Ask Me Help Desk - Am I deluding myself?

Quote:

Originally Posted by bluerose

I have chatted with people on a Spiritualist forum who claim to be spiritual rather than religious. Some, not all, don't believe in god and don't think of themselves as Christians. Some of them claim to be psychics and some mediums. I'm a little confused. I'm not psychic nor am I a medium. I don't believe in God but I do believe that there is something God-like in all of us. And I do not think of myself as a Christian. And I feel more spiritual than religious. Hope I haven't offended anyone. I speak only for myself and it is what I feel and believe.

Now my point is… Am I deluding myself? Is it possible to be spiritual (as in having a belief in things metaphysical) without being religious, and without being a Christian and without believing in God?

This thread sparked this post.

https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/spirit...ure-26127.html

Perhaps we are all deluding ourselves. I have a feeling if such a thing as ultimate reality or truth exists, none of us have it right. When you boil it down, all we have when it comes to beliefs, are opinions. If such a thing as a God exists, I believe all the world's religions & philosophies have it wrong. Perhaps the only ones who don't have it wrong are the agnostics, because they just don't know one way or the other. Personally I subscribe to deism. It makes the most logical sense to me. I don't believe in a universe that is eternal, or one that simply came into existence without a cause. But at the same time I see no evidence of answered prayer or miracles.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bluerose

Now my point is… Am I deluding myself? Is it possible to be spiritual (as in having a belief in things metaphysical) without being religious, and without being a Christian and without believing in God?

I've spent a good part of my life peeling away and discarding beliefs. I've come to think that in most cases, they do more harm than good because they make us blind and deaf to anything that doesn't fit within them. The few beliefs that I still have I regard more as "models" in the sense that scientists use the term. I don't regard them as complete and perfectly accurate descriptions of reality, just useful approximations and simplified representations of the way things appear to work in my vicinity in time and space. Moving very far into the past or future, or very much larger or smaller in size, such approximations are quite likely to be both less accurate and less useful.

I like the "four-layer" model of being--Spirit (ineffable), Mind (intellectual), Heart (emotional), Body (physical). You can think of these as concentric spheres or stages of causation in the process of manifestation. Within this framework, it isn't even possible to be alive without being spiritual, because without the action of spirit, nothing happens or is made manifest. Of course, it is possible to deny (with the intellect) that there is any spiritual realm antecedent and superior to the mental sphere, but there can be neither proof nor disproof of the spiritual realm, since these are logical concepts, i.e. products of the mind.

Self-delusion, of course, is always possible, whatever you believe or whichever model of reality you prefer.

Thanks folks. It's late here. I'll reply to your lovely posts tomorrow. :cool:

Quote:

Originally Posted by bluerose

Now my point is… Am I deluding myself? Is it possible to be spiritual (as in having a belief in things metaphysical) without being religious, and without being a Christian and without believing in God?

This thread sparked this post.

https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/spirit...ure-26127.html

Positively!! I am much the same way, and if all people were like us, think of how much less blood the earth could've have been spared.
I was born and schooled as a Christian, and I have tremendous FAITH... in ME, and what's inside me and that connection to the universe. You see I do believe in a kind of universal connection: a connection of particles and atoms and whatever microscopic "other" that goes even farther into that. I believe in a quantum evolution without beginning or end. Certain things ALWAYS was! It's as simple as that though not so simple for humans today to comprehend because we are mortals who face death. So naturally we assume all things die, and if all things die then there must also be a birth.

No, not deluding yourself, you might perhaps be in a momentary state of weakening convictions owing to the majority of God "believers" on this board as they do out number us. But quantity can never out last quality. We are all of the spiritual in many different things, God doesn't own a patent on that word. Stay true to you, because you is all there really is in the end. I mean, I never heard of anyone's friend saying as you lay there dying, "Hey, wait a sec! Let me go with you!"

Marily is right we all have a spirit (and soul) in us, but the way I see it is if you don't go to God for spiritual blessings and so forth you can only fill your cup so full. On the other hand many people who are Christian limit themselves trying to fit God in our image so they do not receive full spiritual awareness either.