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I don't believe in a religion. I am a syncretic pantheist.
"Syncretic" meaning that I don't think any one religion or sect has a monopoly on divine truth, even if they are sincere and productive attempts. Refer to Rumi's Elephant.
"Pantheist" meaning that I think God = Universe. The laws of nature are God's attributes. We are all literally one with God, everything that exists is.
I believe these things because I exhausted basically every other reasonable metaphysical alternative.
Isn’t this Universal Unitarianism?
More or less, depends on how you wanna define UU.
It's only one more small step to atheism. By looking at how tortured the language you use is. And realizing that the effect is the same with less steps.
No, actually. This was a step past atheism, which was how I identified for most of my teens and into my 20s. I too went onto message boards to convince religious people they were irrational.
It turns out my younger self, and I suspect you, came to that conclusion by a series of silly misunderstandings and an arbitrarily bounded rationality.
No, the language isn't tortured, no the effect is not the same, no it isn't fewer steps. It's only one more small step from atheism to a coherent metaphysics.
Good on you. I'm happy that you're happy.
I'm over 60. I've explored many belief systems. Eastern and Western, including panpsychism. I came to believe that reality is what is shown to be real. That inventing additional unseeable and unprovable forces and aspects only complicate my reverence for the "Is". But age and experience are not indicators of truth. I've also learned that much. So I continue to listen and offer guidance to those that may be aided. If I offend, it is unintentional.
I really don't care how you reach your morals. Only that they lead you to respect others (even in their folly) and breed kindness.
Namaste.
As I said, this brand of atheism comes from a place of misunderstanding. If you frame belief in deity as "inventing additional unseeable and unprovable forces and aspects", then I'm afraid you've made some error along the way.
I'm not sure what benefit is provided by the projection of your hangups onto others. I'm not sure how you could construe your comment as inoffensive. I don't see how implying my language was tortured, or my path too long, provides any form of guidance. Perhaps this is a subject where you should spend more time listening than guiding.
The OP was asking for personal reasons for believing what we believe. And that exact reasoning is what brought me out of panpsychism. Just my truth and not a commentary on yours.
Except that it literally was a commentary on me though. If you wanted to tell your own truth you could've made your own comment, but you responded to mine to tell me why your worldview was superior.