As a Baha'i, I do not believe anyone is born evil or that a being called the Devil/Satan exists.
As I've been reading the exchange between you two, it's interesting to compare your beliefs and how they affect each of you, and to compare both of those with my own beliefs and how they affect me. You have far less religion that he does, and I have less than either of you. It is good for you that you were not taught and do not believe that people are born evil or that a force for evil exists in the world. I've done away with the concept of evil altogether and replaced it with malice, which only occurs in human beings.
He has a lot more religion than you do, and in my opinion, it's made his worldview darker and his life bleaker. I have less religion than you, and in my opinion, it has been liberating for me. There is no supernaturalism in my world. There are no gods or other spirits. Spirituality is a psychological state and there are no spirits, spiritual realms, or so-called spiritual truths - just nature. Those are just words that signify nothing real and are best disregarded. As I said, I find all of that liberating.
Everyone on the Planet is in a battle between their lower material nature or their higher spiritual nature
That suggests that you feel that that is true for you, but you must also feel it's true for me. I experience no such struggle. I have one nature and it is not in conflict with itself. When I was younger, I had to do battle with myself. I may have explained to you that I went to university young (graduated high school a few months before turning sixteen) and immediately fell flat on face. I was living on my own in the dorms and was tempted by girls, poker, and pot. I was up all night and missing daytime classes and was close to flunking out when I dropped out to enlist in the Army for the purpose of introducing forced discipline and structure in my life, because I couldn't get back on track on my own, and I was afraid that I was throwing away my future, which included wanting to become a physician.
But that was then. With time and experience, I learned to regulate my urges, and I can't remember the last time I did or was tempted to do anything self-destructive. There is no internal battle anymore and hasn't been for decades. But I also don't have a holy book or a holy man telling me that I have a sin nature or that I am in a battle with myself or any of the rest of that kind of thinking that I find less than useless.
What I'm saying is that if I lived his life, mine would be made worse, and if I was there and could ease into your mindset, it would be a better experience of life, but not as good as life with no religious beliefs at all. The faithful demean the act of removing gods from one's life, but that was the path that produced the best results, the most peace of mind and the greatest clarity of thought. I've concluded from my RF experience that there is a range of religiosity, and that the more religion one has, the worse off he is, and the less, the better, with atheistic humanism being the optimum place to be if one can be comfortable like that. Yes, I have no god, but I also don't need one. I do for myself what others use religions to do such as decide right and wrong or what is true about the world.
I believe that both Religion and Science are necessary for humanity to survive and thrive.
This is another comment that I can't identify with as you can probably guess after what I just wrote. Not only is religion not necessary in my life, it would make it worse. Reintroduce any of these ideas into my belief set - gods, sin, divine punishment, evil - and I'm not helped by them, just troubled by them.
When one fails to follow the teachings and Laws of God, that leads to Sin and Sickness. Sickness is a deserved punishment and they are punishing themselves.
Has this been a helpful idea for you? Is your life better for believing it? I told you that evil is a concept I've abandoned. So is sin, and so is punishment or retribution. That doesn't mean that I don't have those urges. They play a large part in my experience of Trump, a person devoted to vengeance who I confess I want to see punished, but I understand that that is pointless. Making that guy suffer more might be satisfying to many, but I recognize that it serves no purpose apart from affirming a sense of justice. The man simply needs to be disempowered, not punished, even though those are the same thing to him.
But the idea that sickness is deserved and is the retribution of a kind and just god doesn't sit well with me.
It is the material world that intervenes between me and God but I have to live in the material world. I do not mean physical things I am attached to like food, sex, alcohol or drugs, I mean having to negotiate a very difficult material world life situation.
My relationship is with the material world. I am a part of nature, and as far as I can tell, that's all there is. A god belief would interfere with that. It would distract from the here and now. You have been taught that there's something wrong with the material world. Christians are taught to not commune with it, that its wisdom is foolishness, that it is a tempter and distractor from a better world. Phrases like the world and the flesh are uttered with contempt. The world is not to be disesteemed in my opinion. It is to be understood, respected, and engaged with. It is to be enjoyed.
You've described a life that sounds like it should be pleasant, not difficult. You're safe, free, and financially secure. You can have whatever you want. Your responsibilities seem manageable, and you don't need to do anything you don't want to do. You manage properties, but that's by choice. You could sell what you don't live in. You would enjoy companionship with the right person, but you have religious beliefs that restrict your options.
Severe Asceticism is not healthy for the individual and it contributes NOTHING to society. It is basically selfish.
I see it as just an extension of what all Abrahamic religions require. They require sacrifice, some form of self-denial that from my perspective accomplishes nothing. You mentioned an annual 19-day fast. The Jews have the Sabbath which is a time of sacrifice. The Catholic priests can't have sex, wives, or families. It all seems pointless to me.
Do you consider all psychic phenomena to be spiritual, things such as ghosts and mediums communicating with the dead?
I don't see a fundamental difference between that and praying to gods, or why if one is called spiritual, both aren't. To the believer, one is true and good, the other false and dangerous, and thus the one deserves praise and the other condemnation, but to the skeptic, they're the same.
Supernatural (of a
manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature.
What I like about that definition is that it doesn't imply that any such thing exits as a force that is not a force of nature, just that some people believe there is.
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