusion of) a literal space for the spiritually-thirsty to mentally project themselves into. Every time that happens, a crucial facet of the enticed-person's journey is being hijacked. They're being wrongly informed about spirituality, and they're letting other fallible humans dictate their hijacked-mind's narrative of identity. With non-moral-authoritarian religious narratives, the damage is limited to mostly only "secondary effect" harms; like compromising people's ability to reason rationally, and giving imaginary super-powers to people who never learned a real way to gain personal empowerment. But with moral-authoritarian religions, the damage is much greater. Angry atheists want to see all religion torn down. And they have good reasons for wanting this. But once they heal past that justified anger, they start to realize we need to be building each other up. And we must include all Christians in this project.
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