Is anyone else an atheist with BC besides me?
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Good grief, I wasn't arguing with anyone, just clarifying my own position and interpretation. I used to be a member of Belief.net before it got gobbled up by corporate villains. They had a cool quiz on figuring out where you were on the religion/belief spectrum, and they had both atheist and spiritual-but-not-religious categories. I used to feel like I was supposed to have a void where religion used to be, and needed to seek out something to fill that. All I found was that religions and most philosophies bored the heck out of me. I'm not knocking spirituality for those who want it. I think there are even some unexplained things in life, but I personally don't assign a spiritual meaning to them - I just think science hasn't identified a rational explanation for those things yet.
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Is "synchronicity" spiritual? Meaningful coincidence, or any other 'sign'? This is where I sometimes pick up a spiritual frequency.
For example, I had a bad experience dating someone who turned out to be very troubled and paranoid. He had been abused as a kid. While we were dating we had an in-joke about Origami, with Origami meaning 'transformation'.
After breaking up with him, I decided to volunteer as a CASA to help a kid to avoid the fate I had seen with him. I decided it would be a good way to put energy into a 'solution' without it necessarily being a solution for him. At my first meeting with my CASA youth, she folded her napkin into a an origami crane and handed it to me.
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I love those moments of synchronization!!! I have had many of them! Can’t explain it! But exciting nevertheless. I do think our brains are geared towards making connections and finding patterns - so there is that. But some things fall into another category perfectly commented on by my shiatsu instructor: “ya just can’t make this shit up!” And we would all have a good laugh
I think that often times certain words are such triggers for each of us individually. For example, the word “spiritual” just does NOT resonate with Alice. For me, when people say “I am very blessed” it makes my skin crawl. There are other words and sayings but I’m not remembering them right now.
Yesterday at the gym I met a woman who shared with me that she needed to make it to church. My mind honestly goes immediately to thinking, “oh boy...she’s gonna start prostalatizing me.” Thankfully she didn’t. But I am clearly traumatized in this area in that I was cringing inside and getting ready to have some type of witty remark just in case.
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I would classify synchronicity as confirmation bias. We remember the things that confirm our beliefs and don't notice those things that refute our beliefs.
I had once convinced my sister that I was witchy because when she was dyeing her hair as a teenager we had an argument and I told her I wished her hair would turn green. I knew at the time that the type of dye she was using had the result of frequently turning the over-processed hair a funny color. I knew that if nothing happened she would forget about it. If something happened, she would remember it. She still talks about it and still thinks I'm witchy. I never explained. 😉
Origami is taught in elementary schools all over the country. A couple of years ago, I had to help my g-nephew fold an origami whale for class. It is not surprising that someone could run into a kid who knows origami.
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Alice: Thanks for your contributions and please continue on this thread..
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Ananda: I did not know about the idea that synchronicity is a form of confirmation bias but it makes a great deal of sense. I will be looking for examples of that in daily exchanges where I know it can occur. Can't do too much more thinking now as I spent too much time this morning sorting out a keyboard problem that I am embarrassed to admit was due to some new batteries that were bad or that I put used batteries back in my battery drawer by mistake URGGH!.
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Synchronicity #2
I am skiing for the weekend with my teen son. TV goes out at night. I decide to instead work on family history online. Looking stuff up about my great great great grandfather, an image comes up on google images.... a painting. Cool, it's a portrait of my G, G, G grandfather! So I click on the link, and it's Bonhams Auction house, in Edinburgh Scotland. So I scroll down to see how much the painting sold for, and all I can find is an estimate, because the auction is THE NEXT DAY.
That painting is now hanging above my fireplace.
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In addition to confirmation bias, people typically don’t tend to pay attention to the non-occurrence of events. So, for instance, the many many times you thought of somebody and they DIDN’T call. But we sure do you notice the time we’re thinking about someone and then they call. Still, synchronicities are fun. And even though I don’t see them as mystical, I really enjoy instances of them in my life.
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Really enjoying this thread. Been wanting to tell my story somewhere and this seems to be a good place to stick it: Last summer I'm seated at a sports banquet with a woman I'll call "Kay". I've seen her around other events. She's loud and obnoxious and admittedly drunk and a little high this night. I don't judge her and I'm mildly amused by her. We go to the dinner line and she pulls down her shirt and says,"Look! this is my radiation tattoo. Nobody knows I had breast cancer last year." My husband and I nod our heads and encourage her to put her shirt back up. Before dinner commences, the soccer coach wants to have center stage and asks everyone to bow their heads in prayer for the players and ask for health and safety etc. (public school in conservative midwest town) Well, Kay was having no part of this and boisterously turns to me to mock the coach, the forced prayer, and asks me how I feel about it. I tell her I was raised agnostic but respect my husband's Catholic practices. I tell her I don't like the prayer at these events either but I still try to be respectful and I try to calm her down before we get thrown out. Kay and I have a lengthy drunken discourse on our lack of religious belief and agree that some of the shittiest hypocratic behaviors we have experienced were at the hands of various religious people. For me, my in laws and colleagues at a Catholic school where I taught. End of night we exchange numbers and promise to continue the discussion over lunch. I leave with no intention of interacting with her again and am relieved when the evening ends. Fast forward a month. I'm looking to get back to 5k training and thinking about finding a running partner as I find that motivating. Kay comes to mind. I remember her mentioning needing to exercise to reduce recurrence. What the heck, I give her a call. She jumps at the opportunity and turns out to be the best, most dedicated exercise friend I have ever known. During our runs she shares stories about her diagnosis and treatment as well as stories of her mother's bc and death. " Ding ding " goes the little bell in my head. "Damn. I've skipped my last four years of mammos. I better schedule one but I really really don't want to."
Day of my mammogram, Kay and I run our 3 miles and head to our cars. As I'm leaving I turn to her and say, "See ya tomorrow, Kay. Going to my mammogram thanks to you. Just think, you may have saved my life!"
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Magiclight, aw, thanks.
My hubby likes to tell a long rambling story of something that happened to his father in WWII, and how it somehow changed the future. I've trained my eyes not to roll. Every single freaking day presents constant "road not taken" moments. Ooh, I didn't step in front of a car today and it was a life-changing miracle! I seem to remember a James Thurber story about some boring fart full of stories like that, I think it was "The Luck of Jad Peters;" it's dryly hilarious and worth a read.
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Cherry - That is a purely wonderful story!
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cherry, it is those most unlikely moments, like meeting someone in an elevator, that bring me such happiness and appreciation. It is that unlikely connection that happens spontaneously that is magical. Please don't analyze my use of the word magical. I connect with others like you on a personality level. But you have to be open to possibilities to accept these special but unusual moments. I have so many of them because I pursue the moment and love meeting others in elevators. Connecting with others that are so likely different from you but finding similar ground instead is a gif
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love that story, Cherry. Did she ever get her drinking under control? It should probably be more important than
exercise. My funny moment again was have a couple hour conversation with Robert Frost and never knew it was
he. He never told me and I had no clue. Also missing a plane that crashed.
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I'm reading Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver. It's about 2 families. The older family is living in the era when Darwin has published, Asa Gray is a leading botanist and the geologist Aggasiz is promoting the idea that God made everything and is in charge, so science should just stay out of it. I'm enjoying the science vs religion aspect of the book. One poor man is trying to teach science in a school where the head person is totally into the idea that the Bible contains everything we ever need to know. I had a class in history of science that covered this period, so I'm finding that aspect fascinating.
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Wren, I love Barbara Kingsolver and will look for that book. She has a wonderful way of combining art and science.
I think sometimes that what “spiritual" means to me is really the transcendent power of art and nature to create an emotional state that is beyond the intellectual domain. Even deep breathing or biting into a perfect pear can do that for me.
I am sure there is a scientific explanation for the state of bliss but I like to put it on another plane.
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Dear life, love your description of spiritual. Nature really provides that for me, especially starry nights
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I'm more agnostic and do not follow any spiritual beliefs during my continuing bc trip. I do reliable research, ask all of my medical team questions, and make my own choices. I've always felt while I cannot control the bc, I can trust myself, my medical team, and my "journey."...and thus have a sense of WHAT I can control. Don't know if this is any help to you!❤
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I posted this in another thread, but think it says something about love and mortality.
Mary Oliver, renowned poet, died this past week. I've pulled a few of her books off my shelf to reread. Thank you Mary Oliver, for sharing your heart with me.
The below passage was included in a NYT tribute
In Blackwater Woods"
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold itagainst your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.0 -
Wren - I've got that book requested from the library. I love Kingsolver's books.
DearLife - Yes, that's exactly what I mean by spirituality being (for me) about awe inspired by nature and connection to others. I find things like hiking in the mountains to be intensely spiritual, even though I don't attribute those feelings to a deity.
Magiclight - I also love this Mary Oliver poem, When I am Among the Trees, which captures my feelings about the spiritual joy of being in nature:
When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, "Stay awhile."
The light flows from their branches.And they call again, "It's simple," they say,
"and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine."0 -
Wander…thanks. Tearfully, I was touched by these lines
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often0 -
I just love it when a casual acquaintance or a co-worker tells me "you are blessed to have cancer. This is God's way of testing you.' ME. If you truly believe that nonsense. Your God test Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindu, and every other freaking religious group out there and non-religious. And for those God-fearing Christians who tell me "if you believed in God this never would have happened to you. But I'm praying for you anyway" I love the "anyway" comment. Interesting when you consider cancer doesn't discriminate on race" religion, ethnicity, Etc. I don't care to get into the debate about spiritual as being a way out. I have my Christian and Jewish friends tell me "you don't believe in God but you are a spiritual person. When I ask them what makes me a spiritual person the response is varied. The top two responses are " I'm active in various charities and I care about other people" I call that being a decent person which all of us should strive to be. Tomorrow I have to go out of town to visit my adult nephew who had emergency gallbladder surgery two days ago but is experiencing serious complications. I know I'm going to be bombarded with prayer groups which I will respectfully decline. When family members tell me to pray for my nephew I will inform them I will keep him in my thoughts. God will win, my friends! If my nephew survives, it's because of the power of prayer. If my nephew dies or experience debilitating side effects it's because it's God's will. It is always a win-win for God or that pesky devil. Yes, I'm being sarcastic. These debates do calls a lot of thinking which I greatly appreciate
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I love Barbara I, have you read " The Poison Wood Bible"? Interesting story. Thought provoking.
I do not consider myself spiritual. My husband says he is not religious but spiritual but I really don't understand, he seems religious to me lol. My brother in law likes to call coincidence as God things, makes no sense to me. I was not hit by a car today was that a god moment?? Seems stupid to me.
We have MAID here in Ontario, I work for the ministry of health and have been a part of organization of process. We have actually done quite a few in our region. We have excellent palliative care too.
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Jo6359, it's like those Christians are admitting their god is a real dick, even bragging about it. Sounds like Stockholm syndrome.
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Alice-I concur.
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I agree to.
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quadruple that!
It is like a brainwashing it seems to me.
That all being said, in many lower income populations - church is a safe gathering place to find community when there are not many other safe choices. So it’s of course like anything not so black and white
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Me three, totally agree...while laughing hard at ‘Stockholm Syndrome’....that was awesome!
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Before I leave here because something just feels wrong and I do not want to challenge the intent of this thread, I looked up the meaning of spirit and spiritual. It relates to our emotions, to our psychological well-being. I feel spiritual when I walk in the woods and when I see a whale from my boat. There is scientific evidence to support why. I work with Indigenous Elders and scientists. I am spiritual because I owe my wellbeing to my environment and need to feel connected and responsible to take care of something besides myself.
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And I am also an atheist.
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jo6359, May your nephew be well. I know that having you there will be helpful to him. One can never have too much love and caring.
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