Empowerment VS. Meekness: Understanding the everyday human character

I got an idea and would like to have other users help me out her. As a person with my own belief in God and who views himself as an Atheist will be the first one to claim egoism and selfishness as his titles. I enjoy browsing online seeing articles about how different people view the past, present and future. Quotes are great as well. What do you guys think of empowerment or human pride compared to meekness and human spiritualism. Can both be the ying yang of our own individual?

reply to post by Romantic_Rebel


Interesting. I think that you have your own view of the spiritualist or person that follows a religion as being a sure expression of human weakness and the need to compensate for that by practicing spiritualism through different methods and contexts, which in a sort of psychological and even evolutionary sense this is true. But if you look at it from the other side of the spectrum, say as a devoted Christian or any other person devoted to a religion or spiritual doctrine, to believe in an all powerful God, to give up a piece of your humanism to a supposed ethereal divinity in hope of obtaining a bit of that nonexistent holiness...to me that sounds like another form of strength. It's is sacrificing a piece of your identity, your ego, which is not easy at all. In fact, it does not seem reasonable.
It is like a child putting aside his toys in a treasure chest before he ever plays with and the child saying that he is saving it for his grandchildren. You'd think 'well that's sweet', but then you'd wonder the logic behind it. You can still play with the toy, can't you? It's that level of sacrifice that is the great strength of the religious person. That does not mean it undermines the strength of an Atheist either, it takes a lot of courage and strength to realize and accept you are essentially nothing, but while you are something you might as well do anything you can with a sense of morality always attached to your actions. The strength and weakness is less in the doctrine that the individual follows, but more so in the devotedness to that doctrine. Any respectable Atheist will still live their lives as best they can as any good Christian, except they won't pray or go to church or anything of that sort, but that does not mean the Atheist is not sacrificing a bit of themselves like a religious devotee does. What the religious devotee finds in their faith in ethereal divinity the Atheist finds in their sense of reality. Two sides of the same coin, really. The ying yang concept could be applied, but the strength of the pride or the sacrifice can change it to either or. That's the strange thing about the ego and spiritualism. If you believe in either one enough, what is the real difference?

as long as a religion in which people believe and depend on god/s to guide and help them there will be non-believers, atheists or hypocrites that use religion as a tool for exploitation.

reply to post by platipus


I have my own view on my own personal God. A lot of it I took from Judaism view on God. since I it clicked with me. I still and always view myself as an Atheist and or skeptic. I'm fine with religion. You just can't have both an average life and religion. It's like being a gang banger and trying to be the opposite.

Originally posted by Romantic_Rebel
reply to post by platipus

 

I have my own view on my own personal God. A lot of it I took from Judaism view on God. since I it clicked with me. I still and always view myself as an Atheist and or skeptic. I'm fine with religion. You just can't have both an average life and religion. It's like being a gang banger and trying to be the opposite.

I think maybe that is the beauty of religion. Devotion to the principles and doctrines of any one religion is extraordinary to undertake and if you are able to maintain and progress in it like many do, then more power to you and that religion, if it helped give your life a meaning, a purpose, and a uniqueness to it that the average person without religion could not have achieved. You in essence and definition have become holy, completely different, unique from the average human. You stepped onto a path that wasn't designated by you that led to a destination that does not exist, unlike a normal human that directs its own life according to how its senses perceive situational occurrences and experiences to go down a route it desires or thinks it wants, which usually is something similar to what a religion says you can achieve.

Maybe you should stop calling yourself an Atheist and term your own religion since your beliefs seem to be unique to yourself. Who knows, you might have it closer to right than anyone else in the universe ever has. And you might even get followers if you can speak in full about your beliefs. Just another way to individualize yourself from society.

To me,

Religion = Belief

and belief is not as good as knowing.
When you know, you know, and it doesn't matter if anyone else around you can know like you do. You know, and that's it, nothing anyone can say or do will ever move you.

Convincing yourself of the absence or presence of a God is NOT knowing.
This is where Religion and Atheism fall into the same pot.

When you know the TRUTH, then you KNOW you are God.
And you will never need anymore proof than that.
Finding God is a personal thing, and any religious person will ill tell you that.
Some people just aren't ready to cope with, or understand the fact that they are The God/Goddess they envision, and worship, so they keep it as third person, or care not to think of it at all.

God is me, in me, and in everything.
I am eternity, infinite, what are you to you?

More people need to see the truth, and only they can see it the way they were made, who they are, Truth is there, deeply embedded in the fabric of our being. Some find it near death, during meditation or prayer, and others find it while partying. Finding it, though, that is The Key.

God is whoever you want God to be, and if you choose nothing, then so it shall be.

Rock On

reply to post by leira7


Believing is knowing though.
I understand your point, but trying to see from a 'believers' perspective, their belief or faith in that supposed divine being is equivalent to an Atheist that knows there is none. They both know that the other is completely wrong. The difference is the amount of cynicism. The believer will say "believe for the benefit of your soul and all the souls in the world, if not, so be it, I shall pray you see the light...." and the Atheist will say "You are stupid, you are wasting the evolution of intelligence and stalling all possibility of furthering it for the benefit of the world with your fictitious enslaving beliefs...."

Both are essentially arguing the same point, because both have the same knowledge that is represented in different forms. Atheism is almost a religion and a belief system in itself. In fact it is!

The most self empowering thing a person can do is deny the self.

Father Arseny, a former Russian Art Historian, converted to Orthodoxy and priested. He suffered under Stalin's regime, as did so many. He was sent to the camps in 1933, and then again in 1939, to a death camp in Siberia. Though it was imprisonment, death through cold, deprivation, brutality and overwork was the intention of all who went there.

Arseny was strong in his faith, and grew stronger during his time there. In fact, against all the odds, he survived for years, down to 1957 and his release. Life expectancy for most was two to three years.

Like Therese of Lisieux, he discovered the Little Way of service to God and others in humble trust to God in the face of seemingly insurmountable problems. He tended the sick at risk to himself. He was beaten by staff and inmtate alike, yet always came back with faith and love. He was not deluded about people, he knew what they were like; his faith in God overcame it.

There is an incredible account of how he and a new inmate of 23, who had been beaten badly, where thrown into an external punishment cell - a metal box basically. It was -30 of cold outside. Death was to be expected within four hours though exposure. Arseny stood to pray out loud despite the cold...

...48 hours later, the cell was opened, and both men walked out warm and healthy.
from theologyweb.com