The Many Pathways to Bliss.

Share thoughts and ideas regarding what can be done to meet contemporary humanity's need for rites of initiation and passage.

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noman
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Post by noman »

I have no problem at all with your using the term "atheism" in whatever way you choose.

- SomeHopes
Oh, yes you do – or did, when you objected to the way I was using the word, by implying that I wasn’t aware of the fact that Buddhists don’t believe in a personal God and then slapping down the dictionary definition.
Though I’ve just peeked through the window on this subject of Buddhism and its history I gather that the American manifestation of it is something new arrived at through synchronicity. But in my mind, it is still traditional, based on thousands of years of tradition. But it certainly does not fall into the category of atheism.

Atheism (in my definition) is anti-spiritualism.

- NoMan

* * * * * * *

Oh, yes it does, by most people's definition of the word at least.

* * * * * * *

athe•ism Pronunciation: \ˈā-thē-ˌi-zəm\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle French athéisme, from athée atheist, from Greek atheos godless, from a- + theos god
Date: 1546
1archaic : ungodliness, wickedness
2 a: a disbelief in the existence of deity b: the doctrine that there is no deity

And then you project your emotion about the word ‘atheism’ onto me – as if I’m the one who cares.

However, since that distinction [between spiritual and non-spiritual] seems to matter to you, I begrudgingly accepted it for the duration of this thread.

- SomeHopes
But the issue for me is your psycho-semantic game.

It’s the same one Hamlet played with many of the characters as he feigned his madness. After frustrating people in this way throughout the play, he asks the gravedigger a few questions and gets a taste of his own medicine. That’s when he says:

How absolute the Knave is! We must speak by the card or equivocation will undo us.

- Hamlet
But I’m a sport. After my lengthy explanation, and justification, as to how I was using the word ‘atheism’ you say:

If you are curious about how I personally define the term atheist (if I remember correctly, you never actually asked me),

- SomeHopes
Why should I ask? You were the one that slapped down the dictionary definition of the word ‘atheism’ and stated your preference for how the word should be used.

I knew you did not have a problem understanding me, but I did see a semantic shift after examining the phrase ‘spiritual types and atheists’ which, as I explained, a reasonable person would see as a dichotomy; that is, using the word to mean NB-atheist.(no beliefs) You say you didn’t mean it as a dichotomy. That’s fine. Now I understand.

I consider atheists people who self-define as such, no matter what type of practice or non-practice they follow.

- SomeHopes
So now, we forget about how ‘most people’ define the word ‘atheism’, forget about NPG- atheism, forget about NB-atheism (no-beliefs atheism), and leave it wide open by saying ‘atheism’ means whatever people who call themselves atheists say it means: SD-atheism (Self-Defined-atheism).

1.) NPG – Atheism (no-personal-god)
2.) NB – Atheism (no-beliefs)
3.) SD – Atheism (self-defined)

That's beautiful. Are you sure there aren’t any more definitions you’d like to add, or any more offensive initials? We can talk about this some more if you like. (You're beginning to scare me by complaining about initials.)
To me, the terms "enlightenment," "spirituality," "Faith," and "wisdom" are completely interchangeable.

- SomeHopes
Good.

I just hope your book is going to have a glossary in the back so people can understand what on earth, or for heaven's sake, you are talking about.

- NoMan

somehopesnoregrets
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Location: Northern California

Post by somehopesnoregrets »

I have no problem at all with your using the term "atheism" in whatever way you choose.

- SomeHopes
Oh, yes you do
Oh, no I don't.
:-) My giving the dictionary definition that I found was not an attempt at arguing about something dear to my heart but simply an attempt at clarification and way of expressing my (pleased rather than annoyed) surprise that you seemed to use it differently from the average American I met. I don't think I'm in denial here, because usually, when I am in denial about my attitude and somebody calls me about it, I get angry or at least experience some form of discomfort, which I don't right now. So, it seems to me as if this is merely one of the many times that text, even if adorned with emoticons, fell short of presenting the complete picture. I have no problem with semantic creativity, when done openly, I in fact value and enjoy it, both as speaker/writer and listener/reader.

Now I get it. You thought that my presenting the dictionary definition was my expressing my personal, beloved interpretation of the word. That explains why you didn't ask how I personally use the word, because you thought I had already told you.
It’s the same one Hamlet played with many of the characters as he feigned his madness.
Interesting. I read Hamlet a few years in a community college English class, and I somehow assumed he was merely thinking he was feigning his madness but that said madness had overtaken him long before he even noticed, that he was already hanging by a thread when the play begins. All the paranoia about his mom, all the hallucinating and seeing ghosts... He seems neither happy nor well-adjusted, and it merely takes a little blow to drive him to start stabbing people. I got an A in the class. Maybe the teacher was happy that he didn't get the same old, cribbed from Cliff's Notes interpretation from me that he was used to. It seemed to me that the gravedigger was the only sane and well-adjusted (and also only truly spiritually aware) person in the play. Everybody else seems to be driven by something, fear, rage, greed, hunger for power, or other desires. It's the gravedigger who puts it all into perspective and says, hey, just relax a bit people, because a few hundred years from now we will all be dust, so lets not waste our lives with petty psycho-semantic games. Or something like that.

So, it seems as if your and my interpretations of the gravedigger are polar opposites of one another, which I find interesting. A good friend of mine recently quoted the physicist Neils Bohr to have said the following: "The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth." In my experience, there is something to that statement, because profound truths tend to be the half of a larger balance, whose opposites tend to complete the cycle of which they are a vital and important part. Hope that doesn't sound all hokey and new-agey. It's something that I seem to keep running into again and again, so there is profound truth there, at least for me.

I really am not playing games with you. In order to toy with you, there would have to be some intention to do so, wouldn't it? Or, who knows, maybe I'm like a cat, rolling a mouse back and forth instinctively, without consciously intending to do so, because she is simply expressing her true, ultimate nature of cat-ness? It is not my intention to play games; I'm simply looking for understanding, learning, and communication. I consider everything else, including any emotion that might arise in the process, forms of noise. Beautiful noise at times, but still noise.
You were the one that slapped down the dictionary definition of the word ‘atheism’ and stated your preference for how the word should be used.
That was NOT my preference. I simply tried to let you know what I thought to be the current consensus definition here in the U.S. I do NOT consider the dictionary the ultimate authority on how to use words but merely a starting point for discussion. I am NOT at all emotionally invested in using language according to the Merriams and the Websters of this world, because even though they might put effort into tracking the way the majority uses certain words at a point in time, they might not always get the finer points. Some minorities with specific practices can at times find much more subtle usages that would simply not appear on a majority's more coarsely calibrated radar. I previously mentioned the usages of "Faith" and "enlightenment," words that I like using but that I -- by choice -- use very differently from their dictionary definitions. Oh, by the way, I'm not capitalizing "NOT" up there to denote an emotional tone, but merely because in hasty reading negations can sometimes get lost, and I therefore like emphasizing those "NOT"s to give them a chance to be read. I'm NOT saying you are a hasty reader, it's just something I find helpful when I re-read my own texts to edit them.

I did NOT sense emotional intensity in your usage of the word "atheist" either, so I don't think I'm projecting here, at least not on this particular point. I did see a certain urgency in Evinnra's assurances, though, that anybody who would consider her an "atheist" would be completely wrong. It sounded to me as if it was important to her to make that point and as if it mattered to her that people would NOT consider her an atheist. But it wasn't an important enough point to me to actually write about, just something I noticed. In the emotional attachment continuum as to the word "atheism," it seems to me as if you and I are at the lower end and rather flexible about how to use it (even more so after your most recent post) and as if Evinnra finds herself at the higher end of emotional attachment to a certain definition.of the word (as something that should absolutely exclude her -- you and I don't mind if somebody would classify us as such, if they feel the need to do so, but she does, it seems). As usual, there's of course a good chance I'm simply wrong, so if I am, please continue educating me.
:-)
1.) NPG – Atheism (no-personal-god)
2.) NB – Atheism (no-beliefs)
3.) SD – Atheism (self-defined)

That's beautiful. Are you sure there aren’t any more definitions you’d like to add, or any more offensive initials? We can talk about this some more if you like. (You're beginning to scare me by complaining about initials.)
No, those are great, even though we could open a whole new can of worms by discussing what exactly we mean with "beliefs." I have a hunch that if you ask ten different people from ten different traditions what they mean when they say "belief" that we would get ten different answers. In such situation, dictionary definitions might actually be our safest bet, since I use "belief" synonymously with "Faith" and as [CAUTION: This is NOT an accepted consensus definition but simply my own, unreasonably passionate opinion] attitude of letting go and letting God (or Higher Power, personalized or impersonal), humbly opening ourselves up to being used as a channel for Ultimate Goodness, taking a leap of hope that there is such a thing or non-thing, putting our dualistic reasoning and individual desires into second place and trying to reconcile them with and placing them in service of what our intuition tells us to be larger and more important than our small self, all of that with a certain level of consistency and practical implications for our choices and actions in all aspects of daily life.

In contrast, the dictionary definition for "belief" would be as such:
1: a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing2: something believed; especially : a tenet or body of tenets held by a group3: conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon especially when based on examination of evidence (from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/belief)
Neither of these hits the spot for me, because I find faithful and wise ACTIONS to be important elements of what I consider "true" belief ("true" not in the sense of mirroring any external physical reality but in the sense of the opposite of "false," dysfunctional, superstitious, or insane beliefs -- and, just in case you ask, yes, there's a judgment in there, so this is most likely not a very scientific distinction). Without practical application of one's beliefs, I don't find them to be more than pale and relatively meaningless daydreams. But I can see that my definition is rather unusual, given how most other people who speak English use the term.

To me language has prophetic power. Using a word in an unusual sense can call an idea into existence and potentially create a meme that didn't exist before. I ascribe to words an almost magickal intensity. That might be a silly superstition on my part or some kind of deeper understanding. Sometimes I find it hard to tell the difference.

Sorry if that was another tangent.
:-)
I just hope your book is going to have a glossary in the back so people can understand what on earth, or for heaven's sake, you are talking about.
Actually, it does, but I don't think I will want to have it published any time soon because I don't want the following (which you suggested in a post a few pages before this one) to happen:
I hope that someday, I’ll see you on one of these shows telling people how to live and get the most out of life, plugging her books and tapes.
I so hope that won't be me, because that would mean I would have sold out pretty much anything that I believe in right now. I'd much rather find myself on a conference with other psychologists or other psychonauts or, ideally, both, exchanging our respective methods and being looked at as a bunch of wacko eggheads by most "normal" people. Somehow that seems more genuine to me now. Then I could maybe teach what I find one-on-one as a life coach or in a martial arts school I would open. I don't trust books and tapes with one-size-fits-all solutions, and I don't think I would want to live with myself, were I to add to the glut of those already out on the market. Again, if we're still in touch 20 years from now and that is what I do, you are welcome to quote this paragraph to me and watch me squirm (or give an eloquent, elegant snake oil sales woman like response). I hope and pray that it won't happen, because it would mean that my pride got the better of me.

With much love,
:-) Julia

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