this was made a few days ago when i was off but nobody announced it, so i guess i’m doing that now. the sidebar describes its purpose as follows:
Spirituality is a broad concept with room for many perspectives. In general, it includes a sense of connection to something bigger than ourselves, and it typically involves a search for meaning in life. As such, it is a universal human experience—something that touches us all. People may describe a spiritual experience as sacred or transcendent or simply a deep sense of aliveness and interconnectedness.
Some may find that their spiritual life is intricately linked to their association with a church, temple, mosque, or synagogue. Others may pray or find comfort in a personal relationship with God or a higher power. Still others seek meaning through their connections to nature or art. Like your sense of purpose, your personal definition of spirituality may change throughout your life, adapting to your own experiences and relationships
Was miss reading “we are a Spirituality community now” and thought that this is very unexpected.
But to have
c/spiritualityas a community here is very welcome.
I feel better I’m not the only one who misread it.
Fantastic news. Appreciated
I don’t know whether I’ll participate in this one, as I’m an atheist (though I do I think experience the same emotions in other contexts and this looks like it’s meant to be inclusive of that), but I’m happy to see it after seeing some blindly anti-all-religious-people (I don’t know a good word for this) hate comments recently.
Also an atheist. I applaud a well-rounded description of this new community! It also doesn’t particularly include atheism which is maybe fine.
I’m happy to see it after seeing some blindly anti-all-religious-people (I don’t know a good word for this) hate comments recently.
Sounds like overcompensation? Some people who gravitate towards, let’s say atheism, come from another bad experience and need a safe place to talk about that. Some need that answer to the meaning of life, etc. And some don’t
Since this doesn’t necessarily include atheists – How about a philosophy community? Or is it better to have more specific communities?
Anti religious is definitely not atheists. Entirely different but of course too many make it the same thing. I personally am not religous but am spiritual. Not atheist but not a ‘beliver’ as some would consider, it’s not black and white. While I don’t believe an actual proclaimed atheist would want to deal with a spirituality group, a difference if opinion without attacks, is welcome in my opinion.
Anti religious was(is?) pretty fundamental to the “New Atheist movement” from the latter aughts and early teens from this century. They don’t represent atheism as a whole but a decade ago they were highly visible and did a lot to screw up the connotation of the word “atheism.” I think it’s possible to argue in good faith that religion is ultimately a net harm (which I wouldn’t), but there is also a bigoted and ignorant way to do that which was far more common. While the “a” in atheism means “without,” there used to be quite a significant presence of those who manifested the belief that it meant “against.” I’m sure they’re still around, but they don’t seem to be as constant an annoyance as they used to be and many of their figureheads moved on to support right-wing politics targeting the religions they hate the most.
Your point is important. I was once part of that movement. There is a crucial piece missing:
In the US atheism has come to specifically challenge the assumed Christian majority that influences US society in subtle ways. For instance, Christmas, or the fact that we have “under God” on US currency. It wasn’t anti-religious as much as anti-Christian, and contextually that point of view is warranted.
Since that movement, I’ve noticed that theologists have labeled atheists as “strong” and “weak” in (my interpretation) an attempt to discredit “agnostic atheists”.
I think there will always be a “war” between mindsets so long as humanity survives. The important part is allowing diverse religious or non-religious backgrounds which means one religion can’t be imposing values onto everyone else.
I get what you mean, but for the term “atheist” there really is a black and white. If your answer to the question “do you believe in a god?” is yes, then you’re a theist. If it’s anything other than yes, you’re an atheist. “Atheist” doesn’t mean not religious, it’s specifically about not believing in god(s) and nothing else.
I’m atheist but I like hearing people’s views about religion and belief from the other perspective as well. I find it fascinating how people believe in different things, belief has had a huge impact on the world (for better and worse).
Not sure if I’m overcompensating as well, but religion and spirituality feel very anti-knowledge to me. That is, in my view they try to fill the gap of what we don’t know (and may never know) with their own projections (although science isn’t free from doing exactly that either). Like, I know that we will never be able to understand the whole world etc, but spirituality just feels like giving up on trying to explain the world based on knowledge. I theoretically understand that other people need to fill this gap with something because they would otherwise face existential crisis or whatever. But I don’t have these feelings so it seems pretty alienating to me. Well, the same goes for many things ‘normal’ people feel, like heteronormativity, which I don’t get either.
Anyways, it always feels very weird to me when people talk about spiritual or religious ideas. In my view spirituality is problematic because I consider it to be anti-knowledge, but I don’t have a better alternative either.
For me as an non-sectarian, the good parts from organized religion are advice and lessons about living life, which science doesn’t particularly address.
I recently read an elder theologist reflecting on the stages of enlightenment and I realized that I agreed entirely with them. The difference was our journeys for how we arrived at these same conclusions. They spent their entire life figuring that out. And I had figured it out probably by the end high school. I am not saying I am smart or flawless, because the other person has a lifetime of experience that I don’t have culminating in their wisdom. But they chose to spend their time on such matters, and I chose to spend my time differently.
Hm yes, I’ve heard this argument before and this I agree that people can benefit from the community aspect of religion and the wisdom of religious/spiritual scholars. But I don’t see how this is necessarily connected to religion/spirituality itself? Why not have these outside of religion? How is it necessary to be religious or spiritual to form a community?
I have the feeling that it is indeed harder for people to form communities without religion or some sort of spiritual believe. Like, back in time people were much more connected via these institutions, while today people are much more individualistic (at least in western societies). But I think the underlying problem here isn’t the missing religious community but rather capitalism. As an anarchist I imagine a world in where people are connected in a community by the motivation of a communal project (which is the community itself) and how to have a good life for everyone.
We can certainly learn from religious/spiritual teachings, but the problem is when you project stuff into the unknown you easily end up with a belief that mirrors your worldview. And this has caused tremendous harm. As a gay, neurodivergent trans woman, I would have been excluded and discriminated against a lot in religious/spiritual communities. And the same scholars from which we could learn something would often see women or POCs as sub-human. The same goes with most philosophers btw. We can try to nitpick what knowledge can benefit us, but we have to be careful what teaching only makes sense in their limited, discriminatory and hegemonic worldview.
All in all, I don’t see how communities can actually benefit from religion or spirituality. I can see that accumulated knowledge by religious scholars can offer us something, but I cannot see how this is tied to being religious? When they tell you to perform rhythmic prayers five times a day, great, but why not just have a communal gymnastics class or something? And when they teach you how focus on the things that are important or to look inside than this isn’t connected to religion/spirituality either.
A bit offtopic: Now I’m imagining an alternative community approach where the connecting factor is an anarchist, anti-capitalistic idea and where we could have accumulated knowledge of how to live life better together in a community. But even this would create a very fragile balance because scholars could then powertrip etc… An endless topic to explore! I really enjoyed Ursula le Guin’s book The Dispossessed (fiction) and cannot recommend it enough ;)
Thanks for the book recommendation! Yeah, discrimination can happen with or without religion. It seems to me that any human system is capable of being exploited or corrupted.
I look at religion from the perspective of “what purpose does the manufacturing of religion serve?” assuming there’s good intention. I am with you that what organized religion typically offers is not exclusive to religion.
What is “community”? Is it surrounding myself with people who are exactly like me?
Personally, I find it helpful to have a “safe space” to talk to other people who are going through a similar experience that I am. Although I am not great at it I also think it’s healthy to interact with the outside world from time to time. At best we learn something from one another, at worst (I hope) we tolerate one another.
I’ve heard “Anti-Theist” used as a term for this
Awesome, thank you so much!
It’s interesting the most of the comments are from atheists. Maybe there should an atheist community as well although it would be better to call it something like ‘not a theist’ as the term atheist has become so loaded. On the other hand atheists don’t have much to say about not being a theist as not stamp collectors don’t have much to say about not being stamp collectors.
Maybe there should an atheist community as well although it would be better to call it something like ‘not a theist’ as the term atheist has become so loaded.
we already have a lot of communities and there’s one we said we’d make we haven’t even yet so i’d say anything like this would be well on the backburner. atheist communities online obviously don’t have a great history with being productive and non-toxic spaces, and i’m not even specifically thinking of /r/atheism when i say this (i remember the Atheism+ stuff and Rebecca Watson)
My suggestion that there should be an atheist community was mostly in jest. It’s been my experience that atheists aren’t interested in talking about atheism. I share your observations about existing atheist groups. It would make more sense to create a group to discuss non-spiritual explanations for why we are here. Again, just kidding. I don’t think anyone has a such an explanation.
It’s the Internet. It would be weird if they weren’t the first to jump on it.
Doesn’t matter, because I already predicted it.
subadubdub!