Attention "secularists"! Do you find your beliefs ( or lack thereof) empty and boring?

Question

As compared with venerating the cross, that is?

Answer 1

I love your questions! Perhaps I can answer this one a little more tersely...

Yes, I do in fact find my beliefs empty and boring. It would be fun to believe in an omnipotent, invisible advocate that only wants the best for me. I like the stories in the Bible, and it's cool to think that if I was close enough with God, that I could call on him to back me up or lay some smiting down on my opponents. I'd like to look forward to going to a paradise in the clouds when I die, with streets lined with gold. I want to be able to telepathically communicate with God, and ask him for special favors that he could provide with a snap of His fingers, if I'd been sufficiently good lately, and it fit into a divine plan.

I know I sound sarcastic, but really I would like that. The security blanket of religion is comforting if you can truly believe in it, and it might be nice in certain situations to have that emotional safety net in case things are not going my way. However, I have none of that, and necessarily so. I have nobody whom I have to ask permission if I want to do certain things, and I don't have to prostrate myself and proclaim how great and powerful someone else is and beg for their mercy and benevolence. I have no external motivators of heaven or hell, so all of my decisions are mine and mine alone. I am solely accountable for my actions and beliefs, and will not blame either on some outside will to which I must comply. I am free to love, hate, like, or dislike who I want and what I want, for whatever reasons I want. I do not have an instructional manual which I must follow to the letter, and I am not a hostage under any sort of threat of eternal torture should I violate that code. I am free to make judgements and decisions as I see fit, and am not blanketed by any sort of rules or guidelines in this regard. I do not have to depend on uncertainties, on what might exist.

There are disadvantages to my beliefs, sure. I have no omnipotent guardian to protect me, no mystical myths or stories to entertain me, and no cushion to catch me when I have an emotional upset. However, what I have left when all of that is stripped away is unbreakable. If I am having a bad day, I am free to deal with the full reality of that day, and do not put any stock into an unseen protector who is going to save me from any part of it. All of my beliefs and philosophies are 100% my own, which means not only are they uncompromised, but they are completely liquid, and I can change them as I see fit. Hurtful events in my life are experienced full-on, but I have no shaky platform of mysticism and spirituality on which I must try to fight: My beliefs cannot collapse, and they cannot let me down. I have no spiritual expectations, and so experience no disappointments.

Answer 2

No, I find it stimulating having the freedom of thought to ponder any subject without having a doctrine suggest what position I should take or in what light i should see it.

Or to answer your question more concisely, and to borrow some Buddhist terminology, I do not hold onto any belief long enough to find it empty or boring. why would anybody hold onto something they find empty and boring?

I think you misunderstand the nature of atheism. You could be forgiven for confusing us with trolls, but most atheists will have better things to do than try to win over those of a religious bent. Evangelism isn't universally accepted as morally justifiable, and I consider it more trouble than it's worth. So I think I'll head back to the environment section.

Bye.
.

Answer 3

Not at all! I'm agnostic which means that, since nobody really has a clue, I'm completely free to believe in whatever the heck I want to believe in, praise 'BoB'!

I'm not limited to the dreary, bloody Jesus Chainsaw Massacre story of my Catholic childhood. I have the Church of the Subgenius instead, and their artwork and Hour of Slack is far cooler than any stained-glass saints
( http://www.subgenius.com ). And if I'm bored with 'BoB', I can let my imagination soar. I've gone through more metaphysical cosmologies than most people go through underwear. There's no way I'd ever go back to being shackled by orthodoxy ever again...

Answer 4

When I was going to church, I found the beliefs empty and boring. I see more possibilites by not believing in a vengeful, jealous god. I see more possibilites by not forcing everything I learn to be filtered through the bible or the book of mormon.

The world is a magnificent place. The universe is grand, strange, amazing and full of possibilites. I find that exciting. I don't need god to appreciate it.

Answer 5

Far from it.

Studying psychology, learning how the mind works (or sometimes doesn't work) contemplating the world and universe as endlessly ancient (stars born at the time of the dinosaurs that we are only now just seeing) is enough to keep me a curious child about everything.

Answer 6

Only as much as you find venerating the cross empty and boring as compared to prostrating yourself towards the East...
...or sacrificing vegetables for Dionysus
...or meditating for enlightenment
...or hiking through a forest with your spirit guide.


Oh? You never believed in any of those things and so it never bothered you that you don't do it?

Now you're beginning to understand.

Answer 7

Actually a lack of belief in a personal god frees up the mind to think of many interesting things. The restriction that God wants us to do this or that is a hindrance to pondering some great philosophical questions. Read Kant, Nietzsche or Spinoza.

Answer 8

Nope. In fact I find venerating the cross to be empty and boring. Not to mention narrow-minded.

Answer 9

i'm top in the context of my existence adventure because it applies to my ideals for myself. no remember if or no longer those ideals are 'actual' is in actual words very perplexing to make certain. i can purely rationalise and do, look into them and seem to artwork out what the metaphorical content fabric and context of the memories of our ancestors have been for, and how that pertains to the traditions. i'm yet to locate any faith that has complete and absolute evidence of this is verifiability. Even atheism isn't one hundred% verifiable, the theories of technology variety of their point of verifiability, and maximum actual regulations are ninety 9.9% verifiable, as they're repeatable, and the effect is surprisingly much continually as per the hypothesis, so from an objective viewpoint Atheism wins palms down with the aid of fact the only logical viewpoint. although, be that because it might desire to, empirical documents and length are in lots of circumstances impossible whilst it consists of concerns of religion, as reviews often have a tendency to be customized. Many whom are atheist, a minimum of right here interior the solutions gadget, seem to contemplate such issues as non secular or different worldly reviews to be the two delusions or the effect of taking too plenty drugs. they're welcome to that opinion, although, i could assert that the place a individual is in any different case sane and rational, that in the event that they have reviews of a nature that are otherworldly, then a minimum of a point of allowance would desire to be made for the possiblity that the adventure is actual.

Answer 10

"Venerating the cross" would be tremendously dull, obviously.

Surely you've noticed that it is the believers who are dull and empty, not the nonbelievers, right?

In fact the dullness and emptiness of Christianity are two of the reasons I left religion.