I absolutely would feel the same way without it if I wasn't religious - I mean, I'm in love with an atheist who's about as likely to change his mind as I am to change mine, and he's absolutely the most ethical, enlightened person I've ever met. (If only my parents would stop getting snippy about the fact that I refuse to invite him to church, it wouldn't even be something I thought about much.)
I affiliate myself with a religion because I don't think the supernatural is all b.s. - I think there's something out there bigger than me, which I didn't always believe, but I came back to it after a few years of not being anything. When I got back to believing, I realized that people like Jesus and Martin Luther came up with some good ideas about it that get me closer to figuring it all out, and understanding it better is a way of getting more in touch with it.
I don't think it even necessarily forces my hand one way or another as far as morals go, though Jesus basically distills everything into two commandments: love God and love your neighbor, and that seems to be good advice. Beyond that I don't see it as a deontological thing, just something that it's good common sense to do, and not being nice to other people seems to be counterproductive to the greater enlightenment I'm looking for. So in a way, I agree that it seems to be a pretty universal constant with or without God.
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Date: 2005-04-12 02:00 pm (UTC)I affiliate myself with a religion because I don't think the supernatural is all b.s. - I think there's something out there bigger than me, which I didn't always believe, but I came back to it after a few years of not being anything. When I got back to believing, I realized that people like Jesus and Martin Luther came up with some good ideas about it that get me closer to figuring it all out, and understanding it better is a way of getting more in touch with it.
I don't think it even necessarily forces my hand one way or another as far as morals go, though Jesus basically distills everything into two commandments: love God and love your neighbor, and that seems to be good advice. Beyond that I don't see it as a deontological thing, just something that it's good common sense to do, and not being nice to other people seems to be counterproductive to the greater enlightenment I'm looking for. So in a way, I agree that it seems to be a pretty universal constant with or without God.