Your religious/spiritual mentor

[BetterCallSaul]

1) Do your ideas of god or atheism or nirvana or heaven or whatever- any of that- come from observing/learning from other individuals in your life?

2) What properties do they possess that you admire/emulate/envy/aspire to?

3) What are some reasons that they might lie to you, or otherwise be participating in some deception?

 

[Matthew5]

1: Yes, my priest informs much of what I believe because I feel that he has been placed in my life to be a spiritual adviser to me. But I draw my beliefs from a wealth of discovery and revelation found in 2,000 years of Eastern Orthodoxy.

2: I admire/aspire to the level of humility my spiritual father exudes. It's the cornerstone of the Christian faith, in many ways.

3: There is no reason. He strongly believes that he is eternally liable for what he teaches me, therefore he has much at stake.

 

[fr33]

Myself.

 

[1stAmendguy]

Those questions are essentially veld post-modern critiques of religion. I'm assuming that's what you were trying to get.

 

[Theocrat]

A Preliminary Question

Are you an evolutionist, BetterCallSaul?

 

[BetterCallSaul]

That doesn't mean I don't have a concept of rightness and harmony and shit. I still learned about goodness from, among other sources, seeing and hearing other people.

 

[Theocrat]

Yes, or No

That doesn't mean I don't have a concept of rightness and harmony and shit. I still learned about goodness from, among other sources, seeing and hearing other people.

Are you an evolutionist?

 

[BetterCallSaul]

I've literally never heard that word before but I do think that beings today came from beings before through reproduction, like every being I have ever seen, and that life spends all of its energy to secure its force-continuum in the world, and that the conditions in which this energy struggles are always changing their demands.

 

[Theocrat]

Another Question for Clarification

I've literally never heard that word before but I do think that beings today came from beings before through reproduction, like every being I have ever seen, and that life spends all of its energy to secure its force-continuum in the world, and that the conditions in which this energy struggles are always changing their demands.

Do you believe that humans are just evolved animals?

 

[BetterCallSaul]

I don't understand almost all cases where people use the word "just" in a context that tastes like, "some kinda shitty..." Why "just?"

 

[Theocrat]

Never Mind

I don't understand almost all cases where people use the word "just" in a context that tastes like, "some kinda shitty..." Why "just?"

I see you are unable to answer any of my questions directly, so I have no more questions for you in this thread.

 

[BetterCallSaul]

lol

are you serious? Does your mind truly work with such concreteness and weight when it hears a word? "Evolutionist?" That's a yes or no question?

 

[1stAmendguy]

I don't understand almost all cases where people use the word "just" in a context that tastes like, "some kinda shitty..." Why "just?"

When someone says humans are "just" evolved animals that's like saying humans "just" explore space or something. I don't get the "just" either. I guess it's "just" reality.

 

[BetterCallSaul]

The most distasteful example of this to me is that love is "just chemicals."

 

[Smart3]

My "mentor" is the great Carl Sagan.

 

[BuddyRey]

My biggest spiritual mentors are Jesus Christ, Lao Tzu, George Fox, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Leo Tolstoy. And none of those guys can lie to me or disappoint me, because they're all dead....except for Jesus, but that's where things just get complicated.

 

[BetterCallSaul]

I meant more people that you know that introduced you to any of that and such.

 

[jmdrake]

My current spiritual mentor is the leader of my SA home group. Really deep meditative person. I'm finally getting the difference between being spiritual and being religious. Religious people argue over beliefs. Spiritual people seek to grow by applying them. Sadly I still (obviously) have a long way to go. :o