spiritual innventory

[robtex]

I have been working on a project that is now mostly complete for the last 9 months. I decided to do this a year ago and I wanted to post my results. It is part of a sub-project which I call my spiritual innventory. It is personal to me but pubic in as far as I interact as well as research for my knowledge. The project is to look at one section of faith at a time interacting with them via emails, message boards and online research. I got the idea indirectly from a pagan friend whom I would have spirtual discussion with at my old work. Speaking to her was my intro into paganism and I thought that even though it wasn't my path is wasn't my anti-path either and that I did gain from it. Mostly in the apprectiation to the divine prescene presented by nature. So I decided to pick one belief...every year for the next decade and spend 6 months to a year on it ....study it interact with its believers and make it my own so to speak ...and than move on. My goals are simple:

spiritual growth
religious tolerance
accrued knowledge

I told a Christian penpal of my plan who lives in New York City. She is 38 divorced two kids. She hated my plan a lot. Mostly because she didn't like me being a UU in as far as I reject the trinity and the notion of Jesus as my savior..or that matter ..the need to be saved. She stopped speaking to me. I thought religious intolerance...hey that is in congruence with goals...more religous tolerance.. It made me more determined!!

I skipped Paganism because I spent time on it with my friend and went straight to atheism. I have a three step formula (that is open for negoication).

1) Join an atheist-based or primary community or interact online with atheits
2) acquire atheist penpals but very important be open about my beliefs with them. In other words I told them I was UU and didn't pretend to be an athiest. I felt honesty was important.
3) study atheism online.

I have one atheist penpal..but boy is she a gem.....very open minded (which is very opposite the sterotype afforded to them but I will get to that later), and very knowledable about Christian theory.

I interacted very heavily with atheist. So much so that a number of the theists thought I was an atheist and would say so to me.
I read pages on evilbible.com, the american atheist web page and infidels.org.

Here is what I learned:

The absense of religion is not the absense of spirtuality. Many atheists have a strong spirtual side but do not thing it is connect to anything divine.
The major categories you could put atheists into are:

Humanist...particuarly secular humanism
utilitarist
nihilists
other (including marxists, freudist and undefinable)


Some hate being classified...which is interesting to a non-atheists like me who is comfortable being labeled as spiritual, religious, and UU.

Many were amazing knowledgable about the Christianity. When I say they were knowledgable, I mean they knew the Bible, the history of the early cultures that practiced Christanity, the religions that were similar to it, the history of the religion up until present, the major arguements for and against it and the differences in the various major practices of faith, like mormanism, catholism, baptism and lutherism.

Many atheists were Christians before they were atheists

A large number were close to absolutly confident that God did not exist (strong atheism) .

A large number of them, not the majority of them but a lot, were either loners, introverts, or pessimist or a combo of the three. The pessimism came out in sarcasm, smart alecks and overall negative content in ideas.

They are more critical of Christianty and Islam as a religion based on the propogation of it than others.

Many, a large many were not looking for religion or spirtuality but were content in their atheism

They saw morality and religion as two seperate things..combinable but not inseperable

My next project to start in November is Hinduism but it is not final yet....i am looking for a forum now..I found a big hindu search engine online....I have a hindu friend at work I have found two possible hindu penpals.....just need to get my ducks in a row:

As a footnote all the observations were personal observations based on my interactions with atheists. I did not look at stats online of any kind that classified or categorized them. Since they were my personal obsevations they do not represent the majority of atheists as I only talked to less than 30. My observations were just that observations. Observations that may have been wrongly intrepreted or biased by myself.

I would like to know if anyone else has done this...even informally and if so what was your forumula and what did you learn?

 

[Lightkeeper]

I admire your plan and goals. I have been studying religions for many years, but haven't had a particular plan. I studied what I wanted to study. I have furthered my education and am an Interfaith Minister. I enjoy comparative religion. Along with it I have studied Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung, poetry and other psychologists. I have a great interest in our inner world and how we work. I think all religions have something to offer. I heard a quote once from a religious scholar, Max Muller. He said to know one religion is to know none. Religion and spirituality is very much more complex than studying scriptures and attending church. Having religious tolerance and understanding is a great gift, not only for you, but for everyone you come in contact with. Hopefully, more people will follow your example, because I truly think it is the path to world peace.

 

[robtex]

I noticed alot of new people in the last month..anyone have a similar project to mine?

 

[Valjean]

It sounds like a wonderful project, robtex. Are you going to be discussing your insights on these talkboards?

 

[lilithu]

I would like to know if anyone else has done this...even informally and if so what was your forumula and what did you learn?

Hi robtex, namaste!

I've been doing something similar for many years tho not as systematically as you. I tend to be inquisative and obsessive so when something gets my interest, I pretty much immerse myself in it until something else displaces it. So far, I've looked into Christianity, Satanism, Paganism, Humanism, Taoism, Confucianism, Hermeticism, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, pretty much in that order, tho I often revisit depending upon opportunity. And of course, there's difference within many of these traditions - lots of different kinds of Christianity and Buddhism, etc.

Your experiences with atheists are pretty much in agreement with mine. I have met my share of intolerant atheists who insist that theism is superstitious, but I also know many atheists who are open-minded about other people's beliefs and are deeply compassionate, moral and spiritual. My UU church is full of them!

-lilith

 

[robtex]

And Namaste to you Lilithu. I had to put the hindu project on hold cause of work until sometime last Jan early Feb I found it is going to be very different than the others will be. The amount of literature in the religion is just....wow....there is so much to read. I did get about three weeks into it and started to have a outline I was working on but I don't want to post what I learned until I am calling it quits on that one which probably won't be until the summer. I would love it if you posted your journey for any particular group. Especially if you interacted with people of the spoken of religion.

 

[lilithu]

And Namaste to you Lilithu. I had to put the hindu project on hold cause of work until sometime last Jan early Feb I found it is going to be very different than the others will be. The amount of literature in the religion is just....wow....there is so much to read. I did get about three weeks into it and started to have a outline I was working on but I don't want to post what I learned until I am calling it quits on that one which probably won't be until the summer. I would love it if you posted your journey for any particular group. Especially if you interacted with people of the spoken of religion.

Namaste! I don't think that you're going to be able to survey Hinduism as systematically as you would like. For one thing, it's not really a single religion. In actuality, the term "Hinduism" is an umbrella term imposed upon the various spiritual beliefs and practices of the natives of India when the Mughals invaded. The invaders imposed the term in order to differentiate it from their religion (Islam - which they of course perceived to be the true religion). That's not to say that there isn't a coherent religious philosophy that can be identified with Hinduism, but there is a helluvolot of variety.

Are you really going to read all of the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Puranas, the Sastras, various sutras and gawd knows what else that consitutes "Hindu scripture"? I think that it's even bigger than the Buddhist canons. I can give you some recommendations for good translations of the more popular texts, if you want.

My journey... I've interacted with adherants of each of the religions that I listed. You really can't get an impression of the living religion by just reading about it. Conversely, you do have to do reading because people tend to see their own religions from a more limited perspective.

I guess I'll choose Hinduism, since that is what you're interested in right now. I never really had much of an interest in Hinduism until I moved from Cali to New York. It had seemed like a strange religion to me with all those multi-armed gods and goddesses - reminded me too much of the scary Buddhist temples that my aunt used to drag me to when I visited Taiwan. But then, like you, I came into contact with Hindus at work and started talking to them.

The first thing that I learned is that Hinduism is not polytheistic, despite all of the devas (gods and goddesses) running around. Hindus do believe in one God, Brahman. However, they relate to the one god thru a trinity - Brahma the creator, Vishnu the sustainer, and Shiva the destroyer (or, as I prefer, recycler). They are seen and talked about as separate entitites but they are in reality just the three different aspects of the one Godhead. Learning that Hinduism believes in one God made it a lot easier for me to relate to it. And the more I learned, the more Hinduism made sense to me. For example, I personally thought that the Hindu trinity made a lot more sense than the Christian trinity.

The next cool thing that I learned is the concept of atman or self. We all have an unchanging self or soul (jiva-atman), that is identical with God or Param-atman. Basically, we are all divine. Now, as a UU, I think of atman as another way of describing the "divine spark within each of us." In case you didn't already know, "namaste" means 'I bow or pay respects to your divinity.'

In talking to different Hindus, I learned that while all Hindus recognize the Hindu "trinity," they generally choose either Vishnu or Shiva with whom to relate. Actually, they don't choose; they inherit. Depending upon the family that you're born into, you're either a Shivite or a Vishnuite (or Vaishnava) - a devotee of Shiva or of Vishnu. No one is a devotee of Brahma because he is too remote. Brahma created and then basically left the scene. Vishnu and Shiva remain involved in this world. One relates to Param-Atman thru Vishnu or Shiva because humans can't relate to infinite Atman directly; they can only relate to part. (My good friend who is a Vaishnava keeps trying to get me to prefer Vishnu, but I have a natural affinity to Shiva.)

But then I know other Hindus who do not identify with either of these gods. They don't go to temple. They just study scriptures. They say they relate to God directly through reflection. Which brings me to another really cool thing about Hinduism - the idea that there is more than one path to union (yoga) with God. Some people pursue union thru knowledge (jnana) gained from reflection. Some people pursue union thru devotion (bakhti) to a particular god. Some people pursue union thru action (karma). Head - Heart - Hands. And they're all considered valid. People are allowed to find God through the way that works best for them.

In general, Hindus are among the most religiously tolerant people I know. (There are always exceptions.) I think that a lot of it has to do with this idea of there being more than one way to God.

btw, in terms of scripture, I would start with the Baghavad Gita, and then move to the Upanishads. That alone will take you long enough.

-lilith